The Money Pit

I haven't disappeared

2011-05-14T12:38:00.004-06:00

Real Life just caught up to us...

On March 14, Frederic got diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately all looks good now, but it means home renovations have been put on hold for awhile.

My garden is coming along, but due to our drought here in South Texas (until 2 days ago, it hadn't rained in 3 months!), I'm avoiding planting any thing new in the landscape. However, I'm planning to do an "edible Landscape" in the front yard in the fall, so am spending some time researching the various plants and designs. In the meantime, just doing maintenance with my current garden: tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, assorted squashes, herbs, beans, and a few other opportunists. Oh, and blueberries!

Just Call me "Farmer Rohr"

2011-03-13T21:55:00.002-05:00

Projects: these days, it's a lot of fixing up loose ends. Or loose roofs.

The big project was replacing the shed roof. The shed is a little room attached to the garage, which, unlike the garage already had a cement floor and initially, what looked to be a decent roof, so we didn't replace it when we did the garage. Alas, we didn't so much "replace" a roof as tear down what little was left of the shingles/beams and start over from scratch. And when I say "we" I mean Frédéric. The roof itself didn't take *that* long, but it required cleaning out the shed, aka receptacle of a bunch of items we didn't want to toss...and then that involved clearing out the garage (aka huge pile of wood we couldn't get to). So, two weeks later, the roof is finished, and slowly we're repopulating both shed and garage, hopefully ina more orderly fashion. Meanwhile, or back yard looks like a dump truck landed there - full of junk-that-can't-be-thrown-away while we organize said shed and garage....

At the same time, it's Spring Planting time. So I've been focused on re-building our garden. The old garden beds had a combo of landscape soil and gardening soil, but had been infested with fire ants. I had to remove a lot of the soil and bring in new stuff, which I mixed with our compost. Frédéric made me another garden bed (also from salvaged wood) because I've been a bit over-zealous with my planting. We still have lettuce and kale going strong. I've added in more than I can remember now. Some I've started from seeds on my own, some I've bought starter plants. It's been a heck of a lot of work to get going, but hopefully it'll pay off with loads of fresh vegetables.

The one drawback - the neighborhood cats love this beautiful soil for their litter box....so I've had to put fencing around the beds. They seem to stay out of those with plants already filling it, so I've focused on those with small seedlings. And I'm armed with my hose to spray on them when they try....

Next year I'm going to re-arrange the beds so I can build one big fence around all, with neat gravel paths between. Right.

It's Garden time again!

2011-02-24T22:21:00.002-05:00

First, a small update. Our fireplace insert is in, but no pictures yet as it's not totally completed. A piece wasn't the right size so they've re-ordered it, and we haven't yet figured out what to do with the mantle.

Other projects: prime the baseboards in the living room, mainly because lead paint was chipping onto Lenaïc's toys....so, a bit of sanding, priming, and TONS of cleaning. Same for the front door frame. The chipping paint was awful, so when I took the kids off for a birthday party, Frédéric attacked the frame. At least the two worst offending areas for chipping lead paint are covered.

He's also going to attack the shed. We re-did the garage a couple of years ago. oops make that *3* years ago. At the time, the attached shed was in decent condition. Alas, the roof was ready to go. It is now so full of holes it's hopeless. It's a smallish project though. We have a few other tidying up sorts of projects to do before we start to tackle the living room.

Now, about that garden. I'm working on the garden beds. Getting ready to plant vegetables. I also decided to try a couple of rose bushes. I'm not a huge fan of roses but Angelina loves them. Our neighbor has a few which hang over our fence and she always wants them, so I figured we could add a couple.

And blueberries. This should be interesting. I went to Fannicks for some more garden soil, and of course could not resist a look around. I was tempted by the blueberry bushes so decided to give one a try. Despite our general attempts to be mostly xeriscaped/low water for our landscape, I confess we do use a lot of water for our fruit trees and vegetable garden. But I don't feel too guilty, as I figure we at least eat that stuff, and we collect rain and a/c water (the latter of which is good for blueberries).

Everything is a huge mess (see the link and you'll see why), so no pictures yet.

Fireplace progress

2011-02-08T11:19:00.004-05:00

The plans for the woodstove insert required us to expand the fireplace from its depth of 9 inches to at least 14 inches. Initially Frédéric planned to do this himself, then decided he didn't want to do it wrong, and it'd be done a lot faster if we hired out. So we did. And presto! Finished in a day. Except the floor area. The contractor had all sorts of ideas but I'm glad Frédéric said he'd take care of that himself. Off we went to the tile store, found some gorgeous slate, and here it is:

Next up, we need to figure out a solution for the mantle/wall area. Originally there was a wooden mantle with columns that matched the porch columns. However, with the additional brick, this no longer fits. I'd love to have the slate run up the wall and behind the mantle, but Frédéric doesn't think it'll hold. I'd also love to use the slate as a mantle, but the interior is hollow, which means we'd need to put some kind of backer-board down which could look funny. We looked at various stone options at Keller Materials, found a gorgeous one, but realized we were too nervous to cut it ourselves and they don't cut it. So that's not looking likely. Maybe wood?

I just love this slate so much I want to use it elsewhere...

Papa's Little Helpers

2011-01-30T10:19:00.004-05:00

Next project is our fireplace. Originally it was for burning coal. At some point it was filled in a bit and used with a gas grille. When we bought the house, Frédéric's initial thought was to make it a regular wood fireplace. It's not like a fireplace is a necessity (esp since we installed central heat), but for a couple of months per year when we get cold fronts (even though it was 78F/25C yesterday), it's nice to have.

We had it inspected and despite the chimney being in good condition, we can't guarantee that there are no gaps where sparks could exit, thus sparking a fire in the walls, so we can't use it as an actual fireplace. Instead, it was suggested we put a wood stove insert. This insert goes up the chimney, so all sparks are contained. To fit the stove though, we had to extend out the fireplace a bit... We decided to hire someone to do the masonry work so we could get it done quicker, and now Fredo gets the fun job of just tiling around it.

For the record, we chose a slate called Raja red which is gorgeous. I just wish we had a larger area to tile so we could use more.

Feels like a whole new house

2011-01-06T14:07:00.006-05:00

Our house has the original long leaf pine floors, never finished. For many years they were covered with linoleum and/or carpet. First thing we did when we took posession was rip up all the flooring. (To see what they looked like, go here.) At the time, we did a raw sanding to get rid of the gluey residue, with plans to finish the floors soon. That was Dec 2004. Eventually we did 2 rooms ourselves, and did a pretty good job. But other things took priority and the living room and entry hall/dining room were still rough wood as of Dec 2010. After Lenaïc got a few splinters in his hands, we decided it was time to fix that.

Having seen our neighbors floors, recently re-finished by a pro, we decided it was worth it to hire out the messy, smelly job. Timing worked out that they could come while we were away on vacation, and said wonderful neighbors were kind enough to manage the workers (letting them in, giving them $ after the job was done).

So after 3 weeks away, we came home to beautifully finished floors. Finally!

We also came home to a mess - had to move all the furniture into the other rooms, so the house was in a bit of disarray. Would be nice to show the rooms all nice and orderly, but it's taking awhile to get everything back together and unpacked.

It's like having a whole new house now. What a difference the floors make!

I also took advantage of having the living room empty and us away and hired someone to fix the sheetrock in that room. Frederic usually does it himself, and it's no fun and takes up many weekends. I decided to have it done as a Christmas present for him. Fortunately, our neighbors also had a guy who did their work, so he came while we were away and did the room before the flooring guys came. He didn't paint, as we still need to do the windows/door frames, but at least there are no more cracks! Very romantic Christmas present :)

My Birthday Shelves

2010-11-26T11:01:00.003-05:00

Ta Da!!!

Ever since I was a little kid, my dream house had a wall (or preferably a whole library) of floor to ceiling shelves. So when we bought this house, I said that was the one thing I wanted. Of course, in this house of doors and windows, there is very little wall space, but there is one area which worked. Frédéric said he wanted to make them. I was envisioning just straight simple library shelves.

My sometime artist husband had other ideas. It took a good 10 months from initial conception to completion, but we finally have shelves!

The pictures don't do them justice. They really are amazing!

We couldn't wait to move the books, so here they are,almost filled. We realized that the bottom shelf needs some more supports, so we left that empty for now. Not to mention it's perfect height for Lenaïc to throw everything down. Frédéric will fix some supports for it tomorrow, then they'll be home to photo albums and more books. Also realized my textbooks are all too heavy, so they'll sit on the floor below for now.

Next jobs: Shelves for kids' room toys and shelves for 2nd pantry (mostly for cookbooks and assorted large kitchen items like mixer, steamer, etc).

Needing a Reminder of How Far We've Come

2010-10-19T12:17:00.006-05:00

After reading about a home restoration in another historic district nearby, my excitement at seeing more old neglected neighborhoods revive was replaced by a wee bit of envy and a bit more of depression. According to the article, these folks restored their house in 7 months. We're about to enter YEAR 7 of home restoration. Ok, it's true we've done most ourselves except for some of the major projects. This limits us to weekends, and then there are two little monsters running about which hinder progress a bit.

So, I just need to go back to an early photo to see how far we've come.
October 2004

And now

ok, so even that's not done. Still need to: make/paint new screens, find two replacement columns and replace banister, finish skirting.....oh, and that darn dormer window our %$#@contractor broke.

And a few examples of what we had to start with:
the entry. And the kitchen

And though it's been ages since I've updated, we have been hard at work. Most of the landscaping has been maintenance and small plantings. I'm not ready for pictures until Spring when it's more complete. Frédéric has been very busily building my bookshelves for the study. These will be a work of art which he promises to have ready by my birthday! Once that is done we'll refinish the floors in the living room and entry/dining area. Then work on the fireplace. Then start the living room wall/windows/trims. No small task.

What is it about a solitary swing?

2010-09-09T15:50:00.003-06:00

That makes one melancholy? Or is it just me?

For some reason, a swing on a playset doesn't affect me. But a lonesome swing on a tree limb is just calling out for a child. Without said child, it looks lonely.

Perhaps Angelina thinks so as well, as she asked Papa to make 3 swings, her's in the middle, and one for Wiley and one for Felice on either side of her.

Amongst the many projects we have ongoing has been this swing. Frédéric used wood from the old porch and old garage roof to make it.

And I've been very bad about updates on our house, but I have an excuse. Ok, not really. Work, then vacation, now SAHM but too busy....we've been working on things, but slowly. Frederic is still working on my bookshelves. I'm trying to get caught up with the landscaping which is a mess at the moment. And just clean/organize the house.

New projects on the horizon after the bookshelves are done: fireplace, floors, bathroom.

The Study!

2010-06-30T21:38:00.004-06:00

This is the room that got delayed when Lenaïc was born.

Many months of hard work. It's finally done. Well, almost. Ok, so it is. But now Frédéric is going to build my birthday present: floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. See, my dream house has a library. In my fantasy it's a castle with a grand ballroom and a huge library with books all around - oh, and big window ledges to sit and look out on a beautiful view. But I'm ok with one wall of shelves and large windows looking out on my lovely garden.

This room was actually not that bad at first, or so it seemed. But then we discovered rotting sheetrock, and the pocket doors. Oh the pocket doors. Beautiful things, but eaten by rodents and carpenter ants. Frédéric worked very hard to restore them, and they're amazing.

Now we need some comfy chairs, and hopefully the bookshelves will be done by my next birthday.

My attemped diagram of our backyard

2010-06-04T12:43:00.002-06:00

and I must apologize for doing this upside down. I was doing it as I envision looking at it, then realized north was on the bottom and it was too hard to flip everything properly. Not that it makes any difference, it pretty much all gets full sun all day long.

What to do with this space?

2010-05-28T15:20:00.003-06:00

Apart from clean it?

I know it's messy, but it's in progress....

I'm going to ask on a landscape design forum, as soon as I grow thick enough skin...

I'm struggling with this space. This is our "business" area - driveway, garden, fruit trees, laundry line. It also happens to be the best place for a tower view and is just out the back door. The pictures show it at it's worst - messy, and full of weeds. I did clean it up the day after so it doesn't look *as* bad, but still leaves a lot to be desired.

I figure we'll do mostly hardscaping here, around the garden boxes and trees. And we'll move the clothesline, probably perpendicular to the garage so it's more out of the way. But how to hardscape? I'm afraid to commit to materials because I can't figure out what to do.

This is looking east, from the garage towards the street. At the moment there's a clothesline where I'm standing, then a small orange tree. The yellow kiddie pool is now an herb garden. It doesn't have to stay there but I like the idea of making it a focal point. The remnants of 12 yards of dirt is there by the pool/herb garden, just a few more scoops to flatten it out. We need some sort of hardscape/ path to lead out to the driveway. More gravel?

Same area, looking out from the back door. That's another orange tree in the back on the left, and a peach tree on the right. The pallets with herbs are temporary....now in the hot season I'll move those back closer to the house where they'll have a little less direct sun. In the far back left, near the garage is my compost pile. However my friend is giving me her compost bin, so that'll be a lot cleaner.

We have a small "patio" on the side of the house (so far no table/chairs, for now we have buckets + plywood...).

We initially planned to put a patio out the back door, but it gets too much afternoon sun. We don't want to cover it because then it would block the view.

So I think it needs some sort of sitting area, with low/shrub type plants to give some greenery but not too tall and not interfering with the fruit trees.

And then there's my garden. This year I decided to do some raised beds in areas that didn't have as much direct sun - hot Texas summers mean full sun = killing sun. For now I have 3 beds, but am not married to the location.

And in house news, Fredo painted the study this week, so it's just about DONE!

Spring has sprung!

2010-05-22T21:35:00.006-06:00

And with that, new work.

