It's beginning to look a lot like . . . massive electricity bills

Christmas 2009 - One of the reasons I loved our house was that I knew it would look great at Christmas.  According to my dear wife, I have a "problem," that is, I tend to go a little nutty with Christmas decorations.  Think Clarke Griswold with OCD.  So of course, before we even bought the house I had a plan for how I wanted to do Christmas lights, both inside and out.  I even had the electricians add strategically placed outlets for Christmas lights, including one outside and one on top of the mantel.

My initial plan was to use LED bulbs to line the front roof line of the house.  After shopping for them for months online (and seeing how expensive they were), I found that Walmart carried them.  So I bought several hundred feet of lights and over a thousand plastic clips to attach them to the roof.  Due to Monica's ban on early Christmas lights, I wasn't allowed to start putting them up until the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Thankfully, my brother was staying with us that weekend, so I recruited him to help me test the new light strings and pre-mount them on the clips.  That took several hours.  

The failed LED lights

When the lights were finally tested and strung, Randal helped me put them up (in 35 degree weather), including steadying the ladder on top of the porch roof so I could reach the peak of the front gable.  That evening, when it came time for the grand illumination of the roof lights, I was sorely disappointed.  Unfortunately, you get what you pay for and it turned out that the Wally World light strings were all significantly different colors.  I immediately went back up on the roof myself in the dark and took down the offending dimmer strings.  

The next day I went to Walmart and went through over 50 boxes of LED lights, taking each over to an outlet in the corner of the decorations area to test it's color.  When I found enough that I thought I was satisfied with, I took them home and installed them that night on the roof.  This time I had Monica's begrudging help because it was windy and in the high 20's.  I then came off the roof and put up all of the incandescent lights on the porch and along the first story.  

Times Square, Pennsauken, NJ

When I stepped back to take it all in, I again was disappointed.  The allegedly "warm white" LED's were a totally different color than the incandescent strings and my OCD kicked into high gear again.  So I went back up on the roof and tore down all of the LED lights.  I decided that the mix of LEDs and incandescents would never work, so I was back at Walmart the next day, stocking up on thousands of icicle lights.  That night, with temperatures hovering around 20 with 15-10 mph winds, I installed the icicle lights.  I was thoroughly frozen, but happy with the outside.  

The living room decorations

Then I turned to the inside, putting up the tree, hand lighting the new wreath above the mantel and basically putting lights everywhere Monica would tolerate.  When I was finished (although not completely satisfied because I was not allowed to light every room in the house), my Christmas-light-o-tacular vision was pretty close to being realized.  Our house just looks naturally great at Christmas.  Then we were buried by a huge blizzard the week before Christmas, which dumped over 24 inches of snow on us.  That was a wonderful little touch by Mother Nature to make my decorations complete.  All the while I was out shoveling, Monica had old fashioned Christmas music playing through the porch speakers to give our whole neighborhood some cheer (see the video below).  

However, due to that snowfall, the very low temperatures, and even more snow and ice afterwards, I wasn't actually able to get up on the roof to remove the lights until the end of January.  We went from Christmas classic to hot-mess rednecks in a few short week.  That and we got our electric bill which went up over $200 for the time when the lights were up (I still insist the meter was read wrong).  Oh well.  At least I got to stock up on after Christmas clearance lights (several more thousand) to work up my planned Christmas 2010 spectacular!

Why Do Things Keep Breaking?!?

Thanksgiving 2009 - The week before Thanksgiving, I taught a class on the evening of the 18th. I had not been feeling well and by the end of that class, I started losing my voice. Over the course of the next week I became increasingly more hoarse until finally, on Thanksgiving morning, I woke up with absolutely no voice. I called my parents to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving, and literally had to give the phone to Taylor to interpret. I decided at that point that I would not even try to speak again until Randal, Alicia & Riley arrived as planned on Friday. I'm not sure whether Taylor saw this as an inconvenience, or the best thing that could happen to a man, but in either event I was silent for the next two days.

