The Revenge of Kaufman's Blog

Santa Croce church in Florence

2011-09-09T00:50:00.001-05:00

Wow! Home to the tombs of Michaelangelo, Galileo,Machiavelli, and a huge memorial to Dante Alighieri, this church really felt like hallowed ground.

Views from the Duomo of Florence

2011-09-08T15:21:00.001-05:00

Please enjoy these, we climbed 450+ steps for these views!

We have made it to Rome!

2011-09-07T02:51:00.001-05:00

These pictures, however, are from Firenze (Florence) because I am behind on posting. In these are some of us on our rooftop terrace, and many of the Duomo of Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore which is one of the defining landmarks of the city (the big red dome). We climbed 450+ steps to get to the top if this dome, and I will post pictures of the views later. For now, enjoy these!

Way more pics (i hope)

2011-09-05T10:12:00.001-05:00

I think we may have the internet situation temporarily sorted ... these are all still Venice. Florence to come soon!

Sorry! Internet access difficult!

2011-09-01T15:11:00.001-05:00

Hi all. I am sorry about the slow pace of pictures but since we seem to have access for the moment I am going to get some published here!

Venice

2011-08-30T12:55:00.001-05:00

Just a pic or two. Arrivederci!

I really, really like how this turned out.

2011-01-21T16:03:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures of the completed project "Face Lift"

The paint job on the concrete looks awesome! They used an industrial enamel with a "Shark Grip" addidtive from Sherwin Williams which turns every coated surface into a non-slip surface. The color we used here is "Colonial Revival Grey."

Also, they replaced the porch light fixtures with these hanging carriage style lamps, and I love how they look!

Face Lift

2011-01-17T18:18:00.001-06:00

So I got to talking with my friends Matt and Sylvia of M an S Contracting over the holidays, and it turned out that January would be an ideal time for all of us to get involved with a project at the house. The mission: a full repainting/repairing of the front of the house from top to bottom, including the gable and the porch. To set the stage, here's a pic of the front soon after I puchased the house:

For those who have been following along, the last time we pictured the front was, I believe, when we installed the re-finished door. Well, after that (some time in August, maybe?) Becky and I took it upon ourselves to repaint the peachy pink to match the green siding. I never posted a picture of that phase, but here it is in all its incomplete glory:

You might notice that as rank amateurs without fancy ladders and scaffolding, Becky and I were unable to reach the gable, which remained the old peachpink house color. Also, we really only put a single coat of the green paint on the front, whic was great cosmetically but probably didn't offer enough protection from the elements. Honestly, this had been bothering me for some time, as I knew the paint was aging and that the woodwork up there was in danger of taking some real wear as it became more exposed. There was also some water damage beginning to take its toll on some of the white trim, moulding, and gingerbread due to faulty gutters, which we replaced in December.

Anyway, Matt and Sylvia came over to take a look and they definitely had some recommendations, and also a spot in their schedule where they could fit the project. We came to an agreement and they have been awesomizing the front of the house for the past week or so. The results are nothing short of amazing in my book.

First, they built the scaffolding they would need to reach the top gable. They even pressure washed the roof tiles on the front of the house. Click on the pictures for close-ups.

After completely refinishing the front gable (except for some old paint on the stained glass which they could not remove without damaging the window... a future project, probably) they moved down to the porch level. They scraped, caulked, and painted the porch ceiling, covering up that old peachpink color with a traditional New Orleans blue (keeps the bugs off, ya heard?) that I absolutely love.

Here you can see they also sanded and painted the white trim:

They also reglazed all of the panes of glass in these antique windows (adios, drafty bedroom). In the following pic you can see this window has been re-painted up to about 2 inches above the sash break (that's not a shadow, that's old paint). The difference is really fantastic in person, but you can get a sense here of how much brighter the trim looks. Also of note, they added a coat of green to ensure adequate coverage over the job Becky and I did.

Anyway, the work is continuing. They sprayed a bonding primer all over the concrete portion of the porch, and tomorrow, weather permitting, they are going to paint it a light grey. I will post some more pictures post-project. Seriously, these guys do incredible work and are as reliable and trustworthy as the day is long. I can't recommend them highly enough.

Maybe I should change this to "Lulu's Blog"

2011-01-14T08:32:00.000-06:00

O Christmas Tree...

2010-12-08T18:07:00.000-06:00

We've got some more pics of Lulu, and I made a little video of our tree assembly / decorating experience. Hope you enjoy!

More puppy pics!

2010-12-02T11:51:00.000-06:00

It's a Doggy Dogg World

2010-11-19T16:05:00.000-06:00

So, for those of you who with whom I haven't been in touch ... we got a puppy! She is a French Bulldog, and we named her Lucille (Lulu for short). She has been taking up a lot of my time and energy for the past week, but she is just a little furball of love. We got her from a wonderful breeder at frenchies2luv.com, who I would recommend to anyone looking for a French Bulldog. Here are some pics!

Racing to meet our deadline...

2010-04-19T17:45:00.000-05:00

Guest Room pics

2010-04-15T09:19:00.000-05:00

Snapped just a couple of quick images this morning on the way out of the house...

And here's one of the guest bathroom so far (I realize, not much to speak of yet).

Roofed and PaintedI

2010-03-14T19:08:00.000-05:00

After a long day of painting, with lots of help from Matt and Sylvia, Becky and I proud to say that the construction phase of the shed is nearly complete. We need to do one more topcoat of the green, and then paint the trim. Here are some photos that tell the tale, including the brown metal roof, the shed in it's primed but not painted condition, some interior photos, and finally some pics of how it stands today, with the first topcoat of green.

How to build a shed:

2010-03-08T13:38:00.001-06:00

Step one: Order a butt-load of wood (huh huh, huh huh huh)

******VERY IMPORTANT!!!***** Step 2: Hire professionals.

Step 2A:
Watch as they build a foundation and level it on blocks:

Step 2B: The pros (our extremely able friends Dave, Matt and Sylvia) install the floor

Step 2C: Before you know it, a wall will be framed...

Step 2D: ... and another started.

Step 2E: Once all 4 walls are framed, you can call it a day.

On Day 2, Build a small attached deck and throw on some siding:

Maybe add a few roof joists:

And throw on the initial coat of primer to prepare for final paint job, which will make the shed match the house.

Work to do...

2010-02-27T20:17:00.001-06:00

Well, I know it's been forever since I posted anything on the blog, but it has been a busy, busy start to 2010. We have moved into the house, thrown a housewarming party, had our team win the Superbowl, elected a new mayor (hooray!), and partied through Mardi Gras. In the midst of that, I took a trip to Eugene and Seattle with Dad to visit Aunt Cindy and Diana AND we moved our entire company to a new location.

We decided at the end of January to terminate the lease on Becky's apartment, which is where we had been doing laundry until the move. Since we tore down the shed that used to house the washer and dryer at the house, we have been spending a half day at the laundromat every two weeks. I have to say that the laundromat on a Sunday morning is simply an unpleasant experience. Given that Dave expressed some interest in tackling this project with me (OK, mostly *for* me), I opted to get started on this in early February.

The room designated as the laundry room is the room all the way at the rear of the house. When I purchased the house lo these many months ago, the room was painted a dark grey, and consisted of 2 windows and a closet. The windows had obviously been covered with tin foil and black sheets (??) for some time and the whole thing had a "crack-y" sort of feel.

We (and by we I mean Dave) tore out one of the windows and added a door to the back yard:

There aren't really a lot of good pictures of this room because almost from the beginning, it was filled top to bottom with "stuff." You can see the pile of boxes to Dave's left in the picture above.

Anyway, to the good news and pictures! In the past month we have torn out the closet, repaired the sheetrock, primed and painted the walls, patched the floors with thinset concrete (twice), laid down linoleum, run plumbing and electrical for washer and dryer, purchased and installed cabinets and countertop, and moved the washer and dryer indoors (just today) for a triumphant first load of laundry in the new laundry room. Without further ado, here it is!

Blinded

2009-12-16T11:18:00.001-06:00

We are currently in the process of installing faux wood blinds (Bali Economy Faux Wood from blinds.com) blinds. I think they are going to look pretty nice once finished.

For the big windows in the front, we installed 2 levels of blinds, since the "Economy" blinds we could afford didn't come in the 110" length we would need to cover the entire window. This also allows us tilt / raise the top and bottom separately, which might end up allowing us more simultaneous light and privacy than a single blind might. Here is a pic of them in the bedroom:

Now on the smaller windows, we used a single blind. This installation was actually more complicated because we decided to "cheat" on the required depth. We really like the look of blinds cut to fit inside the window frames (inside mount) as opposed to those that overlap the frames on the side (outside mount). However, in order for those blinds to fit properly inside the windows, they require a 2" depth all the way through. We didn't have that, but we cheated and built out the frame a little bit, then hid the buildout and hardware with a custom built valence. Here's a couple of pics:

Cool, huh?

See the special man...

2009-11-20T16:54:00.002-06:00

Well, it's been a trying couple of weeks. I managed to obtain some pretty nice furniture off of Craigslist, but I experienced some rather expensive technical difficulties in doing so.

