86. Demolishing the strongholds

November 2, 2013September 1, 2015 / Apple Hill Cottage / 11 Comments

We strapped on our armor this past week. We were doing battle.

safety glasses and masks

Against the creatures who have lived and died in our walls.

What is living in the walls of your house? The better question might be phrased What is dead in the walls of your house?

It isn’t pretty, and it isn’t picture-worthy. What? You say, you don’t really want to see pictures of Dead mice, Old nests, Dead ladybugs, Old hickory nut shells, Scat, and Spiders? Throw in dirty insulation, rusty nails, and forty-year old newspapers that have been stapled to the walls? And dust, lots and lots of plaster dust…

Lesson learned: If your house is neglected, unwanted creatures will move in to dwell with you.

I actually wished that the newspapers were in better shape — I love looking at old newspaper ads and reading articles from the seventies would be fun. But the newspapers were of the sort that couldn’t be touched without gloves — heavy duty work gloves, that is.

This newspaper is dated March 14, 1974.

I have stopped dithering about what is to be done next and decided to just go with what is. Or what will be? Everything we do to this old cottage is an improvement; so does it matter if one project isn’t quite finished before we start the next? Or, more accurately, does it matter how many rooms are torn up in the effort to finish them all?

Lesson learned: Demolition of walls is only fun once it is done.

The view from the living room through the holes. The mudroom has already been gutted; the living room is on its way….

The holes in the mudroom lead into the living room. An air conditioner was once there; a log box for storage and easy access for fireplace logs was once there too. Now they are just gaping holes that have to be repaired. Wiring is another issue. The wiring in the living room is just hodge-podged up there and has to be fixed. The electric panel is in the mudroom, and right now with those holes between the two rooms, it is a perfect time to rewire the living room too.

When we bought the window for the mudroom a few weeks ago, we also ordered a new series of windows for the living room. (Can’t pass up a sale on Anderson windows!) In order to take out the large window in the living room to replace it, we had to take off the current trim and a bit of the old paneling. Once we had some of the paneling off, there was a terrible stench. We have had bad smells at this place pretty often; we have torn up carpet, peeled off wallpaper, and scrubbed walls to get rid of smells. This one was very bad, so we had to keep tearing out to find the root of the evil, er…the smell.
Living room wall demolition

We are now down to bare studs on the living room wall. (We were hoping this wasn’t the plan…) But three dead mice later, the smell is gone. So now insulation is a necessity too.

Lesson learned: Every part of a house is interconnected.

We thought we would be doing this cottage one room at a time. It’s easier to manage that way; it’s easier to think about one room at a time. But the inter-connectedness of the wiring, walls, roofline, ceilings — all makes that impossible to do. And I’m okay with that — finally.

My post on the finishing of the kitchen that is ready to be published? It will just have to wait. And that’s okay too. After all, the whole house has to be finished for us to get featured on This Old House anyway. 😀

Lovely expensive sheers (K-mart special) hanging next to bare stud walls and insulation. Is this like leather and lace?

There are many lessons in this post, but these three should be repeated:

If you neglect your house, unwanted creatures will move in to dwell with you.
Your house is interconnected; it can’t be dealt with one room at a time.
Demolish the strongholds of ugly stuff today; the longer you wait, the bigger the job.

85. Dithering

October 14, 2013October 20, 2014 / Apple Hill Cottage / 15 Comments

We spend a lot of time dithering…

siding boards

Trying to figure out every angle before we start, so we won’t be surprised.

It never works, and we just end up with a work stoppage.

Yesterday, after a morning of spectacular dithering, I wondered to myself why we don’t discuss these problems on the way back and forth from house to house. We’ve got plenty of time; the drive is at least an hour, and that’s if all the cars and drivers are behaving. (And the cat; when the cat misbehaves we end up with a conversation stoppage…).

But then I realized that we don’t discuss these problems because they are Unforeseen. Unexpected. Unknowns.

While we were dithering
about the project
before we started,
we never thought THAT
would happen,
even though
we thought
that we had thought
of Everything
causes dithering again.

Painting of Apple Hill Cottage, ca.1973

When the cottage first became ours, it was rather like a new romance. Oh, we wandered around thinking of possibilities — how grand it would be if we could put in hardwood floors here; and maybe we could raise the roof there; and perhaps if we enclosed this part of the back porch it would make a lovely guest bedroom…
The basic plan was to bring the cottage back to the way it looked originally (as close as we could get it, at least…) That wasn’t dithering; it was dreaming, and wondering, and expanding possibilities.