We're (i.e. Frédéric) still working on the study/library/den room which got interrupted by
Lenaïc's birth. He didn't stop entirely, but turned his attention to the pocket doors. A note about these doors - they are about 10 feet tall, and irreplaceable. Making new doors like these would cost thousands. And mostly, they were in good shape. Mostly. Parts of the doors were eaten by rats and carpenter ants. So that posed a challenge.

After stripping and sanding them, Frédéric went to work on repairing the damage, although it was a bit of trial and error at first. In the end, I think he did a pretty good job. He used resin and bits of sawdust to fill in the damaged areas, and it turned out pretty well. No, they don't look like new, they look like they're 100 years old with some repair, but that's ok. They are.
(seen from the living room side. As you can tell, those trims have not been finished yet)
Today he primed the room and painted the ceiling, so we're almost there!

And then there's the outside. With a new baby and an almost 4 yr old, gardening has not been so easy as I expected. After the big freeze this past winter, there was a bit of wait and see what survived. result: almost everything! However, thanks to the sudden wet Spring, weeds have also taken over. I'm working on fixing new areas, but trying to maintain those already done is a full time project.

Then there's my garden. I decided I wanted to try raised beds this year. So we used the wood from the old porch to make beds. And all was looking great, until.....

Looks like caterpillars getting my peppers, and now, my tomatoes have been infected with something - a virus most likely. Big black rings on the bottom. Anyway, here they look great, but today I tore them out :(.

And in the interest of being "green", I found a use for the kiddie pool our neighbor, Shimi, was throwing out - an herb garden.

Goodbye Dear Fig Tree

2010-04-13T08:05:00.003-06:00

We had a lovely fig tree. So lovely it was sprouting up shoots all over the place. 2007, the Year of the Rain, it had tons of fruit. 2008, the first Year of the Drought, not so much. 2009, the second Year of the Drought, fruit again, except the birds got to them all before we did.

2010. I was so looking forward to figs and was prepared to net it so the birds couldn't get to my fruit.

Alas, the drought and probably the recent freezes did it in. At first I thought it could be saved, then it was clear that was not to be.

With one push, it fell over.

So long figs.

On the plus side, we've now planted a Mallika Mango tree. I'm going to have to baby it during any freezes, but hopefully last year's multiple freezes were an anomaly and this year will be a bit milder.

And yes, it's been ages since I've updated. That's not because we haven't been working. It's because we have been working. A LOT. Work on the room stalled for awhile thanks to the birth of a little one, but Frédéric has bee working away at restoring the pocket doors. They're a wonderful approx. 10 feet tall and irreplaceable. Unfortunately, the carpenter ants got to them, and some areas were damaged. He managed to restore them and they're looking fabulous. Once those are up, all that's left is the painting!

As for the yard, we're recovering from the Winter of Freeze. Still trying to clean up endless weeds which seemed to thrive on the freezing, while waiting to see what survived (looks like just about everything, except the fig tree), as plants slowly return to life.

Study, in progress

2009-12-27T19:27:00.004-05:00

We have made a lot of progress on this room, but our aim to get it done before the baby arrive came up short when the baby arrived 2 weeks early.

The extent of Fredo's effort is not immediately obvious. Stripping, sanding, staining trims and frames is a TON of work. Windows are done and look great. Sheetrock is done. Next up is priming and painting. Only 2 weekends of work,but not so simple with a newborn in the house (and a demanding 3 yr old, and a bunch of sick people....)

Oh, and the pocket doors. That's actually the hold up - the doors are wonderful, but eaten by carpenter ants. The doors are irreplaceable though. So he's working on fixing them. They're 95% in good condition, but some areas are basically hollow and need a ton of work. here is the "closet" where they go.

As for gardening....

2009-12-04T22:44:00.003-05:00

These days, it's mostly maintenance. After a long hot dry summer with a significant drought, by mid-September the rains came. And since nothing in Texas happens small, they came in full force. Suddenly we had a lake in our yard.

And with the rains came weeds! So I've spent a lot of time just pulling weeds....

And trying to get the side yard finished. Being pregnant it's not been so easy. I'm still working on some good pictures of this area. For now, here's a lantana.
I also planted salvia, skull cap, Mexican buttercup, Candlewood?, and a number of other things I don't remember the name of. See, I know the landscape design principles of repeating patterns and not using too many different things. But that's boring to me. So I go with a mixture of colors and textures and plant by height and color. No matter, I love it, and so does my neighbor who has to see it everyday, so it's all good.

And then there's this:
I reconfigured our compost so it's all more or less open. It didn't take long for stuff to start growing. Namely squash and watermelon. The latter will not likely survive our big freeze this weekend, but we have more watermelon growing out of the compost than when I planted the actual plant! And the squash! This stuff is monstrous.

Little by little....Progress

2009-12-04T21:25:00.005-05:00

I haven't posted any updates in awhile because, well, Frederic's been working too hard... It's still very much in progress, but here's what's done:

Windows stripped, sanded, replaced, glazed, primed, painted, and re-installed! That includes insulation added to the trims

Window frames (i.e. around the windows) stripped, sanded, stained

Trims (2 windows, 2 regular doors, 1 set of pocket doors) - stripped, sanded, stained and ready to be put back on!

Door frames stripped, sanded, stained

Next up: fixing the sheetrock. For this, we're hiring our usual contractor Marcus. Fredo decided some jobs are just more than he wants....and when looking around the house, Marcus also said "We could do THAT, and That, and...." so now we're also working on the sheetrock/tape & float)

This has been no small task. It is a TON of work. My job has been to keep Angelina out of the way....which is also no small feat.

And this particular one - that's the inside wall of the pocket doors separating the living room and study. That hole explains where some of our "critters" have been coming from. Fredo found tons of stuff - wrappers, insulation, nuts... When I saw it I said "Holy Cow!" Angelina ran over "I want to see the moo cow!!!"

Yes, we have actually been working on the house

2009-10-06T06:03:00.004-06:00

But no exciting pictures.

September meant RAIN. I can't believe it. Two years of drought and now we've gotten tons of rain. Flooding even. My grass is happy.

That also means it's less easy to do work on the house, but Frederic has managed. New shelves for the laundry room (oooh, exciting!). And continued stripping and sanding of trims.

For my part, more landscaping. Putting in more perimeter plants, mulching.....not the most exciting of tasks but it's all looking nice!

And this is what a bit of rain will do. Suddenly it's pink everywhere.

Cuisinette

2009-08-29T20:44:00.004-06:00

We're moving forward, but in slow steps. At the moment the focus on the study means sanding and staining trims, which isn't a lot of fun or very exciting to see.

So to compensate for that boring project, Frederic makes use of his table saw for fun projects. Today it was making a cuisinette for Angelina's playhouse. Again using wood we already had, he built a little "stove" into the wall. For now it looks a bit more like a table, but he's going to add "burners." Needless to say, she loves it. Of course, she had to help too!

Also making use of old wood, he made a sand box a couple of months ago, so it's seen a lot of use.

And back there, that's our "patio" or rather, bistro corner. It's supposed to remind us of Provence with its gravel floor and eventual bistro table.

Progress, progress, progress

2009-08-23T20:16:00.003-06:00

But no pictures.

That's because nothing is in a state yet to show off.

On the house front, Frederic has been busily working away on the study. At the moment that involves sanding/staining trims and doors. No small task. Our goal is to have this room done before the baby comes in December, if for no other reason than we know we'll probably have a break on house-stuff for a few months after the munchkin is here.

I of course, am obsessed with landscaping. I even dream about it. Apparently the possession by the prior owner (the old man who lived here and loved the yard before his daughter let it fall apart) is complete. I have been conscientious not to plant too much given the drought, but, well.....

I put 16 plants into the ground this weekend. All drought tolerant and/or native. Don't ask me what they all are. I've forgotten. Assorted sage varieties, skull cap, Mexican buttercup, plumbago, lantana, and some others. I'm big on variety, trying not to plant two of the same type in the same area. The garden design/landscape architect types would probably not approve of my "design," but that's ok since the only one who has to approve is me, and my neighbor who looks at my yard often ;). This is the area along the fence,between the palm and the chinaberry. It's not done though. A neighborhood teenager had been helping a bit with moving dirt to the area, but he's about to start school....I need to add more dirt, lay newspaper, then mulch. THEN it'll be ready for a picture. Except that moving the dirt is the hard part of me, given my current condition. And I've really only done one portion of the area to be filled in. The other side is much more shaded and will require some careful thought.

Careful thought usually means I study all the local books for native plants, ask lots of questions on garden forums, come up with an idea of which things to get. Then go to the nursery and forget it all and just get what is available and appeals to me....The few times I went with a list of plants I couldn't find any of the plants I planned for.

So why do I bother planning?

I did say I was obsessed.

Back to work

2009-07-26T07:29:00.000-06:00

After our big party last week where we got to show off our work so far, esp. our wonderful yard, it's back to business. No rest for the weary.

Next up is the "den" or study or guest room or whatever you want to call it. The floor is already finished - hooray! But there's still a ton of work to do:

3 doorways (one of which is the very large pocket doors). Trims need to be stripped, sanded, stained. 2 doors are already stripped, but not the pocket doors. We may wait on those til the end....

2 windows + trims to be stripped, sanded, painted, reglazed, rehung

1 transom window - strip, sand, paint

Baseboards - these we'll just wash, prime, paint. No sanding.

Walls to be repaired - lots of cracks, including one large hole to be filled, tape and float, prime, paint

And that's all....

We'll probably hire someone for the tape/float/walls, but Frederic is set to do the rest himself. With lead paint, I'm not getting anywhere near the stripping/sanding. Maybe I'll help with the staining.

For the fun part of this project, Frederic is going to make floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along the interior wall. I can't wait! We have shelves scattered all over the house that are bursting with books. I have long dreamed of a library in my house, and this will be the next best thing.

Timeline: I really really really want to have this done before the baby arrives in December. However I know all our house projects take 2x as long as we expect, and Frederic will be traveling a lot, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

Maison Angelina

2009-07-09T15:39:00.004-06:00

Finally done!

Ok, so not 100% just yet, but I want to get pictures up. The yellow trim needs one more layer and some touchups because no matter how careful I am, I am a lousy painter and make a mess....

After painting the whole thing yellow, well, not yellow, it's supposed to be "Orange Toffee" which *looks* orange even in the can, it looked far too yellow for my taste once it went on. Combined with the blue (peek-a-boo blue) it looked far too much like my high school colors blue and gold and I just couldn't stomach it. So I went with the next shade in the compliment series - Orange Slice (all from American Traditions from Lowe's) for the walls, kept only the windows blue and the orange toffee (i.e. yellow) for the trims.

Obviously, we like color....

Porch Progress

2009-07-07T20:53:00.004-06:00

Been awhile since I posted any updates. Not because we haven't been working, it's just been not so fun work and then we went away for awhile. And well, it's been hotter than hell. Literally. Above or near 100F every day for weeks. Maison Angelina pics to come soon. I don't like the way the paint turned out so have to do another coat of a different color.

The porch, however, looks GORGEOUS!

Ok, so it's not totally done. As you can see in the picture we still have to replace the column and then put the railing back. But look at that FLOOR! Far too many hours of hard work. Frederic thought it'd be a 2 hour paint job (+1 hour prep). Turned into about 2 hours prep and 4.5 hours to paint. And that was just one coat. it takes longer to dry when it's this hot.

And just a reminder what it used to look like.

Maison Angelina Update

2009-06-02T19:14:00.002-06:00

Voila! Well, almost done except for the painting....
It has 2 windows with sills and door, roof is all done. Now all we have to do is paint.
Frédéric managed to use most of the wood from the old porch. Angelina loves it. She keeps asking her friends to come over and play in her house.

Attack of the Monster Mushrooms

2009-06-02T19:00:00.003-06:00

The other day I was trimming my Pride of Barbados when I looked down to see what I thought was a pile of concrete. I wondered how the heck that could have happened? Someone dumped concrete?

I looked closer and see a mushroom. Yes, this is one mushroom. There was another a bit smaller right next to it. Now, I've seen mushrooms pop up in yards, but never one the size of a soccer ball....

I'm a crappy photographer with a crappy camera and I took a picture into the sun, so you really don't get the full effect here. But suffice it to say this is stunning! All the more so because I've never seen this purple sage before. There's wild sage all over the ground, but it doesn't flower. I've been doing more pruning/weeding along the fence line this year, and all sorts of nice things are popping up, including a new turk's cap and salvia, as well as some blue flower I can't name. This sage poking out is old - the "trunk" has clearly been there a long time, it just never flowered since we've been here. I'm not sure what helped it this year, but it's amazing to see the purple flowers poke out between the brilliant orange pride of barbados.

Maison Angelina is almost done

2009-05-25T19:22:00.002-06:00

Papa got a new table saw, which has made progress very fast!

Walls going up, windows made. This was taken early today, he's now finished all the walls, windows and corners.

And the floor too!

The floor is the left over wood from our new porch (design pine, quite a fancy floor). And the walls are the old wood from our old porch (120+ years old).

Just a few more touch ups, then paint, and Angelina has her house.

Maison Angelina Progress

2009-04-19T19:16:00.003-06:00

He's been working hard, but got stuck by the rain.

Very soon she'll have her hideaway.

Maison Angelina

2009-04-14T20:15:00.003-06:00

Not content to relax now that he's done with Angelina's room, Frédéric has decided to build her her very own house!

The last few parties we've been to there's been one of those plastic play houses and she LOVES them. So of course Papa decided it would be his next project. He's using the left over wood from the porch - old stuff and new stuff, so the house is almost entirely made of reused materials :)

He's making rapid progress. He just started on Saturday.

And he's just about got the roof on...ok, not quite. He cut the wood for it and set it up. I suspect it'll be almost done by the weekend. As you can see Angelina is already having fun playing in it. She thinks she's a gymnast on the balance beam.

