Conclusions

When I think back over the past year, I truly think my husband and I were sort of nuts this year. During the past 9-12 months, we have added a vegetable branch to our blueberry farm business and completely renovated a century-old house. Besides that, I also personally took on extra responsibility at my university by serving as interim division chair for one year, and I (only two weeks ago) published my second novel, A Permanent Home. Wow. The only thing on that list that was even remotely in our plans at this time last year was the novel - just goes to show what surprises life can throw in a person's path!

I thought those of you who have followed this year's sporadic posts might like to see a couple of shots of the finished house project. Well, it's not completely "finished"; we decided, after doing all the work to make it so nice inside, that we wanted to replace the mismatched, old, inefficient windows as well. However, our loan wouldn't cover that, so we'll replace one or two a month as we have the funds. So just ignore that ugliness. Also, our son moved in before I had a chance to go around and document all the finished rooms, but maybe it's nicer to see the house with some furniture, anyway.

So...let me take you on a virtual tour.

What is now the front door originally was one of TWO front doors, the one that opened into the master bedroom with two closets. The brick chimney was encased in wooden planks and drywall, and the hardwood floors were covered with nasty tan carpet. We also removed the wall that separated the two rooms that are now the living room and kitchen/dining room to create a very open "living" space. It's one of our favorite features of the house now.

Looking from the kitchen into the living room.

The kitchen still has quite a bit of work to finish. A friend from church is a cabinet maker, and he and my husband built the cabinet boxes. The doors aren't finished yet, which is ok with us, since the friend is being incredibly generous and giving us a great price on the cabinets. Another feature we like is the ebony stain on the cabinets. The wood to build the cabinets came from an ash tree that had fallen on our farm; the ebony stain is enough to make the cabinets dark, but the wood grain still shows through. The dark cabinets look great with the white appliances and the light countertop. I can't wait to see them with the doors.

And the dining area on the other side of the kitchen will be nice and bright once the new windows are in place.

I'm very pleased with the way the bathroom turned out. Almost all the tile for the shower was recycled, either from the remodel of our shower at home or from mistakenly buying too much tile for the floor. We originally had a pedestal sink, but the door wouldn't open all the way, and finally my husband got tired of listening to me complain about that, and we put in a new sink with a cabinet to hide the fact that the plumbing is off-center now. But I'm actually glad we got the cabinet; the bathroom needed a little more storage space.

The glass block window is another favorite feature. The previous owners had simply painted over and hidden a window behind a closet; we decided to try to save the window to get some natural light in the bathroom, even though the plumber advised us to cover it up with a wall. I'm so glad we didn't listen. My tile job around the window is not the greatest in the world, but having that window really transformed the bathroom. (And that is the original tub from the house - it cleaned up nicely.)

You can't really tell much about the master bedroom, but then bedrooms aren't usually much to look at, anyway. This is the room that had the terrible pet urine odor. So far, it hasn't returned (knock on every piece of wood we can find!). This is probably where we will start with replacing the windows. And don't you love the duct tape curtain rod!

There are two other bedrooms, but they are just empty rooms at this point. Well, not completely empty - one has wood scraps and one has the tools. They have two different laminate floors, since one was originally the kitchen and one was a back porch converted into a bedroom. The laminate, while different from the hardwood in the rest of the house, looks nice and gives each room a character of its own.

Finally, here's a shot of the revamped laundry room. The quarters are a little tight - there's only enough room to stand and open the dryer door - but it should be fine. It's a clean little room now compared to what it was before. We decided to keep some of the original look of the house in this room - if you look closely, you can see the bead board on the ceiling.

When we first bought the house, I made a video tour of the whole thing, but I can't find that video now, and we don't seem to have taken any "before" pictures before we started knocking down the drywall with sledge hammers. I think about all the work we've done over the past months - demolition, reframing, all new electrical and plumbing, drywall and the eternal job of finishing the seams in the drywall, painting walls and ceilings, painting and installing trim, sanding and refinishing the wood floors, putting tile on the bathroom floor and shower, gluing down the laundry floor (one of the worst jobs, actually), installing the laminate (harder than it sounded), putting up the cabinets and countertops. I'm kind of impressed with us, actually. The work is not perfect (thank goodness the pictures don't show in-depth detail, ha ha), but we did it. Jeff occasionally says he wants to do another house sometime; I haven't yet reached that point!

