labor day

plant from genannenew tools for neen

(left) doesn’t the housewarming plant from genanne look nice in the upstairs kitchen? (right) i got my own tools, bag and gloves!

foyer carpetlinoleum #1 detail

(left) today i pulled up the carpet in the foyer downstairs. (right) linoleum #1.

janeen and lino #2linoleum #2 detail

AND under that, linoleum #2! this one will be tricky. it was glued down and there’s major water damage near the door. not sure how the wood survived…

mathew demo 1mathew demo 2

upstairs: mathew took out the tile, chicken-wire, and mortar floor. noisy.

dust 1dust 3dust 4

the dust was thick and photogenic. (yes, genanne, we’re both wearing our masks.)

bathroom floor 1bathroom floor 2

(left) “i hope the toilet made it down okay.”

just kidding, it’s in the garage. the bathroom is now completely empty.

looking up

there are many lamps on the first floor. and they all look like they’ve been there for many, many years.

office lampfoyer lamp

(left) in my future office. notice the funny dangling teardrop crystals? (right) in the foyer.

second entry lampliving room lamp

(left) in the second entrance. yes, there are two entrances. (right) in the living room. very “pink french poodle.”

bedroom lampkitchen lamp

(left) in the bedroom. (right) in the kitchen. (ack! that one’s got to go. but the rest are starting to grow on me.)

and there are no lamps on the second floor, just sad naked light bulbs.

now the hard part

today we met up with janeen’s friend, genanne, for a picnic – at the house, of course. she introduced us to a really tasty mexican food restaurant just blocks from our house, la taqueria. (janeen says: and she brought us a super cute potted plant as our first housewarming gift. must take photo! and why aren’t there photos of our guest? i think we were starving.)

picnic in the officecookies, tomatoes and tacos

we had a surprise visitor while we were eating – dee dee, the wonderful real estate agent who helped us buy this house, showed up with cookies and home-grown tomatoes for us. (j: and again, sadly, no photo of dee dee…)

mathew’s workshop

adjusting garage doorafter moving in many of my tools – finally i have a workshop – we discovered, last week, that the lock on the garage door was broken. it did not appear to be broken at first, but when you put a key into it – any key – you could twist the entire lock and unlock the garage door. i couldn’t wait to get in there and fix it. i’m now a locksmith. i cannibalized another lock in the house that’s broken, and rekeyed the garage door lock to match one of the house keys for another door. don’t need any more keys.

while janeen was busy entertaining her friend, I continued with the upstairs bathroom. I was determined to finish stripping all the walls, ceiling, and get the bathtub out of there.

left cornerright corner

janeen pulling nails out of every tiny piece of woodjaneen did some major cleanup (j: and recycling!) – there was dust, broken tile, broken wall board and plywood, nails, plaster all piled on the floor and in the bath tub. then we took out the cast iron tub and we maneuvered it downstairs. more good news (for me): the sewer pipe, which i thought i was going to have to move, is already in the right place for the new toilet location.

just one more thing to do before we can start on the rough plumbing: the floor tile was set in mortar with metal lathe embedded in it. we need to take this out to get the toilet out (it is embedded in the mortar), and to change the plumbing for the new toilet location, and the shower.

home renovation is addictive

my brother justin and his wife najia were in town and they dropped by to see the house. around 5, when they were supposed to be leaving, justin had to know what was under the carpet. i gave him some tools and he got to work in my future office.

justin

under the hideous blue carpet, deteriorating padding and strange linoleum are hardwood floors! and they’re actually quite nice. justin said it was like finding a treasure.

najiacarpet be gone

najia, who minutes earlier didn’t want justin touching this stuff without gloves, got down on her hands and knees and started helping too. we were determined to uncover the floor today.

lino be gonecurtains be gone

with only one set of tools, justin worked his way around the room removing the tack strips, while najia took down the outdated drapes.

clothes line

meanwhile mathew was outside (risking his life!!) climbing a 30 foot pole to connect his “solar powered clothes dryer. ” i wish i’d gotten photos of the climbing…

gis

but don’t his karate gis look nice drying in the sunset?

office floor

after justin and najia left i continued to pull up the staples and tacks and removed the linoleum. thanks to justin and najia, i now have a hardwood floor in my office!

thursday

mathew spent the entire day at the house, determined to strip the bathroom down to the studs. he got one corner stripped and took apart the plumbing.

studscrawl space

to get to the plumbing he went through a closet wall. and behind that wall was all this crawl space. for deeper built-ins? secret storage space?

more tile

i showed up in the afternoon and helped take down the tile on this wall. we’ve been trying to be careful so that we can re-use the white tile or bring it to urban ore. we’re hoping to use urban ore for as much recycled building material as possible. because home renovation isn’t very earth friendly…

supermathew

so i went to the house this afternoon thinking i’d start ripping out the tile. it was hard work and going really slowly. a couple hours later mathew shows up in his office clothes and completely takes down a wall in minutes and continues to rip out tile like he’s got superhuman powers…

supermathewsupermathew

debrisdebris box