Neighbors

2009-04-12T20:50:00.003-06:00

When you buy a house, who lives next to you is always a concern and rarely considered.
We knew we loved the neighborhood already, having rented around the corner, and we had ok but nothing to write home about neighbors there. We didn't really think about whom our closest neighbors would be when we bought The Money Pit, we only knew we wanted The House.

Little did we know....

We'd end up with the best neighbors anyone could ask for! So much so that we're afraid to ever move, as no way could we end up this lucky again.

I've talked about them before. It just continues to amaze me how lucky we are, especially when I hear horror stories about neighbors. On one side we have Rick and Angela, aka Wiley and Felice's parents. Angelina thinks this is her second home. Sometimes I think she thinks it's her first home. As usual, this morning we go outside and immediately she wanders over to play, walks inside....acts like she lives there. She kind of does, she spends so much time there. She thinks Wiley and Felice are her older brother and sister. When I had emergency surgery last year, it was Angela I called to pick up Angelina from daycare and keep her overnight until Frederic came back. And having done so, didn't have a moment's hesitation about how Angelina would fare on her own without Mommy and Papa. Of course, she barely knew we were gone. We know that whenever we need them, they'd be there for us. And Wiley does a good job of teaching Angelina bad tricks....

Behind us are Fredo and Gloria. Angelina loves to yell "HI FREDO!" and she also talks to the dog, Duke and Mickey all day.... Fredo and Gloria are like an aunt and uncle to her. Today, like many holidays, they came over with a lovely Easter present for her. We don't like them just because they give Angelina gifts on a regular basis, but because they're always thinking of her. They have their own extended family, but they treat us like part of it. They're so good and kind, and always willing to help out.

All this without anyone being a busy-body nosey neighbor. How'd we end up so lucky?

A work in progress

2009-04-11T13:02:00.013-06:00

One day this will be a beautiful garden. However if I wait for the "after" pictures, I'd have to wait another year or more. I tend to buy small plants because they're cheap, and just be patient for them to fill in. After all my hard work, I feel I need to post pictures now for encouragement. The soil is mostly clay, so I need to use a pick axe to dig a hole, then I fill it with the new landscaping soil which is kind of sandy.

And the fun part of landscaping? A 2 yr old who likes to get covered in dirt.

Not exactly pretty, but it's a step up over having my herb pots scattered throughout the back yard. And I made use of materials I already had: pallets left over from the grass, floorboards from the old porch (nailed together), wood pieces left over from the new porch for 'steps.' And yes, the pots are a mismash of what I've had around over the year. Eventually I'd like to figure out where to put my herbs in the ground and this area will be our patio, so maybe I'll figure out something decorative. It was more work than it looks!

This area is difficult. I don't want to block out our neighbor's butterfly garden, both because I want to see it and I want to allow them some of the sun that filters through, so I can't plant anything too high, even though I hate the chainlink fence. The area is between the palm and the chinaberry (with a small pine tree left over from Christmas which may or may not survive). It gets a fair amount of afternoon sun, and is less shaded than the other perimeter areas. I need something somewhat low to the ground but colorful. I've thought about assorted groundcoverings, but none appealed. So I decided on a gold lantana - tiny now, but my other lantanas were this size when I bought them last year and now see it here,

so I am hopeful. I'll just have to keep it trimmed a bit so it doesn't grow out of control. I also transplanted some Cordyline fruticosa to give some red with the yellow. Since I moved these from another location, I'm not sure how they'll do....I'll wait til the lantana fills in, then decide if I want to put some smaller stuff around them. Maybe a bit of groundcover. I've mulched everywhere else, but around this perimeter I'm thinking maybe I need to do something different - there's a shade/drought tolerant groundcover that's sort of purply-green that might work, or maybe hardscape with pebbles or paving stones? I like mulch but I'd need a lot of it and have to replace it too often.

And then there's this pocket.
It's going to be our "Provençal Garden." Now it's a dirt patch, but soon the dirt will be covered with pea gravel and a nice table and chairs. I'm trying to line one corner with plants, but it's under the pecan. Always a challenge, so I've put some just in pots: mona lavender, fuschia hybrid, viola corsica, firespike which can be moved if necessary. In the ground I've got another firespike and Scarlet Sage which should attract hummingbirds.

(oops, just realized that's Salvia reglans, which needs full sun...we'll see how it goes)

I'm trying to balance out colors while still being drought and shade tolerant. Most of these are supposed to do ok in some shade (some better than others). We'll see.....I'm not sure what I'm going to use for edging yet, probably large rocks, something organic looking.

The opposite corner has the clothesline tension line in the way, so I need to leave a wide enough space to avoid that and to walk into the grass. I planted a Texas Gold Columbine next to the pin, with the intent that it will eventually grow over it and hide it but leave room for a path.

Question - when I lay the pea gravel, do I create a border inside the plants that are in the ground or against the grass, and let the plants come up out of the gravel? I'm not envisioning that well....

On to the foundation plantings in front....Last year I planted some cana lillies on a whim (mix of colors). They did excellent and are expanding. I had a trial/error with the Cordyline fruticosa and firespike. They did fine but just didn't look right there. I can't fully finish this area out until Fredo finishes the foundation skirting, as he needs room to maneuver.

So I transplanted these and decided to put in some more Canas today. It's a little bit shadier than the other side but I think they'll do ok. I'll have to figure out the middle part eventually - all Canas? I like a mix of stuff, but anything else will probably look weird. The other front side has a big holly and 3 firebushes (red/orange) flanked by 2 plumbago (blue), but that gets much more sun.

As for last year's work:
The porch still needs some work to complete, so this bed won't be done for awhile. I have 3 firebushes flanked by 2 blue plumbagos. Ideally the firebushes will grow together and the plumbago will fill in. Eventually will probably add some lavender. That holly is there to stay, unless I can figure out an evergreen alternative. I like that it covers the porch a bit.

Under the Crepe Mrytles I planted a bunch of wandering jews (Tradescantia zebrina). These are supposed to spread like wildfire but though they look beautiful, haven't really spread. Now, I did put down weed blocker in some places which seems to be stopping them - I wanted to control them, but not limit them that much. The blocker isn't that effective for weeds, so I may pull it out. Ideally they'd totally fill in the space under the myrtles, which runs the length of the house.

My coral honeysuckle is blooming! I'm rather excited as this one didn't look too great last year. It faces south and has intense full sun, while the other faces east and has more filtered sun. Along with the honeysuckle, the front fence has plumbago, 2 pride of barbados, and a trumpet vine. Ideally, they'll fill in and take over the fence.

My plumbago is really happy. I love these - gorgeous blue flowers and drought tolerant. It grows like a weed. It was a small plant when I got it, and now it's almost covered the fence.

At the gate, I have this esperanza on one side and the trumpet vine on the other. Not planned, but it works out to have the entrance framed by yellow flowers. It too, is doing great with no effort.

My only "problem" is that my east facing fence/corner has a lot of orange (orange trumpet vine, turk's cap, lantana). Initially I had planned out the plants to alternate colour, but losing a few and transplanting some...I ended up unbalanced. But that's ok.

We're lucky enough to already have some plants in place,
This passion vine is wonderful. It was already here and just needed to cut back some weeds to let it grow. Speaking of which, I found some gorgeous salvia in back, along with another turk's cap. Amazing what you find when you cut back the weeds.

Our house was surrounded by these Lily of the Nile plants. They love heat and sun and little water so they thrive. We had to transplant some when we fixed the foundation which aren't doing great, but others are, as is clear here. The flowers don't last long, but when they're out, they're gorgeous.

I just noticed my camera is really crap. I need to take some GOOD pictures!

Porch Update

2009-04-05T19:26:00.004-06:00

Done!

Well, Almost....

The biggest part, tearing down the old substructure, rebuilding a new one, and laying the floor is finished. Hooray! As is our grant money....We still have to fix 1.5 columns. Once that's done we can put up the last of the railing and paint the floor. We have pieces of one column that we can use for the 1/2 one. The other is going to be a challenge though. There's also the feather at top. Again, we have pieces, but...

Still, we do actually have a porch we can step on without fear of falling through!

And if it's not obvious from these photos alone, see what it used to look like HERE.

Evil 100 Year Old Nails

2009-04-03T19:45:00.004-06:00

Or just clutsy me.

Since we've torn down our porch, all the old wood is laying in a pile. We're saving it, as though some of it is rotten, there are some good pieces. Overall, this is Really Good Wood. We'll use it for the sandbox, garden, and a playhouse.

So it's piled up, and we haven't taken out the nails. The 6 inch long Monster Nails (what is it about houses built in the 1880s that they used these gigantic nails?!). You can guess where this is going....

I was climbing over the pile to pull some weeds. Walking very carefully. Lost my balance. Stepped down. Nail sticking out of the wood went through my shoe and into my foot, about 1/2 inch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

I let out a blood curdling scream. I don't know what word I used but am sure the whole neighborhood heard.

It bled profusely. I soaked it in water. Soaked it in peroxide (the lack of sting should have told me it was much deeper than it seemed). I checked my last tetanus. Sept 01.

Fortunately I could get another shot at work the next day - though that means my entire staff hear about it and laugh at me.... Our nurse on staff insists I also need antibiotics. I resisted but she's probably right.

The foot hurts like hell. I couldn't walk the first day. Now I can hobble. I'm just watching it closely to make sure it doesn't get infected.

All I can say is Thank God it wasn't Angelina.

Guess what my job is this weekend? Removing the nails from the wood.

Update: Due to a spontaneous party, I didn't remove the nails from the wood yet.

Gardens in Provence

2009-04-03T07:55:00.002-06:00

I am desperately seeking pictures of gardens/patios in the South of France. Any suggestions on where to look?

Frederic is pushing for this sort of setting. I'm not entirely convinced it works in our South Texas environment, but it might. I have a vision in my mind, having seen enough in person, but I'm needing more inspiration to complete it.

Angelina's Bedroom

2009-03-29T19:47:00.007-06:00

If you can't remember what it used to look like, see here,
and that was after we got rid of the former owners' stuff. I don't have any pictures of what it looked like in the beginning. Suffice it to say it was an adolescent boy's room, and given the state of the rest of the house, you can guess how disgusting it was.

And done! (The white splotches are due to my camera). The colors don't pop as much in the picture as they do in real life. They're really vibrant.

There are a few tidbits to fix still, such as the curtain rods - we couldn't decide whether to paint or stain (will paint). And I have to convince Frederic to let me hang stuff on the walls....

Angelina is thrilled to have her bedroom, but don't ask if she's actually sleeping in the room.

(The big bed will soon be moved into this room as well, so it won't be quite so spacious)

Porch Progress

2009-03-29T19:39:00.004-06:00

We're getting there.

First we had to tear off the old floor

then build a new substructure:
For this part we relied on a skilled carpenter

Then lay the new floor:

It may not look like much, but there's tons of progress. Very soon we'll be able to sit and enjoy our beautiful porch.

And I'm a sucker for compliments. People are always walking or driving by and stopping to say how great our house/yard is looking. I soak it all in!

Our Football Pitch

2009-03-22T14:04:00.014-06:00

Ok, not really. It'll be a place for us all to run and play though. And it needs some time to fill in and green up....

Fortunately, our yard, like our house, has "good bones."

It was loved once, for many years, before it fell into decay. So it has some wonderful mature trees: pecan, cedar elm, 4 crepe myrtles ~30 ft tall (they're usually shrubs here), and some other stuff I can't identify. It also had a number of hackberries - native I know, but these were weeds, as well as a bunch of other smaller invasive trees. We do have a beautiful chinaberry, which I should really cut down, but Frederic would probably not speak to me if I did (it's an invasive foreigner, not welcome in S. Texas - the chinaberry, not Fredo).

Some BEFORE pictures from when we first bought the house in October 2004:

This area is a challenge though, since it used to be 100% shaded. Loved the old mature trees and shade, but it had become a jungle. (Note that I do have a fondness for jungle living, but not exactly what we were going for in San Antonio)
Last fall, in fear of the approaching Hurricane Ike (which missed us), I ordered a major tree trimming. Got rid of some old weed trees, trimmed back all the good stuff, opened up the canopy, let in more light without really losing much shade where it mattered.

So then there's the field of weeds and dirt. And broken glass. And trash. How much broken glass can there possibly be?! (note the pictures in that link are AFTER I cleaned it up)

I had considered all options of hardscaping to minimize water-hogging grass. But, well, we really LIKE grass. And with a little one around who wants to run and play, grass makes the most sense. We (I!) put down drought and shade tolerant Zoysia (el toro variety). I'm hoping for some rain in the coming weeks, as it'll need lots of water to get established, then should do ok on it's own with minimal watering for awhile. (I do know it requires water to stay GREEN, the idea of drought tolerant grass is that it will go dormant if not watered, rather than DIE).

On Friday I got 4 pallets of grass delivered. FOUR is A LOT to put down. Not to mention I also needed to put a layer of new soil down first. I did 2.5 pallets (that's 1125 sf) almost entirely by myself! Ouch! Frederic did come home and help a bit, and Angelina did her share with her wheel barrow, and on Saturday our neighbor Rick helped a bit too, so by Saturday I got to be the foreman giving orders, but I'm still sore.

AFTER:

The edges will be filled in with assorted hardscaping and drought resistant/native plants, and it's still a bit messy, but it's DONE!

As for Angelina's room - it's also DONE! We're still moving stuff in and I can't manage to get a good picture. You all have to come and see it for yourselves.

And a porch update to come soon!

Getting closer

2009-02-16T17:42:00.005-05:00

Bedroom is almost there! Walls are painted, trims are painted, windows in....unfortunately we had a little glitch. The blue tape Fredo used to cover the trims while he painted - which was supposed to come off easily, leaving no mess, was the opposite. It's like it melted to the wood...leaving glue everywhere. On the trims he spent months fixing.

