Our First Money Pit

Sooo.... it's been a while.

2009-04-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a long, long time since I updated with our renovation progress because, well, there hasn't really been progress until recently. I think we may have had the winter blues because we really didn't have the motivation to do anything to the house, and crazy work schedules had us exhausted at the end of the week. Spring is here though, and we're trying to kick things back into gear!

As of the 11th we survived our first year of home ownership!

We haven't really been doing anything that is interesting to photograph, but this week I'll add pictures of the work we're doing on the front/side yard and backyard.

For now I have to share two amazing additions to our home, the fridge and elliptical!

We have been saving for a nice, full size fridge for a long time, and we have been using a dorm size fridge in the meantime (which means a full year, I can't believe we made it that long!). Thanks to the help of friends and family through birthday and Christmas gifts we reached our goal and were ready to purchase the fridge of our dreams. We waited and waited and finally the time was right this weekend - the refrigerator we had picked out and longed for was 20% off! We rushed to the store and ordered it, and they were able to deliver it the very next day (at 7:30 am, of course!).
Of course we had to take pictures with it, and yes, we are extremely huge dorks :)

Although this is nowhere near as exciting as the new fridge, I'm pretty psyched about the elliptical we purchased yesterday too! We are both trying to eat healthy and exercise more, and although we've had a stationary bike for a few years we have been on the lookout for an elliptical to add more variety and more of an all body workout (both are doctor recommended too because they're easy on my knees and will actually help strengthen them).

I had been on the lookout on Craigslist for a used, but in good condition, elliptical for a few months but everything was either ancient, broken, or too expensive and when something perfect was posted it was snatched up in no time. On Saturday evening I found the perfect elliptical - newer model, hardly used, great price, and not too far from our house. Seemed to good to be true so I sent and email and crossed my fingers. When I didn't get a reply back by late Sunday morning I figured someone had beat me to it, again. Right before I left for work the phone rang and the buyer wanted to know if we were still interested. Woohoo! After work I rushed home and we headed a few miles down the road to check out the too good to be true elliptical. The buyer bought it last year and hardly used it, and now she is moving to a smaller place so she can't take it with her. It is in perfect condition and I already worked out on it last night!

Talk about a home grown meal!

2008-11-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

Tonight for dinner we had fish which was seasoned with a lemon from our lemon tree and rosemary from the backyard. As a side we had sweet potatoes which we planted shortly after we moved in, and I am currently eating a persimmon from our tree for dessert. All of it was delicious and it is a great feeling to know that we (and I mean we, I actually helped with this meal, shocking as it may be!) pulled it together quickly using almost all extremely local ingredients!

And because I was too hungry to take a picture of our awesome meal and a post is not a post without one here is a picture of James and I at Disneyland 3 years ago that I found today:

Small kitchen update

2008-11-05T11:01:00.001-08:00

We've been working on the kitchen in little bits at a time. Here is the recent progress:

The cabinets above the stove are fully primed and painted! The space in the middle that's not painted will not have a functioning door on it so we're not bothering painting the inside. The wall color above is still the old color so you can't see the complete change yet.

We had two spare cabinet doors from the cabinet we removed that used to be above the refrigerator so we're testing to see what we'd like the door style to be. Here we've sanded and we're filling in the indentation to see what it will look like as a smooth cabinet with no design.

Primer is making its way around the kitchen!

James started pulling up the ugly brown linoleum while I was in DC and we're working on finishing that up this week. They're both really ugly, but at least the linoleum underneath is lighter. Once we get it all uncovered and do a deep clean we'll decide if it will do until the big remodel or if we want to cover it up with something cheap and less ugly.

And here is our cool free Craigslist find:

We got two of them and we're planning on putting one in the doorway between the kitchen and laundry room and we'll probably store the other on in the garage until we find a use for it.

Kepler hopes that everyone had a happy and safe Halloween

Working on the porch

2008-11-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

Working on the porch was probably not the best idea because just a few weeks later the rain started and we had uncovered a lot that we weren't expecting. The porch is going to be a bigger project than we thought!

There are (were) three columns on the porch, all covered in tile. Two were round and one was square. We hoped that, for some weird reason, they boxed up the third round column and that underneath the tile and inside the square column we'd find a third round one. We were wrong. Inside the square column was... nothing!

