Catching up
Posted by K Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:36:00 GMT
Some days it seems like we are getting nowhere, but we are always doing something (even if that something is returning something to IKEA or going to The Container Store for the millionth time) so I am not sure why our efforts feel so fruitless. The contractor disappeared for a while (but has since made a reappearance) so in the meantime we have done a bunch of random things, some things he was supposed to do, and some things that we just needed or wanted to do.
We:
- wired the phone/cable/etc (sounds much easier than it was since some wires that were inside were bad and the phone box outside to the world was not hooked up to anything) and now have a phone and TV.
- grouted the bathroom tile that needed to be fixed. Still need to get tile/grout sealer to do that but I can’t find the brand I want.
- we now have a towel rack and toilet paper holder in the bathroom.
- put a spice rack on the back of the (needing to be repaired) basement door since it seemed to make sense and I saw it in a magazine so at least one other person in the world has done it. And that makes it a good idea. Plus, I have a LOT of spices and no room for them in the cabinets.
- got new rose trellises (and found out that the one rose is probably “Blaze”) but haven’t put them up yet because I lack the desire to scratch myself up badly while being bitten by a million mosquitoes. And speaking of mosquitoes, I now carry Off! in my bag everywhere I go because you would not believe what my legs look like.
- got a lot of stuff unpacked, during which we realized we have to go get some more bookcases.
- painted a sample of red on the dining room wall (Matt liked it, I hated it; I am now preparing for the impending time I have begun to refer to as The Great Paint Debate of 2006).
- got all my wine delivered, which I then put into a wine fridge (I got it from a guy in Bethesda via Craigslist) that we call The Wine Coffin, one which holds not quite enough wine and seems to have a small seal leak near the bottom that I have been investigating since I want to fix it because I am the only person in the world with a wine refrigerator that is warmer at the bottom than the top and that is just dumb.
- we have curtains/blinds put up, at least temporary ones.
- the sink FINALLY showed up last night so today we placed our countertop order. Soon we will have a kitchen, even though I think at this point I don’t remember what that is like.
- scrubbed off the Gross Stove wherein it was discovered that the stove is even grosser than we first imagined and we will have to get a new one sooner rather than later.
We have tried and failed to do probably more things than we have succeeded to do. It’s frustrating but just how it goes, I guess. These problem areas include:
- installing a closet rod in the back closet is way more complicated than one would think since the studs seem to not exist in any place where one could hang a rod. Speaking of which, we forgot to get screws for that when we were out today.
- unpacking books is difficult when there is nowhere to put them.
- getting a bench top for the bathroom bench is going to be a pain in the ass (ha! no pun intended) since I think we are going to have to DIY and working with stone of some sort is not something I want to do but paying someone a ton of money to come template and install a 13×30 slab of whatever is stupid.
- I weeded but did a horrible job because the ground is too dry and everything just kind of broke off and I have a feeling that I am never going to get rid of all that horse nettle and the mystery plant that is all over the yard. Also, the pokeberry plant near D&Ks house probably has a taproot the size of my torso. I still need to cut some bushes in the front and cut grass/weeds in the back since I think people are hiding drug stashes or money or both back there outside our fence and that isn’t cool (well, the money would be cool but they don’t seem to leave it there for me). But first I have to get electric tool help since I can’t do it all by hand. Or, I could, but then I would be crazy.
- finding a closet rod that is 24” long is not possible (we need it for the recessed towel rack in the bathroom). I am going to have to either cut metal (ugh) or repurpose a towel bar that is 24” long and somehow make it work in that spot.
- nobody has magically made space in the kitchen for a trash can, and after seeing our sink (much deeper than I wanted, but the only thing I could find that would just fit in the cabinet) I don’t think we are going to be able to fit anything useful under the sink, which is sad because that is where trash cans go, in my experience.
- we cannot seem to get rid of all the cardboard we have. Every time we get rid of some, three times as much shows up, somehow.
- we will never have something covering the dumb looking gap between the bathroom floor and the hall.
- the hall closet continues to elude our efforts to make it useful. Already a dumb shape, it was rendered almost useless by the AC guy who put a needed but poorly positoned duct in it, leaving us with 4 inches of space on one side and about 8-10 on the other. I think we are going to have to build shelves for it since I can’t find anything that will fit.
Welcome to the hood! Your stories sound all too familiar. My webmaster husband and I moved to Petworth in March 2005 and have faced many of the same challenges—I think we pretty much have the same style house as you. We have regular “bitch and build sessions” with neighbors—we’d love you to join us (we even lend out the occassional power tool). Feel free to email and again, welcome!
Jenna and Gadi.
We moved into our house in Petworth in March…and while yours seems like it was in worse shape than ours was somehow (despite ours being vacant for 20 years prior to the purchase), the pictures and stories on here are all too familiar.
Just a few weeks ago, we dealt with the painted over transoms (wtf, who does that? and why?). We started off dutifully scraping, and quickly gave up, taped trash bags to either side of the windows, and I smashed the hell out of them with a hammer. Then for $5 we had new glass cut that fits perfectly.
And then last weekend we just finished scraping 6 layers of paint off the same bathroom cabinet you guys have…then we stained it a good dark wood color. Also, in the process we removed the mirror from the cabinet to clean it and the mirror is marked “P.P. & G. Co. 1916” on the back, so I’m sure the whole cabinet is original (as you suspected).
On a final note, looking through your flickr account at house pics, I laughed as a saw pictures of Kristaps and Hannah—who are friends. I’ve seen you two at El Torogoz before and I think other places around the hood. I’ll say hi next time.
Good luck with the work on the house…
Markus (ILL and Upshur)
Hi! I am just going through your blog and marveling at everything! As previous commenters indicated, your stories sound familiar! I am a fairly new Petworth resident myself so naturally I am interested in EVERYTHING that is going on around here. So I just saw in one of your posts about the wine and cheese shop! If you open up something like this in the neighborhood I can promise you I’ll be there everyday…well, maybe not EVERY day but most days! I’ll send everyone I know there too! I hope you do open up. Welcome to the neighborhood.
Hey, thanks for the info and welcomes! We will be smashing/replacing some transoms soon (the two back door transoms are cracked/with holes/plywood so we will need to replace them). I am glad getting glass cut is cheap!
I keep thinking about a wine shop, someday. Right now I can’t think past a kitchen sink, though!
We got the glass cut for our transoms over at Frager’s on Capitol Hill. It’s an old hardware store that pretty much has everything you can imagine.
Once you get the new glass in the windows, you need to use glazer’s points (which are also dirt cheap) to provide stability to the glass.
Cool, I have a need for a good hardware store that isn’t Home Depot. I will check them out (once I measure our transoms).
I was actually reading up on glazing glass a few weeks ago, since our door glass needs to be re-set. I might just punch out the old and put in some patterned glass since we have the classy paper towelling there now (it would be nice to have light, but privacy is always nice too). But all this stuff will have to wait until it is not 100 degrees out!