Rami's not the only one who knows how to drape

I'm not sure what motivates the decision to tackle certain projects but when the bug hits or the fever strikes or the fire ignites I'm in go go go mode. This round it's getting curtains for the two rooms downstairs. Let's get this done.

Front room currently looks like this. The curtain rod is flimsy metal. The drapes are white cotton from Ikea, nothing wrong with that.

But the new idea is Roman flat shades in Putty brown.

They'll give the windows a nice tucked-in look and keep the room warm and cozy.

The back doors are getting a clean up. Currently they have sagging tension rods shoved inside the frame as high as I can reach. New plan are solar shades and a single drape that will open to the right.

I'm guessing between ordering the curtains and scheduling the installation they'll be up before Thanksgiving.

Color me mud

While I was visiting friends recently we watched their neighbor speed paint the trim on his house. It was pretty inspiring. About a month earlier my neighbor had given the outside of my house a concrete skim coat and it was drying a little blotchy so when I got home I decided I should have a speed paint session of my own.

Before and afters below.

Just after Thanksgiving, 2006. Way before I bought the house. That tree, by the way, is gone gone gone. So is the green door, the awning, the flag, the plastic chair and the chain link fence.

From the real estate listing in June, 2010

Getting a little grungier last year. But those flowers were pretty.

Skim coat applied.

And the final layer.

Rock it

Drain tiles are for winners. The guys came in and in 5 days they broke up the concrete around the perimeter of the basement and hauled the debris out in buckets.

They dug a trench about 10 inches deep all the way around the interior walls

and then filled the trenches with rocks.

 

 

so now if there's any water sitting in the dirt under the floor it can migrate over into the rock beds. And since the rock trench is 10 inches deep, gravity will pull the water down and away from the floor. Sort of like sitting on top of a dribble glass.

Then they covered the rocks with concrete 

but left an open space about an inch wide to catch any water that could seep in through the walls.

They also put a bunch of pink sponges inside the coving. I wonder if they'll expand into dinosaur shapes? !!!

 

But that's not all...they also poured a new floor in the front (under the front porch),

patched the dirt floor area on the other side of the room

and, finally, they skim coated the crumbly old walls which used to look like this

and now look like this.

They got a lot done in 5 days, these guys work hard. Some times there were 3 or 4 people working but mostly it was just 2 of them, sweating away and making it all happen. Great great job.

Subterranean

Things are going well at Huron. There's still lots to do to snazz this place up; curtains, blinds, shades, pictures hung, some more clean up, the list goes on and on. But lately the focus has been on the basement. A couple years ago the basement flooded. 3 times. Something had to be done about that so a sump pump was installed along with this mad professor rerouting of the pipes. That was all super awesome and worth it, now when it rains I can kick back and relax instead of FREAKING OUT.

Sump pump in mid-installation in 2011.

But even with the pump and reroute there was still water getting into the basement. Standing water under the floor would seep up through the concrete and sometimes water would come in through the walls and pool on the floor. It wasn't terribly bad but it also wasn't the bone dry room every girl dreams about. (note: the floor in the picture was watered down by the guys who were breaking up the concrete. That's intentional water.)

You can see the porous basement walls in the picture above. Keep in mind the house was built over 130 years ago. Those foundation walls were poured (were they poured back then?) the same year James Garfield entered (and inelegantly exited) the office of the presidency.

The floor on the opposite side of the basement was a complete puzzle. And a gross looking mess. It turns out that dirt was poking through a thin, cracking layer of concrete.It looks like mold but it's really just plain old ground.

Here's a picture that's meant to make you say, hey, that's not so bad. But below are a couple close ups that look like someone dropped, then ran from, a contagious culture from the CDC.

But guess what, good news abounds. The guys who put in the sump pump came back last week to install drain tiles. The water issues should now be a thing of the past. !!!!! Pics of that project tomorrow.