We kept busy on Thursday and Friday preparing for our guests. There was plenty of laundry to be done - sheets, tablecloth, etc. - and since Taylor has actually asked "Which one's the washer?" in the past, I didn't even both asking for his help. As the loads progressed, it seemed to me that things were taking longer to dry than usual. I was mildly annoyed, but figured I was just being impatient (me? never!) and kept resetting the dryer.

We had plans for the Heide crew to come to dinner on Saturday, but RA&R came over on Friday so Alicia could get up with me bright and early Saturday to begin preparing the spread. Alicia and I spent most of the day in the kitchen and when the guests began arriving, we opened a bottle of wine and enjoyed the fruits of our labor.

One of our guests, Eileen, arrived with the most amazingly thoughtful, beautiful gift. Months before, Eileen had overheard us talking about how we would love to have someone paint a picture of our house. We had gotten the idea back when we were house hunting. Well, would you believe that Eileen had proceeded to take pictures of our house (while sitting inside her daughter's car incognito and hoping no one called the cops) and her gift to us that Thanksgiving was the most beautiful painting of our little house you could possibly imagine?!? We are forever grateful for her unbridled thoughtfulness!!

We ate, enjoyed one another’s company, and breathed a sigh of relief when the dishes were done and guests had gone home. Well, all but three. RA&R decided to stay an extra night since Randal was going to the Eagles game on Sunday and figured Alicia could drop him off at the Linc on her way home.

Alicia woke up early Sunday morning to run a load of laundry so everyone would have clean clothes to wear. A few hours later, as Randal was starting to get ready for the game, Alicia went down to check on the clothes in the dryer. They were soaking wet. From what I remember, Alicia had already reset the dryer at least once and could not for the life of her figure out why the clothes seemed to be just as wet as when she put them in. I sheepishly disclosed that I thought something was wrong with the dryer, but had hoped maybe it would go away if I pretended not to notice.

At this point Randal needed to get dressed and out the door to make it in time for kickoff. Just about everything he owned was wet, so we had to assess our options. We quickly realized he would have to borrow clothes from Taylor . . . but what would fit?! We pieced together an outfit that made Randal look like a little kid dressed in grown ups clothes, and sent them on their way.

Once they were gone, Taylor and I ran out the door to Lowes to start pricing new dryers. Yet again, we seemed to be struck with unbelievably fortunate timing. We walked down the first aisle and saw a floor model Samsung dryer on sale for $350, down from the MSRP of $1,070. We immediately bought it, and it was delivered the very next day.

Attack of the Killer Oak

Summer 2009 - At the end of our driveway near the old barn stood a massive old oak tree.  The 6 story tall tree was partially on our property and partially in our neighbor's back yard.  It had actually grown completely through a 19th century wrought iron fence that now ran through the middle of the 5 foot plus diameter trunk.  When we bought the house, it was winter so there were no leaves on the tree and we thought nothing of it.  However, when spring rolled around, we noticed that most of the tree remained bare and was apparently dead.  We knew we'd have to do something about it eventually, but we had other projects in mind that were higher up on the list.



Welcome home!

 One Sunday as we were returning home from church, we turned onto our street only to be greeted by a platoon of police cars and emergency vehicles in our driveway.  All sorts of thoughts went though our heads.  We were worried that either an elderly neighbor had gotten sick or that our house had blown up or fallen down.  We quickly learned that it was a sort of combination of both. 

I almost flipped over my truck as a I pulled up to the curb and we jumped out to see a man sitting in our driveway bleeding, surrounded by emergency personnel and with our neighbors Matt and Roxy.  We also noticed a huge branch of the oak laying in the driveway strewn next to a chainsaw.  We came to find out that Matt and Roxy had a friend over to trim a branch that was overhanging their yard.  However, the friend doing the work had been perched on a ladder and wasn't tied off to anything.  As he had cut halfway through the huge dead branch, it had snapped and hurled him and his chainsaw 20 feet down onto our driveway.  Fortunately he wasn't seriously injured, but we agreed with Matt and Roxy that we'd all need to save money to take the tree down soon.