Mainly, I found a nice cherry sleigh bed in Lake Charles for about $150. I called and spoke with the seller, who seemed legitimate, and decided it would be fun to cruise to Lafayette (which is 2/3 of the 3 hour drive to Lake Charles) and say hi to the folks, and Claire, Brian and Heidi. That way, I could stay at Mom's, get up in the morning and finish the trek to pick up the bed. Unfortunately, things did not work out as I had planned.

Halfway to Lafayette, I got stuck in a traffic jam that lasted 90 minutes and 25 miles. All of the stop and go traffic apparently was the straw that broke the camel's back for the clutch in my car, and I limped along to Lafayette not knowing if I would make it. The next morning we managed to get my car to the shop, where the estimate came back at a whopping $1500. Plus a needed brake job for another $400.

Fortunately, Mom offered to drive me down to Lake Charles and I was still able to get the bed, but what a nightmare! She then loaned me her car for a few days while mine was repaired. Mom, thanks again. You're a saint. And those of you that helped get Mom where she needed to go while I had her car, thank you too.

Without further ado... the pictures:

Here is the bed with a replacement support (the whiter wood piece). I had to fabricate this when I realized that the original was missing. That may have been part of the good price.

And from another angle, the whole bed:

I have also been busy on ebay. I bought a few antique doorknobs and rim locks (surface mounted "lock boxes") to replace a couple of broken ones around the house. Here's the bedroom knob/lock:

And here's the one for the bathroom:

I replaced the knobs on the front door with something a little fancier:

And, finally, we got some furniture moved! Hooray, we're in the home stretch!

This is working out!

2009-11-11T19:57:00.001-06:00

So, I drove by the house today to see what Dave worked on today. Yesterday, I had discovered that Riverside Lumber carries and stocks cypress moulding, so I was able to get some casing that dave could use to rebuild the window framing in the entry doors. To my surprise, when I drove by the front door was hung! (Remember, you can click on the pictures to see bigger, clearer copies!)

I am REALLY pleased by the way this door turned out. The back door is on the worktable, ready to hang tomorrow:

Meanwhile, I have been a busy Ebayer. When I was younger, during a renovation of the house on Baudoin where we used to live, Dad found some great old Victorian/Eastlake doorknobs that we installed on some french doors joining the den and living room. I purchased some knobs that remind me of those from a seller in Delaware, OH. Here's a pic:

I think these are going to look GREAT! Meanwhile, Dave has been ludicrously productive. The man is an artist, and extremely efficient. He has:

Cleaned and applied polyurethane to all of the wood surfaces associated with the wainscoting:

And the mantels:

Installed crown moulding on the kitchen cabinets:

Installed the bathroom shower curtain rod assembly and shower:

And here's a pic of the front of the bathroom (ignore the sawdust, it's everywhere right now):

Also, Sylvia stained and poly'd the doors for the bathroom, bedroom, and hall closet:

Bathroom:

Bedroom:

Hall Closet:

Also, I am borrowing Jack's truck tomorrow to go look at and probably purchase this antique table off of craigslist ($190!!! What a bargain!!!):

Antique Table and 4 chairs. Approx 29 in. high,39 in. wide and 59 in. long. Has pop up leaf(such a neat feature,self contained under table) that is 1 ft wide. Dark mahogany in color,not sure of wood. I bought at Auction,planned to strip and redo but hubby says"Has to go-no room". Call if interested.

Anyway, it's been a good few days. Love, all!

The Perception of Doors

2009-11-05T16:07:00.002-06:00

So, I recently had the exterior doors to the house removed and "dipped" to remove the crazy green/turquoise/ugly paint that had been applied by someone in the home's distant past. You may remember these doors:

The results were at the same time spectacular and disappointing. The doors themselves are absolutely amazing, but the due to the fine detailed moulding and carving, along with some age lines, not all of the paint was removed in the dipping process.

My contractor was a little disappointed in the result, I could tell, as he called me and suggested I would have to decide whether I was *really* committed to my original plan to poly the doors and allow the natural wood to show, or if I wanted to punt and paint them. I told him I was not even going to consider repainting them, so he instructed me to obtain some dental tools and begin removing all of the tiny paint flecks from the nooks and crannies of the doors where dipping had been insufficient. For hours I (and for some of the time Becky) labored with tiny precision tools, pulling old paint off of these doors. If you happen to come to the house once they are finished, love the doors. Please.

Uncle Mike

2009-10-27T08:00:00.003-05:00

What up Heidi!

Heidi and Uncle Mike

Sink!

2009-10-20T11:01:00.000-05:00

Kitchen with Range Hood and Stainless Backsplash

2009-10-12T09:57:00.000-05:00

Congratulations... It's a KITCHEN! (almost) And a BEDROOM!

2009-10-08T12:54:00.002-05:00

Progress continues... much faster now that pros are involved.

2009-10-07T11:37:00.004-05:00

So, here are some pictures of the progress in the kitchen and the bedroom. Dave is masterfully replacing the formica on the countertops. In 2 days he has gotten an AMAZING amount of work done:

Meanwhile, Matt and Sylvia are finishing up the bedroom... It sure looks a lot better than it used to.

OLD PICS:NEW PICS:

Blue!

2009-10-02T11:23:00.002-05:00

Here is a quick pic of the progress in the master bedroom. I will take more / better pics this weekend.

Heidi Katherine!

2009-09-08T09:16:00.002-05:00

Some pictures of Heidi, Claire's daughter!

Siding - Day 2. "Mission Accomplished!"

2009-09-03T16:31:00.005-05:00

Siding!

2009-09-02T19:59:00.003-05:00

Slip out the back, Jack

2009-08-01T17:42:00.003-05:00

Previously, the back yard could only be accessed by the two narrow pathways along the side of the house. It has been my intention to add a door back there for much more functional access to the yard.

Dave was back in action as we rapidly tore out an old a/c unit, and he worked some magic to get this door installed before we were hit with an afternoon rain.

Here are some pics:

Demolition!

2009-08-01T17:11:00.007-05:00

Last weekend, Jack came by with his handy reciprocating saw to help tear down the shed. We made a huge mess, but we got that eyesore demolished!

Here are some pics:

On painting cabinets...

2009-08-01T16:52:00.002-05:00

Here are some pics of the painted cabinets!

Shed, your days are numbered!

2009-07-20T14:35:00.009-05:00

One of the biggest obstacles currently preventing me from moving in to this house is the current lack of hot water on my side of the double. The gas line to the hot water heater, which ran the length of the house, was allowed by the previous owner(s) to deteriorate to a dangerous level of unusability. In order to get the furnace running last winter (to keep the interior at an appropriate temperature for the floor refininshing), I was forced to cut and cap the bad line, which completely disconnected the hot water heater from the gas system. Thus, no hot water for many moons now.

I have decided that I want to put in a tankless hot water heater, and mount it to the back of my house. Unfortunately there was a very large, dilapidated problem standing right in the way of progress: the shed. This shed clearly had a colorful history. It had obviously been Frankenstein'd together using floorboards (for door material, mind you), old beams, and most disturbingly, parts of other, prior sheds. One wall contained an old window oriented the wrong way... crazy.

The shed was so dilapidated, in fact, that when I bought the house my insurance company said I had to "do something with it" or they wouldn't insure me. So last summer we spent a weekend or two re-roofing it and putting support framing and some sheeting on the outside. I painted it and it looked ok, from the outside, but man! The shed was divided in two by load-bearing, unremovable wall. In one half, my non-functioning water heater and the washing machine. In the other, my tenant's actual water heater and the dryer. What this meant was that, in order to move a load of laundry from the washer to the drier, you had to carry the clothes out of the shed, all the way around to the other side.

Relevant to my immediate plans, the shed was taking up space on the back of the house where I want to move the water heater. And really, I have been looking forward to getting this thing torn down for over a year...

Now, in order to be able to tear down the shed, we had some major work to do for my tenant first. We had to a) figure out a new location for her hot water heater and b) ensure that she still had a place to do laundry. Enter Dave, who has been an amazing help to me. He's the guy that put in the plumbing for the bathroom renovation a few weeks ago.

Step one: Move water heater from shed to tenant's closet:

Attach plumbing:

Install venting with blue, fire-resistant caulk:
(Note: expect funny looks when you ask for "FireCaulk" at Home Depot)

Outside:

Inside:
Squeeze Stackable washer and drier into closet next to water heater:

Add louvered doors to hide the plumbing ugliness:

And Voila! Now we are much closer to tearing down the shed, and then installing hot water on the owner's side!

Bricks and other big goings-on

2009-06-18T17:57:00.008-05:00

Since my last post a few projects at the house have been moving forward pretty quickly. For one, we are painting the kitchen cabinets a nice dark brown (Black Bean at Sherwin-Williams). I have one pic from this project but will document it in greater detail next week.

