The Shebaylo Times

kitchen lighting.

2012-02-26T19:21:00.001-05:00

Our kitchen island light finally came in the mail and it looks great. Only three more lights left to hang in the whole house, I think!

And here's a clearer photo, from the Rejuvenation web site:

I love the little gasolier-style details on it. Rejuvenation is really great; they make a ton of lighting based on historical fixtures and you can shop on their web site by whichever historical period is your favorite.

new chair.

2012-02-21T16:12:00.003-05:00

Our parlor has been sadly devoid of much seating since we moved into the house, so we're always having to move chairs in from the dining room any time it's more than just Dan and I sitting in there. We'll still have to do that because I only bought one chair today at the antique store, but it's quite a beauty. I think this chair is my spirit animal.

The chair is from the 1850s, and though I doubt the upholstery is original, the woodwork is. It's got a rose motif -- perfect. I saw it and figured I'd kick myself if it didn't end up in our house.

There were some other chair choices that would go very nicely directly across from the sofa, but I went through some major indecisiveness and couldn't figured out which ones would be best, so I decided to wait on it. Which could be a huge mistake, since we've now gone relatively chair-less in this house since October. But more antiquing is to come, I'm sure. Now if we can only get the dining room finished............

first snow at the Good Ship.

2012-02-20T12:11:00.002-05:00

We got our first snow! It was lovely, though short-lived. What's left of it is already slush. Many more pictures are here.

princess suite update.

2012-02-16T17:03:00.001-05:00

Our roommate Lianna has finished unpacking and we took some photos of her bathroom and bedroom this weekend. I think the Princess Suite looks amazing.

For some perspective, click here for some "before" pictures.

Dan and I have been working all week on framing our huge wallhangings collection, and there are just a few things left to hang up. Photos soon, once all that's done.

bar work.

2012-02-13T14:19:00.000-05:00

Dan's been working diligently on the dining room bar. It's coming along well!

bar lighting and morning pics.

2012-02-07T22:52:00.000-05:00

What's going on at the house? Not much. Dan and I are both very busy with work and other stuff right now, so the little bits of work we've managed to fit in on the house haven't amounted to much.

We did get a chance to play around a bit with Light Tape, the lighting that Dan makes at work, and tested it out as a backlighting concept for our bar.

That's it for now, but in the meantime, here are some pictures of what mornings look like at the Good Ship.

70 degrees on February 1.

2012-02-02T09:01:00.004-05:00

Yep. Sophie and I enjoyed it from the office window.

new mirrors and lighting.

2012-01-14T12:54:00.000-05:00

We're getting ready to order supplies for finishing the dining room. But in the meantime, we've been on the hunt for some things at antique stores, thrift stores, etc.

We knew we wanted a few large mirrors for the parlor, dining room, and entryway. So we pretty much just bought some cheap ones that needed a little work, and I spent a day cleaning, covering, and painting them last weekend. Here's the one that ended up on the parlor mantel:

I love the floral scroll detail on this thing.

One of the mirrors -- the huge one in the dining room -- came from my mom's cousin David, who apparently used to collect antiques. Now he wants to get rid of some, and mentioned it to me at Christmas. I was like "I will take ALL THE THINGS." And I'm so glad, because this mirror really worked out.

There's another mirror that might work for the entryway, but we have to finish a couple of other things in there before we can hang it up.

In terms of lighting, there has been a bit of a surprise deficiency here -- even by my standards, and you know I love to sit in total darkness most of the time. But at the old house we had pretty much staple-gunned Christmas lights to everything, et voila, flattering and cheap light everywhere. When moving out, the half-working light strings and terminally dusty paper lanterns were balled up and thrown away and forgotten. Then when we unpacked everything at this house, we realized we were in great need of some lamps.

Here's the new parlor lamp:

And here are some very steampunk lamps that go perfectly on our bedside tables, especially on Dan's next to his Arthur Conan Doyle and his pipe tobacco. Hooray, good reading lights. And yes, we still have nothing on the walls. Patience, patience.

In the master closet, Dan installed a mini chandelier that fits right in and looks like it's always been there. Pro tip: buy "childrens" or "babies" lights, because they're a fraction of the cost. And does a larger person really need a way larger light? No.

And here's a gratuitous picture of Lianna's cat, Gracie, just being cute.

happy new year.

2011-12-30T12:05:00.000-05:00

We had a wonderful Christmas and we hope everyone else did, too. Have a fun and safe New Year and a peaceful 2012.

dining room table.

2011-12-18T14:39:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we drove to Waynesboro to pick up our new dining room table, and it looks great. Thanks so much to Dan's mom for this excellent Christmas present!

And here's the view of the unpainted heart pine underneath:

And here's the maker, Bryan Black, with his wife Susan in his workshop.

Doing a search for the term "farm table" on Craigslist and Ebay did NOT turn up many bargains, and I couldn't find anything in local antique stores that wasn't tacky or too small. The idea is that we'll be extending hospitality to others as frequently as possible, so we didn't want a little round 3-seater of a table.

Luckily though, Craigslist did turn up an advertisement for Concepts Created, the Waynesboro workshop of Bryan Black. He makes beautiful tables and both he and his wife are delightful to work with. I highly recommend them.

Dan and I picked out wooden legs from another family-owned hand-turning business in Georgia and had them shipped to Bryan. He was able to source the lumber for the top from an old church (built in 1895) in Charlottesville, and he selected the floorboards from the altar to use for our table. After putting it in a dehumidifier for a few days, he got to work putting the whole table together, painting, distressing, and adding a protective coating.

For less than any of the other antique and new farm tables I saw during my search, we were able to have a custom family heirloom made by a local woodworker. Success!

If you're in the market for a table at all, please support Bryan's business. He rocks.

The gorgeous drive out to Waynesboro and lunch in nearby downtown Staunton (adorable!) weren't half bad either. I love this state.

entryway and parlor: after.

2011-11-25T11:10:00.001-05:00

Yesterday before the Thanksgiving hubbub really got started I took a few photos of the house. Here's the entryway in its current state:

I'm really loving this space, and having designated areas to put coats, gloves, umbrellas, shoes, etc. when you walk in the door. It makes it so that it's easy to find things when you're rushing out the door as well, and it makes it way easier to offer guests a place to stash coats and bags without having to clear out special space in a closet or lugging coats upstairs to a bedroom. The large shelf and hook racks are from Ikea (finally making somewhat old-timey looking things, hooray!), the free church pew below was recently painted and distressed by myself, and the little vintage desk next to it (which may or may not stay there) was from a thrift store. There are still some lingering boxes around of course, but things are really starting to shape up in the entryway.

And here's the lovely parlor, which is starting to usurp the master closet as my favorite room in the house right now. Dan built, sanded, stained, and installed these bookshelves in just a few days. The white cabinets below are from Ikea, the countertops are made from reclaimed wood from upstairs, and the shelves themselves are the fruit of Lowe's. To the left you can see our records, and to the right I've got all the nonfiction books set up.

The view of the parlor looking west. Fiction and cookbooks are in the black bookcase there.

And here's what it looks like if you're standing in the northwest corner of the room, looking into the dining room and the entryway. Though there are plenty of things still to be done both inside and outside, the dining room is now the only room left that's still under major construction. You can see the beginnings of the coffered ceiling in there, as well as the beginnings of the wainscoting on the doorway trim.

Here are a couple of before pictures of the parlor from last winter:

Phew, glad that's over.

As always, if you want to see more photos of Thanksgiving and what the dining room looks like, just go to Flickr.

We had a great day and were so happy to be able to finally host something in our new house. Here's to more hospitality to come.

office: after.

2011-11-23T10:31:00.001-05:00

Here are some quick shots of the office that I took yesterday. It's hugely important for the office to be comfortable, since I'm working from home a lot now. So far, I love it.

On the north wall are these very useful bookshelves, where we keep general office supplies and books related to our jobs and hobbies. Dan's side is full of books about electrical codes and tube amps. Mine is full of fashion, crafting, and etiquette books. [The vast majority of our books have now been organized downstairs, and photos will come of those soon.]

Here's Dan's side of the room (west wall), optimized for music and for collecting piles of paper:

My side of the room (east wall), optimized for typing and crafting (that white wardrobe contains an explosion of craft stuff that is currently shamefully unorganized):

And next to the door (south wall) is our futon, which is now ready to accept out-of-town guests. OR just people who don't want to drive back to the Fan after hanging out here.

Here are some "before" pics of the office.

Looking west through to the princess suite:

Looking east through to the master bedroom (that brick fireplace was painted white and is now mostly behind the office wardrobe):

Freshly-primed northwest corner:

fall colors.

2011-11-09T07:53:00.003-05:00

The front of the house probably can't be considered "done" until at some point the exterior gets painted, but here's what our doorway looks like in the meantime.

I love the blue of our door -- it will look great once the siding is painted light gray. Thanks to our neighbor, Karen, for the pink mums and thanks to our friend, Kelly, for the pumpkin.

My mom made this beautiful wreath! Thanks Mom. My favorite part is the okra.

I've had this custom doormat from Etsy waiting for its debut for months. I thought it was appropriate for the house we affectionately call The Good Ship.

A spider's web collected quite a lot of dew this morning -- so pretty.

And the fog was rolling in thick here in Church Hill today.

master closet: after

2011-11-03T18:51:00.003-04:00

Here are the pictures from the finished master closet. This is the "girliest" room in the house, and pretty much the only one I was allowed to make as girly as I wanted. Which is fine, because though he's greatly outnumbered in terms of gender (by me, Lianna, Sophie-kitty, and Gracie-kitty), Dan is indeed a dude and his interior design concerns need to be heard. Still! This one's my favorite room yet. Though it might not be saying much, since only three rooms are really "done."

The master closet sits between the master bedroom and the master bathroom, which was all we could do with the awkward little space there, but is really kind of the perfect location.

Upon entering, Dan's closet is straight ahead, while mine is to the right. If you walk a few steps forward and take a left, you'll be in the bathroom. The small, gray cabinet in the photo above with the two black candles on top is our little "bathroom closet," because there wasn't room to put it in the bathroom but we need plenty of room to house extra towels and every cold medicine known to man.

It's super bright in the closet most of the day.

Here's my section of the closet (looking into the closet from inside the bathroom). I've got hat boxes sitting above the closet itself for extra storage. Behind the curtain, the top shelf is full of hair accessories, hats, and purses. At the bottom of the closet are shoes and things. The short little white drawer unit to the left holds gloves, fans, tights, and undergarments. On top of it is my jewelry box.

And here's a peek inside at the darkness (literally!) within. Black goes with everything.

Slips and nightgowns live on the back of the closet door for now, as does my laptop bag and current purse.

I love this mirrored jewelry box that I got for Christmas from my mom one year. Though it contains mostly 1" buttons from various bands and all kinds of other cheap plasticky things, it is pwecious to me. Oh deary! Now it's no longer a secret where all my plastic jewelry from Forever 21 lives!

One of the best things about the closet is that we were able to fit a chair in there, so you have somewhere to sit down when you're putting shoes or tights on.

So that's our semi-rococo-style walk-in closet. If you have some random tiny room in your house that's really too small for any other use, I highly recommend converting it. The best part is that it was all dirt cheap to configure:

Walls: Light blue paint by me and friends, and AMAZING stencil work in light gray by Dan. This turned out so beautiful, and really makes the room, I think.
Closet frameworks: Pax wardrobes (without the fronts, which cost way extra!) from Ikea, that mecca of cheap (but sturdy, if you know what to buy) storage.
Closet curtains: Free, from Kristin! Thanks Kristin! I think they were her grandmother's.
Small curtain rods: Simple tension rods for a few dollars each, from Target.
Window curtain: $9 from Target (Shabby Chic I think).
Bathroom cabinet: about 4 years old, from Ikea.
Short, white drawer unit: about 3 years old, from Ikea.
Rolly chair: Pottery Barn, free (I think it was bequeathed to me by a moving-out roommate at some point).
Hat boxes: Thrift stores and Ikea.