Yes it is

Given the proximity to the Delaware River, our area is prone to very strong thunderstorms in the summer (and heavy snow in the winter).  One evening a particularly strong storm rolled through and I was sitting out on the front porch enjoying the show.  Monica had come home, but left her car at the front of the driveway because she was going to go back out and meet some friends.  As she and I were talking on the porch, we heard a deafening CRACK, followed by a loud crash.  I jumped up to look around the corner back towards the tree and my worst fears were realized.  A massive branch of the old oak had snapped and landed across the hood and roof of my truck.  If Monica's car had been where she normally parks, it would have been totaled.  As I ran out the back door to move the crippled truck, I heard another huge CRACK sound as an entire tree from a neighbor's yard was struck by lightning and fell across most of our back yard.



The Killer Oak's Final Battle



When the storm subsided, we surveyed the damage.  The truck was pretty banged up and would require a couple thousand dollars in repairs.  After Matt and I saw that another branch had pierced the roof of his garage, we knew we couldn't wait any longer to have the monster oak taken out.  After getting quotes, we had a tree removal company come out the next week.  Because we had to pay for the tree removal, many of our planned projects had to take a back seat.   Again, the property decided what it wanted done on it's own schedule, not ours.  Our other neighbor (or Weird Steve as we call him) had the second tree removed from our yard. 



 It took our crew three days with a bucket truck to remove the tree.  We were left with enough firewood for 10 years and a pile of wood chips 12 feet across and over 4 feet high.  When we counted the rings in the tree stump, we found out it was over 120 years old.  Although it was a mighty foe, the great old oak ultimately succumbed to the whine of a chainsaw. Vengance is mine, albeit via my smoker BBQ and the fireplace!

Curb appeal

The Old Blah Facade

Summer 2009 - When we purchased our little old house, it didn't have a whole lot of curb appeal.  The facade was a rather drab mix of dirty ivory colored siding, dingy white trim, and old windows.  Altogether it was in relatively good shape, mostly due to the vinyl siding and the fact that the porch had recently been re-decked. We really loved the lines of the house and we knew that with a little elbow grease, we could make the old girl stand out again.

Deep Purple

Although the original antique storm door was intact, it was, for some unknown reason painted a very dark purple.  The glass in the storm door had apparently broken many years before and had been hastily replaced with plexiglass that had long since discolored and warped.  As the first project, we took down the storm door and Monica and I spent many hours stripping off layer after layer of old paint to get down to the wood.  I then replaced the glass and patched up some of the larger holes and other battle scars in the door.  Monica then painted it a bright red with black accent trim.  Monica also painted the window casings black to make our newly installed windows stand out and add some more contrast to the facade.  The old cast iron hand rails also got a fresh coat of glossy black paint.

The electricians had run speaker wire out to the front porch, so I put up a pair of speakers for outdoor music.  I installed a new antique-copper Arts and Crafts doorbell from Van Dyke's Restorers to replace the old broken button.  We replaced the old mailbox (which leaked and left us with sopping wet mail) with a craftsman style (and water proof) model to compliment the similarly styled pendant light that the electricians had installed previously.  Monica also picked up some cool mission style house numbers from Restoration Hardware. 

The facelift of the house was rounded out by a set of white porch rockers and an antique milk can, painted red to match the door, that came from a farm owned by one of my ancestors from Amish Country in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  We've been so pleased to have many neighbors and passers-by stop and comment on how they liked what we've done to the house.  Even when you're exhausted and covered in saw dust from some project, that's always a great thing to hear.

And so the trim work begins

Ghosts of the Old Baseboads

Spring 2009 - So when the electricians went through to rewire the first floor of the house, that involved removing many of the original baseboard moldings in the living room and dining room.  Well, "removing" is probably too gentle of a word.  It was more like "forceable ejection by hammer."  So that left us with old trim boards laying around and large areas of plaster missing where it had ripped off or crumbled away with the removal of the baseboards. 