So, we knocked that down and put support up in its place, discovering some damaged wood.

We also discovered that the roof of the porch is slanted and that the round column closest to the house wasn't bearing any weight, so we're going to fix the slant, even everything out, and have there only be two round columns.

And here we are!

Kitchen Updates

2008-10-06T08:49:00.001-07:00

Here are the kitchen updates!

First, we removed all of the knobs from the cabinets

With the cabinets above the stove we had a slight problem because they extended to the wall t0 the left creating a little fridge sized space. Unfortunately , it doesn't really fit a normal sized fridge so it had to go:

Then we sanded/filled holes (no pictures of that, unfortunately) and applied primer! We need to primer and paint the walls behind the cabinets before we paint the cabinets, but here's what it looks like so far!

Rags says Have a Happy Monday!

Bathroom Updates

2008-09-28T19:43:00.000-07:00

I apologize (once again) for my lack of blog posts and I'd like to personally apologize to Kendall as she has be waiting semi-patiently for updates for quite a bit of time now :)

We've been slowly tearing apart the bathroom and working on the kitchen cabinets simultaneously and here's the progress!

First, the bathroom...

I went out for dinner with my girlfriends and I came back to find that James tore down all of the tile in the shower and made some interesting discoveries, as you can see below:

(lovely, isn't it?)

And keeping the shower functional is the plastic sheeting and our makeshift shower curtain fashioned out of copper piping and a $9.99 Target college collection shower curtain/ring set. Hey, it works!

Here is the other big change in the bathroom - we tore down the closet from the second bedroom that butted into the bathroom (creating the weird skinny hallway when you first open the bathroom door)!

Before:

After!

Tucker in the attic

2008-08-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

I've been really slacking with the posts lately, but that's mostly because we haven't been doing too much. It's been really, really hot so we've basically been sitting around in front of the fan and then laying out in the hammock once it's cooler in the evenings.

James was sweeping up some of the old insulation in the attic and a very curious Tucker and Kitten made their way up the ladder after him! Although James didn't take any pictures in the attic, I made sure to take some of Tucker once he made his way back down.

This is what he looked like after his first trip up into the attic:

(all of his paws are normally completely white)

And this is what he looked like after he went up a second time:

Obviously, it's pretty dirty up there! He didn't even seem to realize that he had cobwebs and dirt hanging from his face until I stopped taking pictures and helped him out. He's quite the adventurer!

We pushed through the crowds at Ikea today and brought home a new bed frame which I'm currently in the process of putting together. When we moved here we left behind our (very old) mattress, box spring, and frame and purchased a new mattress but no frame. We finally got around to picking out a new bed frame today and I'm very excited! After almost five months of having the mattress on the floor I think we'll sleep very well tonight.

Here it is, almost completely assembled:

Hope everyone is enjoying the three day weekend!

Workin' on the bathroom

2008-08-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

We are working on the bathroom and kitchen simultaneously as the kitchen is mostly little cosmetic stuff we can do here and there and the bathroom is a complete overhaul. James worked on tearing down the fake brick wall at the back of the bathroom and this is what it looks like now:

It's really not attractive right now, but I can picture what it will look like when it's all done and it will be gorgeous!

There was a gap between the bath/shower and the wall because the previous owners bought the tub and basically built the enclosure to fit the tub, not the room. There was about a foot and a half of space between the wall of the shower and the wall of the bathroom and they had sandwiched in a few cabinets which James took out as well. We realized last night that this created a new problem - Tucker can now get under the bathtub and into the basement somehow. It doesn't really make sense, but he did it! We won't be able to really figure out what's going on in that area until we take out the bath/shower so for now we're keeping the bathroom door closed at all times!

And I'll leave you with a picture of Tucker after we discovered him covered in dirt in the basement and promptly gave him a bath:

Happy 08/08/08 everyone!

Adding Wainscoting

2008-07-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

I realize now that I should have taken more detailed pictures of the process, but there was a lot of sawing involved (and one narrowly missed injury) - we all know that cameras and power tools do not mix!

