Bought this album yesterday, was jonesing for some new music and remembered really enjoying this song when I head it on Rockabilly Mood Swing (which I found my poster of while unpacking yesterday!). The album is pretty damn terrific, hard to find that sultry, vixen, noir vibe done so well by a modern artist. So yeah, check out Devil Doll.
Tags: Devil Doll · fantastic · musicNo Comments.
The thing that scares me most when Tam picks up a sledge is not that she will hurt me, or the house. It’s the constant sense that she is somehow about to take her own head off. But she does get in there and swing with the best of them.
These videos may not be that exciting, but the lady really wanted to show off that she could break stuff too, and Don wanted to share more of his demolition with some other people. Enjoy!
Oh yeah, these are from late may, about a week before we moved in. We realized there was no way we were going to get the kitchen done before moving, but went ahead and tore it all the way out so we wouldn’t be filling the house with dirt and construction debris after we had all of our stuff in it.
Tags: demolition · kitchen · remodel · sledgehammer1 Comment
Okay, as most of you know, we are finally living in the house. We moved in back in mid-June, mostly finished. All the rooms were done except the kitchen and the ladytheorist’s office. The office just needed flooring and some paint, the kitchen was still completely gutted (just stud walls and plywood floors). Since then, we have finished both those rooms except for trim and kitchen countertops. The whole house is basically done now, except a number of rooms still need the trim work finished. The hard work is done though. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll try to get regular posts up showing the progression of each room.
Today we have the littletheorist’s bedroom. Her room had the least, structurally, done to it. No walls were moved or anything. We did replace the exterior door, replaced (and added) windows, replaced carpet with hardwood floors, insulated and replaced all the sheetrock. You’ll notice that virtually no before pictures of the house have carpet. That’s because it was so stained and smelly with dog urine that we tore it out within hours of owning the place, and before we had taken many real pictures of it.
And yes, you read that right, the teenager has an exterior door in her room. The room originally had an exterior door (the one that was broken into on the day we bought the house, but that’s a story for another day). We had planned on getting rid of it, but the windows we eventually found are not fire escapable. This is fine for the master bedroom, as it has a different kind of window in its bathroom. The kitchen, offices and living room also have other means of escape in the event of an emergency. This bedroom didn’t though, so we chose to leave a door in it for safety.
I think these are the first pictures I’ve put up with the flooring finished. That’s white oak that has no stain on it, but the polyurethane brought out the coloring and detail wonderfully all by itself.
We have gone with pretty simple, neutral white/off-white tones throughout the house, though we might change our minds on that eventually. In the end, picking out colors fried our brains after all the other work and decisions we have to make. The trim is just primered for now, we may add some color by painting it a bolder color.
We also extended the wall depth of the house on the west and north walls (both of the exterior walls of this room) to pack more insulation into them. Those two sides of the house take the brunt of the winter winds off the river. Before we redid all the walls, the wind just sailed right through them. Between the insulation and the new windows, the house is super efficient now.
We’ve also redone the electrical throughout the house. Previously, this room only had one or two electrical outlets in it. Now it has five. I probably overdid it on outlets in some rooms, but I really hate having to fight with cords to get things arranged how I want them in rooms.
Tags: bedroom · before and after · house · remodel5 Comments
My review/recommendation for Cory Doctorow‘s book Little Brother just went up over on Co-Optimus. I really can’t suggest this book enough. I immediately thrust it into the littletheorist’s hands after finishing it. The ladytheorist plans on reading it next. I got Casey to read it, and now his wife has started it. Seriously, it’s that good and you need to read it (and my review of it!). You don’t even have to buy it, you can download a digital version for free from Doctorow’s site (the one linked above). He releases most of his material for free online, if you don’t mind reading on a screen.
Tags: book · co-optiums · Doctorow · gaming · Little Brother · reading · reviewNo Comments.
So it turns out the ladytheorist and her sister gave a hot fashion tip to a writer for Lucky Magazine while we were in New York.
My friend Carrie, one of the most urbane people I know was, improbably, raised on a huge working cattle farm somewhere in the middle of Kansas. Now, for many years firmly rooted in NY, she’s shed almost every vestige of her mid-western life (other than her wholesome good looks and iron-clad work ethic). From a recent conversation with her and her sister Tammy about their teenage farm wardrobe, apparently one of the first things to go after they moved away was the regionally ubiquitous Roper boot.
For the record, the ladytheorist also shed the name Tammie along with her Roper boots and her 80s spikey hair.
Tags: boots · fashion · humor · tipsNo Comments.
Update: Okay, so there has been some confusion about the origin of this table. It isn’t our nice kitchen table, it’s the table that was abandoned by the previous owners. It was all ready in bad shape, and we furthered its demise by using it as a workbench and tool holder during the remodel. It got burned as 1) it wasn’t fit for use anymore and 2) it was a kind of cleansing ritual to move from the remodel period to the finished project period.
Original post follows:
Oh kitchen table
Faithful servant, held our tools
We repay with fire
Tags: fire · house · remodel · tableNo Comments.
A pic from our recent trip to New York (from the Central Park Zoo). I’m hoping that an adorable picture of a baby animal will keep any of you from noticing that I haven’t updated for like, days, maybe even a week or two. I promise some updates on the house are coming. We did finally move in and have continued working on the place. The place is awesome, I’m so happy with how everything has turned out. But we’re still not fully done, nor unpacked, so any pictures I take include copious numbers of stacked boxes, which don’t do anything to show off how good the place looks. We should actually finish unpacking sometime soon, at which point I’ll put up a ton of stuff showing off more of the finished product.
Tags: adorable · distraction · house2 Comments
We finally have our first room that is capable of fulfilling its destiny. The main bath now includes a bathtub, vanity with sink, toilet and hot and cold water. Yah! I’ve been wanting to post pictures of the vanity for so long, but have waited until it was complete. It’s a real work of art, and I give all the credit to the ladytheorist. She found this old dresser at an antique store and totally reimagined it as a bathroom vanity. It has inch thick marble tops, which ended up presenting the largest problem with converting it. Most people we could find who could drill holes through that marble refused. They were too worried about cracking it. But we finally found a guy in Kansas City who was happy to oblige, and he did a phenomenal job. All of the plumbing has been crammed into the top drawer, leaving the bottom drawer usable and the little tower drawers are fully usable. Even the sides of the top drawer should be usable if I install a couple of partition walls to keep people from putting things where they would hit the plumbing.
I still have some finishing touches, a few more pieces of trim and a door, but the room is fully functional and 95 percent complete, by far the furthest along.
We had a lot of really great things happen last week. The lady’s sister Carrie was in town and helped us paint for a couple of days, which was a tremendous help. Don and I laid hardwoods down in my office, and thanks to the painting, can lay down more in the master bedroom and master bath now. I’ll try to get more pics up later this week.
Tags: bathroom · house · remodel · vanity3 Comments
I’ve been stalking this little guy for the last month trying to get a picture, finally got lucky yesterday. He either lives, or routinely scavenges, in the ravine right behind our house. I got this shot from the window of the littletheorist’s bedroom. Needless to say, she’s thrilled that she has a beaver hanging out within feet of her room.
Tags: beaver · house · remodel · wildlifeNo Comments.
The warning labels on my new water heater just cracked me up. Whoever has to make these must just love their job.
More to come on the new water heater later, that post will just take longer to put together.
Tags: fire · house · plumbing · remodel · water heaterNo Comments.