Here is a quick shot of the work in progress:

This post is really about another project, however, one that sort of took me by surprise. See, I went by Jack's place this weekend as I knew he was working with Matt, Sylvia, and Dave to install windows. After I "helped" with that project (mostly by staying out of the way), we went for beers and Matt asked me why I had never contacted their mason regarding repointing the brick fireplaces/chimneys in my house. I told him I had never gotten the number, and minutes later I was on the phone with Esteban, a talented Honduran mason looking for work. We agreed to meet later in the day so he could give me a price.

He showed up, evaluated the chimneys, and promptly quoted me a price so good I really didn't even want to say "let me think about it." Instead, the words that came out of my mouth next were "How long will it take you and when can you start?" He smiled at me and asked if I would meet him at the house the following morning. So, just like that, the brickwork is going to get some desperately needed attention.

The following morning, Esteban showed up with his "cousin" Dino. These guys got right to work scraping the old mortar out from between the bricks. I wish I had known what a ridiculous amount of dust and mess this was going to make. Here is a picture of one of the mantles covered with some of the dust:

Now, imagine that multiplied by fifty, with a good portion of it dropped from a height approaching 12 feet, creating billowing clouds of mortar dust, and you get the idea. This shot shows how dusty it was getting:

After the scraping, it was time to re-mortar the joints! Here is Esteban applying the mortar:

A big item I was really concerned about was the fireplace in the kitchen. The opening in the fireplace had been covered by a screen in what appeared to be an effort to prevent anything from coming down the chimney? The opening had also been filled with a bunch of extra bricks, and the whole affair was just a mess. In the following picture you can also see the area down the right-hand side was in need of repair and that there are holes all in the mortar:

Here is a picture of the same fireplace after the mortar was cleaned:

And, finished and almost dry:

Here is a picture of the re-mortared front of one of the fireplaces (above the mantle):

And a couple more of the finished fireplaces:

Did I mention that this great price included re-pointing the brick in the attic and on the roof? These guys asked me to meet them at 6:30 AM one day, and 5:30 AM another to ensure that they could get some good work in before the attic became too "caliente" to continue working. Don't panic, anyone (Mom): Esteban has experience working on this type of roof.

An interesting story... as the guys were cleaning up, I noticed a rather large water puddle under the plastic in the kitchen. Given that I have put a lot of effort into those floors, of course I was quite concerned. I immediately pulled up the plastic and completely wiped down the affected area, and to my relief there appeared to be no lasting damage. At the time, I assumed something had spilled, but when I returned to the area ten minutes later, I noticed the water pooling again. Upon further investigation, I determined that the water was coming from the dishwasher, an appliance that hasn't even been turned on in over a year. I opened it to find it filled with water about 2 inches deep, and this water didn't seem to be draining. I removed the kick plate and saw a hose, very old, that was leaking at the place it joined the dishwasher. After fiddling with it a little more, I managed to accidentally disconnect the hose (which I thought was the drain hose but turned out to be a pressurized supply line!) and cause a major leak / spray from under the dishwasher! PANIC! I quickly ran outside to turn off the water, and pulled out the dishwasher to find a very disgusting under-counter space, now all soggy with water/dust/grease and small items lost from lives past... Thank goodness for rubber gloves and a good wet/dry shop vac. i cleaned up all the water, vacuumed out this space, turned off the water supply to the dishwasher and restored water service to the house. At that point, Esteban had finished. I inspected the work and called it a day.

Oh... and if anyone is getting rid of a nice, stainless steel dishwasher, or wants to come pick up the dishwasher of terror (for free), let me know!

Weekend Update

2009-06-01T14:03:00.005-05:00

This weekend was not my most productive to date, and I am afraid that the next few weekends won't bring much progress either. While the bathroom project nears completion, I am turning my attention to other matters. I suspect there is a big "gotcha" waiting for me when I try to put up my shower-curtain-rod assembly (which is fairly complicated due to the whole claw-foot tub thing) and find the light-heat-fan assembly seems to be in the way. Oh well, cross that bridge later. Right now, my energies are focused on wrapping up the plaster/skimcoat repairs in the bedroom.

Here is a picture of the antique light fixture that I took out of the bathroom. I touched it up with some of the same paint used on the tub's claw feet, and i think it came out pretty nicely.

I was hoping it would be visible through the transom window from the den, and it looks like that might work out.

Also this weekend, Becky and I had a final breakfast at the Bluebird Cafe on Prytania St. before it closed down for good on Sunday. The Bluebird has been one of my favorite weekend breakfast places since I moved here, and I am terribly sorry to see it go. Here is a picture of the line 20 minutes before it opened on Saturday, its second-to-last day of business.

They had decorated the inside with bluebird balloons everywhere.

For some better pictures, I found this Flickr album too. RIP, Bluebird.

Finally, a picture of the washer-dryer stack I picked up off of craigslist for 300 bucks. Woohoo! Free indoor laundry!

The procurement of this item was an adventure in and of itself, invoving a trip to Lacombe in a borrowed truck, a night out at Sal and Judy's restaurant, emergency freeway stops and a drunken, near-death experience... but that's a story for another occasion, and no, I was not the one drunk or near death (this time).

Back with some pics!

2009-05-26T09:24:00.007-05:00

It's been a while since I have reported anything, but armed with a new camera I intend to post some fun pictures of the progress on the house this week. Here is the first slew:

This is a picture of the bathroom baseboards, painted and ready to cut and install. To accomplish that goal, I needed to buy some tools.

So I am now the proud owner of an air compressor (known as a "pancake" compressor due to its small, flat tank), 3 different types of nail gun to run with it (the one that shoots the biggest nails, 2 inches long, is the one shown in the picture)...
... and something called a compound miter saw. This saw rotates on 2 axes, allowing me to create nice beveled cuts and fit the baseboards together with the proper 45 degree angle join.

I was in a hurry to get these boards down because Dave, a contractor who worked with Jack, offered to come help me with some of my plumbing challenges. I helped him with some computer work a while back, and I guess we have become a part of that "barter is on the rise in troubled economic times" statistic.

Dave was scheduled to come out on Sunday, leaving me Saturday, basically, to get the bathroom ready for the fixtures.

Here is a picture of the work in progress. The baseboards are really just a flat board with a piece of molding on top, caulked and painted to look like one piece. You may also note that I have painted the bathroom a nice springy green color, known as "Rice Paddy" in Sherwin-Williamese.

I was able to get all of the baseboards cut and installed, thanks to Becky taking off a little early from her job and assisting me Saturday afternoon. Sunday, Dave showed up at 9 am and we worked until late afternoon, 4 or 5, and I am really, really appreciative of his skill and ability to get things done. Here are a few pics of the plumbing work in progress:

Meanwhile, I was looking at the tub and realized I had forgotten to paint the outside! It had been in storage (and actually filled with other stuff in the back of the house) for so long that when we finally pulled it out I realized it needed some touching up. So, one full can of white semigloss spraypaint later, here it is:

I also touched up the feet with a "brushed nickel" color spraypaint:

After a good bit of effor we got the tub moved into the bathroom, and now there is plenty of room! I will get some better pictures of this tomorrow.

And, finally, after much cursing and leveraging of toggle-bolts to hold it in place, the corner pedestal sink is installed and fully functional! Thanks again Dave!

Pictures!

2009-03-09T13:46:00.014-05:00

Owing to a number of circumstances, from a wonderful weekend trip with Dad to Natchitoches, several weeks/weekends of Mardi Gras oriented distractions, and then finally being out of the habit of putting anything up on the web, progress on the house was a bit, well, relaxed. And, frankly, that has kind of applied to the blog, too.

This weekend, however, saw the addition of sheetrock to the new wall, and I have to say I think it's going to look just fine. It's also gotten me back in the mood to share, so here is a nice photo catalogue of some my social activities of the past couple of months. I'll upload some pics of the progress on the house in another post.

From my trip to Natchitoches with Dad:

This was a great trip! We enjoyed wonderful weather, an awesome Bed and Breakfast about a block away from Natchitoches' historic Front Street, some delicious food, nature hiking, and even a round of golf on Northwestern's golf course. We also got to drive around the area and talk about a lot of family (mostly Dad's) history.

On the way up, we drove by Melrose Plantation, historic home of the painter Clementine Hunter. It wasn't open for tours, so I snapped a couple of pics with my phone and off we went.

After driving around Cloutierville, where we discovered to our absolute horror that the historic Kate Chopin house had burned to the ground, we made our way into town and enjoyed some poboys on Front Street. We played a round of golf, checked in at our B&B, cleaned up, and then ate dinner at a great seafood place called Antoon's, right on the river. The owner of Antoon's, who unfortunately we missed, is the son of the town barber (who my father remembers as one of the only other really avid fishermen on Cane River when he was growing up). We enjoyed delicious food and drank a couple of glasses of red while we watched the moon come up over the far bank. It was a really nice experience. We grabbed a movie and woke up early the next morning to have a steaming cup of coffee on the back porch of our Bed and Breakfast. Here is the porch:

And here are some shots from the porch that morning:

All of the guests of this B&B, the Jefferson House (which I recommend highly), had attended a Mardi Gras ball the night before, and we were the only guests stirring early in the morning. We took a little drive through the town, and when we returned, the proprietors Herman and Arleen Mayeux had breakfast ready. While we ate, we were subject to the cute begging of their two Dachshunds. After they realized that they were dealing with experienced dog-begging-resistors, they curled up in the corner for a nap:

After breakfast, we drove around all over the area, looking at different places Dad had spent time growing up. We ended up in Kisatchie National Forest, where we took a nature hike through land that Dad had camped out / hunted on in his youth. Here are a few pics from the nature hike we did at Longleaf Vista in Kisatchie:

Following our hike, we were a little worried about getting back to Lafayette (and for me, all the way from there to NO) at a decent time, but we couldn't resist heading to Clarence, LA to get a long-awaited taste of Grayson's Barbeque, some of the best barbeque in that part of the state. We arrived at the place in what appeared to be the post-church rush, but they handled our order very quickly and we even got an order of ribs to bring home to Mom. Here is a shot of me outside this mecca of meat:

Following that, we headed home with our bellies full and smiles on our faces.

