Change of Heart, Part II

Note: You should read Part I before you read this post.

I'm starting the tour of changes with the exterior of the house because frankly, the interior is not very clean right now. Once I clean, I'll take photos inside the house and post them. The before photos were taken back in the spring of 2005 when Mother and Father of Ken came to NY to find me a house. The after photos were taken today.

The front of the house before:



After:



Another view of the front of the house before--click on the photo to enlarge it and check out all of the crap in the yard, especially to the right of the house in the "Bermuda Triangle":

After:

A few more views from today--here's the entrance, where I now have a porch thanks to Father of Ken and his skills. I also painted the window trim and both the metal door and the screen door. The paddle with my house number on it was a housewarming gift from Mother and Father of Ken.

I also ditched the original mailbox cover, which had birds on it. I don't care for birds. This barrel used to be near the front door, but I filled it with flowers and moved it to the street.

The new grass in the "Bermuda Triangle" is now filling in. If you looked at the previous photo of the front of the house, you would have seen all of the stuff that was in this area. There was a fake well, a bunch of yard art, nasty evergreen plants, white rock paths, and that lovely plastic sheeting and border stuff that people use that looks nice for about five minutes and then looks like crap. It generally looked like crap. When I moved in, the Disgustingtons had taken most of this stuff with them, but left behind the crap that was too awful to move.

Finally last year, I had Bill the Yard Guy rip up the plastic sheeting and borders, I hauled the rock away, and planted grass seed, which I am excited to see actually growing. I can't tell you how many people have walked by and told me that the house looks a lot better now that there is so much less stuff in the yard. I guess there was some kind of trellis thing near the front walkway that one neighbor in particular hated. He thanks me for removing it all of the time, but the truth is that the Disgustingtons must have liked it enough to take it with them because I never saw it.

The rest of the yard:

And now for the back of the house. The Disgustingtons certainly crapped up the front of the house, but that was mostly "decorative" stuff. The back of the house was crapped up with actual crap. The back of the house from the north, for example, before I moved in:

What do we have here? Well, from what I can tell, an appliance or two, a grill, some tables, a scary cat clock or possibly a Pink Panther decoration? Trash, garbage, and trash. A hammock, a rain gauge, and more garbage.

Now it looks like this:

That's my little red wagon from when I was a kid that I use to haul things and the ladder I use to water the window box. Right after I moved in, I painted the trim on several of the windows white and painted the window boxes red to contrast more with the house. Also, notice that the stairs have been removed and the posts have been reinforced with something more sturdy than random blocks of wood.

There was more crap in the back, though--here's another view of the back of the house before:

And now:

If you thought that was all, you were wrong. The Disgustingtons really knew how to make a mess of things. Here's a view from the south before:

I asked them to remove the pool before they left. I was later informed by a gentleman who stopped by to peruse my trash pile on the weekend I moved in that they gave it away to whoever wanted to remove it. He was disappointed that he didn't get there sooner. I am glad that I asked them to remove the pool, but I should have been more insistent that they fill in this area or put in a better retaining wall. I ended up with a retaining wall made of hay. Needless to say, that disappeared in about two months and now I have to fill in the "sandbox" that is left.

Here's what the area looks like now:

Check out the new stairs that Father of Ken built me last summer, allowing me to have the other ones removed.

Now, the only piles of crap left around here are the ones I put by the curb today. All of this fantastic stuff is free to the first person who wants it. I've got pieces of my old stairs, a slab of marble that I found under the porch, parts of the original porch floor that was removed last week, and some fabulous furniture.

I also have some paneling and a trash can--the dog isn't free.

Last weekend, when I was putting the laundry room back together, I put an old wood cabinet out here. I told Father of Ken that I was planning to put a sign on it and put my old shop vac out there as well, but he didn't think that was necessary. So I made him a deal that if no one stopped by the next afternoon, I would put a sign on it. Until then, I agreed to wait and see. No more than ten minutes later, a gentleman in overalls knocked on the door and wanted to know if he could have it all and, of course, I gladly gave him leave to take it away. It's always fun to see how long it takes for someone to want the things you have discarded. So far no one has stopped for this lovely pile of crap.

Change of Heart, Part I

Some of you gentle readers may be wondering why I haven't been updating my blog lately. Well, you're about to find out why--I've been trying to do the finish work on the house since the contractors finished about a week ago and it became more time consuming than I planned.