So now he's back at it. Trying to gently scrape the trims and re-stain.

Our next to final step are the doors - frames are ready, doors stripped but need sanding and staining. Same for the transom window.

And the final step: the floor. This floor is probably in decent condition, but it was covered with plywood, so too many nails. We've decided to install a new floor but are having trouble deciding.

As for the colors, yes, it's very colorful. It is a kids' room afterall....these pictures don't do justice. Basically, ceiling is midnight blue, two walls are kind of purple (Valspar Purple Whisper), two walls very pale pink (Olympic Ballerina), and baseboards/windows a deep purple (Valspar Purple Royalty). It works. Really.

Getting ready to start the side yard

2009-02-16T17:23:00.003-05:00

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. This is a BIG space. It's very shaded. We want grass, but it'll also have a sandbox and a play area and probably some hard scape. Hopefully the massive tree trimming we did last year will give us enough sun to grow zoysia.

How to border it?

This is the South/east front of the house.

South West front

And then the big side yard.

Getting started on the porch

2009-02-07T17:52:00.001-05:00

Yes, we got a grant, but $5000 barely covers materials and some labor, so Frederic decided to do some of the work himself, with a bit of help:
Try keeping her away from wherever Papa works....she has to put on her boots when she sees him do the same, she has her own gloves, and off she goes!

Getting closer....

2009-01-26T00:11:00.003-05:00

No pictures yet. I'll wait til it's DONE.

Frederic has been working like crazy. So far: walls are painted,windows are up, trims up, ceiling painted (that's after all the tape and float, window prep, insulation...).

What's left:
*re-finish the trims.
*stain the doors (and rehang) and the transom window
*paint the baseboards
*install the new bamboo floor (we're paying someone to do that - it's the only room that needs a new floor. The original long leaf pine is there, but it's under plywood and about a bazillion nails. It looks to be in good shape but will have all those nail holes. NOT WORTH IT.)

A few more weeks and Angelina will have a bedroom!!!!!

And we'll have OUR bedroom back!

Almost done!

2009-01-13T21:35:00.002-05:00

With the kids' room that is. Fredo has been working constantly, every weekend, trying to get this room finished. My daily comments of how Angelina will sleep better in her own room like the riding crop used to spur on a horse...

Next time, we'll show AFTER pictures! A few more weeks...

Platinum LEED

2009-01-07T23:05:00.002-05:00

No, not our house, unfortunately, but one of our favourite houses in King William. I have to share this because I'm so impressed.

We saw this house when it was in really bad shape.
Then we saw it in progress.
Now it's done and it's one of our favourites, primarily due to the rear balcony/connection between two buildings, which you can't see in this photo. But now I'm really impressed seeing they did it not only to LEED specifications but to a very high level.

It can be difficult to "green" an old house. In some ways it's already "Green" - it's the epitomy of reduce,reuse, recycle. Yet these old houses have a lot of less than green elements - namely, insulation or lack thereof. Well, that works for summer but it's lousy in winter!

For our house, we considered solar panels, but decided it was just cost prohibitive given all else we wanted to do. We've also kept our single pane windows because replacing the 8ft x 3 ft original double hung wood windows would cost ~$1000 per window. So instead we insulate with heavy blankets...We have however bought all energy star rated appliances and minimize our use of resources, so I don't feel too bad.

On another note - Angelina's room is ALMOST done. Fredo has been working really hard these days. So I'll save that story for when I can also post DONE pictures!

Finally! Persistence pays off

2008-12-10T09:31:00.004-05:00

Soon this

will look like new.

Well, it already looks better than this since we did some work to stabilize it and painted the railings when we painted the house. But now it'll really be fixed. On our 3rd year of trying, we FINALLY managed to convince the SA Conservation Society to give us a grant to restore the porch. Persistence pays off afterall. Hopefully we can get started ASAP, and have a new porch soon!

Yeah!

Bring on the Rain!

2008-10-07T19:41:00.003-06:00

Before, despite our drought, I prayed for very little rain. Rain might mean more water in the aquifer, but it also meant buckets all over our house....

No more! Now I can't wait for it to rain rain rain! I will be Singing in the Rain!

We should be good for the next 100 years.

100+ year old roof

2008-09-28T14:01:00.004-06:00

No, Hurricane Ike didn't come through San Antonio.

Time for a new roof. We lived through many leaks and patches, and finally decided more than 100 years was a decent life span for this roof. As far as we can tell, it was the original. The leaks were getting worse, and the patching wasn't working anymore.

So we bit the bullet and decided to have a new one put on.

After pictures in a few more days.

It's like chopping off your long hair

2008-09-17T20:24:00.010-06:00

And then wondering if you look good in short hair....

We had a jungle beside our house. The shade was wonderful, but it really WAS an overgrown jungle. I had been trying to trim trees, but as most are 20-30ft high, well, that's not so easy.

We had a wonderful elm hanging dangerously over our house. Last spring part of it came crashing down , fortunately just missing our house. A few months before, another large tree came down in a storm, again just missing our house.

I knew our luck would run out. I didn't really want a fully manicured garden, but I've lived in enough jungles I don't really feel like being IN a jungle in the middle of the city.

So, knowing we'd need guys with chainsaws to climb up in trees to trim them, I decided it was beyond my ability and got an estimate. While we were mulling that over (i.e. I was trying to convince Fredo it was OK to cut a few trees - he thinks I'm the Evil Tree Trimmer) Hurricane Ike started making a beeline for us. Those branches would NOT withstand 100mph winds.

Ike turned north/northeast and slammed into Galveston instead of Corpus Christi. We barely had a breeze. In between working furious hours at the EOC, I arranged for the tree people to come out. Fredo was none too happy about it but accepted fate.

When they started I got a little nervous. The whole house looked different just from taking out one spindly Huisache. I suddenly wondered if I was doing the right thing. I learned I hate the sound of chainsaws. It makes me think of destruction.

But in the end, I think it looks great! And we still have tons of shade (despite what someone whose name starts with "F" thinks!)

Why I Love Lavaca

2008-09-05T22:41:00.001-06:00

Part XXXVI

Click
Movies by Moonlight to find out.

How often can you walk to a movie in the park?

I Think I Can, I think I can....

2008-08-27T19:56:00.004-06:00

Grow, that is. Really. It's growing. Slooooowly.

I trimmed the Elm a bunch and the vines, letting in more sun, and we've got some rain, which seems to help even if I water like crazy. I think by next April we'll finally have a lawn there.

On the other hand, this side looks much better! It used to be green, but mostly weeds and lots of holes. After tons of work we laid down some sod (thanks Kurt and Cory!), put in some new plants and mulched and it almost looks like a yard! Ignore the brown parts, it's taking a little while to get fully going, and we may have a grub problem I'm working on. Tonight Angelina insisted on running around in the grass barefoot, twirling with Maman in circles.

And just so you know, we don't intend to keep the orange/blue color scheme. This is what the windows WILL look like.

Next up, the roof and a crew to do some much needed pruning.

Progress....Really!

2008-08-26T21:47:00.003-06:00

Angelina's room has been on hold while we (ok, Frédéric) work on the foundation. We figured we didn't want yet more cracking walls after we'd fixed them! We finally got Marcus's crew out to re-level, so Fredo could start putting in the flashing, making the slope, and then stuccoing the skirting. Well, unfortunately Marcus's main guy had a car accident - he's ok, but out of commission for awhile, so the very back, where the bathrooms are, isn't done yet, but everything else is. So Frédéric has been busy at work doing the skirting.

It all looks a bit strange, but this is what Marcus told us to do. He created a slope using crushed limestone, covered it with Tyvek so water would roll off, then sealed it to the mesh, which had been put down with flashing a foot or so along the piers. Still not sure what we'll put ON the Tyvek, probably more limestone, since nothing will really grow there.

This drought-flood-drought-flood cycle has been brutal on the houses in the city, not just the old pier and beams, but the slab foundations too, which are a LOT more work to fix.

And of course, we have a little someone helping us every step of the way.

Chauvanistic contractors

2008-08-23T12:15:00.002-06:00

We've been doing a lot, but the pictures will have to wait for a little vent. We have a leaky roof. It's been a problem for awhile, but it's finally become critical and we've accepted that we'd most likely have to replace our 100 yr old + metal roof. We think it's the original. I guess it's only supposed to last so long....

In these matters, I am usually the one who calls around, gets the estimates, reviews and summarizes them, then Frederic and I go over them and discuss them together. Now, we did get a recommendation from Marcus (who's been responsible for a number of our projects and whom we know only recommends the best), but I figured we should get a couple more estimates, just so we could compare. I'm going to be home one day next week so I'm trying to schedule them all for that day.

So I just googled and called a couple which looked like established companies.

I leave a message. the guy calls me back. I tell him we want an estimate on a repair or possibly a new roof. I explain it's leaking. He states "Will have to be replaced." Ok...probably, but don't you want to look at it first before you make a diagnosis?
Maybe not so odd, but he was kind of obnoxious about it. That should have been a clue.

Then I ask if he can come Wednesday, since I'll be home then. He asks "When will your husband be home?" Huh? I hadn't mentioned a husband, I hadn't said 'we' or 'our house.' Nothing to indicate there was even another person involved. As it happens there is, but how was he to know that?! I was so taken aback. I should have said 'there is no husband' or something equally obnoxious, but of course that didn't come to me until after I hung up. I stated he'd be around on the weekend, and if he could come then he could meet with both of us, but if it had to be during the week I would be available Wednesday. He asked 'Well, what time does your husband get home?" I told him. He said "Ok, I'll be there at 5:30 Wednesday." Ok....I hung up fuming, wondering if I should call back or leave it be. It wasn't like he said he wanted to meet with both of us. No. He would only talk to 'the husband.' I was the one making the call!

What the heck?! I had dealt with some chauvanistic contractors initially, but kind of forgot about that since most have been great. Fredo initially said to call back and just cancel and tell him why we don't want to do business with him, but then decided we should at least hear his estimate. Kurt and Cory suggested Fredo pretend he can't speak English when the guy arrives ;)

Making progress!

2008-07-27T13:38:00.002-06:00

Doesn't look like much, but it's all taking shape. I finally finished the inside fence line under the crepe myrtles. I cleared out the weeds, filled it in, laid down some mulch and planted some purple hearts (aka wandering jews). I love these and want them to spread, the trick is going to be containing them within the brick boundary....

And believe it or not, the grass IS growing! I added another flat of plugs to help it along, but the recent rains really made a difference. I guess it's more the coolness that makes a difference, because they get plenty of water normally (thanks to a/c runoff!), but after the downpours they really took off. Maybe be next year we'll have a lawn ;)

More landscaping

2008-07-27T13:12:00.005-06:00

What to do with this area? Inside the fence is a mulch border + xeriscape plants. Outside the fence is just a mess...

Here's the front - my plants are doing ok - a trumpet vine, coral honeysuckle and 2 Pride of Barbados. Do I let the grass fill in or do it like the other side?

And the shady side. Angela had too many plants so started planting in front of our fence. I filled in the mulch and border. And I like the look of it. Will plant some grass next to the street. Under the elm though, it gets too much shade.

Why I love Lavaca: Part 65,043

2008-06-29T13:26:00.006-06:00

Ok, maybe it's only Part III.

We really have the greatest neighborhood! Last night we had the Second Lavaca Crawl. Some neighborhoods [ahem, King William] have their House and Garden Tour and even charge $$. Our Neighborhood has the house version of a pub crawl, thanks in large part to our neighborhood organizer Angela. We missed the first one as we were out of town, so we were sure to join in this time.

The outline is simple: 5 houses host a gathering for 30 minutes each. Each puts out some snacks and drinks, shows off their house and makes new friends, and then everyone walks on to the next house. The crowd started small, and gained in numbers such that it was quite crowded by the end. And it wasn't just Lavaca folks: everyone brought friends from other parts of town, all of whom were quite thrilled to participate. We started off the evening knowing only some of the people, we ended the evening having met many new friends and neighbors!

We were house #4, and it was interesting to see the progression. We started off at a brand-new but historically approved home. Moved on to a completely restored historic home, then another fully restored home. Then on to ours - in various states of restoration. It was tons of fun to show off our house in all its 'glory' (peeling paint and all). Angelina, of course, had a blast playing hostess. She's at her happiest with a house full of people. We then finished at Rick and Angela's, in a similar state to ours. The crawl ended with an outdoor screening of a film in the backyard.

We're looking forward to the next one! Next time we'll take more pictures. We were having too much fun.

Landscaping and Water Conservation: My Current Obsessions

2008-06-22T19:22:00.003-06:00

These two things don't always go together, but I'm doing my best. I've become obsessed with landscaping - studying everything I can find, measuring, planning, pulling, planting... However, we've been bone dry here for a couple of months, approaching drought restrictions. Even without drought restrictions, I don't want to waste water.

So I've been planning a xeriscape yard, sort of. We like grass, we like leafy green plants. The trick is to find those which are either native to this climate or do well in drought conditions. Fortunately, there are many options of beautiful plants (lantana, plumbago, firebush to name just a few). Grass...we're still working on. My little plugs of shadow turf are coming along. We're about to plant some turf on the other side, and that's where I worry - I don't want to go over our allotment of water. We can get a dispensation for new sod, but I don't want to do that.

We've always been well below the neighborhood average and less than half the city average for water use, so my goal is to keep it that way. The solution? Air conditioner water. Yup. 15 gallons per day. Even with no rain, the a/c still pulls out close to 15 gallons of water every day, and that's at running it at a relatively high temp for here (84F in the day, 80F at night). That's A LOT of water!

Now for our test - can we keep our water usage at or below what it was pre-planting?

