New York Renovator

Strange neighbors

Guest written by our friend Mason Abbott

My wife and I love our neighborhood, but there has recently been some suspicious activity in and around our home. The people in the house three doors down from us keep very odd hours, and they are always having people over at the strangest times of the day. It is not that they are having parties. They will have one or two cars stop by at different times all day, every day. On several occasions I have walked out of my driveway on the way to work to see police cars parked in front of their house. My wife and I decided to buy a home security family plan because of this activity. We love the house we live in and the neighborhood as a whole, but I want to ensure the safety of my children. We are very good friends with our next-door neighbors, and we have had several discussions about this issue. We are all concerned that this activity may bring down the overall quality of the neighborhood. My hope is that these neighbors will move out soon, and we will no longer have to deal with this issue.

Times are tough

Guest written by our friend Mason Abbott

Saving money is tough but my husband and I decided we were going to find a way to make it work. We really cared about being able to put something away for our kids and although things have gotten tight at times it’s crucial for us that we get a college account going for them to use when they get older. We looked into Texas Electricity Providers and Information and actually considered moving into a smaller home to save on the mortgage but the market’s too bad to sell right now. I stopped getting coffee out and we’ve been cooking at home a lot more so all in all it’s been a really downhill battle for us to out away a couple hundred dollars a month. I think I should be getting a raise soon and that’s going to really help when it comes to putting extra away. We decided we’re not even going to touch that money, just store it in the account so it’s there for the kids.

I wonder if Livvy is the first cat to ever climb Blue Mountain, in the Adirondack Mountain range of New York State? Our climb was quite the adventure! The mountain rises about 3700 feet into the atmosphere, and the views are incredible. The climb, however, is rather laborious. Livvy could only get so far.

She wanted to stop constantly, to smell the balsam fir and ferns. These were new smells for her.

Some of the trails were pretty rough.

After over 2 hours of hiking (and being carried in a cat carrier some of the way), Livvy stopped. She was probably 20 minutes from the summit, but the climbing was very intense and I didn’t feel comfortable hauling her carrier up such a steep incline (and back down again). I was afraid one of the guys would slip and Livvy would go tumbling down the incline. Also, Livvy had had very little water and I didn’t want her to continue climbing. So we stayed put on the trail and waited while the family reached the peak.

While we waited, several other groups of climbers passed us by. Each one of them exclaimed about Livvy— “Well, that’s a new thing!” ‘OH, what a beautiful cat!” Livvy got lots of attention. I really think she may be the first domestic cat up Blue Mountain! It was good to get away from home, away from the hustle and bustle of work and the city and news about the economy and annuity rates and all that stuff. Livvy ABSOLUTELY LOVED the Adirondacks. We came home a week later, and she was disappointed—- I think she thought we were going to live there! Ah, if only!

If you want to read more about our climb and see some spectacular photos of the views from the summit, you can read my article about our adventure, on my New York Travel blog.

…and what’s yours is mine, too.

Livvy! I was going to drink that!

…and how do I know that?

Why the stink in the dog room is starting to subside.

A little.

Like celebrity wedding trends, the smells of doggies waxes and wanes with the humidity. LOL.

But aren’t they the cutest little things?

We’ve been doing a little experiment with Smell Control. So far, the best cleanser is bleach and the best deodorant is Linen Febreze. The Febreze is intended for clothing and furniture and the like; I use it to spray the curtains and couch. For the air, we all prefer the Thai Dragon Fruit scent. It’s sweet but not overpowering. And it’s WAY better than the smell of those little tootsie rolls the dogs leave behind. :-p

If you’re interested in nose-centered statistics, check out the Febreze “Breathe Happy” page. I always knew that we associate smells with our memories more powerfully than our hearing, but some of the stats were surprising and very interesting.

She’s been doing it ever since she was a baby: cuddles.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of her cuddling because, well, because she usually cuddling the photographer (me) in the wee hours of the morning. It’s like a routine with her.

Early every morning — sometimes as early as 4am but other times later — Livvy scampers onto my side of the bed, seeking to get close to my face. If I have a pillow over my head (I do that to block out light and noise sometimes), she noses her way under the pillow to press her cold, wet nose onto my cheek or nose. If I am not already awake, that usually does it.

She worms her way under the blanket (if it’s winter) or on top of the blanket (if it’s summer) in search of my hair. I don’t know what it is about her and hair, but she loves hair! The longer and darker, the better.