This next series of blogs is all about the changes that have been made to this house since I moved in three years ago. I haven't had a place to showcase these changes until now and I've also been working until now to make the house look nice. I hope that I'm about done and can enjoy my next few years living here with a minimum of projects.

So, I've spent the last week working on the porch floor. I promised several blog entries ago that I would be doing something about the disgusting, dirty, stained floor and I have. This is what I started with:

With all of the stains from unknown sources, I primed first with the Zinsser I had left from the laundry room. It's already looking better.

Then I started painting with "Cherry Cobbler," but it turned out a little more pink than I thought and also the wood was very spongy and soaking up the paint in varying amounts, so it looked blotchy when it dried.

Here's the second coat of Cherry Cobbler:

Yep, too pink. Partly the paint, partly the floor, partly the primer, but too pink.

Disaster struck as I finished the second coat of Cherry Cobbler. Out of nowhere, we had a storm and some of the porch isn't covered. So, much of my painting was ruined, but I knew I needed a darker paint and at least two more coats anyway to get the coverage I wanted. I went back to Home Depot for another gallon of paint and chose a slightly darker color called (this one's for you, Leah) "Red, Red Wine." This went much better and finally the color evened out--here it is after the fourth coat:

I let it dry overnight and here's the result:

This looks more pink in the photos than it actually is. It is really a deep red--not dark, but saturated and not hot pink.

I was finally able to put my porch furniture back on the porch--I repainted the iron furniture while the porch was being painted.

I've wanted to paint this porch since I moved in and ripped the astro turf off of it and now it is done. Four coats of paint. I will never have to do this again, I hope. The most important thing is that it eventually looked just as I had imagined it would. Definitely worth spending almost every night this week on it.

True Blue

I had a lot of work to do on the house this weekend, starting on Saturday morning, so I thought that I should start with a big breakfast. I've been really into blueberries this summer, so I decided to make Ina Garten's Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins.

First. I put on my new apron:

Then I gathered the first set of ingredients: eggs, sugar, vanilla, and butter:

I mixed the softened butter and sugar together:

Then I added the vanilla:

Then the eggs--look, a double yolk!

Next up are the sour cream and milk:

Adding the milk:

Next, I gathered the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

I added the dry ingredients and mixed just until they were incorporated into the wet ingredients:

I took the mixing bowl off of the mixer and folded in a pint of blueberries:

Here they are just going into the oven:

And here they are just out of the oven:

This wouldn't be a complete breakfast without bacon, so I cooked the bacon in the oven with the muffins. Here's the final result:

This was very good and it was enough fuel to get me through the day. I highly recommend these muffins.

Burning Down the House, Part V

Please forgive my lack of postings recently--I've spent the last few days hard at work on the house, so here is the first of several new posts detailing what's been happening. The contractors finished on Friday and here is what they completed on Thursday and Friday of last week.

Retaping the ceiling in my bedroom:




Installing a new venting system at the top of the house. There used to be a large hole here where a vent was supposed to be, but it fell out and Mr. Disgustington didn't replace it. It's so far at the top of the house and under the eaves that I didn't notice it until I saw birds flying out of the hole (note the bird poo on the house below the vent). So, now there is a new vent with special screening on the inside that will keep birds and squirrels (they got in there too) out of the top of the house:



Due to a severe carpenter bee problem, I had the contractors cover the fascia with white aluminum. They were supposed to do the south side of the house (where the birds were living) and then this short strip by the door, but they ended up doing all of it and it looks very nice. Also notice my new gutter screens (Bill the Yard Guy is especially excited about these):

They also finished the deck floor. Here's the top:

And here is the part underneath where they removed the original floor that Mr. Disgustington built over. This was really gross--birds had built nests in the crevices and there was a lot of built up dirt and debris.

See the dirt:

And the debris:

Also a strainer that was under there--not the strangest thing I've found buried around here:

Since the porch is done and the guys are gone, I had planned to make the porch look pretty this weekend. Then it started raining and it has been doing so on and off all weekend, so I couldn't work on the porch. I'll try to get that done in the evenings this week and put the photos up. Instead, I spent my weekend staining and varnishing and putting the laundry room back together--look for details in an upcoming post.