I think we really stretched our resources on this project. In a perfect world we'd be able to get rid of all new, disposable-type stuff and replace it all with lovely vintage pieces from antique stores, but the budget just plain doesn't exist. This was fast, cheap, and it works. Even though almost nothing in the actual furnishings of this room is vintage, I think the overall feel manages to give an Antoinette-inspired impression, which is what I was going for. When you're poor, it's possible to make Ikea-heavy rooms not look like something directly ripped from an Ikea catalog (no offense Swedes, we love you dearly). Kristin's curtains, which appear to be 1950s or 1960s, really helped.

A little chandelier will be added later, but you know. Not the #1 priority right this instant.

Oh yeah, here's what this room used to look like:

And now it's time for an impromptu lecture on the value of being organized.

My absolute favorite thing about this closet (or probably large storage spaces in general) so far is that it lends a calming effect to the household. That's particularly valuable to me right now, when the rest of the house is in chaos and I desperately need one not-covered-in-boxes-and-wood-and-sawdust corner of the universe to cling to. But generally, when you look into your closet and it's simply and cleanly organized, you don't have that feeling of cluttered-closet panic every morning. Also, instead of having random non-clothes items (like bags, shoes, sportswear, bathroom items, etc.) exploding off of shelves in your bedroom, the hallways, and everywhere else, a big enough closet can keep all of that better contained. Life is messy, but at least when you're able to keep some of the mess corralled, you can spend your time in the rest of the house relaxing, cooking, working, loving, and doing all the things that are truly important. I think that catching 43 glimpses of scattered mess everywhere subconsciously erodes your focus day in and day out, and takes your attention away from the people and the conversations you would rather concentrate on.

I know I'm a bit crazier about this stuff than lots of others are, but I'm not saying you should define yourself by whether or not there's a missing sock or whatever. I just think you do have a responsibility to make your home a comfortable and calming place, where your family and your guests can gather and look forward to being together without distractions. Better hospitality is something we're really seeking with this house, and I think smart storage is a blessing for us with that goal. And so for now, I'm grateful for this one little organized corner.

master bathroom: after

2011-10-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

Right now we're doing tedious, time-consuming jobs that need to be done before we can unpack. Baseboards, painting doors, doorknobs, etc. In the meantime, here's a followup to the "master bathroom (pretty much) complete" post. Just more photos of the only room in the house that's really "done," now that it's furnished.

We went to Ikea this week to get a closet setup for our master closet, so that will probably be the next room to be finished and photographed...

teaser photos.

2011-10-04T18:04:00.002-04:00

We've obviously got so much finishing, so much moving in, and so much decorating to do. For now, here are a few photos I snapped when I got home from work today.

As always, you can see everything bigger on Flickr.

passed!

2011-10-04T15:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we passed our final electrical inspection. Today we passed our final inspection by the City of Richmond, as well as our final inspection from our HUD inspector (for our 203k loan).

Aaaaand...exhale.

We'll focus now on finishing up the renovation. Oh yes, there's so much more to do (like baseboards). And then we'll focus on relief, recovery, and putting our sanity back together slowly.

Good job, Dan. Thanks for putting in all those 20-hour workdays.

Thanks also to the huge cast of characters who showed up to volunteer this week. And to anybody who fed us, let us stay at their place, let us borrow things and / or money, or just listened to us. Your support has meant the world to us.

Hello for real now, Church Hill.

rush, rush.

2011-09-29T15:59:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, we've just been hurtling so quickly toward the deadline that time for blogging as well as photo-taking is non-existent.

Countertops are in. Here are the guys from Custom Countertops, Inc. doing the installation. We had a great experience with this vendor and can highly recommend them. They came out immediately for a consultation, then sent guys out to make the template for the countertops on the same day, and had them installed in exactly 1 week and 1 day. For WAY cheaper than the other quotes we got, including Lowe's and Home Depot. Definitely go with them if you're going to be spending money on countertops anytime soon.

Kitchen plumbing is being worked on right now.

Dan has been finishing electrical work all around the house, as well as installing the backsplash in the kitchen, and Brendan has been here this week helping paint and install trim.

In fact pretty much all Brendan and I have been doing for the past week or so is painting and painting and painting these million strips of wood with all their mind-numbing nooks and crannies.

We're done with all the door rosettes, plinth blocks, and trim, and are now working on baseboards. So this house should be all trimmed out soon if our sanity holds up.

cabinets done, trim started

2011-09-21T13:37:00.003-04:00

After much assembling, the kitchen cabinets are done and waiting for their countertops to arrive. They're supposed to come a week from today, after which the plumber will need to come hook up the sinks and such.

Yesterday while trim was being worked on I painted the last room to be painted (the little laundry closet / Harry Potter's house underneath the stairs). So glad that's over.

Then I installed the master bathroom shower curtain rod, and hung up the curtain. It looks great -- pictures soon.

Now I'm on general touchup painting duty all around the house.

floors done, kitchen started.

2011-09-15T23:08:00.000-04:00

Firstly, the roses are killing it. Super high winds today, and they seem unfazed. The pink ones are bigger than Sophie's head.

Everything except the stairs is stained and polyurethaned, and it looks great. KC also hung all the doors upstairs. Today we unloaded the trailer full of Ikea cabinets that's been sitting outside of our house all year, and started putting them together. Here's to lots of tiny little wooden pegs and metal tacks and instructions with no words.

This week's thanks go out to James and Stefan for helping with the floors, and Richard for helping with the cabinets.

Tomorrow the drywall guy comes to finish the last couple of spots (which had to be cut out for plumbing), and the plumber comes to TURN ON THE HOT WATER.

blacker than the blackest black times infinity.

2011-09-13T22:11:00.002-04:00

I've always wanted black floors and now I have them. Boom.

Well, they're not done yet.* But the upstairs is totally done, and the downstairs is in progress. We're both really exhausted from crouching for hours every day. I just watched Dan fall asleep sitting up, which wasn't surprising. He was up until 4am last night staining the floor.

The ebony stain we used turned out gorgeous, and the matte polyurethane enhances the luster of the floor. I love the little bit of distressing we did to the wood, with chains, nails, etc. I love the natural variation of how much the wood soaked up the stain, which helps it look worn and loved. I love that the polyurethane makes the black pop but also lends uniformity and smoothness in texture.

Of all the tasks we've accomplished, this has surprisingly turned out to be one of the easier ones. Take THAT, salespeople that try to sell us things in 4000 shades of brown, and then try to talk us out of painting them black!**

Tomorrow, more staining and polyurethaning, and coming soon -- KITCHEN-BUILDING.

*Don't freak out about the splotches along the bottom of the walls; they'll get covered up by the baseboards. Also there will be way better pictures once baseboards are in and once I'm not taking hurried photos between batches of stain.

**Seriously I think there's some kind of a brown-pushing agenda out there amongst salesfolk. Do they get some kind of fatter commission for proselytizing "toasted wheat field" instead of "ebony?" I'm onto them. I also noticed that in asking about white floors, the same thing happened. The amount of hyperventilating that salespeople do when you bring up black or white instead of brown is astounding. They're all like "Welllll we doooo have it, but...you know....most people..." and I'm like "BUT NOTHING!" Honestly people, it's not like there are some brown cabinets in my house I need to match this stuff to. Relax. Relax and hand over the ebony stain. /rant

enter sandman.

2011-09-11T15:14:00.000-04:00

So much floor-sanding going on in this house this weekend.

master bathroom (pretty much) complete.

2011-09-09T22:03:00.002-04:00

Today the plumber was at the house finishing work in the master bathroom. So now we have two full, working bathrooms in the house. It seems like a miracle. No hot water yet, though...for whatever reason he has to come back later and turn that on.

Since this bathroom is more square than rectangular, and so full of giant stuff like a giant tub and a giant vanity, it's hard to get a photo without a wide angle lens. Sometime in the future, perhaps.

wild kingdom.

2011-09-04T22:23:00.000-04:00

In other news...

The rosebushes, rosemary, and boxwoods out front are doing extremely well right now. What's my secret? Selecting plants that love not being watered, and which take a pickaxe and a steady resolve to kill. Things like orchids will die from merely catching you sneering at them, so you'll never catch me buying those.

The day after the hurricane one of the rosebushes was all "LOL WUT HURRICANE, BRO?" and had two fat blooms on it, in completely clashing shades of pink. It's a magic rose bush.

In the backyard, things are not quite as manicured, but they're improving. This lovely black and yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia) was hanging out on the shed when I was raking up hurricane debris.

The cats say hello and ask that you send more cardboard boxes. If you came to visit, Gozer would likely show you her "favorite chair."

They would also like to show you their stockpile of the mangled corpses of cicadas, and one dead bird. Good work, girls.

But Sophie generally prefers different company during leisure time. Buckets, specifically.

I wonder if she's like "What happened to those comfy beds we used to sleep on all day? Oh well, here are some buckets. Next best thing."

I'm like one of those annoying moms who will NOT stop showing you every picture ever taken of her kids, but they're just so darn photogenic. And you know you get online just to find more pictures of adorable cats.

this magic moment.

2011-09-04T22:02:00.001-04:00

Guys, this is a big moment.

Yes! We have working plumbing. After eight months of working on a site with no plumbing or any kind of running water, you can say that we've become more thankful for these amenities. I've been looking forward to this for ages. Now the room in the house that's entirely done is the Princess Suite bathroom. It's like a shining beacon in the midst of all the chaos. I spent the day scratching rogue blotches of thin set and caulk off of the floor tiles, and then cleaning the bathroom from top to bottom with my favorite cleaning agent. Oh Mr. Clean with Febreze -- I'm so glad we're back together again.

Tiling was completed in the master bathroom today as well. Tomorrow we "celebrate Labor Day" by grouting in there.

tiling continues (again! yeah, really!)

2011-08-30T21:27:00.000-04:00

Here's the princess suite bathroom floor, pre-grout:

Princess suite shower, almost done, pre-grout:

That whole bathroom is grouted and totally done now, and awaiting plumbing.

The master bathroom is almost done (1/2 of 1 wall left), and that's what's being worked on right now. Then tomorrow it needs to be grouted.

The plumber comes Thursday!

tiling continues.

2011-08-15T11:32:00.001-04:00

The floor tiles are all laid in the master bathroom, and yesterday we moved on to the princess suite bathroom. It went much faster because there's no radiant heat to install, and by the end of the day (aka, when we ran out of thinset) we were almost done. Here's a picture of the princess suite bathroom in progress.

I've gotten to use some fun tools over the past couple of days, which has kind of demystified the whole "HOW do they lay tile around tubs and up against walls?" question. You simply cut the tile to fit around whatever it needs to fit around. Here are some tools that are useful for that:

You've already seen the tile saw in a previous post. These small tools are more useful for quickly slicing tiles in half or just clipping a tiny piece off of them. The larger of the two tools is a tile cutter. You place a tile in the middle of the black base, slide the handle across slowly, and it scores the tile so that when you press down on it, it breaks in two. For anything else you use the tile nipper, that hand tool that kind of looks like a wrench. You can cut just a tiny piece off of a tile easily, or cut it in a curved fashion to fit around stuff. Or accidentally break tiles while you're trying to cut them correctly.

Next up is grouting, grouting, grouting.

bathrooms underway.

2011-08-11T09:23:00.000-04:00

The bathrooms are currently our focal point.

Recently the drywall was completed by Dan and the walls were mudded and sanded by George.

Cement board was laid on the floors, since apparently that's what's supposed to go under tile. After vacuuming the walls, we primed and painted them.

In the master bathroom, Dan installed radiant heating on top of the cement board. I may be oversimplifying it, but I believe all that happens is that the water in those little tubes is heated, and it travels around under the floor and heats the floor, which in turn heats your toes. I'm really looking forward to enjoying this in the wintertime.