From Valentine's Day weekend:

Becky and I had a wonderful Valentine's day weekend. There were some parades, but mostly we celebrated a day early by having a night out in the quarter. We began by meeting up at Monaghan's Irish Rose on Conti for a beer, then scooted over to EAT! on Dumaine St. The meal was pretty good, affordable and sans corkage fee for the bottle of wine we brought, but the service was a bit lacking. Fortunately, we were ready to have a good time so we did not let that faze us!

Then we walked over to the House of Blues to see the Old Crow Medicine Show, a great band playing a sort of bluegrass-y folk with a great energy. The show was sold out, but we had purchased tickets the week before and were good to go.

It was an incredible show, and the encore, which ran 4 songs, ended with covers of Neil Young's Tonight's the Night and David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.

The following day saw some of a parade, but the weather was threatening and I had plans to cook Becky a steak dinner for Valentine's Day, so we walked the 2 blocks back to the apartment a little early. We were a little fatigued from our late night the evening prior and dinner at home was a very nice way to relax.

From various Mardi Gras happenings:

Becky Goes Bananas Mardi Gras day!

This Dragon costume was pretty sweet.

Becky and me, Mardi Gras Day

Proteus Float

Proteus

Nick and Allie's dog Spartacus, dressed as Elvis!

Becky, preparing some essentials for her ride in the Krewe of Mid-City

That's Becky and Dede, right in the center of this picture. Wait! or are they further right?!? Becky! Becky! Throw me something!!!

Here is Becky and Dede's float, #17!

This is a shot from my parade, Muses, when we stopped in front of Gallier Hall.

Kenny and Andrea and me hanging out before the Muses parade.

On Sunday before Mardi Gras, we went to see the Krewe of Barkus, which I think I am going to do every year from now on. Hundreds of costumed dogs, how could you lose? This year, the theme was Batmutt: The Bark Knight, but all I got was a picture of this hot dog somehow.

If you look closely, you will see that there is a Mardi Gras Tiger inside of this parked truck...

This dude, who we saw on Mardi Gras day outside of Molly's, was clearly living the High Life. Here's to you, sir.

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces?

2009-01-27T12:50:00.010-06:00

This weekend Jack once again generously offered his time to help me (re)build the wall between the "Master" bathroom and bedroom. This wall had to be moved because it made the bathroom too narrow to house the clawfoot tub that had been installed prior to my purchase of the house. We started the project by determining that the existing antique bedroom baseboard was going to present a problem, both to the wall-building effort as well as the plaster repair / skimcoating yet to come. After we made that realization, it was a simple step to decide to remove it.

As you can see, it was pretty tall, and the horsehair plaster did not reach down behind it, so there is a pretty interesting view of the house sill, floor joists, and general construction of the place. Once the baseboards were removed and safely stowed, we began to lay out our footers.

This was really the first time the new wall started to feel like a reality for me. I could see how far it would extend into the bedroom, and how much room would be available in the new, larger bathroom. Me likey.

About this time, I got a call from my neighbor indicating that a delivery truck was outside of my house. My gas range had arrived! Many, many thanks to Mom and Dad for such an amazing piece of help!

After the footers were down, we used Jack's laser level (which shot laser lines on the floor, wall, and roof) to ensure that our first uprights and headers were all plumb and in proper alignment. At this time, we started to realize that the 2x4's we were using for this project were not the straightest ever cut (thanks, Lowe's), but we forged boldly onward using our framing nail gun and elbow grease to straighten and align them as necessary.

This technique worked very well for all of the single uprights and cross-members in our little addition, but when it came to the outside corner we had a real dilemma. The outside corner basically was built with a pillar of 3 2x4's nailed together, providing outside and inside faces appropriate for the (eventual) sheetrock installation. The twist in the boards, however, became more apparent as the top of this pillar was twisted almost 45 degrees clockwise from the bottom. It was a big setback, so we broke for lunch, making the Taco truck / Jefferson highway Lowe's run. BTW: I love that taco truck, on the lake side of Jeff hwy a few blocks on the downtown side of Lowe's. Don't be scared to try it! At a few fits and starts (and visits to a number of hardware stores besides that Lowe's) we got some clamps that, along with some cleverly cut blocks, allowed us to clamp the twist out of the pillar. Here's a view looking up from the floor at that whole operation:

At that point, it was time to call it a day. We returned to the project Sunday morning with the goal of getting all the way through installing the sheetrock, but even our first step was a little off as we remembered that Home Depot doesn't carry the paperless drywall I want to use in the bathroom, and we had to go to Lowe's, again. However, we picked up the sheetrock we needed along with some Stryp-eez in a spray can Becky wanted to try on the windows and a couple of other needed tools.

Jack and I started off by getting some firebreak pieces installed along with the final upright.

Once that stuff was installed, we ran the electrical outlets in this wall, one facing the bedroom and one facing the bathroom and protected by GFCI.

All in all, it was a very successful morning, so we turned our attention to this twisted pillar. As we removed the clamps, we saw that it wanted to return to its original twisted position. Frustrating, so we decided to shop around a little bit for a solution. After a nice lunch at Gott Gourmet (also recommended... don't be afraid to get the Chicago Dog, it's inexpensive and very good) and yet another trip to home Depot, we felt we had the proper tools to finish this project. Using levers, levels, clamps, elbow grease, and a lot of cursing, we finally got the top of the pillar in line and secured with hurricane braces (shown here). That took all afternoon, and around 5 we decided to call it a day.

I want to thank Jack again for his help. No way I could have done this without him. I hope to have pics of a completed wall in the next couple of weeks!

Always Use Protection

2009-01-05T16:45:00.004-06:00

A lot of time this weekend was spent making an accurate representation of the available space on Visio. Saturday I decided I wanted to get enough tarp to properly cover the floors to protect them from the next phase of work, and as I began measuring the floor spaces I realized that I probably only wanted to do that once. So, I included measurements for doors and windows and countertops and such. What I ended up with is a document that I hope continues to be useful for materials estimates and furniture layout. See it below (really, and click on it to get a closeup!):

On Sunday, Becky and I purchased and laid out all of the necessary plastic sheeting, no mean accomlishment since we had to go to Lowe's to pick up the tarps and that place is like a black hole for time. We also purchased a number of sheets of Luan, a low grade light plywood useful for laying down over the plastic in an area where you might be working to protect the floor underneath from dropped tools and such.

While at the store, I ran into some old family friends, Homer Ed and Carolyn, and we spent a nice time catching up before returning to our shopping. On our way home, Becky and I grabbed lunch at the taco stand where I am now becoming a regular. We enjoyed our lunch-from-a-truck on the steps of the house with an orange Fanta, then laid down plastic over all the floors as seen below.

When we were finished laying plastic, we experimented with the idea of sanding and poly-ing the wainscotting, but after a couple of experimental sanding spots turned out a different color than we expected, we decided to drop the idea of sanding. I may still put a coat of poly on the wainscotting, but I am more interested in spending the coming weekend building the new bathroom wall and hanging sheetrock in there.

Right about the time we decided we weren't going to sand, Jack called and requested that I bring back his shop-vac and give him a hand cleaning the other side of his double. I hustled over there and spent the rest of the day sprucing the place up so he would feel good about moving in.

Anyway, we're nearing the point of sheetrock mud and paint, so if you're reading this and feel like getting a putty knife in hand, get in touch!

4 Full Coats of Poly, 3 China Brushes, 2 Lights left on and for each of us a pair of sore knees!

2009-01-03T15:51:00.000-06:00

The Holiday season has passed, but it was wonderful! Becky and I spent Christmas in Lafayette, playing board games and spending some wonderful time with my family. The food was matched only by the company.

Now, about the house:

On Christmas Eve, I got off of work around lunch and headed over to Becky's apartment. After a quick change into some house-work clothes, it was off to the house to apply coat #3. With some observation from Jack, we knocked out the 3rd coat pretty quickly. Sorry, no pics of coat #3.

When we got back from Lafayette late Friday evening, after a wonderful meal with Aaron and his family in Baton Rouge, we opened presents late into the night. I used the following day to do some housework and to get some exercise with Jack and his dog, Scout. Sunday it was back to work on the floors, where Jack, Becky, and myself knocked out the last coat like we were pros.