Once she’s face first into my hair, she “kneads” it with her front paws. I read somewhere that this is called “smurgling.” I don’t know if that’s really the word, but it’s comical enough for the family to have become attached to it. So now when Livvy starts her kneading, we call it smurgling.

Sometimes her very sharp claws snag my tender skin- ouch! She doesn’t seem to realize it. It’s like she’s in this other world. Her eyes are glazed, half shut, she drools a little, and kneads with her paws. She rarely purrs when she does this. And she does it just about every morning. My husband thinks Livvy smurgles because she was taken from her mother when she was too young (only a few weeks). Since I was so affectionate to her, she adopted me as her mom.

She’s such a sweet, affectionate kitty. She doesn’t like to be held or carried. She won’t sit on laps, she’d rather sit on a towel or coarse chevy monte carlo custom floor mats instead (none of my cats have ever been lap cats!). But she likes to plant herself under my neck like in the first photo above. My guess it’s because it’s warmer there, and she can hear my little cooings to her.

I love my Livvy.

On occasion, I feature a guest post on this blog if it contains information that may be useful.

The Author of this post is Velma Baird

Who would have guessed moving into a new townhome would be so much work! I figured that with a one bedroom I wouldn’t have that much stuff but when I went to pack this place up I realized how many things I’ve accumulated over the last 5 years! I had to do so much work to purge all the junk I didn’t need and in the end I called some movers to help me box the rest up which was the best $1000 I ever spent if you ask me. It took me a long time to get the new place all set up and decorated (thanks for the help, mom!) and I went online to Compare WildBlue and Dialup when I moved in and was deciding on internet. I’m glad I spent so much effort getting it perfect, though, since I really like being there now and I can’t imagine living anywhere else. There’s nothing like being a homeowner and if anyone asked me I would say it’s totally worth every bit of hassle you have to go through!

Believe it or not, there’s a system to removing plaster and lathe from old walls and ceilings. Oh, sure, you could simply get your hammer or crowbar and start blasting away. But plaster and lathe demolition is horribly, horribly dirty. Horribly. You think you have the furniture in the next room protected with plastic sheeting? Ha ha ha! Get your duster ready. We live in our house as we wreck it room by room, and try to be very careful with our demolition. And even after all our sealing the heat vents, duct-taping doors and boxes with plastic sheeting, and gearing up in heavy clothing and bandannas, we still walk out of the room at the end of that day caked in dust.  The stuff is just so pervasive.

Even so, there IS a way to reduce the mess. My methods are tried and true. Someone may have a better method (I’ve yet to see it) but this works, so far, for us.

1. Remove all the plaster FIRST. Then remove the lathe.

If you remove the plaster and lathe on one wall all at once, you’ll wind up with a big, dangerous mess. Lathe will be everywhere with plaster sections collapsed all around it. And since lathe contains nails — if your home is old, the nails will be old and rusty — the material is serious safety hazard. It’s best to first remove the plaster and shovel up the debris, THEN remove the lathe and pick up the wood.

By the way, YES, that IS a salmon pink ceiling. It was underneath a drop ceiling we removed. The trim in this room had once been mustard yellow....

2. Start small. then work in “sheets.”

You only need to create a small hole at first, and then a narrow strip. I always begin in the center of a wall, so I can have two people removing plaster from each side.

I start by pounding a hole in the center of the wall with a hammer. Then, I chip a long, narrow strip from the ceiling to the floor.

3. Use a spade to cut off large sheets of plaster from the lathe.

Don’t use a crowbar or hammer to remove the plaster from the lathe. You’ll wind up with a mushroom cloud of plaster dust over your home! A spade is a small shovel with a flat blade. By the way, DON’T use a typical shovel for removing plaster, either. The rounded end, so perfect for digging holes, will only shear off a tiny portion of the plaster. It’s not worth all that effort.

My spade is very short, about 3 feet high. It has a grippy-type handle, and it’s perfect for removing large sections of plaster quickly and easily. Insert the end of the spade into the narrow strip of plaster you’d made with the crowbar. If the plaster is really sticking to the lathe behind it, you’ll need to ram the spade in. Now chisel the spade in between the plaster and lathe, to separate the plaster from the lathe. You may need to gently push up on the plaster with the spade, to force the plaster to break away from the lathe but not break off. The plaster will fall off in large sheets and the work will go much more quickly.