Next, thinset was mixed up to the consistency of toothpaste, just liked we learned ~~all those months ago~~ ALMOST A YEAR AGO at our tile workshop.

The seams in the cement board were taped and covered with thinset.

While that began to dry in the Princess Suite bathroom, we moved to the master bathroom to begin laying tile around where the tub will go. It's a lovely, plain, white subway tile. Simple and classic.

While laying tile in an oval shape, you have to take measurements and periodically cut tiles to fit correctly. A major shout-out to Richard for letting us borrow his tile saw!

Tile saws are neat, magical creatures that somehow cut tile cleanly and safely by pumping water over the saw blade. This technology mystifies me.

So that's where we stood when I left the house tonight, with Dan remaining there to lay more tile. I'm sure I'll have more pictures soon of the progress.

* * *

While waiting for bathroom walls to dry this week I also painted the little linen closet in the upstairs hallway that was badly smoke-damaged. I slapped two thick coats of the brightest white Killz' primer that exists on it, one coat of regular white paint, and boom. Now it looks like no fire ever happened.

Here it is in the midst of being painted. The charred part looks kind of like a chalkboard that's been written on a bunch and then wiped off.

HVAC complete.

2011-08-05T17:00:00.000-04:00

All last week, Dan had quite a task to deal with -- removing all HVAC duct work from both the attic and the crawlspace. The attic he took care of in one (hot) day with help from Silas, but the crawlspace took much longer. The project spanned several days and was probably the filthiest job undertaken so far at the house.

After removing the ducts and hauling them to the dump, there was still a ton of debris that needed to be trashed as well. To prepare the crawlspace for the HVAC guys to put down a plastic moisture barrier, every piece of garbage would need to be gotten rid of. And people have clearly been using the crawlspace as a dumping ground for the past hundred years.

Basically Dan would take a garden rake and scrape some debris toward the entrance to the crawlspace, and when he finally got it close enough for me to reach it, I (or Dad) would shovel it into trash bags.

Besides trash, we also found lots of interesting treasures, which we'll display on the mantel or something. And I'll photograph those and talk about them on the blog sometime later as well.

The HVAC guys have been working on installing a new system this week, and today Dan let me know that it's done and the house is already starting to cool off. Since we've been experiencing a heat wave that's crazy even by Richmond standards, that's a good thing.

the parlor mantel gets crackled.

2011-08-01T13:58:00.000-04:00

First, use a heat gun on the back deck in 100+ degree heat to finish scraping all the old paint off of the mantel.

Then, have friends use wood filler to fill in old nail holes, cracks, etc. and reconstruct missing pieces (not pictured).

Next, sand the mantel using an electric sander and elbow grease.

Paint a light gray base coat on your naked mantel and wait for it to dry fully.

Add a coat of crackle glaze (not pictured).

Finally, apply a top coat of white.

Once the paint touches the glaze you can't go back over it, which is maddening. It starts to crackle immediately, and going back over it to make the paint more even just peels the paint up. The whole thing requires lots of patience and being willing to embrace the imperfections. It's hard to make yourself move on to the next section if the previous one is "imperfect," which is hilarious because theoretically that's what you want when you're distressing something, right? Oh, the psychology of home improvement.

Anyway, we love how ours turned out. As with pre-ripped jeans, the weathered look rocks.

Sophie, however, thinks it's hilarious that humans spend hours strategically distressing some woodwork while she lazes in the shade.

flooring laid.

2011-08-01T13:23:00.000-04:00

Though these photos are from a couple of weeks ago, all flooring has been laid in the house, and with the help of our lovely assistants, all cracks and nail holes have been filled. The next steps on that project are sanding and staining.

ceiling work.

2011-07-11T10:06:00.000-04:00

Some new pictures of the downstairs and the garden.

painting done, etc.

2011-07-08T12:42:00.001-04:00

All last week we worked on priming and then painting the downstairs. Extra special thanks to our families, and to David, Stefan, Dave, and Kristin, for putting in many hours of cheerful work!

It's starting to really look good.

I'm waiting to take some "real" pictures until after we've got most of the random materials / trash / flooring off the floor so that I can actually get some clear shots. But I'm really happy with all the colors, and it looks great. We've got more work to do in some rooms, like some damask stenciling in the dining room, but that isn't urgent and can wait.

The woodwork around the front door has been a thorn in our side since this project started. It was clearly beautiful at one point, but when we got the house it had been through a fire and was charred beyond all recognition. Dan, myself, and a rotating cast of characters have all spent time scraping at it, sometimes for 10 minutes at a time, sometimes for four hours at a time (whatever we could stand). There's nothing like the taste of barbecued woodwork flying back in your face. Anyway, it's wonderful to finally see it getting painted.

The past few evenings I've been there, I've worked on the parlor fireplace insert. It's coming along and will soon be as lovely as the one in the princess suite.

gorgeous, newly-renovated house in Oregon Hill.

2011-07-08T12:10:00.000-04:00

Our friends Sean and Mindie just finished renovating a beautiful house in Oregon Hill, and it's for sale! Oregon Hill's my favorite neighborhood I've ever lived in, and this house looks fantastic.

More pictures are here.

downstairs day.

2011-06-28T21:09:00.000-04:00

Flooring is still happening intermittently upstairs, with only about 75% of the master bedroom left to do (both bathrooms will have tile rather than hardwood).

But today everyone was working downstairs, with Dan dismantling the old cracked, charred transom window, replacing it with new glass, and finally shedding some light into our foyer.

I didn't take any photos yet, but today was also Primer Party Part 2: Moms Edition. My mom and my mother-in-law and I primed the downstairs all day, and it's over halfway done. I know we still have tons of painting left to do, but it just looks way cleaner and brighter now -- a huge improvement.

Another lovely thing is our crepe myrtle, which is in hot pink bloom.

ikea, flooring, and fireplace.

2011-06-26T17:04:00.000-04:00

On Friday we took our Momses to IKEA to pick up the last kitchen cabinet from our order (it wasn't in stock when we were originally there). It was a fun day, though we hit awful traffic on the way home.

Yesterday a lot of flooring got done, and we were able to replace the Princess Suite's mantel finally. I think it's beautiful.

flooring gets underway.

2011-06-20T07:35:00.000-04:00

Forgot to bring my "real" camera to the house yesterday, but flooring is now underway upstairs.

I worked on sorting boards into piles: perfect, some flaws, and trash. Our wonderful friend Jim came and helped by cutting and organizing the "some flaws" boards into useable pieces.

We also tried the new cheesesteak place on 29th, Str8 Outta Philly, which is delicious. So maybe that'll be our choice greasy spoon sometimes, whenever we're due for our once-seasonal grease binge or whatever. Loved it, and the staff were very friendly. FYI though: portions are HUGE. You can split the "half" size with a friend.

back in black.

2011-06-16T10:55:00.000-04:00

Our trip to Canada was bittersweet. Though we went for a sad reason, it was a great opportunity to see relatives and finally connect some faces with names. We heard so many great stories about Dan's dad while we were there. He'll be missed.

His obituary can be found here, for those of you who have asked to see it (although, note that the birth date is incorrect online). Pictures from our trip are here.

We're back now and work on the house has resumed. Actually work was happening even while we were gone, with the carpenter doing the upstairs window casings and the drywall mudder completing most of the downstairs. Soon I'll be working on painting and Dan will be doing floors.

Last night Lianna came over and the three of us had a little wire-stripping party. Woooo exciting. :) Thanks for all your help, L.

antiquing and drywalling.

2011-06-06T15:25:00.000-04:00

At the house, hanging drywall is almost done. Dan and I and a rotating cast of characters have been working on the drywall in the downstairs for a couple of weeks and it might even be finished today. Mudding will begin tomorrow, anyway. Once it's all mudded and primed, it will look like an entirely different house.

I've also been working on scraping all the charred paint off of the front door's transom (you can see it a little in the background of the picture above). This is a task that's been going on, piecemeal, pretty much ever since I first stepped into the house. The transom thinks it will triumph over me, but whether I continue scraping carefully or just sledgehammer the whole thing out, I have a feeling I'll be the last one standing.

We've been trying to scour some antique stores as well lately, looking for a couple very specific things for the house -- like a tiny corner medicine cabinet for the downstairs bathroom. These are hard to find, though of course I feel like I've seen lots of them when I wasn't looking for them.

I went to my first antiques auction with Lianna, and that was an interesting experience. There seems to be a whole subculture of folks who attend these things, and we felt like outcasts in a way we hadn't truly felt since high school. I kinda loved it. They all talked to each other in a very familiar way, and over the intercom they made announcements like "If y'all need a bidding card, just go see PawPaw at the front desk." Because everyone knows exactly who your PawPaw is, dude. I was intimidated by the fast pace of the auction, and all that goes into the split-second decisions the buyers make. Afterward we walked around the premises and looked at all the old buildings they seem to collect at Tilman's Auctions.

Later, we also went to a place called Governor's Antiques. It was quite pricey, but their selection is huge. I especially loved the outdoor area, chock full of old rusty bathtubs and such. Unfortch, I had already dropped my "real" camera off at the house, so I only had my phone -- but I think these turned out pretty anyway.

This week's going to be pretty hectic, but I'm hoping to have some pictures with more dramatic changes sometime next week. Stay tuned.

upstairs painting results.

2011-06-01T05:42:00.000-04:00

We've finished all the painting that can be done at this point upstairs, and I'm super pleased with the way it turned out.

Here's the master bedroom in white, black (just on the fireplace), and China Blue:

Here's the hallway in Knoxville Gray (thanks Apartment Therapy -- been saving this link forever):

And here's the master bedroom closet in light blue (can't remember the official color name at the moment):

I need to get a better picture of this room (this one is with my phone) but here's the Princess Suite in white and Rain Puddle Green. I keep thinking it looks like those old green chalkboards, after the teacher would write on them a ton and wipe them off. Love this color.

Though the upstairs is nearing completion, there is still lots to do. Unfortunately we had some sad news yesterday, and will be traveling to Canada soon to attend the funeral of Dan's father, so there may be less updating in the coming days. Though he had been ill for a while, it's still hard to take, and Dan and I really appreciate the flood of well-wishes that have poured in. Dan's dad was really excited about the renovation, and I hope we'll forge ahead with a renewed energy with him in mind.

paint crew.

2011-05-28T08:04:00.000-04:00

Mia and I have been painting for so many days on end, they're all starting to blur together. Last night Lianna joined us and the three of us made a lot of (eep!) progress. There will be more of this today, but I'll take some better pictures so you can see the colors.

dragging.

2011-05-27T16:14:00.000-04:00

These days are long. Dan's pulling 12, 14, 15 hour days at the house, and I'm going to work all day and then to the house in the evenings, and then of course there are weekends there as well. This whole project is still just as up-in-the-air as it has been since November -- just as uncertain and tentative as ever. Of course this is really challenging for me (more so psychologically than physically), because I hate to be in limbo for five minutes, let alone five months.

As we drag along, just trying to keep our heads down, focus on the work, and get it done, lots of friends have stepped in to help. Thanks so much to everyone from City Church, Beerble Study, etc. who has come over in the past couple of weeks. And thanks especially to the Artzes, who have been over several days in a row now. You guys are awesome.

Not much to show in the way of progress, except that we now have a new, slightly-less-rickety staircase.

sprouts and babes.

2011-05-25T16:22:00.001-04:00

It's amazing how quickly a little lawn can grow. The front garden is making the house look way more...inhabited.

In other news, I got to hang out with my godson, Cash, while his dad was helping us at the house this weekend. So the happiest baby in the world was on the front porch for a few hours. Seriously, this child did not cry, whimper, or make so much as a negative sound for like four hours. I love him. The neighbors were also pretty disappointed to find out he's not mine.