24 Hours of Snow

It's been a snowy spring. Or, I guess, a snowy end of winter. A storm came through yesterday that was billed as a real doozy. It did snow a lot, started at 2am (they say) on Tuesday and kept going straight through until 2am this morning. A few pics of the progress...

Curtain Rod of Excellence

Finally!! The curtain rods for the master bedroom have been installed. And it's only been seventeen months since I bought them.

They're a very simple, streamlined design and actually intended for outdoor use.

Indoor or out, they're definitely a step up from what I had:

The old-fashioned tension rod with a sag in the middle.

 The new rod, as you can see below on the right, is solid and sag free.

The person who installed them had to customize the allen wrench and saw down part of the middle curtain rod. I wouldn't have been that ingenious so I'm glad I didn't try to put these up. It would have ended in tears and with permanently sagging drapes.

So congratulations Huron. You avoided a meltdown and got to get rid of your granny panties. Huzzah.

Punch List

More little things are happening. A friend's brother is in town and he's going to attack my to do list. Here's what I gave him:

fix ding in drywall where movers bumped it taking stuff to the basement
touch up bathroom skylight hook where installation left it gouged and messy
hang bedroom curtain rod
hang house numbers on door
add electrical outlet in basement to accommodate sump pump plug
touch up paint as needed
estimate costs to re-stain the first floor deck

He'll evaluate the projects and see what he can tackle. Most of these jobs could have been taken care of a year and a half ago but then I'd be living in a finished (almost finished) house rather than a work in progress.

The garage door is installed but I'm not sure the opener is up yet. My neighbor's ladder and tools are still in there so I'm guessing it'll be another...4 days before the job is totally done? That's working days, not counting days he doesn't work at Huron and scuttles off and do other stuff.

 All so exciting. Who knew that mundane house work would get my blood racing?

Ants

in my pants. Can't wait for that garage door to be installed. ....

Lighting Strikes

That's light-ing. As in electricity. As in, something is happening to the garage and I'm very excited about it. After I got my 3rd parking ticket for parking in front of my house on a street cleaning day, my neighbors kindly suggested that I get my garage door fixed so I could start parking back there and avoid Chicago's Scam to Fund their Dwindling Coffers. Conspiracy Alert!! Seriously, those street cleaners don't do a thing. If I remember, I'll try to take a picture of the street after one of their trucks comes through. Honestly they just sputter filthy water in their wake. Here's a googled picture of one of the city street sweepers which is clearly sitting on a street that has already been cleaned. See how pristine the street is in front of the truck? That's how you know they're lying.

 
No leaves or trash or gutter gunk gets picked up by these trucks. They just spurt out Streets and Sanitation bilge water. But, if you don't dash out and move your car before they fart by they'll hit you with a hefty fine. People, you do the math.

But I digress. This post isn't about exposing the city's farty undergarments. It's about the miracle in the alley and Jack, my neighbor, who took it upon himself to put together a proposal and bid to install a new garage door. Here's what it looks like now,

and here's what it's going to look like,

Ha. Just kidding. No, the new door will be boring white vinyl. But it'll be better than the ramshackle two-tone that's back there now.

So step one was to hook the garage up with electricity. I didn't want the new electrical line that had to go from the garage to the fuse box in the basement to be an eyesore. So Jack ran the line from the basement, along the back of the fence (on the left) and into the back wall of the garage.

From the other side of the fence (which you get to through my neighbor's gangway) you can see where the line comes out of the hole in the basement wall, gets threaded through a box and into an insulated pipe

rounds the corner

and tucks up against the back of the fence.

I bought the door this morning at Menard's, it was delivered a couple hours later and will be installed tomorrow. The motor opener thing is coming from Home Depot online tomorrow or Monday-ish. This has all happened a lot faster than I expected and really, never would have happened without my neighbor's intervention. So thanks to him it'll soon be Huron - 1, bankrupt city pension fund - Goose Egg.