I came back a couple of days later and took the pictures you see below. Hooray, floors!

2nd Coat down!

2008-12-24T08:16:00.001-06:00

... and I think it's looking pretty good!

Getting down to the nitty-gritty

2008-12-23T15:38:00.008-06:00

After a weekend of sanding, cleaning, and applying the first layer of finish, the floor refinishing project is nearing completion. Friday was a day spent frantically ensuring that I had all the materials for an early start on Saturday. Matt, who has worked with Jack in the past, is a professional contractor who has, in the past, specialized in flooring. He has refinished many floors and was an *awesome* source of both help and knowledge. On a previous Sunday, he helped me create my materials list, and also gave me an overview of how the project should proceed. He showed up this Saturday morning ready to go, and fortunately my preparations had gotten the house ready to begin.

Saturday morning, at 6:15, I swung over to Jack's with Becky. We loaded up into his pickup and headed to home depot to pick up the sander. The sander rental is 28$ for four hours, or 40$ for 24 hours. Needless to say, we went with the 24 hour option. We also purchased all the necessary sandpaper for the rental sander (the most expensive part of the project, 6$ a sheet and we got 30 sheets). I had already purchased a whole boatload of other necessary items, including brushes, mineral spirits, rags, hand sandpaper, more mineral spirits, and a few other items.

Then, we got right to it (right after a minor scare with someone falling through the hole where the central air return grille had been removed to allow sanding access to the floor around its rim). Matt handled the big rented sander and Jack and I started doing some detail sanding of the edges and corners with palm sanders. The big rental sander started up with 36 grit sandpaper attached, which looked almost like small gravel attached to paper. It really took the old finish off the floors pretty quickly!

I wanted the floor to keep a lot of its character, though. I wanted it to look beautiful, but *OLD* and beautiful, which is kind of the general theme I am shooting for with the whole decor. This meant that I didn't want to sand too much of the "character" off of the floor, I really just wanted to get it protected and sort of uniformly covered with finish.

The floor underneath what had been the bathroom wall was interesting. As it had obviously not been sanded during the last floor refinishing, it was sort of a ridge that needed some serious hand sanding to flatten. Here it is after a good bit of effort (you can hardly tell!). You can also see the dust that covered everything during the sanding process.

Here is a shot of the living room during a change of sandpaper:

And a shot from the living room to the bathroom (that's my repair job in the hallway, again looking pretty good for an amateur, I think!).

After the sanding was done, we had to inspect the floor for sander marks and blemishes. We did a pretty careful inspection and deemed that the floor would be ready for Sunday's cleaning and finishing effort. Then, we drank beer.

Sunday started a little slowly due to the beer drinking previously mentioned, however the workload left was much smaller and we had more help as Becky and Sylvia (Matt's girlfriend and an expert at applying finish) were able to join us. After some final detail sanding, we vacuumed the floor as clean as possible and began a wipe down of the entire surface with mineral spirits, always pulling any dirt or grit towards the door we would eventually be exiting from. No shoes were worn in the house from this point on! Here is a pic of what the floor looked like after we had wiped it down:

Once the floor was clean, it was time to apply the poly. This was pretty simple: apply a thin coat, using brush strokes with the grain. We joined together as a team and were able to accomplish this pretty quickly, and we finished the first coat at about 11 AM on Sunday. Thank goodness, too, because this gave the finish (a semi-gloss polyurethane) time to dry before the cold snap hit later that night! The last picture in this post is a pic of the "team" finishing up the first coat in the living room, and I was struck by its similarity to an impressionist painting by Gustave Caillebotte called The Floor Scrapers, which I stumbled across in my Internet research for tips on refinishing old hardwood floors:

Have a merry, merry Christmas!

There's a hole in the floor!

2008-12-16T13:50:00.007-06:00

A lot has happened with the house since my last post, and I am not going to backtrack in detail. Suffice to say that I have learned all about climbing under the house, sweating pipe, the use of Bunny bread in a plumber's world, and a host of other fun tips from checking for gas leaks to using a rotary tool on plaster (which works very well, by the way).

This blog entry, however, is going to focus on the prep work for the big upcoming project this weekend: wood floor refinishing! This weekend, with the help of Matt and Sylvia, and possibly Jack, Becky, and maybe even Tork, I am going to be like Daniel-san and sand-the-floor.

A couple of months ago I was wrestling with ideas for renovating the bathroom. Originally, the bathroom came with a beautiful claw-foot tub that was too big to fit properly between the walls. This resulted in the back of the bathtub actually poking a hole in the sheetrock on one side of the bathroom. This bathroom was also home to the worst-placed floor furnace of all time. The floor furnace was actually installed in the bathroom doorway! Add to that it was ridiculously cramped, poorly placed, and there was no place to store towels or TP. Obviously, something needed to be done here.

So, with the help of my good friend Jack (who I have now promised is to be a guest of honor at any housewarming party), I tore out a wall between the bathroom and the master bedroom.

Then, I took out the floor furnace. Man that thing was big! It looked like a diesel engine.

Then we built a frame in the hole to support the new floorboards.

After that, I had to remove some of the floorboards so that the repair job wouldn't look, well, like a repair job. This involved some interesting cutting and chiselling to "stagger" the end-seams. In the process, I determined that the floor is, for the most part, in great, solid condition.

I also took out a couple of boards towards the middle of the bathroom to repair the hole where the old toilet was, and one that was cut prematurely for the new toilet position that didn't quite work.
The flooring was held in place with ancient, humongous square-cut nails. Chiselling around these for a straight seam was one of the most challenging parts of this operation.

Jack had brought over some flooring that looked like it would be a perfect fit, if not a match, from his house. The boards he brought were pretty dirty (they had been under water during floods several times in the last 100 years) and in the end did not fit as well as we had hoped. The wood was just a little too narrow, and with so many replacement boards adjacent to each other, the gaps were just too big.

So I went to Ricca's hardware, which is a really neat old place that has lots of old wood doors, mantles, wrought iron, clawfoot tubs, and other antique architectural features. Thay where i spoke with Jim, their carpenter, about replacing my flooring. I had brought a sample of what I needed and we determined that he would be able to help by taking some flooring he had that was larger than what I needed and planing, trimming, and routing it. The price was about 4$ a linear foot. I needed about 38 feet, and I tipped him for helping me measure and prepare the boards.

The wood turned out to be a much better fit! There is a little technique to getting these tongue-and-groove boards to fit during the repair process, but with some instruction from Matt and a number of other sources, I got through it. And, color-wise, it seems a perfect match. All in all, it seems as though we are going to be ready for this weekend!

O Little Town of Metairie...

2008-12-12T16:58:00.002-06:00

Crazy week! It snowed here, as much as I have ever seen in southern Louisiana. When I woke up yesterday, everything was grey and rainy. I performed my usual morning routine, tromped off the the car, and began my daily commute. I was on I-10 headed out to Metairie from uptown, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but snow, falling from the sky! It was hesitant at first, snowflakes drifting down between big fat raindrops, but as i continued driving I noticed that the rain pretty much disappeared and snow was actually falling in pretty copious amounts (for our gentle southern climate, at least!)

Several hours and a number of inches of snow later, the city was coated in snow. A couple of hours after that, there wasn't much snow to be seen anywhere as the sun came back out to reclaim its territory. What a neat day.

Here are some pics! I love the ones where you can see snow in the palm trees!

Minnesota Marriage Madness

2008-08-14T10:03:00.004-05:00

Well, it's been forever since I posted, and a lot of fun stuff has happened in between my last post and now. I will probably break this post into a few readable sections to keep it from turning into a novel. Some of my experiences have been positive and some, not as much. This first section is going to be about the big trip to Minnesota, which has been one of the highlights of the summer.
The occasion for this trip was the marriage of Timmy and Jenna, two of my absolute favorite people on earth. It was a very small wedding, but Becky and I were joined by Gary, Torkelson, and Dawn (along with some of Timmy and Jenna's family) to celebrate it in style. It was a great trip all around, and a great experience to share with a group of friends that I enjoy immensely.

Becky and I stayed in the Marquette hotel in downtown Minneapolis, and we were quite pleased with the accommodations. From the 42 inch LCD television, to the full glass / stone shower, to the functional room furniture, we found our stay there to be very enjoyable. It was also nicely located in easy walking distance from the Hilton and the Marriott, where other members of our party were staying. And cheap on priceline.com.

On our first night, Timmy's dad bought the entire wedding party dinner at Great Waters brewing company, where the HefeWeizen tastes like bananas! Actually, it is a brewery/restaurant combination with a nice selection of both food and beers, and we fully enjoyed our meal. Becky and I were seated across from Jenna's mother, and we had a delightful time. Torkelson seemed to be the life of the party, cutting up with some of Timmy's more colorful family members by trading Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes and calling various members of the restaurant staff "Alfonse."
From there, the family members headed home and the friends stayed out at the bar across the street, drinking pitchers of beer and having a wonderful time catching up. Since the restaurant and the bar where we ended up were located in St. Paul, we called it a night and headed back across the river to our respective hotels in Minneapolis to prepare for the big day.