Other than that day spent doing some outdoors tasks, I've been painting pretty much nonstop. More pictures of that when it's done.

secret passageways.

2011-05-23T08:39:00.000-04:00

Dear Dan, is it too late to put in a secret passageway? Love, Tess.

[Via Wired]

primer party.

2011-05-16T22:24:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, eight great friends came over and helped us prime the upstairs. Pizza, beer, and singalongs were had, and at the end of the day, four rooms and the hall were done. Most definitely the best painting experience of my life. Thanks guys! Freshly-primed walls make it seem like so much more of a house.

Today my grandfather drove up to the house with his flatbed trailer, and I hung out with his wife and my aunt while he and Dan went to pick up our flooring. Now there are two huge stacks of pine chilling in our living and dining rooms, smelling lovely and ready to be nailed down.

before & after: fireplace insert

2011-05-11T09:05:00.000-04:00

Here's a project I've been working on: polishing up the iron fireplace insert for the Princess Suite.

Before:

After:

Hey, underneath all the gunk, there are some really nice things in this house.

company at the homestead.

2011-05-08T21:48:00.001-04:00

On Saturday, our friends Drew and Melody came down from DC to help us out at the house. We had beautiful weather, plenty to keep us busy, and the day was a success. Dan and I were super thankful to have some company while we worked, and the extra hands didn't hurt either.

The first thing I did was photograph the fully-sanded Princess Suite mantelpiece. That's right, I called it the Princess Suite. Though our dear Ayla is now moving to LA, our friend Lianna who plans to move into that room instead asked that we call the room "the Princess Suite." So now we do.

Dan and Drew spent the day finishing the siding on the northern end of the house, while Melody and I worked on priming the kitchen fireplace, and clear coating the Princess Suite fireplace. They both look great, though I didn't get a photo (hands were too sticky).

In other news, here's the gardening I worked on last week. Just a little side patch next to the front walkway, but it makes our place look way less wilderness-y.

We totally thought that tree was dead, as it hadn't so much as sprouted a leaf and all the other trees were already lush with new growth. But suddenly, it sprouted -- and boom, now it's all full and beautiful. I know nothing about trees, so let me know if you know what kind of a tree this is.

And here's a random photo of Gozer hanging out on the front porch being cute.

goodbye green house.

2011-05-06T14:32:00.000-04:00

Around midday yesterday, we heard a lot of noise outside and walked down the alley to investigate. And we saw this:

Yep, this house is in the process of being torn down. Our neighbors who live next to this house said that the lady who owned it died, and as no heirs came to claim it, it's just been sitting there deteriorating rapidly. Pieces of it had started to lean onto our neighbors' house, which was stressing them out badly. So though it seems necessary to tear it down, I still hate to see something old being demolished. :/

I had never seen a house being torn down, so I went around the front to watch. I left and came back a few times, and in about an hour the following damage was done:

Boom. The city worker who was watching with me said "It's a good thing you're fixing that other one up!"

"Yes indeed," I said.

progress?! progress.

2011-05-06T13:55:00.000-04:00

Hey, look. We have a lawn beginning to happen. I love it so much I almost enjoyed trimming the entire area of it with garden shears (Don't worry, Dad just gave me a weedeater. Thanks Dad!).

Some of my other favorite parts of the house right now are also outdoors. Can you blame me? The weather has been perfect. Often we don't even have a spring, as Richmond likes to go from freezing cold to blazing hot immediately. I'm relishing it this year.

I'm excited about this big, beautiful tree in our backyard, and hoping we'll add a swing to it. Also, it's been so nice having access to a shed. I could have really used a shed at previous residences -- it really keeps all the weird accoutrements you need for your yard out of sight, so your yard doesn't end up looking like the set of Sanford and Son. Yesterday, for example, I rejoiced at being able to save some extra mulch. Just pack it up and keep it. No big deal, because I HAVE A SHED.

Also yesterday, I finished organizing and "cleaning" (as much as you can clean a construction site) the whole house, pulled nails and screws out of the parlor ceiling, and weeded and mulched the little patch of yard to the stage-right of our front steps.

I don't want to get your hopes up TOO much by saying our shell is starting to look like a house, but it kinda does. The upstairs is about 90% drywalled, so the rooms look like rooms now.

Still eagerly anticipating when this house-looking thing will start to look like a home, though. Waiting on floors, and sinks and toilets, at least.

stormtroopin'

2011-05-03T21:57:00.000-04:00

Been pulling / slamming / doing whatever I can to get nails ranging from 1910 to the present out of these old boards. It's nearly impossible.

Also, I've been working on sanding that mantel. Should be ready for paint soon...

And using Dan's fancy electric sander means I get to wear this fun contraption. Ross said I look like a stormtrooper. Score!

kitchen cabinets are procured.

2011-05-01T15:36:00.000-04:00

Months ago we picked out the kitchen cabinets we wanted, went to Ikea, sat down at one of their computers, and laid out the entire configuration of the kitchen. They actually make it pretty easy for you, and the layout application makes it possible to (pretty much) see what your kitchen will look like with the various pieces you've chosen.

Yesterday we went back to actually buy the cabinets (along with a cooktop and a sink), and this is what they look like:

Womp womp. It'll probably be a long while before we can actually put them together and install them, since there need to be floors and walls before that can happen.

The boys had tons of fun loading this stuff into the trailer, and I had tons of fun checking the entire list of items to make sure each piece of the order was there.

This blog post is brought to you by Silas, who was gracious enough to drive us up there and let us use the Blue Letter van and trailer to haul this stuff. And who consents to being paid in cheeseburgers.
:)

heat gun results.

2011-04-24T12:50:00.000-04:00

My adventures with the heat gun were completed yesterday.

Here are some pictures of the finished product.

Up next will be sanding and painting the mantel.

Yesterday we also went to Lumber Liquidators, where we talked with the very helpful staff and checked out some flooring options. They've got a great selection there. You can have any color you want, as long as it's brown! We live in a world where you can get a device surgically implanted into your body to make your heart beat correctly, and yet there are no (affordable) black flooring options.

Therefore I've been informed that the plan is that we're going to get plain pine flooring and stain it black ourselves. I'm sure that'll be oh, just bunches of fun.

Dan's new workshop.

2011-04-23T07:49:00.000-04:00

I think Dan has been working mostly on plumbing this week, and he just finished the plumbing for the half bath downstairs.

Yesterday I was off of work so I labored at Ayla's mantel again. A big THANK YOU goes out to my friend Drew, who recommended using a heat gun to take the paint off. This method is wayyyy easier than the putting on chemicals method. All layers of the paint are loosened at once, start bubbling up, and then you can just push them off easily. The only problem with the heat approach is that the very bottom layer on this mantel is a dark burgundy stain. Instead of bubbling up and being easily removed, this layer just turns into a sticky pitch. The sticky pitch can sometimes be pushed off with the scraper, but more often just sticks to the scraper and makes the scraper all useless. So I'm having to stop a lot to chisel the ick off of the scraper. STILL a way faster way of doing this, though. Thanks again Drew! I'm almost done with the paint removal.

Another project yesterday was cleaning out the shed in the backyard. I guess it had been kinda full of leaves and trash before we bought the house. Dan added the semi-char-broiled kitchen cabinets from the house into the mix, and then we also chucked a lot of gardening / outdoors stuff straight from our old backyard into the new shed. It quickly became the black hole of mess that most people's garages are, and you know. That is SO NOT ME. Must. Have. Order.

So yesterday I got a huge trash bag and put all the trash (including random mens' dress shoes?) in from the floor of the shed. Then I moved everything out of the shed except for the cabinet. Then I swept up all the leaves and dirt, and added those to the trash bag. Under a board in the corner of the shed was a HUGE ant nest. The word "teeming" doesn't even begin to describe what was going on there, but it was easily taken care of and swept up as well.

Next, Dan and I held up the cabinets while he screwed them into place, and we added the leftover kitchen countertop to the floor cabinets, et voila! Now Dan has his workshop out there in the shed and can actually work on projects and make as big of a mess as he needs to make, within reason.

On the other end of the shed I set up all my gardening supplies, as well as lawn chairs, shovels, weed whacker, etc. SO much better than having the whole mess exposed, sitting on a sad shelf in the backyard, like at the old place.

Anyway, access to the shed should help us with project organization and with keeping the house tidy as we move on to more drywalling and eventually, someday, laying floors. Someday.

In other / kinda related news, my parents had to keep up with the Joneses by making their own little brick walkway. I helped a very little bit. It looks great! Also, Mom's boxwoods > my boxwoods. Le sigh.

in bloom.

2011-04-12T17:45:00.000-04:00

Dan's back from Canada, so more things'll be happening with the house soon. In the meantime, here's a picture of some flowers blooming at the house.

elbows and layers.

2011-04-07T08:30:00.000-04:00

We did a lot of work at the house over the past few days. You already saw the tub, insulation, etc. from Saturday. On Sunday I worked at my other job, and then Monday it was back to the house.

Recently the plumbing was completed in the kitchen, and that's what the blue, red, and white tubes are below:

On Monday I stood with my feet in the crawlspace and surrounded those pipes with foam insulation. The insulation is kind of fun to work with. It comes slit down the middle so that you can fit it around the pipes, and then you peel off plastic strips to reveal self-adhesive surface so that when you press the insulation together at the slit, it seals. Boom. Done. The insulation looks like this:

And there are also elbow-shaped pieces and t-shaped pieces so you can have all sorts of fun fitting them onto the joints of the pipes, and cutting down the straight pieces to fit properly with the joint pieces. I felt like Super Mario, foreal. Except without the superpowers. :/

After that job was done, I insulated the rest of the walls in the kitchen using scraps from the pre-existing insulation.

Then, I swept and organized every room of the house. A dirty, time-consuming, satisfying job.

Finally, while Dan and Dad finished the drywall in the front bedroom, I started working on the front bedroom's mantel. The goal is to remove the existing paint and replace it with something less...er, charred. First, we carried it outside and put it on sawhorses:

Next, I gathered my materials for stripping the paint (including my super-cool teal chemical-proof gloves):

And then I applied the paint stripper, went to the store for beer and ice cream, and came back. Sadly, not much progress was made while I was gone, and scraping only showed another layer of paint underneath.

The back of the paint stripper jug says that several layers of paint may require several coats of the paint stripper. Oh dear. I spent the next couple of hours reapplying and rescraping just one leg of the mantel. When it was time to call it a day around 6pm or 6:30pm, I had a blister, an aching back, and about 75% of that one leg done.

I had also uncovered five separate layers of paint:

black (not sure if this is intentional, or from the fire. maybe both?)
white
off-white
green
burgundy

Here's to houses built in 1910. 101 years of painting a longsuffering mantelpiece, and still going strong.

lots of progress, and tub time.

2011-04-03T16:36:00.000-04:00

Dan finally did finally manage to get Bank of America to reimburse us, so the project hasn't ground to a standstill quite yet.

This week he was able to start hanging drywall upstairs, so it's starting to look way more like a house up there. It's exciting to finally be working on this stuff.

He also finished coating the bedroom fireplace in primer. The fireplace was patched up recently by a friend of ours who's a mason, and it looks great. Soon we'll have walls up in there, which will be mostly white, and we'll paint the fireplace a matte black.

He's also done lots of work on stripping down the mantel in the parlor, which looks wonderful. We'll put a clear glaze on this fireplace, and paint the mantel in white, sanding it down a bit to give it a distressed look.

***

Yesterday morning Dad, Silas, and Matt came over to help move the huge cast-iron bathtub for the front bathroom. Dan and the guy who refinished it had a tough time just getting it back into the truck, so we were skeptical as to whether four people could get it up the stairs.

It took all morning, several feats of engineering, and plenty of good old-fashioned brute strength to do it, but they survived.

First, they constructed a "sled" so that they could pull / push the tub up the stairs without having it sliding around.

