MarysLibrary

Me and Jim Blandings, Part IV

(Posted by Wilhelm)

The remodeling continues apace, which has somewhat slowed the pace of reading at Mary's Library. Mary had a headache and general malaise for a couple of days, apparently the result of renovation overload. She is doing better now. So is the house.

The jumble of pipes that previously dwelt, somewhat like the phantom of the opera, in and beneath our basement, now for the most part lies in a pile along side our garage waiting to be hauled away, presumably to a corrosion recycler. Now, we have some beautiful new pipes elegantly adorning the basement. The bright colors of these new plastic pipes do tend to cheer one up and momentarily distract one from obsessing upon the cost of the entire endeavor. Tomorrow, concrete is to be poured to replace the rather large chunk of flooring that was jackhammered out and spirited away.

Of course, getting to this relatively happy stage of development was not all exactly beer and skittles. On Monday and Wednesday, we had the water to the house shut off for extended periods of time while plumbing work was being done. And, the past two nights we have had to turn off the water to the house overnight, upon the advice of plumber, because the rotting old pipes, which had not yet been superseded, had been stressed during renovation and the bursting thereof was not an altogether remote possibility. But, it appears that the major plumbing inconveniences are now behind us. Tomorrow, Mary and I will be off to select fixtures for the new bathroom.

Next week, the landscaper is scheduled to show up and install the brick patio behind the house. This will replace, you may recall, the hideous deck, with metal awning, that had previously been a blot upon the premises. In the meantime, the intrepid Jason has been doing some repair work on the back of the house in the spots where the awning and deck were ripped away.

We are now three weeks into the project and are bloodied but unbowed. No, wait, we are actually bowed but unbloodied.

Me and Jim Blandings, Part III

(Posted by Wilhelm)

Water, water, everywhere, but -- it's supposed to stay in the pipes. When you have an 83-year-old house and take a jackhammer to the concrete floor in the basement, what you find underneath is probably not going to be a pretty sight. In our case, indeed it wasn't. Any sentence that you hear that starts out "You're going to need to replumb . . . " is not going to be good news. Alas, we (we, again, meaning Jason -- see Part II), found a leaky pipe under the floor. If you look closely at the picture, the small red blotch is an old coffee can that we were using to catch the run-off, until Jason managed to stanch the flow with some duct tape. Seeing these "pipes" (if you can call the remaining cylinders of rust "pipes"), it's amazing that they still hold water at all.

So, tomorrow the plumber will be here to tell us what it will cost to ensure that we continue to have running water in the coming decades. Fortunately, the modifications to the remodeling plan have saved us some money that can now go towards the extra plumbing work. The adventure continues and the excavated dirt and concrete continue to pile up. Actually, the concrete has been mostly removed. Presumably, the dirt will again take its place under the floor, albeit with less water accompanying it.

And, for the time being at least, things are going well with the patio. More on that another time.

Me and Jim Blandings, Part II

(Posted by Wilhelm)

Like capitalism, home renovation includes a great deal of creative destruction. At present, the destruction part is most apparent. Jason, from Integrity Remodeling, is coming up with some great ideas as he proceeds with what is resembling an archeological dig. There is some question whether the final remodeling job will contain any elements of the original plan. I am beginning to know how Jim Blandings felt, though on a much smaller scale.

Anyway, the hideous downstairs bathroom has been ripped out. It turns out that the bathroom was not only hideous, but was remarkably non-compliant with just about all applicable building codes. This, presumably, is the heritage of a do-it-yourself project by a prior owner of the house. The plumber took lots of pictures and commented on what great training materials those photos will make for teaching plumbers how not to do things. At least we will have both a properly functioning, as well as reasonably attractive, bathroom downstairs when we are done.

The back deck has been quite an adventure in itself. The plan was to rip off the metal awning over the deck and rip out the built-in benches, then build a new wood awning, build a railing around the deck, and paint everything to match the house. Only the ripping out part of that plan survived.

As we progressed, we (whenever I say "we", assume that I mean Jason, unless the context suggests otherwise) discovered that there was a step, and concrete path, and a brick patio under the deck. Also, it turns out that the back of the house looks much nicer with no awning. So, now the plan is to restore and to expand the brick patio and to leave off the awning.

There have been a few other tweaks made to the renovation plan, but I'll leave that for another post.

Me and Jim Blandings

(Posted by Wilhelm)

Today, the remodeling work on our house began. Our house is a gem. It's a beautiful 1923 bungalow in Spokane's wonderful Manito-Cannon Hill neighborhood. The house was nicely renovated about six years ago by a prior owner. The prior owner, however, we suspect, started to run short of funds during the course of the renovation project, and so a few flaws were left in our gem. A big flaw -- the antiquated wiring -- we had taken care of immediately. A few other flaws have persisted until now. These consisted mainly of a ghastly downstairs bathroom and metallic exterior touches from the 1950s.

Fortunately, we are having the work done by a very fine local company, Integrity Remodeling. (The two fellows doing the initial work are Jason and Troy, as if this weren't enough of an odyssey already.) Whenever work of this scale is done, though, I cannot help but think of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, by Eric Hodgins (1946). I have to admit, I have never actually read the book, but I love the classic 1948 movie that was made from it, starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. Jim Blandings and his family have outgrown their New York apartment. So, they buy a house in Connecticut, not far from the city. Of course, everything goes wrong and the project ends up costing a fortune, by the standards of that day. (But then he ends up with what would ultimately amount to a multimillion dollar estate, which makes the movie even more amusing to watch now).

Fortunately, we've seen examples of the work done by Integrity and are very happy with the work they done for us so far. The cats, on the other hand, are not pleased about being barred from the basement for the time being.