Friday was wedding day. We headed over to the most awesome breakfast restaurant in the world, called Hell's Kitchen. We were so impressed with the place we would eat there for every single breakfast during our stay (three days in a row). Our first meal there saw 5 completely different orders, and every person loved every item served. Buffalo sausage, porridge, huevos rancheros, vegetable frittatas, lemon-ricotta pancakes, it was all devilishly good. They make their own ridiculously good peanut butter (for toast, of course) and blackberry-lemon preserves. Man, that place is outstanding. There were trees inside filled with stuffed crows, and artwork by Gary Larson (all of the "Hell" related Far Side comics) and Steadman (who illustrated a number of Hunter Thompson's works including F&L in Las Vegas). Here's their URL: http://www.hellskitcheninc.com/

After an entertaining day in Minneapolis involving sushi, video games, and mimosas, we headed to the Conservatory/Gardens where the wedding took place. The grounds were beautiful, the ceremony was short and poignant, and the photographs really weren't too arduous. The meal afterward was a success, with delicious walleye AND steak and cake and chocolate truffles. mmmmm. Afterwards, we headed downtown Minneapolis to continue the drinking late into the night (or what passes for late there... the bars DO shut down at 2). We found a bar that was ideally laid out for us, with sidewalk tables and such, but Timmy hadn't brought his wallet along due to being in his fly-ass wedding tux pants, so the server had the audacity to refuse him service on his wedding night. Seriously, she walked out onto the patio and confiscated his beer right out of his hand! Unbleievable. Torkelson went on the wallet rescue mission and returned with proper ID for Timmy, so the drinking continued. A good time was had by all. The following day, we held a disc golf tournament for the newly wedded couple, but that, as they say, is another story.

Lazy Summer

2008-07-11T10:37:00.003-05:00

Lately we've been...not slacking exactly, but definitely relaxing the pace of work on the house. Two weekends ago, Mike and Jack were forced one afternoon to discontinue work on the shed roof due to it being so hot that the roofing tar was melting! At the same time, I was indoors working on replacing the electrical outlets. After one shocking (get it?) experience, I turned off the electricity for safety's sake, and was thereafter working sans-A/C. Mike's mom and dad came over and installed the awesome custom over-the-stove cupboard that they built and stained to match the rest of the wood in the kitchen. This piece of cabinetry offers not only beauty, but dual functionality: it gives the range hood something to attach to, and handily stores both Tupperware and Ramen Noodles.

Last week we had a great visit with my sister Sara and brother-in-law Brad, who have been remodeling their home from top to bottom for a few years now. I think Mike was inspired by their basement bar area, and he may have filed away some ideas for his own future clubhouse/gameroom. It's been mentioned before, but bears repeating: one of the most rewarding results of working on a house is developing the ability to appreciate craftsmanship in other people's spaces.

Yesterday I was struck down by a case of the summer sniffles. I tried to stay in bed, but soon tired of telenovelas and Tylenol Cold, so in the afternoon I headed over to finish grouting the tub. Although the heat was punishing, I pushed onward (buoyed by a grape-tangerine Sno-Ball halfway through) and finished that tedious chore. I wisely decided against working on any electrical projects while alone, and instead had another Sno-Ball. Just kidding. I had two more Sno-Balls. Seriously, it was very hot.

I don't want to start listing all that is left to do on the rental, because I'm afraid it will be a longer list that I'd like. But we are really, really close.

But what about that linoleum?

2008-06-19T08:16:00.018-05:00

Well, some time back I posted a picture of the bedroom floor on the rental side. It was a lovely green basket weave, but it wasn't really in good enough shape to save as there were extensive holes and water damage to the tiles. I'll post the picture again for reference:

Because of the terrible state of the linoleum (and, really, a desire to completely revamp the space) I decided it had to go. With a lot of effort and a couple of trips to the dump I managed to get the tiles removed from the floor and off the premises. I am kicking myself for not getting a picture of the floor when it was in this tile-less state, but it was not pretty. The old hardwood floors were completely covered with black glue and maybe some kind of black paper which was NOT coming off. It was nice for a while because it formed a space on which we were not afraid to stack tools, ladders, tile, paint, whatever because it was in such bad condition. At that point, I was pricing out carpet and engineered bamboo flooring thinking there was no WAY this floor was ever coming back.

Around this time, my sister Claire came into town for her friend Chantal's birthday (they celebrated at Jazz Fest, woohoo!) She mentioned that her friend's house (where they were staying) had some similar flooring issues. I took a break from working to go pick her up there, and she suggested that I come in to look at some pictures of how bad those floors had been and to get a first hand look at what refinishing had done for them.

Well, while I saw some "before" pictures of floors that were in pretty bad shape, and I noted that the "after" floors looked very nice, I was still not totally convinced. I was positive that the floors back at my place were in worse shape, and that there was no hope of successfully restoring them. However, at urging from just about everyone I know, I decided it couldn't hurt to have an expert look at them. An old friend from my college days does a lot of work in the construction / renovating industry down here, and through him I got the number for Vincent Hardwood Floors. That number is (504) 272-5588 and I highly recommend you call Vincent if you need any work done in this area. His crew was professional, friendly, and fast. And the results were AMAZING:

Boy, did that room get a face lift. Here are a couple more:

Thank you Vincent!!!

The Artist's Touch

2008-06-17T11:11:00.004-05:00

So the past few weeks have been a true whirlwind. The renovation has been focused almost exclusively on the rental unit, because getting that income stream in will free up funds for developing the larger unit where we plan to live. A number of rather ambitious projects on the rental side are nearing completion, but none has had the amazing visual impact of the sheetrock repair and painting. And, while a number of helping hands were involved in the painting, for sheer technique, perseverance, and eye for detail, no one beats my Mom.

Unfortunately, I didn't really get too much of a chance to photograph the walls and ceiling before we painted. During the busiest time it seems as though I really forgot to take many pictures at all, but I can tell you for several weekends running both Mom and Dad were down here in lending all of their considerable painting expertise to this effort.

Mom and Dad really make a pretty incredible painting team. Dad generally does the "heavy lifting" with paint rollers and long poles and such, while Mom, with her fine eye for detail and her steady hand does the cutting in and woodwork (basically, the rest).

Just for spacing purposes, I threw the pictures of all of the nice edging throughout this post. This apartment used to be peach, deep red, and a wacky deep blue green all throughout. The new paint job makes *ME* want to live there.

These pictures really don't do justice to this paint job. The improvement is staggering over what was there previously, and I am still amazed at how nice it looks every time I walk in.

The Man with a Plan (and a chainsaw)

2008-06-16T08:15:00.011-05:00

One of the most important sources of help in the process of both purchasing and renovating this property has been my parents. They have been amazingly supportive in almost every manner conceivable, from financial assistance to blood, sweat, tears, and an amazing amount of time and effort. They have driven here from Lafayette nearly every weekend since this project commenced, and that fact that I have not yet highlighted what they have helped me accomplish is really a bit embarrassing. To give you an idea of how incredibly generous they have been with their time, I can tell you that they were both down here on both Mother's Day and Father's Day this year. Thank you, thank you, thank you Mom and Dad for being so supportive, generous, and wonderfully helpful.

One of the first things Dad did when he donned his working overalls was to remove the Japanese magnolia from the front of the house. The tree was sure to bloom beautifully, and offered some shade to the porch, so the decision to remove it was a difficult one. However, the fact that it was leaning against the house was an invitation to disaster; termites, moisture, and/or wind-related damage were eventually going to result from its position, and pruning it was simply not going to alleviate those risks. Furthermore, the thing was planted directly over the water main which supplies the house with water from the street, and I was afraid that damage to this pipe from its roots was inevitable.

So, the weekend after the first big plumbing push, Dad drives down from Lafayette and starts to tackle some outdoor projects, chief among these being (so he thinks) the removal of the tree. It was a Friday, and he was able to come in while I was still at work. I called him from the office early afternoon to see how it was coming along, and he said with the most casual emphasis, "Well, the tree's down." Not half an hour later I got an email from Jean-Paul, who had driven by to retrieve his "SOLD!" sign. He was *very* complimentary of the new look, so I was dying to get home to see it. When I got home, here is what I saw. AWESOME!

The difference is, in fact, pretty amazing, as the gingerbread and front porch are, in my opinion, quite nice looking. With a new pain job (somewhere down on the list of things I plan to do) it's going to sing. Here's another, more recent picture after a little yardwork and the addition of the ficus trees from my old apartment.

The other big outdoor project Dad tackled that weekend was the fence in the backyard. To be perfectly honest, that fence is somewhat of an enigma. It was built using a large amount of treated lumber (read: expensive), but its design leaves a *lot* to be desired. The fence was built in odd sections, with a small, 1.5-2 ft section at the bottom and maybe a 6 ft. section on top. The fenceposts were treated 4x4's, which with age have leaned, warped, and in some cases fallen down.

There was a big pile of lumber in the backyard that had apparently come from the downed sections of the fence, and Dad was able to use these to basically reconstruct the fence along the entire back property line. He even did battle with banana plants and helped reconstruct the neighbor's shed in the process, and I think even he was a bit surprised at how much effort this fence took compared to the earlier tree removal.