I also want to give a little plug for my new novel, which was published on 12-13-14 (intentionally). At the end of the first novel, I had included a promo page for the second one, with the line, "Coming in 2014." You don't know how many times this year I was afraid the circumstances of my life were going to make a liar of me! Fortunately, 16 of the 22 chapters were already written when the year began. I finished the last six chapters early in the year, and then slipped in some editing on and off as I had a little time. Thanks to some gentle prodding by another church friend who wanted to give the book as a Christmas gift, I decided at the beginning of December to put off grading papers one weekend in order to do the layout and get the book to Createspace. It took the entire weekend to do the layout (longer than I had anticipated). Then I had to resubmit the "final" draft several times because the cover image just wouldn't seem to be the right size. Finally, it was all ready to go, and I approved the copy to publish - only to find out later that night that I had ONE spelling mistake. ARGGGHHH! I made the correction and republished the files. I sincerely hope that is the only spelling mistake.....There was also a little issue with the Kindle version in that the decorative glyphs I had included in the print version didn't convert for Kindle, leaving me with a "ba" in every single section break. (I hope I've fixed that error, as well.) I'm a little disappointed and embarrassed to have let those mistakes slip through. Maybe I will have learned something so I can avoid them next time.

And here's my last image - the cover of the new book:

So, two big projects are at an end, and as with any ending, there's a sense of being at loose ends. I'm sure that won't last, though. I can't help but wonder....what's ahead for the new year???

 

I'm Excited

Tomorrow at 3 p.m., my fall break begins. One of the things I intend to do over the four-day weekend (in addition to cleaning my sadly-neglected home and working on my second novel) is read. As is my habit, I've been reading a little every night before I go to sleep, but this time I'm going to be indulgent and just sit in a CHAIR and READ.

One of the books I've been meaning to read is John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (I'll explain why some other time). I found it today in our university library, and when I got it back to my office, I flipped to the first page and began reading, just to see if it had an interesting beginning. Within the first two pages, I had a feeling I'm going to like this book. I'm not exactly sure why; I found myself wondering (as I was reading) what the author did that hooked me so fast. I'll have to go back and examine it closely.

I hope it really IS a good read, and that I'm not just desperate for something fictional since I'm coming off reading a rather dry, research-based book that my new boss suggested (and gave me a copy). If you'll excuse me, I'm off to find out.

By the way, the renovation is coming along nicely....I finished painting the last room on Saturday. Now we just have all the trim work and the kitchen to finish, and I need to grout the tile in the shower (but I'm waiting to do it at the same time I do a backsplash on the kitchen). It's looking good.....

The Moment of Truth

The first time we walked in to the little house in town, one of the features we noticed that made us interested in buying it was that it had hardwood floors in its main rooms. Of course, that floor was covered in yucky carpet and spattered with white drywall compound.

Last week, we finally reached the point of being able to sand the floors and remove all that junk. The wood underneath was perfect (see the last post). Only one problem remained: the horrible smell of pet urine in what will become the master bedroom. The people who owned the house just before us apparently had six dogs living inside. Most of the "mistakes" were soaked up by the carpet, I guess, because the only room that stinks is the one room that didn't have carpet.

We consulted the Google about what can be done to remove urine odor, and we elected to try the remedy of using hydrogen peroxide. We bought probably every bottle of peroxide in Clarksville (you think I'm joking....), soaked paper towels, and laid them on the floor. It was truly gross (and yet fascinating in a way) to see the urine pulled up from the floor into the paper towels. We did this treatment three times, and it's definitely helped--the odor doesn't punch you in the face as you walk in the door, at least. Last night, I had moments of discouragement because I thought I could still smell it faintly. When the weather turns humid again, I'm afraid the odor will be back full-force. If so, that room CAN'T be a bedroom; any clothing or bedding stored in that room would absorb the smell. I figured we needed to just give up on hardwood floor in the bedroom, rip it up, and put down (cheap) laminate. But my husband said we should put the finish on the floor and see if it seals in the smell. If so, we have beautiful floors; if not, we rip it out and replace it.

