Pit Stop

Alan was standing in front of our house on Saturday when a man in a three-piece suit walked across the street and made a pit stop in our port-a-john. As he left, he smiled and tipped his hat.

He's not the only one. A neighbor watched a bus stop out front and the driver hop off and use it. 

Maybe we should put some reading material in there to make people feel more at home.

The kids are having a blast in the back yard. They'd be perfectly happy if we just left the trenches, holes, and piles of dirt out there and forgot about landscaping altogether.

The foundation guys are making a lot of progress and we should get the o.k. from the city to pour the cement in the next day or two.

The picture above gives you some perspective. The large part of the addition on the right will be the expanded kitchen and new den. The smaller part in the middle will be the new bathroom off of our bedroom. I guess I could have saved thousands of dollars and just ordered a port-a-john instead of building a second bathroom. Apparently they're all the rage.

The yard

For 6 years, we've had this enormous koi pond right in the middle of our back yard. To the DINKS* who installed it over 10 years ago, I'm sure they considered it a focal point, a relaxing retreat, a place to unwind with an adult beverage after a long day at the office. To a mother of two young kids, it felt more like a gigantic, dark oval of death. For my husband, it was a time-consuming hobby he unwillingly inherited. Still, we kept it all these years because everyone else seemed to love it, including the kids. Plus, we had already spent so much time and money on it, buying koi food, algae control concoctions for maintaining the proper pH balance, replacing the broken pump, and regularly adding enough fresh water to hydrate a village in Ethiopia. Alan spent an entire day every spring emptying the pond and cleaning it with a pressure washer. Every time we left town, we had to ask our kind neighbors to "fish-sit" (say that 3 times, fast). 

Then there was the stress of having children running around a drowning hazard. We bought the house when Lilly was 2 and I never left her alone in the yard. She's such a cautious child that she didn't venture too close. When Jonathan came along and started sprinting at 10 months, it was clear that he was determined to swim in the pond at least once. He was so fast, and so daring, I had to be hyper-vigilant at all times. His friends were just as adventurous; top-heavy boys climbing on the rocks, leaning over the pond and trying to pet the fish. 

I'm happy to report that after six years, two months, and nine days, the pond is finally gone! There were a few close calls, but no child fell in the pond. The fish were returned to the home's previous owners, who were happy to take them off our hands. The kids will soon be able to play in the yard unchaperoned. 

Jonny can FINALLY play in the pond.

Alan is going to re-use all the rocks to build a fire pit and rock wall once the addition is done.

Yesterday, they started digging for the new addition

 and they filled the old hole where the pond used to be with the dirt.

It has to look worse, before it can look better, right? 

* DINKS - dual income, no kids

Kitchen demo

Bye-bye cabinets!

 Adios black, laminate countertops and tiny, shallow sink!

Sayonara black and white tiles which show every single speck of dirt, dust, and dog hair!

 HELLO plumber, who is saving me from washing dishes in the bathtub for 3 months!

 There's now a utility sink in my dining room,

(along with a fridge,

microwave,

coffee maker, 

slow cooker,

toaster oven,

VitaMix blender,

electric skillet,

and electric wok.)

It's actually much nicer than my old kitchen sink.

The plywood is covering the door to the kitchen,

so most of the mess will now be contained outside our living quarters.

For a few weeks, anyway.

Sneak Peek

This is what the back of our house will look like after the addition, drawn by our fabulous architect, Michelle Krahe. On the right, is our new den, which is right off the newly expanded kitchen. The middle section is our new bathroom, which is off our existing bedroom. On the left is our existing den, which is the room with 7 lovely windows (3 on the back, 4 on the side). I was determined not to change this room just for more square footage. It will soon be Jonny's room.

Before and Afters 2006

I was looking for "before" pictures of our deck and I found photos of the house when we first bought it in 2006. One of the first things we did was paint the exterior.

September 2006

 October 2006

Before paint

After 

2012 Bye Bye, Deck!

Hello soon-to-be addition!

The adventure begins

Today the dumpster, the port-a-pot, and the sign arrived.

Hello Struby Construction!

Bye, bye old deck.

 Day 1 - deck demolition

Next up - the laundry room and kitchen!

home

I love our little house, but I'm not crazy about only having one bathroom. The original owners who built our bungalow in 1922 had five children. That's seven people sharing one bathroom. They eventually installed a half bath in the attic, climbing a ladder to get there. They owned this house for 47 years and I hope to be here just as long, but not with one bathroom.

Mr. Dukes, the original owner's son, was born in Lilly and Jonathan's bedroom in 1923. We recently gave him a tour of the house and he confirmed that not much has changed. Our water heater is located where the kitchen pantry used to be and a small back porch has been closed in to house the washer and dryer. When we moved in 6 years ago, we bought new windows and had the exterior painted. Besides painting the bedrooms and kitchen cabinets, we haven't done much else but dream about what we'll someday do.

Our house turns 90 years old this year. To celebrate, we're going to give the old girl a facelift. People in our neighborhood tend to go up, adding an entire second story to their homes, but we're doing a much more subtle addition. We love the character of our house and want to preserve all of its charming elements. For example, one of our bedrooms, which we currently use as a den, has 7 beautiful windows, and I'm not about to lose 3 of them just to have a bigger house. Case in point:

I wrote my bungalow a love letter, pointing out all of its attributes. Then I focused on what wasn't working:

the tiny, dark, dated kitchen (9' 4" X 9' 8"),

the uninsulated porch turned laundry room (p.s. that wall is coming down!),

the pantry turned water heater closet (I can't believe I'm posting this mess),

and the makeshift closets in our bedroom (this is Alan's closet, my closet isn't even IN our room).