I am embarrassed to say, I can't find a picture of the completed fence. Here's a shot of the work in progress; I promise to add a picture of the finished work soon.

The hiatus is over!

2008-06-16T08:09:00.002-05:00

Well, there's nothing like buying a house to make you too busy or too tired all the time to write blog entries, but believe it or not, I have received a couple of requests for information on the renovation. That's right, people asked for more blog entries! And to be perfectly honest, I am at a great point to resume blogging here because I am so proud of how the renovations are turning out.

I'll be posting a series of before / after picture entries today (or just "after" if I can't find a good "before" image). Please, please feel free to comment as Becky and I love the feedback. Thanks for your interest and for visiting.

Kaufman

Picture Post

2008-05-11T21:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Mother's Day! Here's some photos for mom:

That's the old linoleum tile that was in the bedroom of the rental. I was pretty excited about cleaning it up and refurbishing it. What a fantastic green basket weave pattern! But Mike vetoed that in favor of finishing the pine wood floor boards underneath. To each his own!

This was the old floor of the closet in the rental side. I'd like to meet the design mastermind who chose all these tiles. But a little water damage rots out the subfloor, and people have a kneejerk reaction to put down a sturdy false floor:

I guess that's better. Check out the leopard wall!

No after photos for that spotty sheetrock yet.

Here's the new tile in the bathroom.

Mike's working hard here to get the grout in. Color: Haystack. Outcome: Awesome.

Feast your eyes on some during and after ceiling repair work.

That's some quality sheetrock floating. Nice work Mike and Mrs. Kaufman!

Unfortuantely, there are no current photos documenting the backyard fence makeover. But let me tell you, Mike's dad is a miracle worker with recycled treated lumber.

Now if only we could get rid of the lingering sewer gas stench...

Things are going to change around here!

2008-05-11T21:12:00.002-05:00

Well, I figured out how to allow another person to post to the blog, and who else would I invite to help me document life in uptown New Orleans but the person with whom I happily spend most of it? My girlfriend Becky is a most welcome addition to this publication, and I hope very much that you enjoy her writing as much as I do.

The Great Plumbing Adventure

2008-05-08T21:52:00.004-05:00

So I knew when I purchased the house that it had some problems. A couple of spots showed water damage, a clear sign that the roof was in need of repair, albeit minor. Inspections had revealed several other warts, including damaged ducting under the larger unit, a problem with the kitchen faucet in the same unit, some electrical issues that will be addressed at a later date, etc. Looming large among these problems was a bigger, stinkier problem.

The roof is an old asbestos slate roof. Becky's research indicates that the house dates back to before 1909, so I doubt the roof is the original. It is clearly as old as Methuseleh, but it seems to be holding up well for its age. Jean-Paul recommended Stokes Roofing, a local outfit he has used a number of times for a number of his properties. Mr. Stokes was wonderful, and had the repair work done in a matter of 2 days after my close. In fact, the day after he finished, New Orleans experienced one of the heaviest downpours I remember this spring. With the roof repaired, it was time to focus my attention on the problem that was actually causing me the most concern: the toilet in the rental unit.

The inspections had revealed that the toilet on the rental side had lost its drain. The pipe that was supposed to carry the flushed contents had broken loose from the piece where the toilet bolted to the floor. That piece, a collar over the drain pipe, is called the toilet flange, an in this case it was wide open to the crawlspace. This meant that anytime the toilet was flushed, raw sewerage was being dumped into the dirt underneath the house. I am not sure how long this state of affairs had existed while the previous owner was residing in that unit, but I can tell you that there were a lot of air fresheners in the closet.

So, not knowing too much about plumbing, I had called a couple of plumbers over to take a look. The first plumber glanced at the problem and immediately quoted pretty high (like multiple thousands of dollars). I am pretty sure he just didn't want to have anything to do with the mess. The second plumber that I called, on a recommendation from Jean-Paul, was Chris Montalbano of John Montalbano plumbing. Chris was full of information and not afraid to crawl around under the house. He told me that it looked like there was more damage than I had suspected, and he wouldn't know for sure what we were dealing with until he got a chance to dig up a few things under there. He gave me some advice about tracing out the pipes and getting some more information so that he would be able to "surgically strike" the problems on his next visit. I thanked him, and as he left I realized there would be some getting down and dirty for myself.

I picked up some coveralls, but before I actually got a chance to get too dirty, my friend Jack came by to see how things were going. Jack is in the midst of a much, much more intense remodel. He purchased a home right after the storm that had gotten some water damage. He gutted it to the studs, re-roofed it, levelled it, ran his plumbing and electricity, framed out rooms, and now has his bathroom tiled. He has a wealth of knowledge to share about all of the phases of the project he has been through, and he had the suggestion that we tear up the bathroom floor to get to the toilet drain. I have to say, that idea beat the crap out of crawling through it. He also suggested that it would be much, much cheaper for us to repair the pipes ourselves. Since he apparently had the expertise to help me with this project, I decided to opt for the "Do it yourself" solution.

Tearing up the floor was easy. First, we removed the toilet and set it on some old towels in the bathtub. That way, any leakage from the water in the tank actually went down a drain pipe (for the first time in who knows how long). A brittle piece of old, yellowing linoleum glued only at the edges came up in seconds, revealing a sheet of 3/4" plywood covering most of the bathroom floor. With a hammer and a device like a mini crowbar we pulled nails out of it until we could use real crowbars to get it out. We saw an old cast-iron pipe sticking out of the mud which is where the "flush" is suposed to go.

Seemed easy enough at that point. Home Depot has rubber "boots" that can join pipes together. Some PVC pipe and a boot and we could have this thing fixed in an hour or so. We acquired our parts and began the repair. Unfortunately, at some point during this process the pipe we were working with just fell over. Into the, um, mud. After some evaluation, which included some shovelling and clearing, we determined that we still needed to use a boot or two, but in different places and with more PVC. A long, sweaty, stinky day later, we had a pipe coming out of the floor which successfully connected into the sewer system, and the foundation was laid for the toiled to be reattached. Of course, since I plan to tile, the toilet is going to have to wait to actually be reinstalled. More later.

So what happened at the closing?

2008-05-06T05:50:00.004-05:00

Well, it's been a really busy few days, and I don't expect that things will be slowing down anytime soon. I've got quite a few things to share, but overall things seem to be moving along very well.

On Wednesday of last week, I closed on the house. The scheduled plan was for me to meet Jean-Paul over at the house for a final walk-through at about 9 AM. Since I began the day too excited to sleep, when 9 AM finally rolled around I was ready to roll. In fact, I was able to take advantage of the morning before 9 by bringing Becky to work downtown and stopping for a cup of coffee with her on the way.

Jean-Paul met me at the property at 9 and we began the tour. There had been a little concern that the owner might not move out by the closing date, but those fears proved unfounded. The walk-through showed that she had, in fact, removed almost everything from the house and that it appeared ready for the myriad of improvement projects that had been tumbling around in my brain, or in conversations with Becky and my family and friends. The house seemed like it was in the same shape it had been in when I placed my offer, so I gave my approval and we were off to the title company.

We used Crescent Title, an organization Jean-Paul recommended from what seemed like a longstanding good relationship. He knew the folks over there by name and had nothing but good things to say about their service, competence, and efficiency. Based on my limited experience, I can only agree. The folks over there were very nice, even offering me cookies right out of the oven while we waited for 10 o'clock to arrive. They seemed to reciprocate Jean-Paul's goodwill, and one of the staff members showed me something I never hope to see again... a water bill for $42,000+ dollars. Yikes!

While I was in the waiting room, looking at a magazine for New Orleans homeowners, Doris (the seller's agent) arrived. She was a real sweetheart, as she had been during our previous encounters. She was not accompanied by the seller, but we had known that the seller might not be able to attend the closing, and Doris had power of attorney to sign and complete the sale. Since it appeared that all of the relevant parties were present, then, we moved to a conference room to begin the closing.

They sat Jean-Paul and myself on one side of the big table, with Doris on the other. Bob Bergeron, the attorney who handled the closing, sat at the head. He was very friendly as he quickly and efficiently handed me a stream of papers to sign and explained to me what each item was. About 5 signatures into the process, the seller showed up with a friend and the stream of documents received even more signatures. I thanked her again for the opportunity to purchase the home, and she reiterated again how much she had enjoyed living there, especially during Mardi Gras. The stream of papers to be signed slowed down and finally ended, the seller and I shook hands, and everyone wished me good luck, a wish I returned to the seller. I stood up from the table officially a homeowner. Then I sat down again and wrote out a couple of important checks they had forgotten to ask for during the signing process. Jean-Paul also wished me luck and gave me a nice gift as well.

I walked back to my car wanting to jump for joy. In my mind, I was picturing the scene from the movie "Major League" where Wesley Snipes figures out that he has not been cut. He maintains a straight face in front of all the other players, but sneaks outside to yell in triumph and perform a little dance of jubilation, and that's about how I felt. With a big folder of paperwork under my arm, I got in my car and headed for the office.