Unfortunately, given that the outlets from the old electrical system were cut into the baseboards and the moldings were in rough shape, it didn't make sense for us to try to reuse them.  So we looked to find a replacement that would maintain the historic character of the house.  Fortunately, Lowes, in cooperation with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, carries a selection of historic reproduction trim pieces from a selection of famous historic homes throughout the United States.  We chose baseboard molding that was reproduced from the original trim from Belle Grove Plantation, located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virigina (GO GENERALS!).  This was not only the largest base molding in the product line, but it also matched our original stock the best. 

I had to rebuild and patch the missing areas of plaster.  Then it took John and I the course of almost an entire day to install the molding in just our living room.  Granted, we had lots of bizarre angles to match and none of the walls were square, but we got it done.  Thank goodness for painters caulk to fill in some of our joints that weren't exactly "perfect."

A little while later, Monica and I installed the base trim in the dining room.  We also decided to install a chair rail in the room, so we also chose the Belle Grove chair rail molding and installed that.  Luckily, the more trim I install, the better my joints get and the smaller our caulk patching budget gets!

As a testament to how our house projects tend to go, we still haven't finished the trim work in the living room and dining room well over a year after we started.  All that is left is to install quarter round shoe molding at the bottom of the base molding and it will be finished.  We bought all the quarter round we needed and we were all ready to prime and install it, but then 15 other projects interceded and the trim pieces are still laying in the basement.  Maybe some day I'll get to completely finish a project!

The Tale of the CO and the Windows

Spring 2009 - One of the issues that came up during the period between signing our contract and officially closing on our house was the Certificate of Occupancy (aka "CO"). John had warned us that our township was notorious for tacking on ridiculous requirements, and our house was not spared. Case in point: shortly before closing, we were notified that the township was refusing to issue a CO due to "chipping paint on the exterior of the first floor windows."

For those who may not know, a CO ensures the habitability of a structure. Things like "Does the house have windows?" would be a valid question. "Are they pretty windows?" would not. Nonetheless, we were being told that we would only be given a temporary CO until we "scraped, painted and reglazed" the exterior of all first floor windows (there are 12). Never mind that the second floor windows looked just as bad - apparently they did not care. And this temporary CO would only be good for 90 days, after which time we would literally be locked out of the house if we failed to meet the requirements of a permanent CO.




Exhibit A - The old windows



Don't get me wrong, we were in complete agreement with the township's assessment that the windows were both unattractive and inefficient. The problem, as we saw it, was that our ultimate goal of replacing every window in the house made it a complete waste of time and money to "scrape, paint and reglaze" the original windows. And unfortunately, we could not possibly afford to replace all 22 windows (the original estimate we got was $22,000 - which, by the way, we would NEVER pay) or even the 12 on the first floor, within 90 days of closing.

What we were able to do in the first 90 days was replace the 5 windows on the front of the house. We wrote to the township and basically begged them to see what great strides we were making and trust that we intended to continue replacing windows as we were able. Thankfully, it worked! We were granted a permanent CO and no longer had to worry about coming home to signs rendering our house "uninhabitable" because of our ugly windows.



The Replacements



For thos who might be interested - we ended up going with American Craftsman 8500 series windows. The largest windows in our living room and dining room are over 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide, and ran around $200 each. Tom at the Home Depot in the Market Place at Garden State Park in Cherry Hill was incredibly helpful in walking us through the installation process and to date we have installed 11 windows all by ourselves (read: free installation)!

Color Wars

April 2009 – We closed on the house on March 9, 2009, making Easter (April 12, 2009) our first holiday there. We had the bright idea that inviting the extended fam to join us for Easter dinner would motivate us to get lots of work done during that first month. Genius, really. As you've already heard, we were (barely) successful in finishing the hardwood floors and getting the electrical work done before we moved in the last weekend of March.



Monica's Rainbow

One of the first things I always do when moving into a new place is paint. It started with my first apartment sophomore year in college. My roommate and I painted our living/dining space a crazy fire-engine-esque red that was so popular the apartment complex actually asked us for the specific color (which I’ve long forgotten) so they could paint other units with it. 