(of course, we could save more energy by turning off the a/c completely, and we have done without it, but we still have a bunch of windows sealed shut, and it's been over 95F everyday for the past month. So we live with the a/c and make use of the water)

Our Beautiful Garden

2008-06-08T20:53:00.007-06:00

We finally decided this was the year to landscape, or at least do something with this 'lawn' of dirt and weeds. So we planted Shadow Turf under the big cedar elm. As you can see it still looks like a moon scape with hairy tufts. It is growing. Really. Just a bit slow. I probably should have spent the $$ and planted more, but it's making progress.

So we decided to tackle the east side of this front lawn. It gets full sun, so totally different 'habitat' from the west side which is in shade a good chunk of the day. We planned to put down Bermuda (tho still debating Turfalo). But the lawn of weeds was too much. So we tilled. yup. Tilled. I felt like a farmer :) Lawn "experts" warned us against it, but we figured the lawn was already so lumpy and full of ditches and mostly weeds that it wouldn't matter.

We tried soil solarization, which means you rip the soil apart, cover it with heavy duty plastic for some time, and cook the weeds out of it... We left it for 3 hot and dry weeks (or was it 4?). Anyway, it seemed to work. The weeds are all dead, and roots come out pretty easily now. The soil is not nearly as lumpy as I expected. We'll have to put down a ton of dirt, then plant the grass.

In the meantime I've been trying to beautify the area.

I'd like to xeriscape, but still want grass, so this is a compromise - mostly xeriscape and Texas native plants around the perimeter, and a truckload of mulch. Yes, our dirt pile was lonely so we had to give it a mulch pile to hang out with. ...
The mulch pile is going pretty fast though. My plan is to mulch all around the fence perimeter and the house perimeter.

I've planted assorted vines (coral honeysuckle, Carolina jesamine), flowers (Pride of Barbados, Plumbago, lantana, Turk's Cap and assorted other things that claim to be drought tolerant and looked pretty). It's kind of hard to find xeriscape and shade tolerant - most want full sun.

It's a heck of a lot of work. I took on this project because basically it's the only thing I can do with Angelina. Any other house projects are too dangerous, and even this is a challenge. She likes playing in the dirt, and putting mulch in places she shouldn't.
Of course, after I finished this rock border, she promptly went in and took all the rocks...

Oh, that's a peach tree in front of the orange tree sticking out of the pile. We want to plant it where the mulch pile is, so for now we just stuck it there...you can also see some Pride of Barbados growing wild against the back fence.

All in all, it's shaping up well!

Now what to do about this...Love the shade, but what will grow here?

Snowballs in June

2008-06-08T19:48:00.005-06:00

Of the figurative kind. These house projects have a way of snowballing. We're working on Angelina's bedroom (got two windows done!).

Our foundation is a problem. No fault of the company who did it in 2005. The fault is ours: we didn't seal it up. We planned to, but life got in the way and we never did the skirting. Add to that a year of drought (2006) and excess rain (2007) and drought again (2008). As a result, the house has been shifting and sliding like an earthquake has hit it. Cracks everywhere. So we knew before we got to the walls in Angelina's room, we had to have the house relevelled, then finish the skirting. Marcus called last week to say his guy could be ready to do it this week. Great! Except that meant we had to be ready to do the skirting as soon as he's done. That means digging 1+ft around the perimeter, putting the flashing in, then the mesh....

But of course, in prepping this (and when I say "we" I mean Fredo), Frédéric realized that the sill under the porch - to which the skirting would be attached - was also in bad shape and needed to be replaced. To get to that, he had to cut off the edge of the porch floor (also in bad shape). Except we hadn't intended to work on the porch for some time. Oh well.... And then, he realized that the lack of gutter around the porch roof would put any rain water directly into the spot where the piers were underneath causing more shifting.... And so here we are. He completed the rain gutters, and got 90% of it all prepped to go. It's been a helluva lot of work.

And it didn't help that Angelina decided she'd like to climb the ladder. She managed to get up about 5 rungs before I saw her.

Only problem is that it's supposed to rain later in the week. The first time in months.

How do I help this fig tree?

2008-05-30T19:51:00.002-06:00

Is this a weed or a grass we want?

2008-05-09T20:10:00.001-06:00

My latest project: Landscaping

2008-04-30T19:36:00.004-06:00

Kind of looks like a moonscape. Or some cartoon head with little green tufts of hair.

While Frédéric is busily working on Angelina's room (I can only do so much with her there,as she wants to be in the middle of it and it's not exactly safe), I've taken upon the landscaping task. Our wonderful large yard is full of weeds and dirt. This particular patch, just in front, is under a huge tree. Not only is it very shaded in summer but also full of roots from the tree.

We decided to try this 'new' stuff: Texas Turf I. It's supposed to be drought and shade tolerant and look softer, like Bermuda. At the moment it's only available in plugs and not cheap. So I bought just a few plugs and spaced them extra far apart. It'll take longer to fill in, but we have time.

So far, the weeds love the new soil and turf 'food'. The weeds are doing wonderfully. The grass? Well, it's taken, but slowly spreading. It doesn't help that Angelina 'helps' me weed by pulling out the plugs. I keep showing her the weeds, she turns around and pulls out a plug, handing it to me all proud of herself.

Next Up: Angelina's Room

2008-03-14T20:53:00.004-05:00

Some Before Pictures:

Finally!!!! Now that the garage is a functional workshop, we can move a bunch of stuff being stored in her room and get started there. It's about time.

We've got to do:
4 Windows to be stripped, sanded, reglazed and rehung along with the frames/casings that need to be stripped, sanded, painted.

Walls need tape and float

Doors need stripping and sanding and painting and rehanging

Baseboards need gentle sanding (no stripping) and of course painting

Floor - new floor laid down. No point trying to get to the pine underneath that plywood.

And then of course paint!

But first up I need to clean it out. Odds and ends, stuff we salvaged we need to either find a home for or take to the antique place for sale and other stuff to Goodwill.

Allegrini Rohr Barn Raising 2007

2007-11-05T21:29:00.002-05:00

This photo of the Jacob Rohr Barn Raising, 1888 (my great great grandfather I think) is apparently quite famous. It's been used all around the world, often to show "community spirit." For more on it, see here.

We decided to have the 2007 version.

Of course we had to do some extra demolition first.

Thanks to the special help of Ann, Garth, Kyle, Marisa, Rick & Angela (between construction and babysitting, we couldn't have done it without them).

The ladies working on dinner for the boys -

And there's a reason this picture is so dark, it was nearly dark when Rick and Fredo finally finished!

Of course it's not 100% done. As always there's a lot more to do, but we think that'll be 1-2 more weekends.

Update: Pictures to come, it's in great shape now and we're moving the stuff from Angelina's room out there now. Yeah!

Roof Begone!

2007-11-01T21:11:00.000-05:00

This roof didn't want to go. All this time we expected it to cave in, and it wouldn't budge when we wanted it to.

We've got a lot of good wood from the edges, but it's got so many nails (6 nails per beam), that we decided it's not worth salvaging - for us at least. We'd end up with lots of small pieces. We'll offer it to our neighbors who salvage a lot, as long as they want to pick through it and take it.

We got the concrete slab laid, and Saturday will be the Allegrini Barn Raising!

Preparing for a new garage!

2007-10-27T21:15:00.001-05:00

Well, a new roof and slab.

Currently our garage sits on dirt (filled with 100+ years of junk). The roof leaks so badly Frédéric has insisted for the last few months I don't go in there for fear of it caving in. The wood in the roof is so rotten.

In our aim to turn Angelina's room into an actual bedroom for her instead of the tool and equipment storage room (and so mommy can get a bit more sleep), we decided we need to do the garage first. Then we can store everything in there like real people do. That means pouring a slab and replacing the roof.

Our friends are coming next week to help build the roof. We've hired someone to pour the slab, under my Dad's supervision (he will arrive shortly), but that meant this weekend would be for clearing out the garage and tearing down the current roof. Easier said than done! Frédéric (again, mostly him but I helped a little thanks to Felice and Wiley next door keeping Angelina occupied for an hour) spent the day clearing out the garage.

Then he figured the demolishing of the roof would be easy - surely it was about to fall any minute right?

Wrong! The dang thing wouldn't budge. Oh, the center of it is so bowed and after much effort started to fall, but it appears the wood at the edges is in much better shape than we thought (100 year old wood...). It's not rotten, and it's holding too well. We do have to remove it all, because we can't just replace the middle. But it is not going so easily.

And Angelina had to watch Papa at work....

Another ongoing project: Gutters

2007-10-27T20:57:00.000-05:00

Frédéric has been doing A LOT on the house lately. I'd like to say I've been helping, but Angelina doesn't like to be left alone much so it's hard for me to do much unless she's napping which is, um, almost never on the weekends.

For the past few weekends he's worked on replacing the gutters. The whole west side had rotted wood and disintegrating gutters. There was a big hole leading into the attic (which is probably where our squirrel family came in). Since the painters had pulled down the rotting gutters, it was time for us to finally put up new ones. That meant cutting out the old wood, replacing it, then replacing the gutters. Last time we did this I was able to crawl up onto the roof to help. But given that this portion of the roof had a steep pitch, Fredo didn't like that idea so decided to do it all himself with a bunch of ladders. I did get up once, and let me say I was terrified. He managed though (fortunately, amongst the junk the previous owners left in the garage, where these super tall all wood super heave ladders).

Of course there's a bit more work to do to finish them off, but the worst is over!

More painting

2007-10-27T20:51:00.000-05:00

This part will be a looooong slow process, since we have to fix all the windows first. I decided to try one window to see how we liked the color. We picked Benjamin Moore's Fireball Orange (also debated Tropical orange, still an option). The first layer looked way too bright. But after the second layer, I think I like it.

Of course...though I painted it, I discovered I can't do the edges well enough without making a mess, so Fredo had to take over. Again.

The screens will be green (La Fonda Jalapeno from Lowe's American Tradition). The combination really does work - we painted one screen, but not the one for this window. As you can see the window itself is not yet done.

and here's another one, but only the first layer.

and AFTER!!!

2007-09-03T19:45:00.000-06:00

Sort of. It's as After as it's going to get for awhile. Kinda like all the rooms in our house. We get to the point of livable, and move on to other more pressing projects.

So, about the paint. We only did one color for now, since we need to fix 11 of the 14 windows still, and need to replace some beams around the roof (the gutters), and a few other things. Instead of waiting yet another year before we get all that done, we just decided to paint and we'll deal with that all as we can. I wish I could say it was 100% done, but I'll settle for 85%.

Man what a difference! It is amazing how different a house can look once it's been painted. It was looking so horrible, now it's excellent. Today as I was putting Angelina in the car, a woman walked by and asked "Did you just paint this house? It looks great!" She went on to tell me she lives down the street (I know her house, I always remark on the lovely yard). She's been in that house 50 years, since she was 26. She's seen the neighborhood through it's best, then worst, and now best again. Have I said how much I love our 'hood?

Ignore the jungle in the front yard. We've had insane amounts of rain this summer, and it's usually so wet all weekend we don't get a chance to mow.

The downside to painting

2007-08-27T20:05:00.000-06:00

It stinks! I didn't realize how much it would smell inside. The primer is a thick oil base, our house is very porous, and oh my...fortunately it's not too bad in the bedroom where Angelina is, but the other side of the house is awful.

On the plus side, it looks great!

One Last Look at "Before"

2007-08-22T20:22:00.000-06:00

We're getting our house painted!!!! It seems like forever. And no, it's nowhere near done. We don't even have the gutters fixed or the porch, but I was getting so sick of paint chips everywhere and the wood - otherwise in excellent shape - was beginning to get rotten from exposure to the elements because so much paint was chipped off. We'd also waited on doing anything with the yard because we figured we'd wait til the paint was done so we could turn the soil. After another rainy season of our yard becoming Lake Allegrini and nowhere outside for Angelina to play without getting into mud and weeds, I managed to convince Fredo is was time to shell out the cash to get this done.

On the plus side, we thought we had lead paint, as everything in the house has many layers of lead paint. However the outside is only one layer. We were thinking maybe it was original. Then our neighbors explained that the old lady who lived there (before she died and her daughter let the house go) used to paint it every 5-10 years, and she always had it scraped and sanded down before painting. They said it was last painted about 15 yrs ago, in the early 90s! They remember because the same painter did their house at the same time. That means it's not likely to be lead!

We're only doing the base colour for now. We have to finish all the windows before we do the trim (4 down, 11 to go). Then there's the porch.....but at least it'll be painted! Just in time for Autumn, which is the best time to plant the grass here (so I hear).

Rain, Rain, and more rain

2007-07-11T20:55:00.000-06:00

I've lost track of how much rain we've actually had in Texas this year. Last year this time we were deep into a drought and heat wave. We couldn't even go toobing as the water was too low -well, I couldn't go anyway thanks to having a newborn, but no one else could either ;-). The city had instituted water restrictions.

This year, it rained every day for weeks, stopped for awhile, then hit again hard. Flooding everywhere.

On the plus side, our Crepe Myrtles bloomed 2x, and more spectacular than I've ever seen.

Our young Mexican Oak is looking pretty good too.

I have no idea what this is, but the hummingbirds like it!

Angelina's First Championship (why I love this city)

2007-06-15T10:01:00.000-06:00

And the 4th for San Antonio! It was quite a night on Thursday. This is what I love about San Antonio, we know how to party! The Spurs are just amazing. Props to the Cavs who gave it their best effort and displayed their class and dignity on and off the court. LeBron is surely someone to watch. In the end of the day it was all Spurs though. And San Antonio LOVES our Spurs. More than any city I've lived in, there is such an overwhelming dedication to "Our Boys." How can you not love them? They're just all super nice guys.

The whole city turns Black and Silver. Cars are decorated, every one is in Spurs garb, even businesses and hotels have signs on their buildings.