And that's how I became a homeowner.

Evidence...

2008-04-30T20:07:00.001-05:00

Mission Accomplished!

2008-04-30T20:00:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update to say that all went well and I am a home owner!

Closing Day

2008-04-30T06:40:00.004-05:00

Well, it's about 4:45 AM on Closing Day, and in 5 or 6 hours, barring any unforeseen catastrophe, I am going to be a homeowner. I woke up about an hour ago, and after much tossing and turning I realized that I am probably not going to be getting back to sleep. During this insomniac period, I have had a chance to reflect on the series of events that has brought me to this point. Since I somehow have it in my mind that this blog might provide some useful information for potential home buyers, I thought I might take advantage of this time to share that information.

Am I ready to buy?
I guess the first step was actually deciding whether or not I was ready or even if I really wanted to buy a home. There were a lot of factors that affected that decision, like income, debt, real-estate prices in an area where I might like to live, do I want to be responsible for my own yard, building upkeep, etc. Fortunately, there are a bunch of "calculators" on the Internet that helped me get some perspective on this. Just Google "rent or buy" and you'll see what I am talking about. I think one of the biggest factors in this decision was that I started to get frustrated with the fact that paying rent is really just like buying a house for someone else that I get to live in for a short while. I've been in New Orleans almost 10 years, with an average rent of maybe $650 a month. That's $7800 a year, $78000 total dollars that all went to paying for someone else's property. And improving the places where I lived just didn't make much sense if I didn't own them, although I thought of any number of constructive projects.

What's it going to cost (and how much can I afford)?
Knowing that I wanted to buy didn't really get me all the way there. I started surfing real estate websites like some people surf, uh, sports websites. Having tried quite a few, I ended up deciding that the Latter and Blum search engine is a little better than the rest. I was able to narrow down my search pretty well using their search form, and I found a number of houses that, according to the "loan calculator," seemed well within my price range. So I called a mortgage company to find out how much money, based on my income, debt, and credit history, that I could borrow. Along with letting me know a total amount that I could borrow, he lender was also able to help me estimate what my monthly payments might be on a given amount, and that was a real eye-opener. Finding out just how much property taxes and insurance add to the monthly note made me back off for a while, but finally, armed with the knowledge of how much I could realistically spend, I charged boldly forward with my house-hunting.

I quickly discovered that New Orleans property is expensive. In fact, it seemed for a long time as though the only properties I could afford were either in need of complete renovation or located in pretty bad areas (and by bad I don't mean "too far from the grocery store"). A friend of mine who has purchased a couple of homes in the area mentioned that he got started by purchasing a duplex and renting out one side while he lived in the other. As I started to do the math (House Note - Rent paid by my tenant=more affordable) I began to realize that this was really going to be the best way for me to obtain the kind of property I wanted. My search began to focus more and more on "doubles."

I found a house I really like! Now what?
Well, since I had been searching online for my own house I thought I might not need a real-estate agent. I thought I might be able to finagle a lower price by cutting out the middle man, as it were. Fortunately I was quickly disabused of that naive notion. My real estate agent, Jean-Paul Villere, ended up being crucial to the process. He was introduced to me by my girlfriend, and I would recommend him to anyone. He and his wife have purchased and renovated a number of homes, and his experience was so helpful I am pretty sure I would not have gotten to this point without him. I also know I would never even think about cutting out this particular middle man (a real estate agent) again.

So, once I found some houses that interested me, I emailed him to find out if he had any additional information on the properties. In some cases, he had seen or shown the property before and could give me a frank evaluation. In others, he gave an opinion of the asking price based on square footage and location. Using this information, we finally got down to a list of properties in my price range that I wanted to actually see. At that point, I also wanted the expertise of a couple of people very familiar with home buying to help me out, so on a day when my parents were visiting, we scheduled 4 home viewings.

Most of the homes were, in our opinion, overpriced for the amount of work they required to become livable/rentable. One of the homes was in excellent condition, but unfortunately the location was a little scary. The neighborhood, while improving, still had some pretty obvious criminal elements that ended up scaring me away.

We tried this once or twice more, but none of the houses we saw made me want to make the giant commitment of home ownership (which was sad, really, given that I really, really wanted to buy a house). It got to where I knew almost all of the homes that were available and why they weren't really right for me, so Jean-Paul was emailing me new listings that met my criteria as they came on the market. That turned out to be the ticket, as the house I ended up making an offer on came on the market right at the end of a visit from Mom. She and Becky drove by and told me it was worth a look, so we scheduled with Jean-Paul to see it that afternoon. While it needed some work, the price was pretty good for the location and I really liked the layout. It was obvious that this home was going to work if I could get it for the right price. Now it was time to make an offer.

Making the offer
I really had only the vaguest idea of what was to happen next. Again, thank goodness for my real estate agent. Becky and I met with him that evening and he explained the next few steps even as he prepared the paperwork. We used a state-issued contract to make the offer. Basically, the offer is a legal document that says "I will by this house at $xxx. If you agree, I will have ten days to have some experts look at it and tell me all the things that are wrong with it. At that point, I might ask for a lower price or for you to fix some things, to which you can agree, disagree, or offer some compromise. Depending on your response, I can accept it or call the whole thing off. If either one of us calls it off for no reason after that point, that person might get sued." If the owner agrees, and signs the offer, then I have to give them a deposit and the house is "under contract," basically, the accepted offer becomes a legally binding document and we both have to follow what it says. Again, it was great to have Jean-Paul there as he suggested adding things like "The washer and dryer come with the house, the Air Conditioners come with the house, etc." Also, he suggested not giving them too much time to think about it, so the offer expired the next day.

They accepted the offer! What now?
The seller and her agent had a couple of minor changes they wanted to make to the offer before they accepted. The price I had offered was OK, but they wanted to make sure we were both clear on how some things were going to work during the 10 days I had to have my expert inspectors look at the house. So they "counter-offered," basically taking the same document I had sent over, marking some changes on it, and signing it. Once I signed again to approve their changes, we had the beginnings of a deal! Now begins a really busy couple of weeks.

Now it was time to line up the inspectors. Jean-Paul again helped to guide me through this process. We had a plumber come to inspect the drains, an exterminator to look for evidence of termites, and a general home inspector who pretty much looked at everything else. The total cost of the inspectors was about $750, which is paid straight out of pocket (it's not involved with the loan financing or anything). I also lined up a roofer to give me an estimate as I knew there were some minor problems with the roof.

In the meantime, I informed my lender that I had made an offer and it had been accepted. My
lender, by the way, is Sunny Shannon at Eustis Mortgage, and she was great! She asked me for a whole lot of documentation on my financial status, including bank statements, stock information, credit card statements, paycheck stubs, 401K information, car loan statements, estimates on my property value, etc. She plugged in all that info, pulled my credit report, and then watched for the best interest rate she could lock in. She called me one morning and said "Rates are low, let's get this locked in" and boom, we were ready.

Also during this period, I was calling different folks about home owner's insurance. After checking around, I finally decided to go with State Farm. They were able to offer me significant coverage, and they are the company my family has always used. The people there were very helpful, and we got the policy application together in plenty of time.
Finally, the title company, Crescent title, was on top of this transaction from the get-go. Jean-Paul gave them all of the appropriate information and they were off and running. They sent me a sample closing document a couple of days ago to let me know what kind of money I would need at closing, and that brings us to here.

So now I am just waiting to do the final walk-through at 9, then go sign the paperwork at 10 and get the keys to my new house. Wish me luck.

Monday

2008-04-28T18:11:00.004-05:00

Here we are on Monday the 28th of April, with my closing two days away. I got a call from Riverlake Properties (my current landlord) letting me know that my Craigslist campaign has been successful, and someone signed a lease for this apartment to begin on June the 1st. That is a great weight lifted, but it remains to be seen whether they will allow me to apply the "last month's rent" that I paid when I moved in. I hope that they will, I have been a pretty good tenant and I feel that my efforts to rent the apartment were pretty successful.

I will miss this place, but embarking upon the course of home ownership just seems to hold too many advantaged over renting for me to stay here. Plus, my new house is in the area and much bigger. Still, I will miss this location during Mardi Gras, grilling on the balcony to the sound of the parades less than a block away...

So, Zero Hour is approaching. I am mere days away from owning property, and the process of purchase has been a very informative one. Somehow, I had managed to get this far in life without really understanding a whole lot of what goes on during the purchase of a home. I expect that the process of putting the house in order is going to be even more enlightening, and I am looking forward to it with equal parts of anxiety and enthusiasm. In the meantime, I continue to ensure that things like insurance and taxes are all coming together the way that I expected they would. Here are a few higher resolution pictures of the house than the first batch.

So I have decided to buy a house

2008-04-25T14:39:00.000-05:00

Well, OK. I am pretty far past the point of deciding as I am supposed to close on this place next week! It's an old home, built in the early 1900's. I am so excited I have been having trouble sleeping.I think I am going to try to document the process of renovating the place so I can look back on these events when it's all done and have an interesting record of the progress. If you made your way here, feel free to follow along! For now, enjoy these pictures.