When I first moved up to New Jersey, I knew I would have to paint the soaring 16 foot walls of my Victor Loft. I went with a bright Tiffany blue (again, the specific color is now forgotten) for the entire living/dining/kitchen space (minus this one pesky corner that was nearly impossible to reach and remained unpainted for a good 6 months). 



So of course, when I had the opportunity to paint a space that I actually OWN (good riddance to the days of having to paint walls back to their original (boring) color when I leave) . . . there was no stopping me!! 

Benjamin  Moore Putnam Ivory



Benjamin Moore Powel Buff

Even before we closed on the house I had paint chips hanging on the wall of our old townhouse and constantly tortured Taylor with the nuances between colors like these two.  

After much debate (this is what happens when two lawyers get married) we agreed upon the Putnam Ivory for use in the common areas of our house.

And of course I just HAD to get paint on the walls before we hosted our first Easter celebration. With all that we were trying to accomplish, it literally came down to the wire with me putting paint on the last wall of the living room about an hour before guests began arriving. Luckily we used eco-friendly Aura paint, so there was virtually no odor and dinner went off without a hitch!

The monster in the basement

April 2009 - One evening Monica ventured into the basement (which she was still a little scared of because Texans aren't used to being underground except for tornadoes or burials).  She came back upstairs and said that she thought it smelled more damp than usual.  So we went down with flashlights and were alarmed to find that part of the floor was reflecting back at us.  Yup, water.

For all your terlet needs

We traced the water back to the culprit - the hot water heater had ruptured.  I was immediately convinced that the previous owners stuck bubble gum on the bottom of the tank to make it not leak just long enough to sell the dump.  We killed the water line to it and immediately got on the phone to my brother who works for Ferguson - a massive national plumbing, lighting and fixture retailer - (but he tells people he sells "terlets" for a living) and ordered a new unit.  We'll be calling our boy at Ferguson many times throughout this house remodel for more orders.

Figure A - What not to do

We upgraded to a 50 gallon Bradford White Defender (because it sounds like it can kick some ass) Energy Star model from the previous bucket with a candle under it system.  Because we have natural gas service (and I had never done gas connections before), it was a little touch and go when we started checking for gas leaks.  Over a year later, my fingers are still crossed and we still have hot water, but to date, there have not been any (unexpected) explosions.

Appliances - Round 1

The Old "Mini" Fridge

March 2009 - Although you could chalk another one up to our "vision" for the house, when we bought it, the outdated kitchen was sorely lacking in modern conveniences.  Mainly, the only appliances present were an old almond colored builder's grade range and an apartment fridge so small that most college freshmen in the dorms would reject it.  Also conspicuously absent from the party were a dishwasher, microwave and disposal.  

The Upgrade

Monica made it clear that she would not be able live without a dishwasher.  In turn, I made it clear that I would not be able to survive with a fridge that could barely fit enough food for one feeding for me.  So we set about shopping the local big box stores looking for deals.  We found a massive dutch door, bottom freezer GE Profile stainless steel fridge at Best Buy that was a floor model.  We negotiated the price down $1,500 from the original MSRP.  At the same time, we also bought a GE Clean Steel tall tub diswasher, which, after our coupons and a sale price, was almost $200 off of the full retail price.  We also rang up my brother at Ferguson (more on his company later) and ordered an InSinkErator Badger 5 garbage disposal.  Randal had assured me that it was more than capacity than we needed and that he had frequently experimented with his smaller disposal by "feeding" it different items to watch it chop them up (knowing him, it was probably beer bottles and 2x4s, so I knew that was good enough).  

The Clean Steel Dishwasher

The appliances were all delivered and installed before we actually moved in to the house.  The massive stainless steel models we selected made our dilapidated 1920's kitchen look even more ridiculous.  Unfortunately, after a few months, we noticed that the door of the freezer didn't quite seal properly.  I finally got around to calling GE's customer service and a repair tech came out.  He looked at the freezer for about 3 minutes and informed me that he couldn't fix the issue.  Obviously disappointed, I asked where that left us.  He said "oh, it's no problem.  Just call GE on Monday and they'll send you a whole new fridge." 