Then, Dan backed the truck right up to the front steps and they hefted the tub into the foyer, setting it down on the sled.

Next, they needed leverage, as the tub kept getting caught on the mangled-up steps. Silas wedged a board underneath the tub and then stood on it to prop the tub up.

Finally they had the right angle and could lift / push it up the rest of the way. Dad was calling out "1...2...3...LIFT!" I think, and in that manner they were able to get a rhythm going and get the beast up the stairs.

Next, they rolled the tub onto its side on top of some rolly furniture movers, so that it could fit through the bathroom door.

Finally, it was rolled down the hall (I was told to move out of the railing-less stairwell JUST IN CASE) and deposited in its new home. Yay! Check it out Ayla, this is your new vintage bathtub.

Later on I installed some insulation, so that more walls can be completed (yes!).

planting time.

2011-03-23T05:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a gorgeous day to do some gardening at the house.

Though it was absolutely not the next thing on the list to be done, I really wanted to get the front garden taken care of since it's planting time and there may not be another sunny / dry / cool day when I can actually be there until after planting time. So we seized the moment and put together a very simple little garden. Dan dug up the old layer of weeds, which we put in a wheelbarrow and carted around back. Then we gathered up old bricks from our yard and our neighbor's yard, and Dan laid a little border that looks very fine. After that I planted some roses (bourbon), dianthus, and rosemary -- just keeping it sweet and simple for now, and all of those have grown well for me in the past. Then we put down topsoil, fertilizer, and grass. Now all that needs to happen is the little patch of grass needs to grow. Come on grass! Here are a few pictures of what it looks like now. Still rather empty, but I'd rather have a couple plants I can make sure to take care of than a whole garden full of neglected things.

insulation street / 203k draw woes.

2011-03-21T23:26:00.001-04:00

We've progressed to the part where you buy insulation, so here's a picture of Dan picking out insulation at Home Depot. Just enjoying himself on a platform full of fluffy pink stuff, no biggie.

Picking out insulation, cramming it into the car, and taking it to the house is pretty straightforward. But other areas of the renovation process are not. Like getting a loan (cringe), closing (cringe), and getting draws (reimbursements from the bank for the work you've done out of your own pocket -- cringe). We're still waiting for our first draw money to arrive, having filed for it something like three weeks ago. The inefficiency of this process is, as predicted, no better than that of getting the loan in the first place.

203k draw process

-- You spend all the money and do all the work, and then:

-- Inspector has to inspect the work
-- Inspector has to fill out paperwork
-- Inspector has to send off the paperwork to the bank
-- The bank has to receive the paperwork and know what to do with it
-- The bank has to approve everything
-- The bank has to send you the money

There are a lot of chances for things to go wrong, or "get missed" or "slip through the cracks," as the inefficient like to refer to it. Don't you just love the convoluted, un-streamlined nature of the housing industry? I have come to appreciate it as one of the wonders of the world, because I marvel at how everything else under the sun has moved forward and progressed, and yet the industry that has its tentacles wrapped the tightest around the whole country's necks is stewing in a sad, unorganized backwater of paperwork.

So you can imagine just how motivated everybody else is to get those list items done, since they personally don't have an incentive and have nothing riding on it and don't care whether the renovation continues or not. And how maddening it is not to be able to take care of any part of this process yourself, just depending all pathetically on unmotivated third parties.

So of course weeks go by, no one tells us anything, and we have to go through all these back doors hounding people at Bank of America within an inch of their lives only to find out "Uh, we like uh, didn't get all the paperwork we needed." Yep. Soooo when were they going to tell us that? When were we going to find out about that? NEVER. They have no process in place whatsoever to notify the homeowner if something's missing / not right about the paperwork filed. They don't even have a process in place to let the inspector know they didn't get all the paperwork from him, and frankly, he shouldn't have to worry about following up with them about it constantly like a mom follows up with her teenager to clean his room. Considering we weren't even the ones sending in the paperwork, and we weren't the ones receiving or processing it, I'm not sure how they expect for us to know about or control this paperwork in any way. Either you're psychic, or you're completely left out of the loop. We were never ever going to find out about it. And there'd be yet another empty, half-renovated house just sitting on the market after our time ran out.

Thank goodness we were paranoid enough from all of the experiences up to this point to think "Hm, if we haven't heard anything yet, someone's probably not doing their job." So Dan set out to find a way to hound people and check on the paperwork. And thank goodness for his tenaciousness and willingness to spend whole days on the phone, being led in circles, just waiting to speak to more people who don't know how to do their jobs. Otherwise we wouldn't have known that paperwork needed to be resubmitted.

So the lesson learned is that for the next draw (oh yes, we'll have to go through this fun process several times before the end of the renovation), once the inspector files the paperwork, we call the bank every hour on the hour for weeks to babysit them through every leg of the journey. Because once again, they can't do it themselves.

The trend I'm noticing is that most of what people said would be super hard and frustrating -- all the manual labor -- has been the fun part, and we've been enjoying it and getting a lot of satisfaction out of putting in the effort. And the part that's supposed to be just the gateway to the real work -- dealing with loan stuff -- has been that special kind of life-wasting evil that can drive a normal, healthy human being off a cliff. To recap:

hard manual labor = fun
dealing with the financing = a part-time job that distracts from the real work, insanely time consuming, and teeth-gnashingly frustrating

tree of death eradicated, lattice of death rehabilitated.

2011-03-15T12:36:00.000-04:00

On Saturday we had quite the workday at the house.

Kitchen Island Questions
Chris and Emily came by and Emily helped us on our "where EXACTLY does this kitchen island need to go" conundrum with her expert interior design knowledge.

It's one of those situations where the original plan would put the island smack in the middle of the kitchen, not giving you much room to go around it when walking from the dining room to the back door. But if we moved it closer to the other cabinets / sink / etc., it'd be hard to open the dishwasher and still have room to get by on that side. In the end we decided that having plenty of room to walk past the island on your way to the back door is more important than having plenty of room to walk past the open dishwasher door. Because how much time do you really spend with the dishwasher door open? Actually, more than you probably think. But I've never really had a dishwasher in my adult life, so it's a strange thing to think about. Anyway, this is a good example of the kind of weird decisions we have to make like 12 times a day.

Tree of Death Begone!

The next order of business was dealing with this tree near the back of our property. It's just this old "Tree of Death"-looking trunk, all sad and rotted. I wanted to keep it, but Dan investigated and found that it was so rotten it was in danger of falling and smashing the power lines as well as our neighbor's fence. So he and Dad swung ropes around the tree and Dad started chopping into it with a chainsaw. When the tree started to fall, Dan pulled the rope as hard as he could to guide the tree away from the fence. I was in the alley ready to take a picture, but I didn't really get anything because the tree ended up falling toward me. Branches whizzing by my head, etc. That was not in the plan. But I guess it was so heavy that once it started falling, even pulling on the ropes didn't help much. Dad said he barely touched it with the chainsaw before it came crashing down, and we all studied the inside afterward and saw how hollow it was. Phew. But nobody got hurt, and the rotten tree is now gone. We're keeping the big, foreboding-looking stump though.

Lattice Rehab

After lunch, Dad and Dan worked on replacing the siding on the front of the house around the new window, and I started raking the front garden. I complained to Mom about the tacky lattice, which somebody had tacked up onto the front of the porch (it's supposed to go underneath and attach to the underside of the porch). We started talking about what we could do to solve this problem, and we looked over at our neighbor's house and saw that he had painted his lattice a very dark brown and it was barely noticeable. So we began a similar project.

Lattice is ugly! Make it less ugly!

-- Unscrew lattice from the front of the porch and remove it.

-- Measure the spaces between the porch and the ground, where the lattice is supposed to go.

-- Mark these measurements on the pieces of lattice you just removed. We used measuring tape and black ink, with a level as our straightedge.

-- Using a Skil saw, cut the pieces of lattice down to the dimensions you marked on them.

-- Measure where the joists under the porch will need to be accommodated with notches in the lattice.

-- Mark these notches on the lattice pieces.

-- Use the Skil saw again to cut the notches out of the lattice.

-- Spraypaint the lattice with matte black paint, and wait for it to dry.

-- Crawl underneath the porch on your belly, and bring a drill.

-- With someone holding the lattice up from outside, drill the lattice onto the underside of the porch (black side facing out).

-- Crawl out from under the porch at its last remaining opening, and affix the last piece of lattice as best you can from the outside.

-- Watch as your cat busts down that last piece of lattice and runs under the porch anyway.

-- Rejoice when your husband is able to screw a small piece of wood onto the underside of the porch, and then screw that last piece of lattice to the wood securely.

So it was really nice to have a project that we were able to do in one day, and be able to see the fruits of our labors immediately. The lattice looks a hundred times better (less noticeable).

Before:

After:

Not the most comparable before and after views, but there'll be more to come. And obviously we need to clean / repaint the front-facing board of the front porch as well. But now you can actually see that there's a porch when you look at the house, rather than just seeing...lattice.

I really never thought I'd end up smushed underneath a porch with only an inch or two of headroom, but there's a first time for everything.

Next I need to do something with the garden….

Caravati's and electrical work.

2011-03-08T22:13:00.000-05:00

Today I had a comp day from work since I work some weekends, so naturally "comp day" meant "manual labor" to me. After helping our friend Lianna move her belongings from a U-Haul truck into a storage space, we went over to Caravati's and took a look at all the treasures they have there. It's this huge warehouse in Manchester full of salvaged materials from old Richmond homes. This place is like the fancy designer handbag store of home improvement supplies. Some people save up money to buy a Coach handbag, we save up money to buy a cool 1920s speakeasy grate for our front door.

Besides being the place to find the best clawfoot bathtubs, cathedral-style church windows, and wrought-iron fences, Caravati's is also a photo shoot waiting to happen. Karen Seifert, are you reading this? I cannot WAIT to go back there, with my camera next time. So many textures, so many beautiful lines, so much vintage. All I had with me this time was my phone, hence the one picture of a veritable wrought-iron forest below.

Back at the house, we loaded the truck up with refuse and went to the East Richmond Road Landfill & Convenience Center. By "convenience," they mean throwing things. You drive up a hill, and the hill has a cliff carved into it. You back your truck up to the edge of the cliff and chuck stuff into the giant tractor-trailer sized containers below. Guys, I highly recommend visiting the dump. It's free for city residents, and throwing really ugly furniture into a pit and hearing it smash when it hits the bottom is a highly cathartic activity. I think the pillow of old mattresses and tumbleweave that our bathroom vanity landed on made the crash less-than-optimal, but it still felt fantastic.

Back at the house, more electrical was worked on by Dan and Dad, and I was on cleanup detail. I also had a brief stint scraping the fire-damaged paint off of our front doorway trim, but it was super frustrating and I feel like I can't do it without knicking the wood a lot. So I gave up on that and instead set to finding torn flaps in the tarpaper on our floor, sweeping underneath the flaps, and nailing the flaps back down onto the ground. None of these things are really the most exciting thing in the world to photograph.

In the meantime the cats and I enjoyed the sunny day with the front door open.

You may be able to tell that Gozer has a wound under her left eye, which is the product of an incident involving a neighbor's bb gun and my cat's face. Yes, we were as livid as you can imagine we would be -- but more on that later. I had no idea what to expect as far as recovery, as bloody and terrified as Dan described her, but the folks at the Veterinary Emergency Center took great care of her and she's doing much better. She was purring loudly when I took this photo.

renovation lending workshop.

2011-03-04T05:50:00.000-05:00

Hey guys,

They're having another one of those renovation lending workshops that Dan and I went to, so if any of you are even a little bit interested in doing some renovation in the future, I'd recommend going. The one we went to was super informative!

This one is March 5th at 9am. More info at CHPN.

walkway complete!

2011-03-02T13:05:00.000-05:00

The little walkway in front of our house is complete! I think Dan did a beautiful job on it. He hand-laid it with the original bricks from our chimney. The sidewalk has begun again.