So we began last night to apply the polyurethane sealer, and that was the payoff for the gamble we made when we bought the house. With only a single coat of the sealer on, the floors are such a beautiful, rich color. Simply gorgeous....

We'll need to add a second coat tonight, and then the last major job for the house should be finished. Unless, of course, we have to rip out the floor in that bedroom - our moment of truth will come this evening....will the bedroom smell like pet pee? Stay tuned.....

NOW We're Getting Somewhere!

(This has to be fast because I found out I need to do something before work that I hadn't expected.)

For the longest time, it seemed like the house renovation project was going to extend for the rest of our natural lives. But in just the last week, I can suddenly see the end of the project, and I even have hopes we may have our son moved in by the end of October.

The difference? Paint! We finally finished some of the drywall finishing and were able to prime and paint several rooms. It's amazing what that does for a place. The bathroom is also close to finished; I laid a tile floor (that I think is the best job I've ever done on one, just to brag on myself a little), and then we could install the toilet and sink. The tub surround is on its way to tile (one more coat of waterproofing membrane). And last night, my husband began what will probably be the last of the really big jobs - sanding and refinishing the wood floors.

And what a transformation that process brought about! When we bought the house, two floors were covered with NASTY carpet, and one was scuffed back to bare wood. When we removed the carpet, we found no one had covered the floors before texturing the ceiling, so the floors were coated with joint compound (or whatever they used). The floors are 1-inch red oak; my husband bought some boards to patch a few places where we moved some walls, and it was about $5 per square foot at a bargain flooring store. Last night, as the layers of abuse began to strip away, we were simply amazed that anyone would think carpet would be a better alternative than these beautiful wood floors. I can't wait to see how they look finished. Imagine the value those floors will add to the little house!

So we are rolling along better now. There are still two rooms in which I need to finish the drywall, but they are both small. Of course, there's the tile for the shower, and flooring to install for the three small rooms in the house, and all the trim (ceiling and floor) to paint and install, and kitchen cabinets, but somehow, the job feels do-able now.

So Near, and Yet So Far.....

By this time, I had hoped I would be reporting on the completion of the house project and on move-in day for our son. School is back in session, and my husband and I really, really wanted to be finished with the house project before school started. Well, of course it didn't happen. Crazy people that we are, we also tried to get a produce farm business started this summer, in preparation for the day when my husband retires from teaching (which is only three more years). We made a valiant (in my opinion) effort to keep up with everything, but there are only so many hours in the day, and taking a house down to studs and back to finished requires a LOT of those hours.

We're not finished, but we are beginning to see the end of the project. The major slow-down was installing the drywall and finishing it. My husband installed all of the drywall except some pieces on the ceiling by himself, and I've done all the finish work, which requires three coats and then finish sanding. At first, we were taking the "step at a time" approach, in which we started with a back room and started moving room by room around the house. But as we realized school was looming closer, we shifted to a "most important rooms first" strategy, meaning we've concentrated our recent efforts on the bathroom, kitchen, living room, and master bedroom.

At this point, the bathroom and kitchen have painted ceilings and primed walls, and I primed the ceiling of the master bedroom last night after school. When I put it on paper, it doesn't sound like we've accomplished much. But once the ceilings are painted, we can install light fixtures, which gives us the ability to work longer hours. I guess that's a good thing.....maybe it means we will finish sooner, but it also means longer hours.....

Here's the short list of our most immediate tasks:

• Paint bedroom ceiling and closet (both white)
• Put up lights in kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom
• Prime walls in bedroom
• Paint walls in kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom
• Lay tile on the bathroom floor
• Do finish sanding on the drywall in living room and ha.......

Oh, man. The list could keep growing! All those jobs are not all that big - we could probably knock out ALL of them in a good weekend. The problem is, there is no good weekend; we are doing these jobs in 30-minute to 1-hour blocks, whenever we can steal a little time.

It will get finished....as I told myself at one point while working on the kitchen ceiling, every scrape I make with the trowel gets us one tiny step closer to finished. I just have to keep my eyes on each tiny step and not become discouraged by how many steps are left to take. Isn't that how runners survive those 100-mile races?