My dad was contracted to put in wainscoting for this woman a few weeks ago; she gives him money for the wood and paint, but then decides she doesn't want to do it anymore and tells him he can keep the materials. Score!

There wasn't enough to cover the whole kitchen, but we've started it and it looks great so far. It's definitely a vast improvement from the chipboard. It took quite a bit of work today to prep the walls (the chipboard was a bit greasy and wasn't firmly attached to the wall), but once we're ready and have the materials to do the rest we'll make sure to prep the day before.

We need to repaint the "chair rail" (it's higher than a traditional chair rail, but it works) in a few spots and add a baseboard, but you can get the general idea :)

Here it is:

And here it is next to the chipboard for comparison:

Another discovery

2008-07-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

James found a date on the back of a light switch cover so we now know when the original bathroom remodel was done.............

1968!

Bathroom DEMO!

2008-07-05T18:39:00.000-07:00

While I was away housesitting here:

and looking after this guy:

James was doing this:

It's great to be making progress, but the only issue is that we only have one bathroom so there's never a great time to remodel it. We started smelling a bit of mold though, so we figured the sooner the better. It still functions as a bathroom, it's just not very glamorous right now!

We learn a little more about the house with every project. Our newest discoveries:

A hole to the attic hiding under the ceiling drywall

There used to be a door behind the sink and vanity!

The dogs made sure to supervise the project

while Tucker pondered on his life and future scrapbooking hobby

That's it for now folks! We enjoyed our 4th with only one minor firework related injury

(mine)

Hope everyone has a relaxing long weekend!

Father's Day!

2008-06-15T20:59:00.000-07:00

My dad decided that coming over and working on the house was what he wanted to do for Father's Day so we had a lot of projects and a BBQ planned.

Well, a surprise yesterday changed our plans a bit - we found a leak in the main water line connecting the exterior of the house and the meter! We looked on Yelp for a plumber rec and when the quotes we got for replacing the piping were $750 and $1100, we figured we're just do it ourselves.

One trip to Home Depot, $100 worth of materials, and three hours of labor later we have a new copper line that is a lot better than the last one!

We still had a little time left before our BBQ so we decided to work on the kitchen walls a bit. Two walls are now complete! The lighter color makes a big difference, so we're really going to make an effort to kick it up a notch this week and complete the whole room.

While walking the dogs last week we found our new front yard inspiration - check it out!

Stock in Home Depot

2008-06-01T15:57:00.001-07:00

Really, we should buy some.

We've made 5 trips there this weekend so far and we're only half way through Sunday!

Updates!

2008-05-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

We're all connected to the internet and ready to give some updates! We've been working hard, but now that we've added a hammock to the backyard we do a lot of relaxing too :) Here is the progress we've made over the past few weeks:

The column is down the the bare wood now! It looks a heck of a lot better now from when it was covered in the plaster and 100% better than when it was covered in tiles. We're also taking off the tile from the bench part of the porch so it will all be the original wood. My dad found a new sanding tool that is cutting our work time in half, so we should be finishing up on the porch in the near future.

Our biggest project lately has been tearing down the structure in the backyard that must have been a dog run or some sort of livestock area. The backyard looks so much bigger (and is a lot safer) without it!

James tore out the crazy junipers in front of the house this past weekend, and someone walked by already and commented on how good it looks! We have front yard landscaping plans in mind and that was step #1.

We are painting the kitchen and kitchen cabinets! As you can see in the second picture, the kitchen is currently a dark olive color, and even though the kitchen is spacious, it doesn't get too much natural light right now. We're going to paint the walls Behr's Sage Tint and the cabinets Behr's Swan Wing. I'll post pictures when we're all done but it will really brighten things up in there!

Kitten and Tucker claim this spot every time we take a shower... they're going to be pretty disappointed once we tear that wall down and put in the claw foot tub. The big bathroom remodel is still quite a bit away, but we've been enjoying window shopping and daydreaming!

We loved that the house had a clothesline set up and we've been making use of it with the warm weather. It's hip to be green, right? Our cute old lady neighbor uses hers as well, and it's great to save electricity.

Now for some non house related updates:

We spent part of Memorial Day weekend up in Memorial Park with my mom and brother. We went on a hike and had a great BBQ!