Before:

After:

windows: done.

2011-02-25T08:00:00.012-05:00

I think I mentioned previously that all the new windows were in, which is great. When you've upgraded from plastic sheeting to real store-bought windows (as they'd say in Little House on the Prairie), you've moved up in the world indeed.

The most important window that got replaced was the front window.

Before:

After:

There were several sad things about that window in the first place, starting with the fact that somebody thought it would be a great idea to slap a 1950s-esque picture window onto the front of a Victorian house. Nothing says Greetings from Your Local Subdivision quite like a picture window. Anyway, whoever put that window in decided to get one with inexplicably differing section widths, as you can see from the before picture. And I'm not sure if it was a fire that did this or just bad taste, but the middle section didn't even bother to clothe itself in those fake pane dividers that are the minimum requirement for respectability.

The other reason for changing the front window is that the inside layer of the double-paned glass had been shattered in several places from the heat of the fire.

Unfortunately we couldn't replace some of the front wall and make it two separate windows again, because that would have cost a small fortune, so we opted to do what some of the other houses I've seen in Church Hill have done: get a new big giant window that kind of looks like three windows all lined up beside each other. Now the three sections are all the same width, all clothed in those fake pane dividers (Dan says "simulated divided light" is the PC term) so that no section is naked, and all are pristine and unshattered. MUCH better, no?

Also, this feels like a very Dickensian thing to say, but it's amazing what a new window NOT covered in soot will do for the natural light in your parlor!

where the sidewalk ends.

2011-02-24T21:26:00.000-05:00

Today we went to Home Depot to get some materials for re-doing the sad little slab of concrete that fancies itself our front walk. We're ripping it out and putting down bricks instead. We'll be using the old bricks from one of our chimneys (which was deemed unnecessary and in danger of toppling at any moment, and thus dismembered by Dan).

Here's the before picture:

As you can see, the sidewalk needed to be ended.

I think Dan was having an unacceptable amount of fun busting up the concrete with the help of the jackhammer:

While Dan, Dad, and I were gathering up the rubble afterward, it started raining, so no more work was done on the walkway. We'll pick it back up later on a sunny day. Instead they worked on electrical stuff and I scraped away at the peeling paint in the entryway, until I was directed to saw a giant rectangle in one of the living room walls for unknown reasons.

ganttlicious.

2011-02-20T12:13:00.000-05:00

Here's the Gantt chart we're working from as we do the renovations. It is a very wide document, so I only copied a portion of it horizontally, but you get the idea. Every task is there though, vertically. Click here to see a larger version that you can (kind of) actually read.

Dan has a paper copy of this taped to the wall at the house. He scratches each item out as it's completed. He could certainly tell us which of these things have already been completed, but that would take another interview. Just from glancing at it from time to time though, I can tell you it looks like we're getting close to being halfway down the list, meaning we've crossed out almost half of the items. Most of the items on the latter half of the list won't take as long as each item on the first half of the list, I believe. I think we're still on schedule to move in by the end of April. Dan's goal is really Cinco de Mayo, so he can make tacos for everyone as usual. I know many of you will be disappointed if you're not treated to your customary helping of Dan's crunchy tacos this May!

an interview with Dan.

2011-02-17T23:13:00.001-05:00

As you know, I go to work at my job every day, and Dan goes to work at the house. Hence, he knows way more about what's going on there than I do. So here's an interview with him:

So, how's it going with the house, Mr. Shebaylo?

Oh, it's going great. We've got a new roof on, all the windows that were broken or missing have been replaced, and we added a new one in the TV room. We've also moved some walls around and built some new closets, and I've relocated the electrical panel. Currently I'm re-wiring the upstairs.

Why are you re-wiring the upstairs?

I had to re-wire the upstairs because of some of the changes we've made, but mostly because the existing wiring in the house -- portions of it had been cut off and stolen, I guess. And then other portions of the wiring just weren't done correctly. After some troubleshooting, I'm fixing the erroneous wiring of the [censored] who did it before. After the second floor is completed, I'll begin to re-wire the first floor.

And what happens after the electrical work is done?

I'm going to have to move some of the plumbing around a little bit, and add some plumbing for the dishwasher. And once all that's done, I'll call for some inspections. After the inspections pass, we'll begin hanging the sheetrock in the places where we've removed it.

So there's the very high-level, non-nitty-gritty update I could manage to get for you. I have been adding more photos all the time to our Renovation Fun! set, so definitely look there for updates as well. Here are some highlights from the goings-on:

Most of the back side of the roof was replaced to fix a bad leak.

During the replacement of broken windows.

Hey, we have a back door! Necessary for cookouts.

Dan trampling the garbage in the dumpster, Lucy-style. Apparently the dumpster people won't come pick up the dumpster unless the trash is exactly level with the top of the dumpster. In other words, they don't take heaping spoonfuls.

Dad and Dan replacing the siding after finishing the windows on the side of the house.

progress-ish.

2011-02-02T12:13:00.000-05:00

So lately Dan's been working on the electrical in the house, which is great but not all that exciting to take pictures of. Like hey this wire used to be here, and now it's HERE! So I've left that pretty much undocumented. He's taking a break from the electrical to work on the roof, though, which is a higher priority. He and KC and doing some repairs to a leaky spot on the roof, and once that's done we'll all be glad that water is no longer coming in. I haven't been there to take pictures since they've been on the roof, but I doubt I'd go up there with my camera anyway.

This weekend I pretty much pulled nails and screws out of the ceiling, walls, and floor, which was necessary but also not very exciting to photograph. More photos to come, though, when we move on to more drastic changes!

demolition completed.

2011-01-25T15:42:00.001-05:00

It's hard to look at demolition as "progress," because it looks like we're just moving backward. I probably won't feel like we're making real progress until we're bringing new things into the house rather than tearing things out. That being said, Dan is doing very well with the renovations. Despite closing more than a week late and then having to get permits and such, we have caught up and are now ahead of schedule! I plan to post a copy of our Gantt chart soon so that you can follow along. I wish they had a blog feature that said "Turn the page at the sound of the chime."

Anyway, Dan has been working every day at the house, and has been joined by a motley crew every weekend. Many thanks to Dad, Andrew, Scott, Matt, Silas, and Mia for coming out to help us. Special thanks to Matt for going the extra mile by headbutting some of our drywall out. Instead of, you know, hitting it with a hammer. As we've found, demolition is a great stress reliever!

I don't have pictures of the most recent progress because I haven't been to the house in a few days, but as of now we've finished knocking out all the wall and ceiling we're going to knock out. The pieces of drywall had to broken down, packed into garbage cans, and heaved into the dumpster we rented. Yes, our backs are killing us. Dan and Dad also moved the electrical panel to a more logical location. A little new framing has gone up, such as framing around the living room / dining room doorway for some fancy molding. Drywall and plaster have been entirely removed from all the chimneys, and the exposed brick is lovely.

The entryway:

In the dining room looking into the living room (you can see the new framing that's up):

In the craft / guest room looking toward the master bedroom:

Beginning to expose the brick chimney in the front bedroom:

Sophie loves her little insulation nest in the front bathroom. Hey Sophie, working hard or hardly working?

And in case anybody was wondering what happened to all the floor boards we tore up, they made some lovely bonfires at Mom and Dad's house.

demolition continues.

2011-01-16T22:49:00.000-05:00

The new house is now a hive of activity.

First things first: There is a new front door! You know how important this was to me. Now it's plain Jane instead of wacky tacky. I feel relieved about this house already.

Yesterday we tore out some walls with help from Dad, Chris Lacroix, and Billy Mutter. Thanks guys! The juncture of the guest / craft room, master bedroom, and master closet looks pretty crazy now:

Currently there's a sort of open-air, one-room thing going on upstairs. All of this, just so we can reconfigure the closets? Yes. Whoever put closets into the house thought it would be a good idea to put a closet directly underneath the attic entrance. So if you want attic access, you can't use that closet. That's not going to work for us, or for any future roommates or kids. So things are being moved around to make more sense, and to remove unsightly corners and intersections where trim has to be cut all weird to accommodate mistakes.

And here are some before / durings of the master bath, starting with the tub area:

And the sink area:

I also discovered Davinci's Pizza, which is good, cheap, and close by. I think we'll be hitting them up a lot during this renovation.

The most satisfying task of the day was getting to demo the front bathroom's tiles. YES. Few things give me more satisfaction than destroying beige stuff. Also, you could never be stressed out if you got to smash tile for a living. I raised the hammer high above my head, imagined some enemy's face (full disclosure!), and brought it crashing down to shatter the tiles. So much better than acting out in real life!

Good riddance, hideous floors.

We'll be there all day tomorrow if anybody wants to stop by and see the place!

permits obtained, demo-ing begun.

2011-01-13T12:25:00.000-05:00

As of Tuesday our house was still considered "condemned," because they condemn buildings whenever work was never completed on them.

Yesterday morning we went down to City Hall to get permits for our building, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing work. It was the first time I ever set foot in this building and had a pleasant experience.

The people in the Office of Permits and Inspections are super helpful, and each person you talk to seems to have some understanding of the whole process, instead of just his or her specific job. The lady at the front desk looked over our permit applications, consulted her computer, and explained that our ownership of the house wasn't showing up in their system yet. It might take a couple of weeks after closing for the closing lawyer to send a copy of the deed out. But we were welcome to go and check to see if it was at the courthouse yet, because apparently that's frequently the case.

We had actually just picked up our mail at the new house, and it was sitting in the car. Since we recalled that there was an envelope from Mark Fleckenstein in the pile, we went out and opened it, and sure enough, there was the deed. We took it back inside, and the front desk person made a copy of it and sent us back to talk to another guy. He showed us the old permits, and had us add some information to our applications referencing the old permits. He also called whichever office deals with condemned buildings and had our house un-condemned (it's magic!).

Then we paid for each permit, which was expensive -- $65 for the cheapest one and $275 for the most expensive. Zing!

Then we waited a little bit longer and the guy we were dealing with previously came out and handed us our permits. Done and done, all before 11am.

In the afternoon, another guy from the city had to come out and look at the house, and then Dan was free to start work. He's in the business of demolishing things right now, so if you have any rage you want to release, you might want to text him and put on your icky clothes. Knocking out walls seems strangely satisfying.

Lots of "before" pictures are now posted here, and I'm looking forward to posting lots of "During" pictures as well.

I think some of our biggest challenges will be the kitchen and the master bathroom:

It's really hard for me to envision them as we've dreamed they will be, when they're in this state. And when it's 23 degrees in the house.

Check it out -- sometimes when you bang a sledgehammer into your wall, you find a full chimney in there. Sweet!

I'm stuck at work most days while Dan gets to have all the fun, but I should be able to get into it this weekend. If anybody wants to stop by and see the place on Saturday, let me know!

closing time.

2011-01-07T15:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at 2pm, we met at the offices of our closing attorney and started going through our gigantic pile of things to sign. The attorney, Mark Fleckenstein, was really helpful. He explained each document briefly, and often with a funny anecdote. If he hadn't been totally chill, I may have cried. A number of things went wrong, which is to be expected with all things in life. But buying a house seems to be tailor-made for annoyance.

*** Begin rant. ***

One thing about the whole process that I don't understand is why specific requests aren't made. If you want something done a certain way, SAY SO! For example, we were told many times throughout the loan process that we couldn't get the gift money we needed from my parents until the last minute, because we wouldn't know how much cash we needed to close until the last minute. Okay. So at 4:30pm the day before closing, I'm hounding everybody involved trying to find out how much we'll need to bring the next day. It seems kind of preposterous that at that late hour we still wouldn't know how much we needed. Finally, we got a number, and I was asked to bring a cashier's check for that amount to closing.