We didn't make it out for the game, as Angelina wasn't in the mood, but she woke up a few minutes before the end. Living downtown, we heard the horns and shouts immediately, so we headed out. The downtown streets flooded with people and cars, everyone cheering, hugging, high fiving. The props people had were incredible. Oh, and lots of brooms. Our favourite (which we saw in 2005 as well), was the large dumptruck packed with kids in the back inching its way down S. St Mary's. Even though it was nearly midnight, Angelina had no interest in sleeping and enjoyed taking it all in.

And you know what's great? Three times now we've been here for this. 1000s in the street, and NO problems! Kudos to the people of SA, and also the cops who keep everything going smoothly, and help to make the atmosphere fun instead of antagonistic. San Antonians really know how to party. And the best party ever is when the Spurs take home the Championship!

Here come the Spurs!

2007-06-12T10:03:00.000-06:00

One of the things I love about living in San Antonio - the Spurs! I wasn't much of a basketball fan before (although I enjoyed watching the ladies of Notre Dame take the National Championship in 2001). Then I came to San Antonio. It's a one-team town. It's a 'small' town despite having 1.5 million people. About 1.49 of whom LOVE their Spurs. Not only are they great athletes, they're just great guys.

How can you not love them? NBA and the media say they're boring. Boring because they're not jerks. They're just good guys. But they're FUNNY. Listen to them talk, they've all got amazing senses of humour. I'd love to just have them all over for dinner sometime.

On game days, especially during playoffs, and most definitely during the Finals, the whole town turns black and silver. EVERYONE wears Spurs regalia to work. Even at daycare all the other kids had on the Spurs' jerseys - Angelina is too small for one for now. She's cheering them on with us though!

But not too worry, soccer (football) is still my true love.

Our excitement for the week

2007-04-30T20:05:00.001-06:00

Everything is bigger in Texas, part II
When a tree falls....part II
We're lucky in our bad luck, part II
Why I love Lavaca, part II

Everything is bigger in Texas, part II
I'm used to California droughts, but it's different in Texas. The droughts don't last as long as they do in California, but in Texas, when Mother Nature decides to end the drought, she doesn't do it gently. Other places have storms. Texas has STORMS. Huge crashing rock the house storms. Lighting cracking the green sky. Sheets of rain, sideways. Floods everywhere. Friday night our rain meter in our garden had 1.7 inches (4.2cm) of rain. Today it started raining at 10:25am in our neighborhood (I happened to be nearby on my way to a meeting). It stopped by 12:15pm. In less than 2 hours, we had 2.6 in (6.6cm) according to our meter. The streets downtown were flooded. I was totally soaked. But that's not all. It wasn't just rain....

When a tree falls....part II
Yesterday we planted a Mexican Oak tree, which we got free from CPS at Earth Day. Beforehand we looked around the yard to see where we needed shade. We actually have a park like yard with tons of trees, however many are old and not doing so well. They probably haven't been properly trimmed in 20+ years. We do some trimming, but they need real work. In front of the house is a great big wonderful tree which I think is an American elm. It provides wonderful shade. Alas, Mother Nature decided to trim it for us.

We're lucky in our bad luck, part II
When Angelina was born and seriously ill, we never thought about our 'bad' luck having an ill baby. Instead, we felt incredibly lucky to have her and super lucky she improved so rapidly. So we began saying we were 'lucky in our bad luck.'
Apparently that holds true for the house as well. This tree is pretty huge, with branches hanging over the house. Branches also hang over the street and power lines. The street is often lined with cars from the JW Hall across. The branches that fell crashed down just in the area between the house and the street - just brushing the house, missing the street entirely (and therefore not hitting any cars or injuring any people). This was just after Fredo did some massive trimming just so he could get to the main part.

Why I love Lavaca, part II

As Fredo began cutting away, everyone began showing up: neighbors stopping by to help. In the end we had two chain saws and a number of people working away. Here are just a few. In the meantime someone driving by got a flat tire just in front of our next door neighbor's house, so they helped them out, borrowing a jack from our other neighbors. Everyone just helping everyone else. If it was drier and sunnier (and not a Monday), we might have just made a party of it!

MY latest project

2007-03-12T20:21:00.000-06:00

We had a moratorium on house stuff for awhile. Fredo has been working on the skirting (more on that one later). Angelina isn't yet crawling, but she's increasingly active and it'll come soon enough. Our big problem is we have chipping paint - chipping LEAD paint. It's everywhere, but some rooms are worse than others. Over the next few months I'll be removing all the trims or taping over those that are bad, but I figured I could at least paint the entryway bead board, since it should be quick and easy.

Hahahahah. Ann and Garth took Angelina for the day, Frèdèric had to work, so it was all me (well, until Fredo came home to help). I told them I'd be back by 2pm...Painting should be simple, but here's what it involved:
1.Taping plastic over the open doorways
2. Moving the furniture out of the way (Fredo helped the night before, but there was still a lot to do)
3. Strip and sand - ok, I didn't strip the paint, but I had to at least get the loose chips off and sand a bit. I knew it'd never be smooth, but figured as close as possible
4. Wash the wood - it had years and years and YEARS of grime on it between the beads.This was my serious miscalculation. I thought it'd take 20 mins, it took 1.5 hours to scrub.
4b - Fredo came home to lay newspaper down on the floor and tape the edges
5. Paint, but of course there's the trim on top as well. That took 1 hr, then another hour for the bottom.

Finally at almost 4pm I was finished. The outcome? Well, I don't like the color! We wanted green, and had initially picked "melange green" from Sherwin Williams. However the entry way, despite the door with big window is pretty dark, and we'd use the same color for the dining room baseborads, which also, despite the sun tube, is dark.

Frèdèric was worried Melange Green was too dark so we went one shade up, because with Lowes paints, it's always a shade darker than it looks on the chip. Well, we learned that's not the case with SW. It's called 'Gleeful', but I'm not so sure if feels me with Glee....Frèdèric did say he wanted a Happy color. On the plus side, we can always paint over it, but for now, there's no chipping lead paint for a certain little someone to eat.

If a Tree Falls

2007-01-17T21:00:00.001-05:00

But no one hears it....
This happened in early December. There was a particularly bad wind storm. I got home, went inside, nursed Angelina for awhile. Then Frederic came home and said "Must have been windy today." I said "yeah, sure it was." He said "No, LOOK!"

I hadn't even heard the tree fall.

Fortunately, it fell towards our house, but just short of it. Had it gone the other direction our neighbors would be getting a new kitchen... It looks like it fell towards the garage, but the tree there blocked it and pushed it back a bit. Since I've long been wanting to cut the tree down since it intereferes with our Fig tree, I'm not complaining. Now we'll have some firewood.

And our spaceship landing pad (aka where the pool was)

Actually, that's Chakapu's favourite spot, right in the middle.

Bedroom, After but not complete

2006-10-08T19:37:00.000-06:00

Of course...there's always something left to do but with Angelina due to arrive in a few weeks (this was back in June), we decided to stop and just move into it. We still have to:
1. do some extra sanding on the door frames and window sill then stain - this will wait til next year at least when we have another room done
2. put a trim around the floor/baseboards
3. Sand and paint all the doors
Otherwise, it's done!

An ode to mosquitoes

2006-10-06T21:10:00.000-06:00

I always say it's a matter of time before Dengue Fever hits us here. Perhaps I was trying to make it happen?

I should be embarassed to admit this but....
So you know I used to work on mosquitoes, and now I work in public health. Though not part of my direct job now, reminding people to remove containers which collect water is part of a public health education campaign for preventing dengue fever in many parts of the world. You'd think I'd take my own advice.

We have an above ground pool, 15ft wide, holds 3000 gallons of water. Quite a lot. Just before we left for Switzerland the pump broke. So we (ie Fredo) tossed in a bunch of chlorine/pool shock treatment, covered it and hoped it'd last til we got back. It rained, pulling the cover down (which never fit well anyway), and without the pump and the ability for anything from the air to enter, it was turning green. Not horribly so but just there.

Preoccupied with starting work, daycare, and new parenthood, I didn't think to look at it. We'd get to it soon enough. Fortunately Fredo looked last night. He came in and said "I'm not sure, these might be mosquito larvae. Can you look?" So I did. Oh dear, you'd think I was rearing enough mozzies to run experiments for 5 years! The pool was just teaming with larvae. I've never seen so many. Fortunately not a lot of pupae yet and there weren't too many adults flying around, so I think we caught it early. I must admit it was kind of fun to see them all swimming around. It brought back fond memories. I tried to give Fredo a crash course in mosquito biology, but he just wanted to kill them before the neighbors (and a bunch of adult mosquitoes)killed us.

Ah, once an entomologist, always an entomologist!

He threw tons of chlorine into the pool, and today we had mostly larval corpses
this is an "after" shot, which doesn't show it very well....

Looking for pics of Angelina?

2006-07-28T13:51:00.000-06:00

Feeling weird having her under "The Money Pit" (although we saw the hospital bill so maybe it's correct!), I moved all her photos to my other blog -
http://borderadventures.blogspot.com/

That seems more fitting since life with her is a new adventure for all of us!

Almost ready for baby

2006-06-18T20:51:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm not going to win any prizes for sewing, but I managed to make this. Just don't look too closely at the seams..... We got an old bassinet from our neighbor, but the fabric wasn't so great so I decided I'd make something new. Since we're not fans of pastels, and we like frogs (had a little frog family hiding in our tree for awhile), I fell in love with this fabric. It's not 100% done, there's supposed to be a thing that comes over the top, but I may wait on that part.

Not having a pattern, I tried to use the old one as a guide, but that's not as easy as I expected. Next time, I will find a pattern!

And we did finish the room, well, 90% of it. We decided to stop and move in. Those photos will have to wait for Fredo.

The official Before, During, and After

2006-06-12T20:35:00.000-06:00

Before, with the previous owner's stuff

During:

Almost there.....

2006-06-06T06:09:00.000-06:00

Slapping on a coat of paint is harder than it sounds.

First:
There's taping/covering the windows and frames. The "contractor" we'd hired last year to do some work "primed" (as in did a lousy job) the walls but neglected to cover the trims, putting paint splatters all over the trims I had just spent *months* sanding. I couldn't even look at them for ages without wanting to cry. We weren't about to risk anything, and my pet peeve is paint splatters on windows, esp windows we'd just spent months fixing. Took forever....

Second:
Since Fredo had sanded the walls following the tape and float, I vacuumed up all the edges so I could put tape down on the floor, and newspaper. That in and of itself took nearly a couple of hours.

Then it was time to prime....well, Fredo discovered that the sprayer we bought to 'speed things up did the opposite. In the end, he was done priming and washing everything at about midnight Saturday.

NOW we can paint! (ok, HE can paint). But while I was in the other room talking to Ann and Garth, I hear this loud crash - NOT followed by a flurry of French curse words, which scared the heck out of me. Despite my condition and pulled muscle, I lept out of my chair in lightening speed to see what had happened. Fredo had fallen from the ladder. Amazingly he managed NOT to spill any paint. And not to break any bones. He was covered in bruises and scrapes though. After some first aid he was back at work. After 4 hours and one coat, he realized we needed a second layer, so there's another 3 hours (first one took longer because he had to do corners).Now it's DONE!!!!

2 things left:
*do a bit more sanding on the door trims and stain
*paint the baseboards

Then clean, then we move in!!! The doors will wait.

In the meantime, Ann, Garth, Kyle, and Marissa very kindly came over to help me move furniture and boxes around so we could make maximum use of our storage room (ie kids' room), and clear out the center area of construction materials. It was a godsend having their help. And they worked so fast they were looking for more to do, so they set up the desk, hutch and bookshelves that have been sitting in their boxes for more than one year, waiting for a room to put them in. This room isn't done, but it's livable (it's where we've been sleeping and will function as a guest room when Grace and Mom come to visit), and now is our office. Woohoo! Just in time, the cable people are coming next weekend to connect us to high speed internet (instead of this slooooow dial up) and give us cable TV (primarily for World Cup watching). Now we have a place to put the computer. And it just looks more like a home and less like a construction zone, which does amazing things for one's psyche!

This baby is kicking up a storm, perhaps excited to know it'll have a place to sleep??? Just hang in there kiddo, one more month.

What has been consuming our weekends

2006-06-01T16:23:00.000-06:00

When I say "we're getting a room ready and anxious to finish before the baby arrives" everyone tells me not to worry the baby won't care if his/her room is done. But this is what I mean by 'ready' - we're looking to have one, just ONE room in our house that is 100% complete and no longer a construction zone, then we can seal it off as our 'safe' zone.

Here's what we (ie 95% Fredo, and some great help from Ann and Garth) have had to do:
Windows (only 2! - the kids' room has 4)
*Remove, strip, sand window frames and casings
*replace glass
*glazing
*paint (prime then paint) each side
*replace sill
*rehang with new rope but old weights
The screens are actually in good shape, tho they will need to be sanded and repainted which can wait.

Trims:
2 windows, 4 doors+ 2 transom windows
Remove, strip, sand and sand and sand and sand.... then fill in the holes with woodfiller, sand some more, stain. We gave up stripping with chemicals because it just turned the paint gooey (tried 5 different kinds). We just scraped - tho I stopped once I was pregnant due to it all being lead paint. That just meant more work for Frederic. Then after scraping comes more sanding.

It finally became time to stain - yippee! Only then we realised that though you could not *see* white paint on the trims still, it was there and showed up nice and bright once the trim was stained. ARGGGH! Oh well. It adds character. This trim around the door is *not* stained, because it still needs some sanding. I'm tempted to just leave it be, but then waiting til later means we'd have to move out of the room again to sand it. The door, fortunately, we did last year, tho it too needed some re-painting and re-fitting due to the shifting of the house after we re-did the foundation. You can't see the little wedges Fredo cut to fix it.

