House Hijinks

Progress on the New Bath, a photo by Athens Nikita on Flickr.

So, what've we been up to the in the 'Fonte? Quite a bit, actually.

There's been a lot happening in town lately, which I'll briefly touch on another time.

However, at our house we've suffered some catastrophes and entered unwittingly into several unplanned projects. But we also had projects slated for the summer -- like an additional bath with a tub for our new tenant in the other half of the house.

Yesterday Herman came over and helped Chris kick that project off -- what you're looking at in this photo is the first stages of what hopefully will be a rapidly unfolding laundry/bath addition where the commercial space used to be.

So far it's just spec'd out and framed, but baby steps, folks. Baby steps.

Small Improvements

Given the theme of this blog, and the fact that for about the first year all we did was various forms of construction projects, I shouldn't be surprised when people ask me what's up with the house at the moment. The short answer: very little. We're well into the "enjoy the house" phase, and are currently putting our money and time into other things.

However, occasionally we do small projects when we can see the opportunity to make a big improvement in a short time. A few weeks ago, the front porch light seemingly burned out. This coincided with my blowing a fuse during band practice, and so it could have been a fairly serious problem -- but when Chris hauled the fixture down and discovered that it was simply a shoddy fixture, it was time to go shopping for a new one. At the same time, I decided to replace the contractors' special sconces/lanterns around the back doors, too. Why not? I hate those things -- they work, but they're cheap and ugly, and I am way over cheap and ugly.

At the same time, we decided to take advantage of the lack of a front porch fixture to remedy a basic problem with it -- it's all white! Technically, I suppose that's fine, but being from the south a white porch ceiling is something of an abomination. The proper color is something called "haint blue" -- supposedly it wards off evil spirits if you happen to be from one of the cultures (they are numerous in the south) that believes in it. Personally, I'm not all that superstitious, but I like the way the blue reminds me of the sky, cools the space in the summer, and brings a little color in in the winter -- a major consideration in a place where winter is twice as long as it was down south.

So today Chris and I spent about 6 hours painting the ceiling blue. (Photo at left: pre-painting prep.) We did this on Sunday, because it's one of the few days where we can steal away a few hours and because the local construction nannies don't work on Sunday. I was lucky this morning to find a whole suite of matching lanterns at Lowe's -- they averaged about $40 a fixture. SCORE! (Incidentally, for those who like me are cheap, both Lowe's and Home Depot appear to be having sales on lighting at the moment.)

So, new photos forthcoming once I can manage to get them to upload (damn Flickr!). Not only does it make the house look a tad more southern, but it makes it look great.

Merry Christmas Every One

merry christmas
Originally uploaded by Athens Nikita

...and especially to my contractor.

Now, I LOVE my contractor. I finally got a chance to inspect stuff, and I am so beyond thrilled with this stupid little door project. Without my telling him how to do it, he reused the door from the laundry that's being displaced, matched the woodwork on the "modern" side and matched the woodwork on the old side, and did the whole thing so that the old hinges were used and the old lock is on our side.

I'm pretty excited about the whole third floor space, actually. Here is the tiny bedroom, which if you'll look at the front of the house is the room in the center of the balcony on the third floor. It's only about 8' wide, and maybe 15' deep. You come up the stairs and it's on the landing. It has a really pretty radiator, too.

Anyway...on to more projects.  Thank you guys for reading.

Bathroom renovation as of April 17, 2010

Bathroom renovation as of April 17, 2010
Originally uploaded by Athens Nikita

Here is the "Intermediate" -- new floor, new vanity, new mirror, and stuff is painted. We're still missing wall trim and a variety of improvements in the tub/shower area...

Which, you may have noticed, is no longer in the entryway to the room. Yay! The shower/tub is in the adjacent area, and looks kind of rough right now.  

We will also be building a bench over these radiators under the windows.

Here are the products we used:

• Behr's Pure Premium Paint in Cornsilk.
  
• Allure resilient flooring in  Cherry.
  
• The Valencia 3-piece euro vanity.
• The toilet is from Kohler -- can't recall what it was called.
• Glacier Bay "teapot" sink.