Just to make absolutely sure, Dan called to make sure we wouldn't need to bring "proof of transfer" for the money. You know, bank statements, etc. etc. We were assured that we wouldn't need any of those things, since a cashier's check is already liquid, and there's no risk of it bouncing.

That night, my parents gave me a check, and first thing in the morning, I went to Wachovia where they gave me a cashier's check. They didn't deposit money into my account or anything. They just took my parents' check, and gave me back the cashier's check. Done.

At closing, guess what they asked for? Proof of transfer. Yep. But even if I had known we needed it, how could I have gotten it? They were asking for a bank statement showing the exact amount of money leaving my parents' account. Since we had just gotten the cashier's check a couple of hours before, there is no way a new bank statement would already be available showing that transaction. Those things come out once a month. Furthermore, there was not yet any record of the existence of that check in their bank account. It would probably be another day or two before it showed up as being cashed by Wachovia.

Just for kicks, I asked how we could have possibly brought in the correct thing. Apparently it was necessary for my parents to go to their own bank and for them to get the cashier's check -- even though they aren't the ones signing contracts and buying a house. Ooookay. Good to know, after the fact.

In the end the problem was solved by taking some screen shots from within my parents' bank's web site, at the last minute, borrowing the very gracious attorney's computer while everyone waited. Profesh!

So that's just one example of what has kind of been happening these past few months. Lots of being given vague instructions, then scrambling to get it done, and then the instructor coming back and saying "No no, not like that." No amount of being careful or asking for clarification will help. What perplexes me is why they don't say exactly what they need in the first place, instead of saying it, you know, at the closing meeting.

I'm clearly not an expert on these things, but if it were my job to tell someone what pounds of flesh they need to furnish, I would have a very specific set of guidelines drawn up. For each pound of flesh requested, I would list the exact dimensions, weight, blah blah blah, down to the size of plastic baggie to put it in. Instead, conversations go something like this:

Her: "You'll need a snarfblatt letter."
Us: "What's that?"
Her: "A letter of explanation about the snarfblatt."
Us: "What is it supposed to say?"
Her: "Just proof of the snarfblatt."
Us: "Proof of what? That it exists?"
Her: "Proof of where you got it."
Us: "You mean PAPER?! Like, a receipt? For something that was only TEXT-MESSAGED about?" [My gosh, I hate paper.]
...a day later...
Us: "Okay, we stayed up all night sifting through the sands of Egypt and got your snarfblatt proof together. It's attached to this email."
...three days later...
Her: "I really need you guys to get me that snarfblatt proof."
Us: "Are you SERIOUS? I thought that was urgent. I got that to you three days ago."
Her: [giggles] "Whooopsie, I haven't checked my email yet."

And so on, and so forth. Conversations like this were happening on top of the fact that we were getting the weirdest, most difficult loan there is to get, and the fact that this is the toughest time in history to get a loan. And we wonder why we ended up closing 8 days late.

Getting through this has been the worst experience of my entire life (and yes, I realize that makes me a very lucky person). I don't think it necessarily would be for everyone, but I am driven particularly mad by the following things: uncertainty, vagueness, bad communication, carelessness, and inconsistency.

The only thing that can begin to approach it is the time I was a calculus tutor at VCU. I soon realized that 99% of the students coming to me for help weren't bad at math, they just didn't speak English. So try teaching calculus to someone who doesn't speak your language in the first place. I felt dismally unqualified, to say the least. The students, I think, felt confused, frustrated, and hopeless. And that's how I've felt during this process. Nobody along the way was trying to make things hard for us, we just didn't speak the same language.

For those of you who have asked, I am working on getting some materials together, whether they're already out there or whether I have to write them myself, that will help you if you want to get a 203k loan.

*** End rant. ***

Anyway, it's over. It's a system warped beyond all understanding, but since it's the only system available to us, we participated in it and now we have our very own fixer-upper.

While signing the roughly 2"-thick stack of papers, Mr. Fleckenstein pointed out that when he started in the business, closing on a house only involved 5 pieces of paper. Oh, the glory days. Over two hours after we arrived, we signed the final papers and got the final OKs, and everyone in the room sighed very loudly. I felt like someone had unscrewed the vice around my head.

After closing, our realtor and her assistant gave us some wine and a gift card to Lowe's. Awesome! Dan and I went to the house and celebrated out front with our neighbor for a bit. Then we had some wine and called our parents and such. The house seemed suddenly WAY dirtier now that I own it, and I felt the urge to clean the floors even though we're about to rip them out.

I feel a little terrified of the risk we're taking, and of the next few months of work we have to look forward to. But I'm way less terrified of the risk of renovation than I was of the certainty of the rent monster stealing all my money for the rest of my life. So, situations have improved. I can't wait to have guests stay in our guest room!

We'd like to thank the following people for their help, their love, and for not punching us at any point even if they may have wanted to:

-- Kelly Blanchard, our realtor / moral support technician, for seeing this thing through
-- Jay McGee, Kelly's minion, for learning along with us
-- Richard Day at Prospect Mortgage, for actually knowing how this stuff works
-- Mom and Dad, for generosity in a million different categories
-- Ayla, our roommate, for moving in, then moving out, and preparing to move in again

And everybody else who's said a kind word or shared this experience with us in any way. Those daily reminders that we weren't alone really kept us going.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

...Stay tuned for the beginning of actual work!

we own it!

2011-01-06T22:39:00.000-05:00

As you may have already heard...we closed! So we own a house and the bank owns us. Yes! Much more to write, but that will come tomorrow.

definitely maybe.

2011-01-06T11:43:00.000-05:00

We're definitely closing today at 2pm, maybe. You know, if everybody feels like it once 2pm rolls around. Too early to tell!

This morning we did a walk-through with one of our realtors. Afterward Dan and I went to Wachovia to get a cashier's check to pay our closing costs with, and the manager gave me a lollipop. Hooray! I'm definitely a grown-up now. Maybe.

Seriously, though. Most expensive lollipop I've ever been rewarded with.

cleared.

2011-01-05T13:01:00.001-05:00

We found out yesterday that we're "cleared to close," which means that yes, this house thing really is happening. Closing is scheduled for 9am tomorrow, so -- Lord willing and the creek don't rise -- we should be enjoying a beverage on the front steps sometime before the end of the day. And then we'll go to Lowe's and spend all the remaining money in our bank account. Huzzah!

[Edit: 2:12pm] Jay kay. Just found out that it's been pushed back to 2pm, because there's radio silence from the owner. I guess if the closing company can't get a hold of the owner, you can't close, can you? So we may not be enjoying that beverage tomorrow. LOLOL! Tra la la!

waiting.

2010-12-28T16:03:00.000-05:00

Our closing date is supposedly tomorrow, and everything is just as uncertain as it was when I wrote my last post. Still not hearing anything for days, and then hearing something and frantically printing, signing, scanning, PDF-ing, and sending documents. So yeah, it looks like we won't close this year. Which is a bummer for us, but absolutely tragic for the cats.

fireworks!

2010-12-17T12:39:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday I got an automated message from my loan guy that contained the image above. Yeah! Fireworks! Excitement! But don't get too excited...I think we're only like halfway up the LOE-laden (that's Letter of Explanation) staircase to closing. We still haven't been "cleared to close," we're still scrambling to provide everything but a blood sample to the underwriter, and so on and so forth. But I guess what this email is saying is "Yes, it's possible that you MIGHT actually get this house."

So it's no big deal that we still aren't 100% sure we're getting the house. We just moved out of our old house and into my parents' house, aren't sure if we should go ahead and change our address, and have no idea what we're going to do with the cats if the new house doesn't work out. Uncertainty is a many-headed beast and we have severed one of its heads. And for that I am grateful, because at this point any encouragement is worth more than diamonds. But I feel like the point of this struggle is for me to learn patience and to be grateful both with and without uncertainty.

In other news, the house is ENTIRELY packed up now except for the curtains, and I plan to spend Saturday cleaning it. We were still loading things into the POD up until yesterday evening. Many thanks to Silas and Malory for helping us out, even in the snow and sleet. I'm looking forward to spending these next couple of weeks (between moving out of our old place and beginning work on the new place) just hanging out and enjoying Mom's delicious cookery.

packing, moving, rushing.

2010-12-16T07:54:00.000-05:00

I feel like we've been packing for years. We've got a POD and Dan has been loading it up since Monday as much as he can between employment-related and mortgage-related errands, while I'm at work all day. I took the day off yesterday to focus entirely on moving, since our goal was to be staying at my parents' by last night so that we can pack up our bed.

We started the day off right by using some of the last things in the fridge to make strawberry waffles. Oh yes.

Besides running out to get boxes and more newspaper, grabbing lunch at the wonderful Garnett's with the wonderful Chris Lacroix, and being interrupted by mortgage stresses, we packed and loaded all day. At 6:15pm almost the whole kitchen was done, and we called it a day. We loaded up both vehicles, and when we got to my parents' house Mom was making fresh rolls and salad. And making stew for the next day, which she packed for me to take to work. Soooo comforting. Yay Mom!

After dinner I just couldn't yet face working on mortgage paperwork, so I sat on the couch and listened to Christmas music with my family. Dan broke out his celebratory whiskey, a pint of the new Reservoir bourbon. Dad, Dan, and I loved it, and I think Dad said it was the best bourbon he'd tried yet.

I'm glad I got a short break from the chaos, because I ending up staying up until midnight doing paperwork. When my alarm went off at the usual ridiculous hour, I felt like I hadn't even gone to sleep.

Dan goes into the studio to record starting this weekend, so we HAVE to be finished moving out by the end of the workweek. We have plenty of time after that to clean the house out. But until then, more of Dan admiring his handiwork in the POD:

everyday miracles.

2010-12-09T16:36:00.000-05:00

Despite the stream of loan application demands that's still going strong, several other high-priority things that have been hanging over our heads, and packing up our freezing cold house to try to move this weekend, I have to take a moment to just be thankful. A couple of months ago I wasn't as worried about having to provide paperwork as I was about having to provide, you know, money. It turns out I didn't need to worry about money at all (though I should have been very, VERY worried about the paperwork). Things have lined up to keep bills paid, money ready for closing and for starting renovations, and food in our bellies.

Some of the good fortune that has come together to make this happen:

-- generous parents
-- a huge Etsy order
-- a holiday bonus at work
-- lots of writing assignments
-- opportunities for working overtime
-- a free place to stay while we renovate
-- gift cards received and more on the way
-- mountains of free food from work, friends, and family
-- being able sell our dining table and other things to make ends meet

And this is all just in the past month or so.

You always read / hear stories about people who don't appreciate what they have. I just want to scream to the universe, "YES, I do know how blessed I am!"

And now, off to be a packing machine.

paperwork of doom.

2010-12-05T20:37:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the silence...we're buried under loan paperwork. Seriously -- mountains of it. This week has been ruthless. Maybe at some point I'll be recovered enough to actually talk about it. Maybe I'll never speak of it again, ever.

thankful for possibilities.

2010-12-01T06:48:00.000-05:00

I totally forgot to post the pictures from Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving morning, we met up with my family at the new house and showed them around. Look how THRILLED they are just thinking about coming over to help us renovate!

Seriously, the first thing to go is that door. It makes me shudder just looking at it. If there was anything I could do about the fact that somebody slapped a picture window into a Victorian house, trust me, I would. It may just have to be coped with, though. Buying your first house and having very limited resources is like taking a class on How to Compromise.

I also can't wait to get rid of the BEIGE, which, as you all know, I'm allergic to.

What excellent luck: The huge tree in the backyard is perfect for a tree swing or a pinata.

out with the old, etc.

2010-11-29T14:26:00.000-05:00

Things are still progressing with the house, though slowly. We gathered some things from our contractor to turn in to the loan guys, and after that's processed, there will be more financial paperwork for me to do. After that, who knows? The hoops keep appearing and we keep jumping through them.