The Replacement Icebox - It's
like getting a hug of
chilled goodness



As is often the case when I concoct a scheme to try get a deal, my loving wife assumed her traditional role of Doubting Thomas and assured me that there was some catch.  Turns out she was right, there was a catch.  When I gave the GE representative the model number of our fridge, she looked it up.  The lady apologized and said that was a 2007 model and they didn't make it anymore.  I explained that we had bought it new only a few months before, so she checked her notes and verified that.  She then apologized profusely again and asked if we would be willing to accept a 2010 model!  I almost fell out of my chair.  The brand new 2010 model was delivered a few days later for no charge and it continues to preserve our delicious meats and other necessaries to maintain my sustenance requirements. 

The Electric - Phase 1

Knob and Tube

March 2009 - When we signed our contract for the house, it was full of 1920's knob and tube wiring with a very old electrical service connection.  The 50 amp service panel only had six breakers for the whole house - which means that if I turned on my television, the house would have basically blown up and burned down (could have been an awesome 4th of July party effect though).  The old knob and tube wiring was a system of hot wires wrapped in cloth running through porcelain relays in the house.  It was basically one step more advanced than a kite string and a key.   It's potentially extremely hazardous if it gets disturbed, so that had to go.

Electrical Service Being Replaced Outside

So we negotiated with the sellers to have the service panel upgraded to 150 amp.  We wanted 200 amp and were willing to pay for it, but for some reason they refused.  We gave up and accepted the 150 amp. 



The Chandelier



During the month of March before we moved in, we had a team of electricians (Monica didn't trust me to do the wiring work - I didn't care for her lack of faith, but went along with it).  For many nights as we were sanding or working on other things, the electricians disconnected all of the wiring for the first floor and basement (we couldn't afford the second floor yet) and replaced it with modern lines.   They also installed several new light fixtures, including a stained glass chandelier and ornate ceiling medalion in the dining room.  Their work was capped off by wiring for a 7.1 channel home theater in the living room walls and speakers for the front porch and back yard.

The Plaster Horseman of Rogers Avenue

One of the unexpected joys of the electrical work being done came when the electricians started to cut into the old plaster walls.  On the first cut, one of the guys freaked out because he saw what appeared to be hair in the wall.  He jumped back because he thought it was some animal or mabye a dead body.  After some cautious investigation, we discovered it was actually horsehair that had been used in the old plaster for stability.  Ironically, for a little while after that discovery, Monica had dreams about horses in our house.  So far, we luckily have avoided any real life vengeful equine attacks.

The first project - Refinishing the floors

The Killer Old Carpet

March 2009 - As soon as we arrived at the house on the afternoon of closing with the keys in hand, we immediately started working. On the first day, we cut and ripped out all of the carpet throughout the house. Along with that came clouds of dirt and dust that had accumulated for forty plus years. Unbeknowst to us, the carpet was a much more powerful foe and apparently objected to being ripped out.  It was actually so strong, that it got Monica sick and she ended up in the emergency room the next day. She recovered quickly, but from then on we made sure to wear our stylish Darth Vader full-face respirators.   Nevertheless, the carpet lost that battle in the back of the garbage truck.

The Dining Room Floor - Before

Under the carpets were solid hardwood oak floors. Unfortunately, they had seen better days and had bizzare patterns left in the wood (we never figured out why), so we knew we had to sand and refinish them. Before that could start, we had to pull thousands of carpet staples out of the hardwood throughout the house. That process took well over a week even with multiple people helping. Each day after working a full day at the office, we would head over to the house and work on removing staples into the wee hours.  I also spent many nights contorted on the staircase, sanding the risers and treads by hand.  Thank God for the power of OCD ! 