4. Keep the room tidy.

That sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? But the goal here is safety. And morale. NOBODY like slogging into a filthy workplace. Chop off large sections of plaster, and have a few folks pick up the plaster sections as you go along. We used a gravel shovel (another flat-ended shovel, but much more weighty) to shovel plaster into large garbage cans.

If you pick up the plaster as you go along, it will help reduce dust. You will not need to crunch over mountains of plaster to get to the next section. And believe me– shoveling up crunched and compacted plaster is a LOT more difficult than shoveling up freshly-removed sections of it.

Cleaning the room at the end of the work day did wonders for the morale, too. I found that we were much more likely to start the day with a little more vim and vigor when we entered a clean room to start our work than to begin in a room that was trashed. We lived in the house as we worked, so it was important to keep things clean.

5. Use a spray bottle with water.

It may sound corny, but it helped reduce the dust for us. When the dust in the air got too messy, we used a spray bottle filled with clean water to mist the air. The droplets of water grabbed the dusty particles and the weight of gravity forced it to the floor. Now, it’s important to go easy on the water, or you’ll end up with a muddy pool of plaster in your home.

6. Set a goal, every day.

My modus operandus for a day was to set a goal first thing in the morning, and that included cleanup. When we gutted our kitchen and dining room, I gave us one day to do half the kitchen (three walls) and a second day to do the other half (the fourth wall and the ceiling). It helps keep you focused, so the demolition doesn’t drag on forever. It’s very physical, laborious work. At the end of the day, we were EXHAUSTED. But settings goals helped, because we knew we HAD to have our house back again, and fast.

7. Be prepared for surprises.

I suppose every old-house home owner has stories to tell about what they find in their walls– old bones, newspapers, wayward toys, etc. We’ve seen all that. I was surprised to discover very old Art Deco wallpaper (hand painted!!) behind the chimney, though.

We also discovered some less encouraging things. Someone years before had “capped” the exhaust to an old stove pipe with plaster, inserted a few old broken brick bits, and plastered over that. Over time, the plaster capping the exhaust vent cracked, allowing carbon monoxide from the furnace and water tank to seep into the room. *sigh*

We’ve also found a rainbow of weirdo colors, a kind of historic home diary left behind by previous homeowners.

Be prepared for other strange things, too. I found studs filled with soft bricks on all exterior walls. No contractor or carpenter I spoke with knew what it was. They attributed it to “old timers” and their odd building practices… but I later found out that this brick is called “noggin.” It may have been used as a insulator (unlikely, in my opinion), but most probably as a fire stop, since my home is a balloon frame home.

I hope these tips have helped you some. Good luck on your project!

We’ve been away from the house so often this summer (a roofing project) that Livvy has spent long periods of time alone. I’m starting to get a little concerned. LOL

Seriously, when we leave, she moans and howls quite loudly out the window. As we drive away, we can hear her pleas through the window. Sheesh!

So the husband turned to me the other day and said quietly, “She needs a buddy.” I looked at him, my eyes shining. I knew exactly what he meant. No, not another stuffed animal, not a golf garmin buddy— another KITTEN!!!!! This from the guy who has to hold me back from becoming a crazy cat lady!

We *may* get another kitty, then. I’ll keep my eyes open for a Siamese or Siamese mix. Maybe by winter, Livvy will have a pal. And I’ll have another tiny feline to squeeze!!

I’m doing a lot of armchair traveling this year, I tell you.

Exercise, what’s that? Oh yeah, the thing that cures diet pills, uh huh.

Well, the Hubs just assembled, primed and painted two new Adirondack chairs and — let me tell you — they are some of the most comfortable chairs ever. I wrote an article on them last month. The history is fascinating. About a hundred years ago, a wealthy vacationer (to the Adirondacks, you guessed it!) named Thomas Lee suddenly found himself devoid of lawn chairs for his large family, and attempted to build his own. He created many prototypes, asking his 26-member family to try them all out and vote for the best. The family unanimously voted for this type of chair: the back reclines slightly and the knees are elevated above the hips. Wide armrests beg to hold big icy glasses of tea or lemonade. His chair was a hit. Lee gave his design to a local carpenter, Harry Bunnell, who needed some work for the winter. But the carpenter patented the design himself and started a business, building and selling the chairs, flourished with his own signature. Not very nice. Bunnell manufactured Adirondack chairs for 20 years, made from local hemlock and inscribing his name on each. I suppose the chairs, if any exist, are collector’s items, eh?

Mine are made in China from cheapo pine. But they are comfy nonetheless.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of lounging to do. Happy weekend.