If there's one thing I don't like, it's uncertainty -- so this whole thing is a huge lesson in patience for me. When I have to uproot my life, I want to at least know what's happening and when. And in this situation with our bizarre renovation loan, I can't. I don't know when exactly to have our mailing address changed, and when I can order a new return address stamp, and when to have our utilities cut off at our current home. I don't know exactly what to pack to take to my parents' house, and what to pack to put in storage, because I have no idea when we'll be moving into our new house. I like to plan ahead and get ahead as much as possible, because I know that inevitably, things go wrong. Delays happen, and if you're ahead of the curve, they won't hurt you as much. But homebuying is a lot of "hurry up and wait," which is just the thing to push my buttons. So I'm indulging in a lot of deep breaths and remembering what's important. And that no matter what, I'll be happy as long as we're both healthy this time next month...no matter what happens or doesn't happen with the house.

This weekend we cleaned the house and took photos of pretty much everything in it, so that we can start packing up. This will undoubtedly be the most painful part for me -- saying goodbye to the great house I've lived in for five and a half years. There's a reason why I've stayed there for so long. And yet, moving on is necessary and exciting.

As I took photos of our current setup, I found myself wondering what will change and what will stay the same as we move. I think that by default, my impulse will be to set rooms up exactly as they have been set up in the past (with less clutter though). I want to simplify, but I want our house to look lived-in and not as sterile as the hyper-minimalistic approach dictates. It will be fun to compare how our rooms look now with how our rooms will eventually look at the new house.

I hope our new house quickly gains that feeling of home that I've appreciated so much in our current house.

Okay, now bring on the million cardboard boxes. I'm ready.

wallpaper ideas.

2010-11-24T14:53:00.001-05:00

As with most of our projects, the problem with wallpaper isn't that I don't have enough ideas, it's that I have too many. I hate having to narrow it down. Anyway, these ideas are probably for accent walls only, because wallpaper is expensive and looks too busy when you use too much. Who knows whether we'll even be able to use two of these ideas? Or if when it comes down to it, whether we'll only be able to afford wallpapering with the Times-Dispatch? I'm keeping my hopes up, at least for wallpaper in particular.

1: historical female scientist!

2: emery & cie.

3: Le Souk (SO Dolores Umbridge!).

4: classic toile.

5: Trustworth.

6: Trustworth again.

7: Wingbug.

8: Woods.

8 again: Woods.

9: Classic blue toile.

10: Raumbild.

11: Albemarle Street.

12: Victorian Line Drawings a la Ralph Lauren.

13: Hybrid.

14: Peacock repeat.

Still to come: ideas for paint colors, wall decals (I still love the chalkboard banner we currently have in our living room) / stencils, and collections for hanging up.

thinsets and other things I never thought I'd care to learn about.

2010-11-23T12:31:00.000-05:00

On Saturday our friends Talia and Curtis came over and we headed to the Tile Shop for our tiling workshop. Guys, I'm now the mayor of the Tile Shop. This is getting serious.

For me the ins and outs of tiling are not very interesting, but I think part of it was the fact that the workshop teacher was entirely unprepared. His whiteboard markers were all dry, and the situation didn't improve despite his quests around the store for more markers. He would say "Okay guys, now we're going to do such-and-such." Then pause, realize he needed something, and wander off to find a bucket or a trowel. The tile he planned on using had "disappeared," leading to -- yet another quest to find some. He clearly knew everything there is to know about tile, but he had a hard time explaining it in a quick and orderly fashion. A quick class that could have taken about an hour was drawn out to 2.5 hours. Torture!

But anyway, I think we learned a lot in spite of the structure of the class. We now know what kind of thinset to use for various scenarios, and how to mix it up properly. The tile guy shared different methods of doing things and his frank opinions about what to spend extra on and what not to, so that was really good information for beginners like us. And Dan and Talia both got to cut tile with a tile saw, which they clearly enjoyed.

The Tile Shop has a bunch of videos and guides online, so I'm sure we're going to be consulting those in the future when it's actually time to start tiling.

workshop geeks.

2010-11-18T14:00:00.000-05:00

Nerd alert! We attended a renovation financing workshop last night, and it was everything we hoped it could be. The workshop was put on by ACORN and led by Richard Day of Prospect Mortgage. It was really informative and helped me to understand renovation lending as a whole, instead of just what we're doing (a 203k). It was also kind of a relief that we already knew most of what was talked about regarding the 203k loan...just sort of nice to know that we've been spot-on in our research up to this point. But we got some new tips that we're going to look into (hello tax abatement), and it was encouraging to be around others who are just starting out with this process, too. Mr. Day was quick and entertaining, and shared a lot of stories from his own renovation. He said:

"You can get one of these old houses and put your own vision into it. Or you can move to Short Pump and choose Model C."

So true. That pretty much sums up why we're doing this. Well that and the ability to find our house when the power's out and you can't see the house numbers.

The fun isn't over, people! We're going to a tile workshop this weekend. Get excited!

firehouse?

2010-11-14T15:37:00.002-05:00

Last night at the City Church harvest party, many wild things happened, including our pastor and his sidekick doing a Hee-Haw-style comedy routine. But James Murphy, who owns a house near ours, also told us that our place has had two fires in recent years. The first one, in 2006, claimed the life of an elderly man -- but not before he saved his wife from the inferno. The second one, in 2008, just seems to have claimed the life of the stairs. Perhaps the next one will claim the life of some hot dogs on the grill? Hopefully the flammability of our house isn't a bad omen -- but Dan and I do like to pick up the shards of dismal situations and build new and awesome things from them. So bring it on.

The man who died in our house was named was William Hackett. Perhaps he benevolently haunts the place and will do nice things like cut the oven off when we forget about it. Or maybe he'll play mean pranks like braiding my hair and Dan's beard together. Not cool, Hackett! Let's agree to live together in peace, okay?

In discussing what to call our new house (our old one having been affectionately called "The Spine"), Dan suggested "The Firehouse," but I think it's way too early to tell what it should be called. And I don't want people to confuse it with these guys. Right now it's "The Big Empty Shell," and we'll see what other distinguishing characteristics arrive as time moves on...

toe-kicks and such.

2010-11-12T14:55:00.001-05:00

So we're really starting to plan in earnest now. Yesterday we went up to Ikea and walked through all their put-together kitchens, opening and shutting all the drawers and being really impressed with the self-closing feature. Then we sat down at a computer, transferred all of our choices and calculations into their system, and got an estimate. The whole process was quite simple, and the people there were really helpful. The estimate ended up being almost exactly what Dan had figured, so that's nice. I'm so proud of him for being so precise. What a Tess thing to say.

If we can rip out the hideous cabinets that exist in our house and replace them with a simple black-and-white color scheme, there will be a little less ugly in the world. I imagine our kitchen will look something like this, with white cabinets and black countertops:

Minus, of course, the lights that make the island look like an operating table. And all the mega-modern handles and such. There's no such thing as going out and buying a Victorian kitchen, but we're going to try to get as close to made-to-look-old as we can.

I'm getting one of those pull-out cabinets like Rachel Ray. I swear not to start saying "YUMMO!" all the time.

Back in Richmond, we wandered through the Tile Shop and got to see some of our bathroom choices in real life. Down with colors that have the words "tuscan" in the title! Long live matte white! It turns out they offer free classes on how to lay tile every Saturday, so we're going to check that out sometime soon.

It's both exciting and exhausting to pick all this stuff out. By the end of the day I was completely over it. Decisions! I like a lot of things, so it's hard to pick.

a tentative thumbs-up?

2010-11-10T16:47:00.000-05:00

Dan met with KC today and he's confident that we can do this, so I guess we're 98% sure this is actually happening. Of course nothing will be 100% sure until we close at the end of the year, but I think -- and Dan should correct me if I'm wrong -- this means I should start getting serious about planning. And about saving cardboard boxes.

At any rate, I've just subscribed to Church Hill People's News. Whoa. P.S., Scott: this does not mean I'm unsubscribing from OregonHill.net. NEVER!

planning gets underway.

2010-11-09T09:13:00.001-05:00

Though we still aren't 100% sure we're really doing this (Dan is supposed to meet with KC to find out tomorrow), planning has commenced.

You'd be amazed at how specific you have to get in order to make an accurate estimate of how much things will cost. There's no such thing as a standard cost for anything. Depending on what kind of bathroom vanity you pick, you could be paying $300 or $3000. So Dan has measured everything and we've spent a ton of time with certain kitchen catalogs and we have a big spreadsheet that details all the costs. Dan's used to these kinds of logistics, having worked in construction for more than a decade. But I'm like "Whoa, I've never even lived in a house where I've had bathroom cabinets." (Since I moved out of my parents' house 11 years ago, I mean.) These are wholly new concepts to me.

So this is what we're up to while we wait!

(trying not to) hold our breath.

2010-11-06T10:25:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the Shebaylo Times. My idea is for this blog to be a chronicle of our home-buying and home-renovating process, as well as a place for our parents and friends to see recent photos and keep up with our life as a family. Maybe later, it'll be the place to see photos of cute babies, but for now, expect lots of before and after photos.

So here's our state of the union up to this point: Dan and I met in 2006, started dating in 2007, got engaged in 2008, got married in 2009, and started house hunting in 2010. On our first wedding anniversary last month we went to look at a house in Church Hill. We put in an offer, and we're now under contract on that house. For sheer perfect timing, it would be cool if things do work out with this house.

Our purpose for buying a house is (at least for me) purely logical: If we pay a huge sum of money every month to live in a house, why don't we start doing that in a house we own? This way we'll be paying roughly the same but actually making an investment instead of throwing that cash into an unprofitable pit. And not now probably, but over time, the difference there will show in our quality of life (i.e., living in a heated house! what a concept!) as well as our ability to give more to church, charities, and the needy....and to save for a rainy day.

During the house hunt, we've mostly been looking at houses that need full renovations. Partly this is because it will save us money in the long run since we can do a lot of the work ourselves or know people who can do it, and partly this is because we don't want to pay a lot for a house full of ugly fixtures we're just going to rip out anyway. You know what I'm talking about. Those brassy bathroom light fixtures, those flimsy brown ceiling fans, those tacky kitchen cabinets that look like they're from an apartment complex in the 1970s.

In order to get a house that's currently uninhabitable, we have to get this loan called a 203k loan, which allows you to do the renovations in a 6-month period. The bank reimburses you for renovations every little while rather than giving you all the money up front, because they've had problems with people planning to "fix up" houses, realizing they've bitten off more than they can chew, and then skipping town and leaving the houses for the bank to try to sell again (see: Great Recession -- thanks a lot for ruining it for the rest of us, guys). Anyway, with a 203k you don't just go out and buy a house like usual, there's a whole process:

Find a house you like and put down an offer.
Offer is accepted by the seller or the bank (if it's a foreclosure like ours is).
House is officially under contract and new owners are given access to the house.
203k guys come and do a feasibility study, which produces a list of renovations that must be done.
A contractor (the magnificent KC in this case) provides a total cost estimate based on the list produced in #4. This is the crucial moment, because this is where you know for sure whether your loan can cover both the cost of the house and the cost of the renovations or not.
Wait a couple of months, close on the house, and start working on it.
Move in with space heaters, a microwave, and suitcases when at least one room and one bathroom are done.
Finish fixing up the house.

Right now we're waiting on #5 to be done -- so while we're 99% sure this thing is really happening, we've been trying valiantly not to get too excited. Things always go wrong, so you should expect them to. This is not a pessimistic mantra, just a realistic one -- and I love being pleasantly surprised when things do go right. So until KC looks at the house with Dan and gives us an estimate, I don't want to start doing much planning

.

One thing we've been praying about all the time is that we will not place our worth in "owning" this building (because what does a pile of bone and flesh ever really own anyway in this short life?) but that we will be absolutely content no matter what works out or goes wrong, because we have our health, our happiness, and our identities invested in Someone else. So far that has remained the case for me.