The Living Room With Giant Sander - Before

Then one Friday in March, it came time to start the serious sanding. We had less than two weeks left before we had to move in, so we had to start refinishing the floors because the stain and polyurethane had to cure for at least a week before furniture could be put on it. So we rented a huge commercial sander from Home Depot and started work. We were both sleep deprived, so we stopped the very loud machine at about 10:00 PM on Friday night - also so our neighbors wouldn't call the law down on us. The next morning we were at Home Depot at 6:30 AM to pick up more supplies for the sander and then got to work. We kept sanding all day, some with the machine and some with a hand sander on our hands and knees.

The Living Room After Sanding

We returned the rented machine at about 6:00 PM, but we had to go back and keep working. At this point, we were literally dragging our feet we were so beat.  But every surface in the house was covered with fine saw dust, so we had to clean everything - that process took until about 11:00 PM that night. Because we were on such a tight timeline, we had to start staining the floors immediately. We worked on staining throughout the entire night - hands shaking from coffee and Red Bull - and finished as I stained us out of the front door at 5:30 AM the next morning. 23 hours of non-stop work on a house we didn't even live in yet!

That week we started applying the three coats of sealer. Monica picked out a low VOC organic product called Polywhey. It's actually a polyurethane type sealer, but it's made out of the byproducts of Vermont cheddar cheese. Yes, cheese.  My brother has since threatened to rub crackers on our floor to see if it tastes good (I have tried and it does not). Due to the March weather, the poly took longer to dry than normal, so we ended up having to move in before the floors had cured. That resulted in our downstairs furniture having to sit on the front porch covered in plastic for a week or so. I'm sure our new neighbors appreciated that redneck look.  All we needed was a Chevy on blocks in the yard and we'd have been perfect.

The Finished Product - Now With Extra Cheese Flavor!

Eventually we were able to enjoy the fruits of our labor (it was one of the most exhausting projects we have done) with the end result of the finished floors. But just as our luck would have it, we talked to a floor finishing company at an Old Home Show a week later and found out they could have done it professionally for about $100 more than we spent on our own materials and supplies. I almost stepped out into traffic after hearing that.  Lesson learned - never refinish hardwood floors ourselves again.

What did we get ourselves into?

The Living Room

February 2009 - Although we know that few people can appreciate just how bad our house was when we bought it, here is a selection of shots of how the house looked before we bought it. 

The living room featured dirty old teal-colored carpets that were at least 40 years old.  We later discovered large holes in the floor here and in the dining room from the old coal furnance vents that were hidden by the nasty carpet.  The fireplace was just an open hole, covered with years worth of soot and with a mesh screen hanging in front.  The windows (over six feet tall) were terribly old,  peeling (lead paint - mmm, mmm good!) and drafty (when the wind blew outside, the curtains would move).  The lovely window treatments throughout the house were just scraps of old material.

The Dining Room

The dining room was more of the same, with the dirty carpet and an odd hump in the floor (still trying to figure out how to fix that).  Dingy walls and a rusted two-bit chandelier rounded out this room.  At least the dingy walls extended up to ceilings over  nine feet high on the first floor.

The Gourmet Kitchen

The kitchen was a masterpiece of mid-century disastrous design.  Although the room is large, it is oppressed by horrible dark wood paneling, a handful of dirty original cabinets from the 1920's and a tiny apartment refrigerator (which certainly could not hold enough food to feed me).  Not even the super awesome almond-colored range could distract you from the lack of a dishwasher or disposal.

The powder room off of the bathroom was a tour-de-force of old lady decor.  Pink floor tiles and pink tiles halfway up the walls, with a blue sink sticking out of the wall.  The walls were accented by fantastic blue and pink flower wall paper which was covering even older brown, blue and pink butterfly wallpaper.

The Pink Room

The largest bedroom did feature a different carpet color from the teal elsewhere.  Unfortunately, it was pink.  But that perfectly complimented the Pepto-Bismol pink color, which was clearly a favorite of the previous owners, that adorned the cracked plaster walls.  The blinds here and throughout the house were so dirty (think inches of grime) that they couldn't be salvaged.  At least they covered the extremely drafty, peeling and broken old windows present up here too.

