Rehabber's Rehab » Random

Stucco Preservation

Liz — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:03:19 +0000

Interesting link about the history of stucco and preservation and repair my mother-in law passed on. Information we’re going to start needing pretty soon if we want to repair some of the damage we’ve done. Well, it’s not all our fault – obviously the place needed work when we bought it.

Preservation Brief 22: The preservation and repair of stucco

Words That Aren’t Rated G

Liz — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:20:23 +0000

We’d been pretty unhappy with the electrician, from his constant complaining, scratching up our newly refinished floors, and leaving messes around, he has been one of our least favorite contractors (although I am sure he has not liked this project either as he is deathly allergic to cats, and has been miserable the whole time). But when I mentioned my biggest pet peeve to him, that the two plugs in the bathroom above the sink were not level with one another, I was told that it would be “no problem” to fix it.

So when I came home from work tonight, and went in the bathroom and saw the GIANT hole in the wall indicating he had fixed it, I figured it was no problem, no big deal. I said “so…I guess the electrician was here.” Thor had been home for a couple of hours at the time and replied “yup, he was just finishing up a couple of things.” Thor seemed happy with having our electrical work done. I asked Thor if the electrician was done, and he repplied in the affirmative, everthing looked good. I asked Thor if the two electrical boxes were level now, and he said “huh? The electrical boxes?”

He then went into the bathroom.

“*Fudge! Gosh Darn it! Gosh darn child of an un kind woman! What the fudge! What the fudge was he thinking. That fudging incompetent unmentionable…” and so on. And on.

Meanwhile I am in the kitchen wondering what just happened. I ask him if he’s hurt. Because if this was about the hole in the wall, how had he managed to miss it the previous two hours while he was home. To which Thor replied “*Fracking butt eater. He put a giant hole in the wall. In my newly dry-walled forking wall!”

I guess he hadn’t noticed.

Back In Time

Liz — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 04:59:29 +0000

We’ve been gone a while, in between trouble with hackers on the blog, vacation, and a project or two, things have fallen on the way side. But now we’re taking a trip back in time, trying to remember what we’ve been up to the past two months. Enjoy the catch-up!

Illinois Endangered Historic Sites

Thor — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:02:47 +0000

Check out this article on the Illinois endangered historic places.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2009/01/the-glassy-airport-terminal-from-the-former-meigs-field-and-post-world-war-iihospital-buildings-likely-to-be-demolished-as-pa.html

Do It To It

Liz — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:12:32 +0000

Rather than focus on what we have done, and how far we’ve come, I though, let’s just think about all we have left to do. Why focus on the accomplishments? In honor of this, I’ve added a To Do list, so we will always be fully aware of just how much still needs to be done.

Finally Progress Is Being Made

Liz — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:41:40 +0000

In the past months things have been happening that have lifted my spirits and made my life better. The shower is wonderful, and I love looking at the tile I painstakingly cleaned off for hours. I don’t think anyone else will ever enjoy that bath as much as I do. Then I wander into the kitchen where I have CABINETS with stuff in them. Tuesday night was spent joyfully, finally unwrapping our wedding presents and getting to put everything in its proper place. We just kept everything stored in their boxes waiting for the day we would have a place to put it all in. It was like Christmas all over again.

In honor of this wonderful progress, we finally updated our Projects sidebar. The backyard got an extra percent because one of the horrible pine bushes we were going to take down fell on its own under all of the snow this winter. We argued about the rest of them, Thor wanted to represent everything as a little more done, but I say that he doesn’t factor in the details enough. I am afraid this is a sign that they will never get done because they don’t “count”.

It is freezing cold here in Chi-town, so Thor spent the evening trying to insulate the attic a little more. I am huddled under a mound of blankets as I write this because it is 59 degrees in our house. Our ancient heater just can’t seem to keep up with the -11 degree temperatures outside. We just hope it makes it through the winter and gives us a little more breathing room before having to buy another big ticket item. The new windows are doing great, though, at helping to keep the cold out. The main chinks in our armor are the uninsulated area where the new back door is supposed to go, the entryway to the basement, and the attic door. I do think this will help me win the argument about tiling the sunroom with a heated floor. The floor right now is enough to freeze your toes off. We will see.

Keeping Us Real

Liz — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:09:36 +0000

We were asked the question about our previous post “A Window of Opportunity”

What’s wrong with the old windows?

My answer started to get so long I decided to make it a post instead of a comment. To answer the question: They’re pretty old, and don’t work well anymore – particularly the storm windows and screens. On some of the windows it’s impossible to pull the storm down. Some don’t even have a storm window, a must here in Chicago. Especially since I don’t fancy putting up plastic sheeting every winter. Some don’t have a screen, another must since mosquitoes are highly attracted to me!

If you look at the current “lastest pics” picture, it shows the backyard, and you can see the metal frames on the windows are pretty unattractive. This is even more true on the front of the house.

For the sunroom, we are cutting in entirely new bigger windows in some places, and so want the rest of the house to match these so they don’t look like such an addition, but are integrated with the rest.

It’s a good question. It made me stop and think for a minute, did we really need that? I think sometimes you get so caught up in remodeling, it can be easy to change things without a purpose or consciously thinking about why. But change for change’s sake is not always improvement.

I enjoyed his post about this at the blog “Keepin’ It Real“ and I agree, that if you can restore you should (hence the many man hours spent restoring the trim around the house). Particularly in these older homes, the stuff around your house is of far better quality than you could get today even if you wanted to spend the money. If our windows were nice wood windows (the kind of casements shown in the windows post), or old counter-weight double hungs we would definitely keep them. I have reglazed and restored windows before with the Martin’s at Greene & Burke, so that is not the daunting task. But ours are aluminum inside and out, were cheap to begin with, and in my opinion, not worth the effort.

Internet!!

Liz — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:24:34 +0000

I continued tonight stripping the door jams so we can meet Thor’s goal of putting the trim back up this weekend while Thor cleaned and got things ready for the Martin’s to come for a work weekend this weekend. Finally when he seemed done, I looked over at him and said “whatcha doin’?” I guess I didn’t say this casually enough because he replied with “Why, what should I be doing?” The answer, putting our phone line back in so we can get our internet.

Since we had ripped out all of the walls with phone jacks, Thor had to reinstall one in the office. Apparently this ended up being pretty easy because it only took him around 1/2 an hour. After that It wasn’t too hard getting the internet set up. I followed the instructions in the box and got connected to the router, but ran into trouble from there. Called AT&T and the guy very nicely walked me through the rest of the set up — a good thing since there were no instructions for any of the steps that he took me through. Another 30 minutes later and we were up and running. Hello world!

Thor had fallen asleep by then, and didn’t get to appreciate the moment, or my dance of joy.