Our son and daughter have to share a room, which worked well for the first 4 years of his life, not so well now that she's 8. While we're expanding the kitchen and adding a bathroom, we decided to add a bright, airy den off the kitchen. I hired a fabulous architect, Michelle Krahe, who helped create a plan that will enhance the charm of our house and serve our family for decades to come. She came up with the brilliant idea to move our front door, making our long, narrow living room a much more usable space.

We're only adding 285 square feet, so in the end our house will be 1575 square feet - perfect for our family of 4. I believe 400 square feet per person is about right for us. It's not a tiny house, for sure, but it's not a monstrosity either. We're also going to get a new roof, gutters, air conditioner, furnace, and re-insulate the attic and floors. There will be a root cellar under the new addition, which will house our water heater, bikes, and maybe an additional chest freezer. We hope to get started by the first of October. I promise to post lots of pictures!

Some things I love

Freshly painted rooms. Our dining room used to be red and the living room was beige. Thanks to my husband's mad-painting skills, both rooms are now painted Blue Gray by Farrow & Ball. Only 2 stores in Atlanta even sell F&B, but you can order it online if you can stomach the shipping costs. It contains no plastics, zero VOCs, is a clay-based paint and the formula has been the same since 1946. It's pricey, at over $80 a gallon, but in my opinion is worth every penny. The Blue Gray color is warm and has much more depth to it than the picture shows. It almost has a slight green undertone and goes REALLY well with our cream trim & olive green built-ins.

I love that Lil still loves to fall asleep in her Granddad's lap, even though she's nearly as tall as he is.

I love my new bangs!

 I love Autumn and this little boy with his bright red hair.

I love my little girl's toothless grin, even though it reminds me she's not so little anymore.

Money, money, money, must be funny, in a rich man's world.

Lately I've been spending money like a madwoman. I'm usually quite thrifty and not much of a consumer, but occasionally I go on these spending sprees like a desperate housewife. It's my husband's fault, really, because he made a comment about how nice it would be to have a comfortable reading chair. I proceeded to sell the Hitchcock table and benches we were storing in our living room, purchase new curtains, a mission style rocking chair, an antique mahogany desk, and a Morris chair from LLBean. Once you get started, it's hard to stop. I still need a chair for the desk and an area rug. Of course, now the room needs to be painted too. The good news is I purchased the curtains for 1/2 price at JCPenney, the rocking chair for $85 on craiglist, and desk for $130, but I paid full price for the LLBean chair. I sold the Hitchcock furniture for $900 and purchased all the above items with that money. I'm afraid the box (I mean, cave) is here to stay.

"But that is not all! Oh, no, that is not all," said the Cat In The Hat. I've purchased autumn clothes for Lillian, new clothes for myself (a reward for losing the baby weight and insurance to not gain it back), and Christmas presents for both kids. I purchased many of these things on etsy.com, which makes me feel slightly less guilty. Alan painted the kids' room with No-VOC paint ($$$) and now that the walls are so beautiful I've purchased artwork to hang. The artwork needs frames. It's a vicious cycle, but I'm having fun.

Dining room table

As if the dollhouse weren't enough, Aunt Helen and Uncle Jim gave us their 'old' dining room table. It's gorgeous, functional, and easy to clean. We don't have an eat-in kitchen so we eat every meal in our dining room and our old table and benches were small and awkward. I love, love, love the new table and now have plenty of room to make artwork and create scrapbooks with Lil. Check out my beautiful Aunts sitting around my beautiful dining room table.

the dollhouse in all its glory

Last week, my mom, Aunt Helen, Aunt Jessica, and Uncle Jim came for a lovely visit and they came bearing gifts. Uncle Jim has been working on this dollhouse for Lillian for over 2 years and it looks JUST like our house, inside and out. He and Helen made most of the accessories by hand, including a piano, a crib, a tv (with a picture of orphan Annie on the screen) and a grandfather clock. There are even photographs of our family hanging on the walls. Hardwood floors, real wood siding, and sandpaper that looks exactly like roof shingles. You've never seen anything like it. When it's lit up at night, it looks absolutely magnificent. I imagine our grandchildren will treasure this dollhouse as much as we do. Thank you Aunt Helen and Uncle Jim!

Be gone concrete block

My very talented father-in-law, Ken, built and installed a new step for my birthday. The old concrete block was quite treacherous and not very inviting. Now I can actually wheel Jonathan down the new step in his stroller without the fear of it toppling over. Ken also helped Alan install new FLOR carpet tiles in our laundry room the very same day. Thank you so much, Ken!

My, what a little paint can do!

Our kitchen is still tiny, but painting the walls and cabinets has completely transformed the space. As you can see in the before picture, the walls had been long-neglected and looked suspiciously like dingy primer. They're now a lovely, bright, cheerful shade of yellow. The cabinets had previously been painted with garage floor paint and were filthy and roughly textured. Alan and his dad sanded the cabinets, primed them a couple of times, and painted them with three coats of creamy white paint. It was the first time Alan didn't complain about the small size of our kitchen and lack of cabinets.

It took us a few months to finally frame a few photographs and accessorize, but we're finally in the home stretch. My parents are going to buy me a magnetic spice rack for my birthday and I'd like to hang a chalk board for the kids below the photograph of the tomatoes. Next project: the laundry room.