Spring is in the air and baby animals are everywhere! Here is a fawn that a client brought into the hospital- NOTE: if you see a baby fawn with spots, leave it be, do NOT pick it up and drive it to your local vet hospital. The momma dear just went for food and the reason the baby can't stand up is because it is in hiding mode and is under 24 hours old! That chick is the class pet of our local elementary school, but it was a bit "blocked", so we helped it out and warmed it under our heat lamps.

We had a scary time last week because I work right by where the "Summit Fire" started that consumed nearly 4,000 acres from the Santa Cruz Mountains and south down the coast. The are some of the pictures I took on my way to work, driving toward the fire. It was a surreal experience, everything was telling me to not drive toward the smoke clouds, but I knew I had to. We were at work for less than an hour when we got the order to evacuate. Thankfully we had quite a few employees that day and not too many animals to evacuate. In the end, we left the hospital with 2 cats who live there, 1 cat on fluids and medication, 1 turtle, and 1 bearded dragon, all safe and sound. It was amazing though, so many clients, both present and past, called to see if they could help us in any way- it really touched me that we had the support of so many people.

Finally we have internet!

2008-05-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

I can't update right now with pictures because my computer isn't set up yet and the camera cord to upload pictures is in a box...somewhere.

We're both really tired lately. James has snapped out of it quicker than I have, but we're still both moving a little slower on the weekends than previously.

The big things we've done lately include getting the utilities set up and finding a new tenant to move into our old apartment. You realize how big a place is when you have to clean every little nook to pass the inspection of a slightly senile landlord!

James has also been working out in the yard a lot - we're removing the structure in the backyard that looked like some sort of funky dog run, and we're going to take out an old and rotten tree this weekend.

We are also now the proud owners of multiple Home Depot gift cards...apparently people who have seen the house realize how much we need them! It really is the best gift right now, we're there practically every other day. My dad calls them 'Home Depot Dates', and they're quite enjoyable now that a flagship store was just built less than 10 minutes from our house. If only they had a cafeteria like Ikea we'd be set!

Renovation Weekend 2

2008-04-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

First of all, we started renovation weekend 2 by buying a new water heater!

There was a water heater in the house when we put an offer on it, and then when we went back to check the place out again a few weeks later (after our offer was accepted and we were in escrow), the water heater was MIA. Gone! Per the selling agent, the water heater was non-functioning anyway, but who would come and take a non-functioning water heater? It's not a simple task to take it up out of the basement. Oh well, we were basically S.O.L. per the agent, so thanks to OSH's no sales tax weekend and a sale on top of that here is our beautiful new water heater!

Someone decided that bathroom tiles would be a great thing to put around the columns on the front porch. We disagreed. We still need to get rid of all of the white stuff that was holding on the tiles, but these will look so much better once we're done.

We did A LOT of work on the yard, cutting back the lemon tree by quite a bit, and picking up the random debris (like pavers buried under the dirt) and other funky stuff, like hay. We made a dump run, but there is still a bunch left that we're putting out for yard recycling pick up.

Here are our babies, assisting with the renovations. Rags is testing out the floor in the dining room and Kepler is inspecting the progress on the water heater installation.

Random garage sale find of the day- 4 chairs for $35! I'm going to reupholster them and clean them up, and I think they'll be great.

It's a much darker picture than the 'before' picture, but we took down the shelving above the W/D hookups and also the cabinet to the left. The cabinet is great! We're definitely going to fix it up and reuse it. We also started chipping off some of the white paint to the left (it's yellow underneath), and cleaning the room up a bit. You can't tell from the picture, but it looks much better.

Another great weekend of progress!

Renovation Weekend 1

2008-04-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

I'm a bad blogger- renovation weekend #1 was actually last weekend!

We have gotten a lot done in a short amount of time! It helps that we have very handy and willing family members so it's been more than just the two of us working. It has been so great to work with our parents on this, even though it's only been a few weeks now. It means so much that people want to spend their weekends helping us out, and it really feels great to see everyone working together.

Here is some of the progress we made last weekend:

Not really progress, but James wanted to see what was under the cork walls in the kitchen and it's pretty interesting what he found! Many layers of wallpaper, but the original wainscoting in under there too! Getting that back to it's orignal glory will be a very time consuming process and right now we're leaving the kitchen and funky walls as is until we get the grand plan in place.