But the honeymoon is over now because we have spent almost every spare moment working on this cottage. Nothing can surprise us now, and some of the charm has been lost in the reality of sweat, blood, finances, time, ~~arguments~~ discussions, and just plain exhaustion. It’s an old house; suddenly we have to move to plan B because the furnace blew up. Or suddenly we have to leave Plan A to fix the roof because it is leaking. Or suddenly we have to change Plan A because the new siding isn’t quite the same as the old siding… Can we just be done already and get on with life?

No? Then, let’s at least stop dithering and get on with the plan. (Uh, was that Plan A or Plan B?)

The troubles come when glitches occur in the actual plan. Sort of like life? Glitches abound. And are we going to dither; or are we ready to accept the problem, embrace the setback, and make the delay part of the plan?
peeling paint
And here is where Jesus can help. If we are trying to live life according to His plan, well then, it’s His plan — it’s not our plan. We just like to think it’s our plan and that we are in charge. And when we get too uppity about it, God will remind us. Most of the time He reminds us gently, and that’s when we are to say, “Oh, yes. God, it is yours, not mine. Forgive me for trying to take over.”

Lawn chairs in fall

Sometimes it’s a big thing; sometimes we just see through the glass darkly and we fight and kick and struggle for weeks, months, years… until the glass clears and we finally get it — the fight belongs to Him, not us. He made us and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. (Psalm 100:3)

We dither because we are sheep. I know, it’s not a pleasant comparison, but there it is. Picture sheep running around the gated pasture bleating in confusion. Going nowhere and running in those circles cause befuddlement, bewilderment, agitation, and demoralization. Don’t ask me how I know this… (Read Luke 15 to be reminded. I need to be reminded of this often…)

But we have a good shepherd to lead us — one who never gives up on us no matter how far we wander;

mist in the hills

one who loves each one of us not because we are good, bad, black, or white, but simply because we are his;

one who constantly cares for us if we would just allow it.
the heavens

Note to self: Dithering is believing that your own plans might be better than God’s amazing plans! Embrace the delays and know that you are being taught something important.

Note to God: “Yes, God, it is truly yours, not mine. Forgive me for trying to take over.”

Amen.

84. Begone Ugly Windows

October 6, 2013September 8, 2015 / Apple Hill Cottage / 5 Comments

We have a new window in the mudroom.

It is not like the gorgeous original kitchen windows that we spent three months painstakingly restoring.

Restored wood windows

No, this window is a bottom-line Andersen window, on sale from Home Depot this past week for $225.

American Craftsman window from Home Depot

We have spent the last year — on and off — looking for old double hung windows with real muntins that would fit this 48″x48″ square opening. No dice. No windows either.

This is a perfect example of the drafty, ugly aluminum windows — this one is going to be gone SOON as well.

The problem is that some of the windows in the cottage are original, and some were replaced in the seventies with aluminum frame windows that, uh, have zero charm. (Zero R-Value as well.) We are keeping the wood frame originals, but that leaves us with having to replace the others.

We just couldn’t spend any more time looking for old windows that we could re-do. It was time to upgrade that old aluminum window that was cracked and didn’t work. I could spend the rest of this post lamenting the loss of craftsmanship in the modern world. Why is everything affordable made from ~~plastic~~ vinyl? And as much as I’d like to put in expensive Pella windows that are, you know, historically appropriate? It just isn’t in the budget; we went with cheap, and on sale for even cheaper…But Energy Star Efficient! And Made in the USA.

On an unseasonably warm October Saturday, we carted the old window out to the edge of the road, where someone will most likely stop and take it for the aluminum.

We put all of our junk out here by the side of the road with a FREE sign next to it. So far everything we’ve put out has been taken: a ladder, old ceiling materials, an old light, a vacuum cleaner, orange louvered doors, and even the old kitchen sink…

Alas, the perennial problem is this: What does this particular project consist of? Are we just trying to get a window in for the winter, so air won’t blow through the kitchen? Or are we going to take our time and replace the siding now, because that is in the long-range plan?

After several rounds of discussion, we decided to take the cedar shakes off and put white cove siding on the front of the mudroom. Mr. H.C. isn’t exactly happy about it; we’ve still got the kitchen AND the mudroom to finish, and here we are taking an excursion to the outside of the house.

Mr. H.C. frowning at the level. He frowns at his level quite often.

Of course, nothing about the mudroom is level or square. This photo sums up pretty well the angst that goes with putting a level on any wall or sill or floor of the cottage. It’s always a bigger job than expected — Mr. H.C. had to take off the horizontal board and cut off the studs three-quarters of an inch on one side for the window to fit in the frame.

At the end of the day, the window is in…

But at the end of the day, the window was in; I relented and admitted that it didn’t look too bad; and the rest of the outside walls are (almost) ready for siding.