We kept busy over the warm months this year, primarily focusing on the garage…which still has a way to go…maybe next year! One not so busy weekend, Kit suggested that we tackle finishing the bathroom as it was literally in pieces. We had rebuilt the shower valves, re-grouted the tile, and added a bathroom fan last year, but the wall fabric that had originally been installed in 1928 to prevent moisture seeping into the walls was literally peeling off the walls. The original pedestal sink had a odd 1980s Delta mixer faucet and hand sprayer. The medicine cabinet had relieved itself of the mirror shattering pieces all over the floor as mentioned in the last post and the original bare-bulb light fixture had shorted out and could not be disassembled to allow replacement of its internal socket. Continue reading
time capsule
Taming Our Thorny, Overgrown, and Bland Wilds
We have accomplished some of the things from our list of juggling, but have done a really really poor job of keeping you all up to date. If you have seen our instagram photos you probably know about our bathroom rehab, garage progress (new roof going on last week), and our newest fuzziest addition to the family, but this post is about our landscaping progress thus far.
Crossing Eyes and Dotting Tees
If you are a fellow old house owner dear reader, then you well know to expect the unexpected, or have learned to not be surprised. This past year was, not surprisingly, full of such lessons…so we rolled up our paint stripping tattered sleeves and got to work. What follows in a brief accounting of all of the repair detours we made or identified for next year.
Remember the beautiful job Mike Dube Plastering and Stucco did restoring our kitchen ceiling in Plaster On, Plaster Off? Well our shower and tub had different plans. Continue reading
Seasonal Style without the Seasonal Snow
As I write its 65 degrees outside. Spring bulbs and forsythia have begun to emerge for a premature bloom. Rochester has received a whopping 1.2 inches of snow so far this year…and that happened on one night over a month ago. Last year at Christmas there was over a foot of snow on the ground and temperatures were in the single digits…so needless to say “When you’re still waiting for the snow to fall, It doesn’t really feel like Christmas at all.”
Last year I had mainly focused on just getting used to living on my own as Kit was still living outside of Rochester. We had got a bunch of electric candle lights for the windows, but I had to go to my parent’s house to enjoy any decorations beyond that. Continue reading
The Big…and Colorful…Transformation
I was on a ladder stripping paint until 9am the morning the painters arrived. I was also on a ladder stripping paint and installing reconstructed woodwork the following day before the painters had finished their prep work and priming. To say that we ran up and until the last-minute is a bit of an understatement. You may remember that the front of the house used to look like this on the day we bought it:
My Perfect Little Money Pit 