A couple of shots of our progress:

1) Patching the part of the hardwood floor we added when we changed the floor plan......

2) A half-painted ceiling.......

Now the next big holdup: trying to decide on colors for the walls! 

A Fun Discovery

Ever since we started demolition on the renovation house and saw the style of construction (1x6 boards nailed to both sides of rough-cut 2x4s), we've wondered how old this house is. Well, today I found out!

I was putting up insulation today (a wonderful job on a 90+ degree day, may I say) when I noticed some pencil scribblings on one of the boards. I think I've seen them before, but just thought they were scribbles. But today, up close with the insulation, I noticed the scribbles formed words - "Clarksville, Ark, March 20, 1914."

I knew right away that HAD to be the date the house was built, because we've done that sort of thing, too. With any new cement poured at our farm, our kids put their handprints and scratched their name and the date with a nail. My son wrote his name and a date in the garage with sidewalk chalk when we removed a piece of the drywall to fix up a way to attach a generator to the breaker box. Marking one's name and date is not a new idea, either; there is a well in our yard from the old house that was here when we bought the property. It has a rock wall topped with a concrete slab, and sure enough, scratched into that concrete is the name of one of the children who lived here and the date (in the 1940s).

Since the date and the location were there on the stud, I looked more carefully at the scribbles above and finally decided the last name was Kraus. Unfortunately, the new drywall ceiling cut off the first name, but I'm guessing it was Orville, because the letters I could see were "ville." What other names end in "ville"?

Anyway, now we have a last name and a time frame, so we can look back in county records and find out something about the history of the house. That's cool. And believe me, we will be picking up the Sharpie and writing "Renovated by Marlows, 2014" along the stud below the original notation.

(And it's pretty darn cool that the house is exactly 100 years old!)

We Passed!

Because our renovation house is within the city limits, we challenges we've never had on a construction project before, namely the fact that we have to get approval from the city government for certain aspects. Fortunately, since we are not altering the exterior of the house or adding any new structures to the property, the only inspections we had to have were for the plumbing and electrical work.

Although my husband has some experience working with both plumbing and electrical (he and my father did all the plumbing and wiring for the previous two houses we've built, plus other projects), the city requires the work to be done by licensed professionals. I'm not complaining; I completely understand why. However, that requirement did add a layer of complexity to the whole process of trying to get this project done during our summer "vacation."

The plumbing was much easier than we had expected. We got a recommendation from a friend who has some rental properties, and we were very pleased with the plumber and his crew. They were able to get in quickly to do the work, and within three days, they had completely replaced all the old plumbing, capped off gas lines (which we won't be using), and installed new plumbing for the reconfigured floor plan. The bill was about 1/10th the price we paid for the entire house (!), but it looks very clean and well-installed.

Here's the reconfigured bathroom:

And here's the new kitchen (in what used to be the living room):

The more challenging aspect of the project was the electrical, mainly because the electrician we chose to work with is also a heating/air specialist, and it's early summer in Arkansas, when H/A specialist are working overtime. We set up numerous times to meet with him, and got stood up a few times. Finally, he and my husband worked out a deal; the electrician would tell Jeff what to do, and Jeff would do a lot of the actual grunt work of pulling the wire. The electrician would then come in and tie everything together. I don't have a finished picture of the breaker box yet; I didn't have the camera with me yesterday when I stopped by the house.

The good news is, yesterday morning all the final work with the electrical was finished. The electrician called the backup city inspector (the main inspector was on vacation - so glad the electrician knew the backup guy), the guy came in and walked through the house, and he gave us a pass on the inspection! Yay! That means we can now start putting the house back together. In fact, that process is going to start today. My husband had 100 sheets of drywall installed yesterday afternoon. He and my son are renting a drywall lift this morning and hope to be able to finish all the ceilings in the house today so they can return the lift before closing time (and not have to pay rental fees over a weekend). I have to pick up our daughter from a camp this morning, then I'm going to go in to put up insulation on the exterior walls while the guys start hanging drywall on the interior walls. The plan (don't laugh) is to finish drywall in the entire house this weekend, since my husband will be going to church camp with our youth group next week. If he finishes the drywall, I can do the finishing work while he's at camp. Anyway, that's the plan....