The Front Bedroom

Hooray!  The front bedroom had newer carpet, but unfortunately, we soon found it wasn't secured to anything.  It was just a remnant that was thrown in there.  Only later did we learn that it was covering a fist-sized hole in the floor that went oh so nicely with the cracked walls and ceilings.  The window treatments were more scraps of fabric draped over rusted curtain rods here too.

The Third Bedroom

The third bedroom was where the cracked plaster really had a chance to shine.  Large cracks (some over eight feet long) ran through the walls and ceiling and in some areas, the plaster was noticeably separating from the lath behind.  Another remnant of carpet was on the floor here, but this one was much older and didn't cover the entire floor.  The room also showcased the fabulous electrical system (1920's knob and tube) that powered the house, which included wire runs outside of the walls in metal moldings nailed onto the baseboards.

The Luxurious Bathroom

The one full bath was also amazingly non-functional and decrepit.  Again, there was only one sink jutting out from the wall that was barely big enough to wash your hands in.  The floor was covered in peeling linoleum tiles and the tub was actually sloped backwards away from the drain (you had to squeegee it out after a shower).  The walls were virtually covered with festive mold and mildew.

After looking at these pictures, I'm really not sure what we were thinking.  Although the structure of the house was sound, every single square inch of the interior needed to be redone.   

The Haunted House Barn

And then there was the old barn out back that was barely standing.  It had fairly significant termite damage and was leaning at a number of alarming angles.  Because of the dirt floor and the spooky old interior, Monica was afraid to even go inside of it.  It looked more like the set of a horror movie than a functional structure (I thought it was cool).  I mean really, who buys a property with buildings that you're afraid to step inside? 

I guess that would be us . . .

And so it begins . . .

January 2009 - Basically an hour after we got back from our honeymoon in October 2008, we started thinking about buying our first house. We waited until after Christmas to really get down to actually shopping for a property. Being the manic type-A people that we are, we researched literally 1,000's of properties. Our real estate agent/best friend/groomsman John had to deal with our insanity as we tried to find something perfect, but cheap. 

The Little Old House that Could

One cold night in January 2009, John (along with his wife Melissa, who was one of our bridesmaids) took us on our first showing. It was an early 1900's house on Rogers Avenue on the border of Pennsauken and Merchantville, New Jersey. It looked like a combination of bungalow, craftsman, and farmhouse styles. From the outside it looked great. Great facade, two stories, big old-fashioned porch, an old two story carriage house/barn out back and the neighborhood was full of beautiful old homes.

However, inside was a different story. Most of the interior was resplendent in the gaudy decor of the fifties/sixties and it was obvious that after a "renovation" some fifty years ago (which basically ruined all the historic character of the building), absolutely nothing had been done to the place. Dirty teal and pink carpets covered the old hardwoods throughout the house. The faux paneled kitchen (complete with chrome trimmed countertops with a bronze boomerang pattern) was terrible. Complementing the dingy old kitchen was a powder room with glorious pink tile floors and wainscoting, a blue sink jutting out from the wall and blue and pink flower wall paper up to the ten foot ceilings. The second floor was more of the same with cracked plaster and a full bath that even hobos would refuse to use. 

Melissa and Monica had only walked a few steps into the house when they saw a little built-in cabinet in the dining room tucked under the stairs. Melissa turned to Monica and said "you guys are going to buy this house." Given the state of disrepair of the house (we were also pondering a strange hump in the dining floor at the time), we laughed her comment off.

After seeing all these problems, we left and continued on with several more months of research and showings, and offers and rejections. Every time we started to feel overwhelmed by our quasi-impossible search criteria (everything for nothing), we both kept coming back to that quaint old house on Rogers Avenue. Finally, we completely lost our minds and figured "yeah sure, we can fix that house ourselves.  We'll just need to buy some awesome tools and it will be a piece of cake."  Famous last words.

So we bought it on March 9, 2009 and immediately started the work on the afternoon of closing. We quite literally haven't stopped working since. This blog tells the tales of our joy and horror, through clouds of sawdust and piles of rubble, as we work to restore (and live in) our little old house.