I tore out the bright colored shag carpeting in bedroom #2 and the dining room closets...

And then we got rid of the ugly pink doors in the dining room, yay!

I then started tearing up the linoleum....

We found that by using this big bar and various hammers, etc we could pull everything up much faster than just trying to pull up the linoleum

Success! Bedroom #2 will be our sanding and staining test area before we work on the bigger areas. Hopefully we'll get on that soon!

I wasn't taking pictures during the process here because James, my dad, and I powered through it full steam. We discovered the same funky floor paining as in the living room, but it looks so much better!

We also did some yardwork, cutting back some of the huge lemon tree that was trying to attack and smother the other smaller trees.

I'd say we're off to a great start!

The "Before"

2008-04-16T18:45:00.000-07:00

Our house was built in 1901 and owned by the same family until 2007. Someone bought the house in early 2007 and we bought it as a forclosure in 2008. Quite a difference in ownership in just a year! The original owners took good care of the house - getting permits for all construction, doing earthquake retrofitting after the big '89 quake, etc. and we're thankful for that. Unfortunately, they decided to remodel the bathroom and kitchen in the 70's and boy did they do a good job of dating the two rooms!

Here they are, the "before" pictures of our new house :)

The front of our home :)

Our front porch! I love, love, love the fact that we have a front porch on a quiet street. If you can see the columns, they have the same lovely tile as the bathroom (just wait)... all three types of tile from the bathroom! It's really special, but thankfully it's not too noticable.

I love our screen door! It's original to the house and super cute.

Inside the house, looking back at the front door. I need to take a good picture of the hardware and door handle from outside, they're absolutely gorgeous.

Tile in the front entryway. Thank goodness it isn't raining, because this thing is a liability- it is so slippery!

Chandelier in front entryway- there is a matching one in the living room as well.

Looking from the front entryway into the house. The dining room will be in that room directly ahead and the kitchen is beyond that. If you looked to your right you would see the living room.

From the dining room, a bedroom on the left, the bathroom, and then the kitchen

From the dining room, looking back toward the front of the house, there is the living room, entry way, and bedroom.

Gorgeous "floor" in the dining room. They planned to put down large, copper colored tiles. Thankfully, they lost the house before they finished :)

Dining room closet with funky doors that completely do not fit in the frame.

Looking into the living room from the dining room.

I know it looks funky now, but I cannot wait until we have these sanded and stained. The orange paint isn't as orange in person, but it's definitely very dated.

We have pocket doors in between the living and dining room! I love pocket doors and I am so excited about these. The track is a bit messed up right now so I didn't pull them out for the picture, but they're gorgeous.

Bedroom #1. We will live in here while we renovate and then we'll deal with this room once everything else is done.

Bedroom #2. Isn't that flooring just so inviting and cozy?

The infamous bathroom!

Our kitchen! It definitely needs updating, but I love how big and spacious it is. I am so excited to have a big kitchen with proper appliances for the first time in years :)

The floor in the kitchen is very unique.

As is the wall.

The lovely "laundry room"/room you walk through to get to the back door and out into the yard. It's an addition and we have a bunch of ideas of what to do with it...expand the bedroom connected to it so that we have another 1/2 bath and larger closet, keep it as is but update and really clean it, turn it into a back porch and have the door go directly from the kitchen to outside, etc.

The back view of the house isn't as exciting as the front!

The entrance down into the partial basement.

Those are all fruit trees! We have a huge lemon tree, a few peach trees, and a persimmon tree. I cannot wait for the peaches!

Welcome!

2008-04-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our blog about our first home!

It's not really a money pit (we hope not!), but there is a lot of work to do to bring our 1901 Victorian to its full potential.

James and I were married on Sept. 22, 2007 and closed on our first home ~6 months later. Some people have honeymoon babies...this will be our baby for quite a while!

Also inhabiting our new home will be our two dogs, Rags and Kepler, and our two cats, Tucker and Kitten. I'm sure they'll be great little helpers (not!).

We've got a big project ahead of us, but we're so excited to own our first home and we love this house!