Renovating My Old House

Our house is a Cape Cod house, so the bathrooms on the second floor are small and have sloped ceilings.  The master bedroom has an en suite bathroom, which in our area is an uncommon luxury.  In fact, most houses in our area only have 1 bathroom in the house--usually on the second floor.   So having a bathroom in the master bedroom, albeit small, is something we greatly appreciate.  Although 1950's construction was built to last forever (or ~70 years in our case), things have gone wrong.  For us, it was a leak in one of the pipes for this bathroom which we could not fix by going through the ceiling of the room below.  Additionally, we had mildew and peeling/chipping paint on the popcorn ceiling from poor ventilation (fan vents are not required in our area if the bathroom has a window so we bought this house without bathroom fan vents).   We didn't just renovate the master bathroom.  We completely gutted it, changed where the fixtures were, and expanded it.  See the graphic belo

  I suppose I should entitle this post: What does it mean to me to own a home? My thoughts about home ownership have evolved since when I first started this blog many years ago.  Back when we first bought the house we were so young, had so much energy and were amazed at this complicated but wonderful house we now owned.   A lot of life happens in people's homes.  It is a place where some of your happiest memories are made, and it can be a place where you experience great suffering, which can come in the form of illnesses, and grief. I think in the early years I didn't really understand what home ownership meant.  You cannot just live in a house.  You have to constantly repair, replace, clean, update and upkeep.  I know we were doing that a great deal in the beginning, but we had a few years when we were busy with having kids, and forgot about it for awhile.  In that timeframe several things went wrong with the house.  We had major plumbing issues and we had issues on the exter

 Asbestos--despite being carcinogenic to human life--would have otherwise been a very useful building material.  I read somewhere that the ancient Greeks or Romans had asbestos napkins which they would throw into the fire to clean (the internet is not clear on whether it was the Greeks or the Romans).  The napkins would not burn and would come out clean and white.  It may be surprising to us now, but even the ancient Greeks & Romans noticed that the slaves who worked with this material would prematurely sicken and die.  Why did it take modern society so long to do anything about it? In most homes today you will find asbestos in tile flooring, external house siding, joint compound, attic insulation, and maybe even insulation around hot pipes.  Before we started any project in our house, we often did check and worry about possible asbestos.  Every time I had to check for asbestos I would wonder: what were the people who built with this stuff thinking?  Why did they do it?   I have tw

My fridge, which I am quite positive is older than I am, was on its last leg for some time and needed to be replaced. Not only does it feel great to finally upgrade an appliance in the kitchen, but it also saves on our electricity bill. Most new refrigerators are r ated as Energy Star whi ch means they are generally 20% more efficient than minimum federal standards. Don’t forget to write off your purchase on qualified Energy Star products when filing your taxes as well as submitting for local rebates and credits from your local electrical company. Three ways to save or get paid to upgrade my fridge, how can I say no to that? My old fridge was a standalone fridge with no special perks that many new fridges now come standard with. No, I opted out of getting a fridge with a TV and WiFi capability. Call me old fashion, but I believe my fridge should store food and other basic nourishments. The new fridge that I purchased has a hookup for water and an ice maker. To maximize the

If you have already perused through Summer Garden Project #1 and Summer Garden Project #2 , you will understand that this is the continued effort on our part in trying to reclaim the front of our house. I am just truly excited that I do not have to deal with removing Ivy in this project. My back still aches whenever I think about the Ivy Removal Initiative we did the year prior. It's never fun to see the holistic task at hand. No matter what we do to try to tame this area, it just looks so disheveled. The area is on the side portion of the lawn that divides my property with my neighbors. I could not tabulate the total number of plants that were located on this small plot of land. Time to get to work. My trusty tools and supplies consisted of a shovel, a spade, hand tiller (no I did not bother renting the motorized one for this project), plenty of garbage bags, top soil and mulch. The plants I wanted to remove have been there for years which r

The next work we did was at the end of the front walkway which meets the curb of our sidewalk where there was an overgrowth of ivy. The picture really shows the distinct contrast between the crowded bushes on the left of the house and the right side of the house which is a result of the Summer Garden Project #1.  To continue this minimalist garden theme, we wanted to remove the eye sore from the front of the house. The ivy took over a large portion of the front lawn, covers the steps onto our walkway and was an overall distraction to the aesthetics of how we want the garden to look like.  Where are the steps to our house? A closer look at the enemy… The other side of the walkway. This has to be least enjoyable garden project thus far. Ivy is a resilient plant which has an extensive underground root system. Here is a link to a little bit more information about Ivy ( http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/mg358 ). Some success! This is what the Ivy l