The floor - ok, so we did the floor in November. Thank GOD it's long since done!
The baseboards - we're going to paint them, but they had to be sanded first. That was my job when I was less pregnant and could still reach. Prime and paint is next, but that will be the last job, maybe Monday???

Walls and ceiling
*Tape and float.
The guys who did it initially did a crap job, it was all coming apart, and the house shifted too. So Frederic (with the help of Garth on this one) cut out all the bubbles in the ceiling and walls, and diligently taped and floated every crack, then sanded, then floated again where necessary.
But not only that, once the trims were back up he had to fill in the gaps along them, and caulking didn't work so that was more putty, sanding, etc etc....and now THAT is done and the walls are ready to prime!!!! Well, after we finish those last 2 doorway trims.

Fix the holes inside the walls. In this house, the space behind the trims is hollow, and there are so many routes for rodents to make their way through it's not funny. Above the bathroom door we call it the 'graveyard' because we found so many bones and a ton of rubbish (shells, leaves, nests...). SO we sealed that with foam and mesh and painted with KILLZ every where possible to h opefully kill the smell that permeated the wood, esp. horrible when it's hot and humid.

*prime and paint
-ceiling is DONE!
-prime and paint of walls will be this weekend

Doors:
So I lied when I said 100% done. More like 95% - we still need to finish all the doors, but we can take them off and do them outside. Sand, prime, paint...

Closet:
This is Fredo's closet.
*tape and float all the cracks
*paint the doorway and frame,
*sand and paint the shelves
*make new holes for 2 bars
*paint
*finish the floor (ok, so this we also haven't done)

Entrance to the kids' room:
Ok, so we did nothing other than fix the trims. Didn't even sand the doorway. That area is easy to block off though and we'll get to it later. For now, the kids' room is the storage room and will stay that way for another year.

And when I say we live in a construction zone, this is what I mean....
The 'dining area' is our work area these days, and the hall our storage area (see the pink foam on the front door - that's because we took the door to get stripped but have yet to finish it). It was organized, but now we'll move everything into the kids' room so we can start work on these floors and at least have a 'clean' area.

And then there were 2 weekends we spent cleaning our pop up pool which has been a godsend for my swelling body.....

"Master" Bedroom- from Feb posting, so you can compare before and 'during' - almost after....

2006-06-01T07:36:00.000-06:00

There weren't really "Master" bedrooms in houses 110 years ago, at least not in Normal People homes. But as there are only two, one has to be the Master.

All the furniture and mess is NOT ours, the before pic was taken before the previous owner moved, although they left most of their junk.

BEFORE

In PROGRESS
Today, this room is actually closer to being done. Hopefully AFTER photos will show up soon!

Who'd have known floors could make a person so happy. And so tired. 7 months of living with raw sanded hardwood, dust and wood grains in your toes, on your clothes. We gave up waiting til the house was finished and do them last as you're supposed to, because, well, the house will never be finished. After a small fight with the first sander, a trip back to Lowe's for another one, a day of creating a dust storm one might see in the Sahara, we managed to make our floors look almost new. Then came the staining, which turned out to be a lot easier than expected. Thanks to my condition, I left the house while Fredo stained the floor. We used Polyshades, a relatively new floor stain/polyurethane mix which has been great. We did put on two coats, but it looks nicer than the separate polyurethane layer which has a tendency to look like plastic. We managed to do 2 rooms, one more than expected. That still leaves another 2.5 to go. In a few months after our backs recover, maybe we'll tackle those.

This floor was in relatively bad shape compared to the rest of the house. Lots of stains (we think the dogs spent a lot of time there, and carpet + lino can only hold back so much), so the look is anything but uniform. Still, it turned out amazing. We contemplated hiring out to do it, but despite the hard work, turned out to not be too difficult. Of course, Fredo did 80% of it, so I should probably shut up....

One of the two windows in this room (which has *5* doors - one to the porch (see me on the scaffold), one to the adjacent room, a closet door, one to the bathroom, and one to the main house. And each door has trim around it like this! We stripped off 3 layers - this was taken before it was finished. It was NOT a fun task. Worth it, but man it is a PITA. The window has already been stripped and painted on the bottom, this will be the colour for the windows and baseboards, but the trim will be stained similar to the kitchen. Thanks to the different stripping techniques (dry scraping by us, or dipping in chemicals by someone else), the wood comes out a different colour tho the same stain is used. It works together well, fortunately.

Another thing down. How funny such simple things can give so much pleasure

2006-04-02T12:39:00.000-06:00

First things first. I am married to Mr Handyman it seems! It was hotter than hell this weekend, but he dug and dug and sawed and cut and glued and plumbed. He fixed our sewer line!!! No more clog, no more hole. I am so impressed!

The other thing he did was finish the kitchen windows. Woohoo!!! It really is amazing to have our windows DONE. Ok, they're not 100% done, nothing ever will be it seems, but they're as close as they will get for awhile. No more stuffed newspapers in the gap right next to that open flame on the stove. I can breathe easy.
And of course, Chakapu had to help....

And this was Chakapu helping while he worked on the pipe.

I wasn't altogether lazy. I sanded the door frame and filled all the nail holes...

Problem solved! Or at least identified.....

2006-03-28T10:50:00.000-06:00

Well, after an hour and a half of banging and digging, they finally found the problem: a hole blocked by concrete. How exactly that happened, I don't know, there was concrete surrounding the pipe - it looks non-intentional, more likethe concrete piece rolled and got stuck there, but a very long time ago. When they managed to pull it away, a crack in the pipe was discovered. Now, one would think that would actually lead to a flood, but not here! Nope. Must have been some concrete jammed in there, because that's where their snake kept hitting. So once they removed all that, presto! Water flowed.

Only now we have a hole to fix :(

They plugged it up for the time being - lovely, isn't it? Oh well.... guess I know what we'll be doing this weekend (or rather Fredo will be doing ;-))

ARGH! Plumbing!!!!

2006-03-28T10:10:00.000-06:00

You'd think with all new plumbing, the fact that this house is c.125 yrs old shouldn't be a big deal, right? WRONG!

Some of you may remember the saga of our plumbers from last year - lousy plumbers, worse inspectors. Apparently that's the norm, because when I've asked around for a good plumber, everyone groans and says "Good luck! I haven't found one yet!" So last year we ripped out all the old plumbing and replaced with new. Except for the sewer lines, which supposedly were fine.... well, fast forward one year, our kitchen sink is draining slowly. Not a big deal right? Get some draino. Well, Fredo prefers to use a snake. Yes that's wise. So he starts digging around and gets to the end of the new pipes and the start of the old sewer line. The snake won't budge further. Push and push, no luck. He tries to take the cap off the original sewer line. That won't budge. Meantime, we discover that the dishwasher is backing up, basically the dishwasher and sink are playing a little game of back and forth. Now, a few days later, it's not draining at all. I cave and call Roto-Rooter, at a loss for another plumber.

So they're here now.....their snake, tho much more powerful, is also getting jammed, and they couldn't get the cap off either. But they'll keep trying. My fear is there's a crack in the sewer line somewhere (common in a drought, apparently), and it's about 3 ft buried under the house.....fortunately our skirting is still off and we have a 3ft crawl space, but it's still a crappy job! I'm crossing my fingers now as I wait.

(Chakapu, still stuck inside, is fascinated by the men working, of whom she has a decent view from her perch. So maybe it's not just that she loves Fredo more and that's why she always wants to be next to him, but because she has a fondness for power tools.....)

A window!

2006-03-27T18:21:00.000-06:00

Many weekends in the making..... no, it's not perfect yet, not in it's "After" stage, but it's functional and it looks great! Frederic spent a few weekends sanding the window itself, fixing the glazing, and then we painted. This past weekend he stripped and sanded the framing, and made a new sill. Late Saturday we were finally ready to paint! After another coat on Sunday morning, we could install it. Can't explaion how exciting it was!!! Of course installing is no simple task. You have to measure the rope, balance the weights, tie them on, then make sure it actually hangs and moves.

And after doing all that with the two sashes, then you have to put in the trims which hold the windows in place. Still have to paint those, and once done, we can put the outer trims back up and actually have something that looks decent!!! In the meantime Chakapu was banished to the torture chamber otherwise known as bathroom...she can't go outside right now. And for a kitty who normally spends every moment she can 2 steps from Fredo, and it was a gorgeous day on Sat, just staying inside was hell. Once we opened up the windows to finish, we had to put her in the bathroom (the only room with a door) so she wouldn't escape outside. You'd think we were torturing her given how much she cried.

And thanks to Ann coming over to help since Garth had to study and kicked her out, we put her to work sanding the bars. They had lots of chipping paint so she sanded til smooth, and Sunday I could paint the rust preventing primer on (later I'll paint a white layer). About the bars, that's a whole 'nother issue. I always hated the idea of bars, but about 75% of houses in this 'hood have them. Do we really need them now? I'm not so sure. But after living with them in our last house, I learned 1)they're not so bad and don't have to be ugly if hidden a bit by the screen, and 2)it means we can leave our windows open all day when we're not there -a BIG deal in the summertime. So, we'll paint them all white so they blend into the exterior, and leave them.

The neighborhood pets and Chakapu

2006-03-24T18:46:00.000-06:00

Our next door neighbors have two dogs, Duke and Mickey. Nice dogs, well, Duke is. Mickey is nice too, just crazy. Chakapu loves to torture them. She'll go right next to the fence and sit by it while they start barking like mad. They know her, and as soon as I call their names they'll stop barking. But she taunts them. Today, she went out at 7am, sat in front of the fence driving them bonkers, then got up and 'hid' behind the bush (in full view!) so the dogs just moved over and started barking again. She knows full well what she's doing, and she loves it. It also means we can't let her out too early on the weekends or the barking wakes up the neighborhood....

All this, and she was injured. Last night I noticed some hair sticking up on her back and took a look at it, to find what looked like a puncture wound, perfectly round. I washed it with hydrogen peroxide and to my amazement she didn't go running and screaming but let me clean it. Then I put some antibiotic ointment on it. But I was worried.... and it's a good thing I was because I called the vet. Seems she probably got into a fight a week ago, got a claw in the back which didn't leave a huge mark but probably left an infection. She was all weepy and sad a week ago, so now that makes sense. It was only when it became infected and exploded that it became obvious. So she had a little surgery, and now she's stuck indoors til Tuesday, despite the beautiful weekend. She usually spends the weekend following Fredo around as he works on the house.

A few more steps....

2006-03-20T18:11:00.000-06:00

So what have we been doing in the last few weeks?

1. re-grouting the tub/shower. Since we had to re-do the foundation, everything shifted. Fortunately no tile broke, but a lot of the grout, esp at the corners, came out. We'd been using the stand up (yellow) shower. But given my protruding belly, it was getting kind of awkward. So I figured since Fredo was away I could do it myself. I helped with the grouting on the floor, so I can do the shower too right? Well.....I DID, but not after cursing up a storm. Walls, especially corners, are particularly hard. Once I tossed out the tools and used my finger, which is just the perfect width for spreading the grout, all worked out. My back hurt like hell but otherwise I survived, the shower looks great again, and we can use it without worrying about water making its way between the walls. Just in time because I can no longer bend over. No one told me shaving legs whilst pregnant would be so hard....

2. Since Fredo was away - having fun in Hawaii!!! - another weekend, our good friends Ann and Garth took pity on me and decided helping me work would be fun. So while Ann raked the bazillion leaves in the yard, Garth replaced the wood on the porch - a temporary measure but at least there's no risk of falling through now, and got to work trimming the cracks in the bedroom walls so they'll be ready to tape and float. That gave me a chance to clean the bathrooms! I know... but it's hard to get done otherwise. Plus it was fun to have them around. Chakapu made a new friend and followed Ann around the yard all day.

3. Now Fredo's back and off to work.... more stripping of trims. But a rainy Sunday meant work indoors. So he tackled the rest of the cracks in the bedroom, mainly on the ceiling. Chakapu, never one to be left out, decided to help....

And just for fun, what Chakapu has been up to - torturing poor little critters....

Why Lavaca?

2006-02-27T21:14:00.001-05:00

When I started renting in the area in 2002, many people from the Northwest side were surprised I’d go to the barrio, fearing for my safety and wondering about my sanity. Other long time San Antonians had no idea the neighborhood existed. I assured them all was well. That it was a vibrant diverse community. The neighbors all watch out for each other. And even though I left my house for months at a time when I was off to Thailand, I never worried about it.

When we first looked to buy a house, we considered a number of other neighborhoods. But we kept coming back. Being able to walk to the Riverwalk, First Friday, the Alamo, Downtown; being amidst a diverse and dynamic group of people; being in the center of it all but yet not in the middle of the crowds. What more can we ask? And now we have the perfect view of the Tower of the Americas outside our Kitchen window (the bathroom window too….)

We learned that the church across the street wanted to buy our house before we did, to TEAR DOWN for a parking lot! I want to cry when I see old houses torn down. Sure, they look beyond repair and many cost more to restore than it would be to tear down and build anew, but it’s a sacrilege. These houses have so much history and character, nothing new can replace that.

A tour around the 'hood:

A few years ago, the neighborhood community had the wisdom to declare our neighborhood historic. Hooray! That means almost nothing can be torn down! (Almost I say, because a 500 SF house on our block WILL be torn down soon, but it is not the original and was declared to be of no historic value. Along with other neighbors, we’re vying for salvage of the materials.) Any new property has to be up to snuff with the historic commission. Unlike some historic societies, ours is excellent. It’s not driven by some old busybody to hold control over everyone’s artistic and individual desires or to keep everything uniform, but to restore the community to its original glory. As such, our rules are very lax : No black trim. That’s about it. Don’t ask me why, but we’re cool with that. Any new building and exterior modifications would have to meet approval, but that’s ok. It just means they have to keep in character with the house and era. Sometimes I’d prefer a little more stringency on house color – the Pepto Bismo pink house comes to mind, but we’ve got green, yellow, blue, white, orange, red…. You won’t come to our neighborhood and ask “Now which house is it? They all look alike!”

Along with the varied house colors comes a diverse community. Old timers who’ve been there forever, born there as their parents had been. For this semi-nomad, it’s an amazing contrast. Our next door neighbor’s grandfather owned the house across the street since the early 1900s, her mother and aunts grew up there. Her husband, now 50, was also born in the neighborhood.
Every weekend all their friends and family are around. I feel like home. It’s from them we have learned so much. They also found a bayonet from the time of the Alamo in their yard! As we’re less than .75 miles as the crow flies from the Alamo, this area was part of the original encampment.

On the other end of the spectrum are our other nearest neighbors – the newcomers, mostly artists and young professionals. Through them we’ve gotten to meet all the artsy fartsy types, and many young couples like us, new families. Whenever they have a party, half the discussions are stories about each of our houses and the challenges of restoration. We realized we didn’t have it so bad when one couple said they’d camped out in a tent and used a latrine for months. Compared to them, we were living like kings!

So what’s the story of our house?

2006-02-22T09:57:00.000-05:00

Records in San Antonio were not kept until 1925. So nearly every house built before then is on record as being established in 1925, unless it was a house of some prominence where more specific information was available. Though surely the original owners were wonderful and interesting people in their own right, alas it appears they were not of prominence, so there’s little information. We can guess they were German, either immigrants themselves or a generation away from the Old Country. That’s because pretty much the entire neighborhood was German initially. We do know that in 1950 the house was bought by a Mexican family, who also owned a large ranch near the border. There are a few relatives in the neighborhood, but they seem to be the ONLY neighbors who haven’t dropped by and we figure there’s a reason for that. The old couple took immaculate care of the house and yard, making it the most envied place in the neighborhood. Though still in the same family when we bought it, after the old couple died the house was left to deteriorate, as is true for much of the neighborhood. Much of what we’ve learned we’ve learned from neighbors who tell tales of growing up in the area 50+ years ago.

We recently saw a map of the neighborhood drawn in 1886 which had our house on it, along with the two houses next to it. We saw another map drawn 13 years prior, and no houses were on our street. Well, our street wasn’t really there, it was all a field. So we know it was sometime between 1873 and 1886. I think we’ll choose 1881, as that would make this year its 125 anniversary and a good excuse for a party.

What Kind of House is this?

Architecture buffs have given mixed answers. It has elements of a Victorian house, a bit of gingerbread here and there, the wrap around porch, steep roofs. But it’s one story, and a lot of the interior detail, though interesting, is not truly Victorian. Some have called it “German Victorian” given simpler, more minimalist influences and lack of fussy detail, reflecting the heritage of its builders.

Whatever it is, we like it.

A Solid Foundation is the Key to All

2006-02-21T20:31:00.000-05:00

So how to explain this?
I’d already gotten used to it, but the look on Dad’s face when he saw it was funny. Used to building for earthquakes in California, putting reinforcing steel in everything, this house on stilts looked incredibly fragile. In Texas, at least until recently, a Pier and Beam Foundation was the norm. Why exactly? Perhaps it’s due to the shifty sandy soil. Or maybe it was intended to help cool air circulate under the house (and it does – great in summer, stinks in winter!). Or, given they look like small stilts, it’s due to flooding potential. Or maybe all of the above, as all apply.

We’re not in the 100-year flood zone, though we are in the 500 yr flood zone technically. As the house has been standing more than 100 yrs, and in the two floods of the century recently (1998 and 2002), nothing happened there, we figure we’re ok for a few more hundred years. I’m willing to bet a lot has to do with the sandy soil. The piers allow it to shift over time without major damage. Some of the concrete slab houses we’d seen had already cracked. Now, fixing a foundation is never fun, but it’s far easier to fix pier and beam than concrete!

This house had about 76 cedar posts buried 3 feet into the ground and standing close to 3 feet above. Initially it looked like most were in good shape.

So we decided to be cheap and just fix the ones that needed fixing.

Before/During

After (well, obviously it's not completely done!)

Bad idea. I said no major damage, but shifting piers means shifting walls. Though the house seemed mostly level, at least compared to the Sadie house, it wasn’t. After replacing all the sheetrock, we discovered the back part of the house pulling away from the front, and more cracks appeared. The few concrete piers that had been put in were only a foot or so under the surface. That didn’t do much good. So we sucked up our losses (and talked to dad…), turned to German engineering and hired a REAL foundation guy whom also happens to be a Beethoven’s regular. When his crew pulled out all the cedar posts, we could see their true condition. Surprisingly not that bad for 125 year old posts, but there were enough that were partially rotted or so far sunk into the ground as to be useless. All were replaced with concrete buried 3 feet down. Because the sides of the house had fallen, the center was raised, so they lowered that as much as possible and raised the back part of the house nearly 3 inches. It’s not 100% level, because that would cause more structural damage. So we settled for stable. And now we have a bunch of cedar posts stacked in our backyard.

This IS after - at least for the foundation, not the wall!

We still need to put a new skirting on, with some metal flashing. We haven’t decided yet what to use. The skirting there before was stucco/plaster. No idea if that was original. Most of the oldest homes have either wood planks that match the house or lattice wood. The planks look good, but to match our house we’d need them specially made, and that costs a small fortune. We may go with the lattice and use mesh behind it to keep out the animals. We’d hoped to get a grant from the conservation society to do that and the porch, but they nixed us this time. Shortly after their denial, we found a document showing classic architecture of Lavaca. Guess which house was the very first picture! We’ll try again next year.

And as you can see, the exterior needs a bit of work…….

More pics of Baby Allegrini

2006-02-20T16:35:00.000-05:00

Since the baby was opening and closing his/her mouth a lot, Fredo claims the baby is already just like me.

And kicking the monitor.....also just like me. Uh-oh. My friend Kyle says its my karma to have a girl, a very strong willed, independent, rather feisty girl. I'm afraid he may be right.

I'll hold out hope for a nice, peaceful calm baby.....

Everybody wants to be a Cat.....

2006-02-20T16:01:00.000-05:00

For those who've seen The Aristocrats, you should know we sing this regularly at home.

She looks so sweet and innocent here. Her other favourite position is rolling in the dirt outside like a dog. We thought it was just her, but the other day we saw another cat do the same thing. I thought cats always liked to be clean???? She's certainly giving us practice for the human baby to come.

Baby Steps

2006-02-20T15:44:00.000-05:00

How we spent the weekend…..

It was freezing out, literally, so after Fredo spent some time trying to scrape the outside kitchen window, he gave up and came indoors. All around the windows there’s a big gap for the weights. Where the exterior wall hits the window trim, thanks to the interlocking wood, there are gaps. Everywhere. Perfect for letting in cold air. So we spent all of Saturday putting insulating foam around the windows, and then covering with this lovely pink trim, er insulation. We do have the original wood trims which will eventually be put back on, but not until 1)they are stripped of 3 layers of paint, sanded and stained; 2)the double hung window fixed - that requires pulling it out, stripping/sanding and painting the window and frame, and fixing the glass; 3)rehanging the weights. ie, it won't be happening anytime soon, since we have to do that to every window in the house, some 13 of them. So far we have 1 just about done and 2 in progress. THEN of course the gaps can be caulked and the walls painted. Don't hold your breaths.

Dontcha just love the curtain? Chakapu was disappointed when we first put that up, as it's her favourite place to sit and watch the world go by. But we pulled it aside slightly, and she likes to stick her head through the hole.
The FIREPLACE

We had shoved newspaper in the gaps around the fireplace, but Chakapu thought it was there just for her to rip apart. Fed up with picking up shredded newspaper every week and looking at brick covered with crumbling cement, we filled in all the gaps with spray foam insulation and covered it with this beautiful sheet ;-). One day that will be a beautiful fireplace. For now, it'll be home to the chimney swifts when they come to nest in a few months. Hopefully this will deter Chakapu from trying to get the swifts.... she was already disappointed about the lack of newspapers, but she now seems to think it's a comfy sleeping spot.

Remember how I said the bedroom floor was in the worst condition? Along the center wall, the floor had pulled away from the wall - the wall itself is fine, so perhaps the floor was just cut. We will be placing a second layer of trim over the bottom of the baseboards where they meet the floor, so this will be covered up. The foam helps fill it in and keep the cold air out. Chakapu discovered the exciting yellow foam and proceeded to stick her paws in it. Of course then Fredo had to cut the sticky stuff out and temporarily made an enemy. She quickly recovered tho:

Half way there

2006-02-13T18:12:00.000-05:00

No, not on the house. On the baby - 20 weeks today. And no, that's not an Alien, that's baby Rohr-Allegrini. Cute right? All the fingers and toes are there, all the right body parts in place and the right size. Apparently little Fromaggio didn't like the machine too much because he/she kept moving around. Either that or he/she is a big ham and was trying to find the best pose.

It was pretty darn cool to see all that. There's really a little munchkin inside there!

Autumn in Texas

2006-02-05T18:32:00.000-05:00

It comes in December and January. We raked up 24 bags of leaves before we ran out of bags. At least Chakapu had fun playing in the pile.

Our Money Pit, otherwise known as 'home'

2006-02-04T10:52:00.000-05:00

The stuff in the Before pics belong to the previous owner. But when they moved they left most of it, at least all the junk. The amazing find in the living room? A pizza box, WITH pizza, buried under a pile of stuff.

We're still waiting to find the buried treasure.

Living Room and Entry Hall

2006-02-03T19:12:00.000-05:00

The Living Room
Those are pocket doors which actually function. On the other side a wall had been placed to close off the two rooms. We've knocked it out, so now it's all open again and we can use the doors. Knocking out that wall was the most fun of the first day.

This was before they moved out, and they did take the TV, but they left all the other crap. This was where we found the pizza box underneath a pile of junk. With the pizza still inside. We also found a huge stack of old Mexican albums.

DAY ONE

The floor - it's in great shape, despite the disgusting carpet that lay on top.....the three dogs who lived there apparently believed it was a great place to 'do their business'. The smell was horrific. We had to run out every 10 mins or so to breathe while we ripped up the floor. But it was worth it!

After the wall was knocked out, looking into the study.

That's a gas fireplace. We've saved the grill, but will probably sell it to an antique dealer. The original brick was cemented over. We knocked out the cement, but the space is still small. It's a functioning fireplace in theory, we just need to build it out a bit so there's more space and the smoke is vented properly. The chimney is amazingly in good shape. Last summer it was home to a family of chimney swifts. As annoying as it was to hear them chirping at 5am, we've since learned their nesting sites are endangered and even read articles about how to make your chimney more swift friendly. So rather than closing off the top with a screen as planned, we'll just make sure the bottom is covered so none venture into the house next year.

The columns match the porch columns. We had to save those - the guys who helped us demo nearly tossed this onto the pile of rubbish! Fortunately we were there to stop them. Those are not easily replaced.

The Entry Hall
BEFORE

Looking in from the front door. Again, they took the furniture but left most of the junk. This entry way is one of my favourite parts of the house. It's very wide so quite usable space. For now it houses some boxes and our wine cooler. We'll probably put a small setee sort of thing in there eventually.

DURING
And after ripping up the linoleum and clearing out the junk, the same view as above

That sunburst thingy really is gorgeous, and functions wonderfully as a dust collector! Oh well.... Though we're stripping all the trims, we drew the line at stripping that, at least for the near future. It's actually in decent shape paint wise, so we'll clean it (well, I have done repeatedly) and leave it as is for now.

Looking out from what will be the dining room:

Those of you who've seen our Sadie St House, the layout in the center is more or less the same, only the hall and dining area are much larger and the second bath is off the dining room. Since that room is the center of the house, there's no direct natural light. We fixed that by installing a light tube, the Best Invention Ever. Rather than a skylight, it's a small circular piece of -erm, something - attached to a tube through the attic with a plexiglass dome on the roof. The amount of light it lets in is simply amazing! When our electrician came by one day after it was installed, not knowing it was done, he remarked "Who left the light on in here?!" These days this room is functioning as our tool store room. But it's next on the list!

Den/study/occassional guest room

2006-02-03T18:29:00.000-05:00

BEFORE, when it was used as a bedroom

Otherwise known as the My Little Pony room. This was actually the "nicest" room in the house.

That white block in the back is the sheet rock covering the pocket doors (see Living Room).

DURING
DAY ONE
Looking into the study from the Living Room pocket doors. We've stripped some of that blue paint, but it's the worst.... That door behind me leads into the second pantry (the one with the built in cabinet) which then leads into the kitchen. This is probably meant to be a dining room, but as we could use the extra living space, we'll use it as a study - it can be closed off with doors to be quiet.

With A Finished Floor

Since this is the most livable room, it's currently functioning as our bedroom and may end up being the last room we finish. One day it'll be filled with nice comfy chairs, lots and lots and LOTS of books and a desk. It'll also double as a second guest room.

Kitchen

2006-02-02T22:59:00.000-05:00

BEFORE
The kitchen as we first saw it. A few weeks later when we took possession of the house, most of that stuff was still there. They took the appliances, fortunately.

DURING

And after a couple of day's work

Pulling off the floor

The one built in cabinet we have. This is in the second pantry. We've sanded and repainted, but we're not quite finished so no after pics yet. Opposite will be another set of Fredo's L-curved shelves.

ALMOST AFTER
Frederic did all the tiling himself, with a little help from me (Feb 2005)

While waiting for our cabinets.....(April-Sept 2005)

Our cabinets are finally in! Only 6 months after they were started......(Sept 2005)

PANTRY
BEFORE

DURING
What we found when we cleaned out the pantry. In case that's not obvious, it's a combination of mouse and rat poop.

AND NOW
The pantry NOW. Frederic made these curved shelves himself. Now our neighbors want to hire him to do their's! They turned out great.