You Make My Day!

I've been very busy over here at the Tiny Old House this week with the things that keep my home improving funded... so busy that I didn't see Paul at the Homeowner's Blog had mentioned us as a favorite read. Thanks Paul! It's nice to feel I'm not blathering away in cyberspace to no one.

I thought I would pass on the favor by listing a few of the blogs I read in detail. Please check these out, as well as those in my blogroll on the side of my blog.

Chile Chews
Battles with Colossal Cauliflower, life changing challenges, and recipes for chocolate truffles... what more could one want? Throw in insightful musings and advice on sustainable and simple living and a great sense of humor, mix with a hand cranked blender, and drink with breakfast every morning.


Green Bean Dreams
What could be better than dreams of fresh crunchy green beans out of the garden? Planting them. Or at least reading about it and dreaming! Green Bean writes great essays and contemplations on things that affect our everyday lives, from the wonderful benefits of silence to the world of Elmo.

Our Tiny Oak Park Bungalow
A morning dose of bungalow glory! Complete with furniture making adventures, picture rails (drool), and some great ideas on simple living!

This Old (Crack) House
Frankenstein lights, cement sinks, and doors that didn't close- oh my! What a fabulous house (and blog).

One Project Closer
Check out One Project Closer. Reviews of all sorts of home improvement tools and materials, from CFL's to quality paints and used tools.

819 Ohio
Come for the pastries, stay for the great decorating and useful tips!

A Bungalow Transformation
I want this house. Seriously. And it's been so fascinating to watch it transform. Plus, I like to steal their ideas and post names. :)

Delano Bungalow
They may in fact own the heaviest door... and great tips for odd additions.


Oh, Bungalow
I love their patio. LOVE it! And their bathroom is just so full of character.

ThirteenEleven
What could be better than taking a nice walk? Walking through ThirteenEleven's neighborhood!

I read so many every day... I had a hard time coming up with just a few! I know I forgot some that I read, too. I'll try to do a blogroll post every once in a while so I can catch them all!

Some Back Room Ideas

As I said previously, we are attempting to remodel our back room. Here is the original room: (20'x10', with a sloping ceiling)

The door on the top leads into the main house. The door on the right side leads out to the driveway. We are removing both huge windows on the bottom as well as the window into the next room at the top.

Right now it functions as a bedroom, laundry room, and dog sleeping room (it's divided by a huge ugly armoire.) We need it to function as all or most of those things in the remodel. Sadly, the pups can not sleep WITH us, due to allergies... and they are too young to be trusted not to chew themselves to sleep.

The laundry area is currently storing our family filing cabinet, a cabinet of house tools/paint/etc, linens, and dog things.

The other bedrooms in the house are 8'x10 and 10'x12', each with a closet taken out of that floorspace... basically anything we do to this new space is bigger than either other bedroom.

Thanks to all of your suggestions on the previous post... here are three possibilities. I added French doors at the bottom of each, but didn't work on placement at all, so it's sort of awkward in all of them.

Here is the room in our first configuration, with completely separated areas:

Pros:
Doggy space
Separate Laundry Area with room for cabinets and LOTS of storage
Direct access from the house to the driveway/trash can
Would be easy to build built in storage on either side of the bed (floor to ceiling)

Cons:
SMALL closet space (though bigger than what we are using now)
Smaller bedroom
Weird walls/dimensions

Here is the room with a walk in closet:

Pros:
Walk in closet
Larger (10x15) Bedroom
Logical floorplan and layout

Cons:
No doggy space
No paint/tool space
No direct access to driveway/trashcans

And here is the room with a 1/2 bath and non-walk in closet:

After doing a little research, I though adding a half bath to the mix might not be a bad idea in our 1 bathroom house. Unfortunately, it would be a bit of work, as the wet wall is taken up by the laundry area right now. I don't think I have a good model for this, but I can't figure out how else to do it.

Pros:
Toilet in bedroom!
Larger (10x14) bedroom
Resale value from second bathroom

Cons:
No doggy space
No paint/tool storage
Small closet


Any ideas? Suggestions?

Second Verse, Same as the First... WAIT! WE DID IT!

Since our utter failure two weeks ago we been trying to reconcile ourselves to permanent life without a bathroom door. Sure it meant no visitors who weren't like family... but the thought of tackling the door was completely overwhelming.

Today I decided that I would try one more time. By myself.

It was very deja vu. I did the same things that we did last week as I attached yet another door jamb and chiseled new mortises. I won't bore you with the nitty gritty details, as they are already detailed in previous posts.

This time, though, I measured. I measured again. And, then... I measured one more time. I checked all of the plumb and squared lines.

I decided to leave the broken off screws in the studs and shift the door up the jamb a tiny bit to allow room for the new screw holes. I chose a bit 2 sizes bigger for my pilot holes to avoid the screws snapping off in installation... many thanks to The Handyguys for their diagnosis of the problem!

I carefully screwed the hinges into the stud and jamb, wedged a few shims under the extremely heavy door (...and no Karen, I still didn't get a weight on it. I'll have to forfeit on a technicality!) and slowly slid the door into position. This time, I managed to get the hinges in exactly the right place.

Here are a few pictures of the door. It's still missing the door stop, the knob, and is yet unfinished. (And don't mind the dirty laundry. I didn't see it until I looked at the pictures!)



Looking in from the living room...



...and from inside the bathroom. Don't mind the dirty laundry!

I'll post finished pictures later!

For those of you who followed this, what a learning curve! I feel comfortable enough to tackle the rest of the doors in the house now. Don't be too afraid to tackle a non-prehung door... just measure. Over and over. And don't drill your pilot holes too small!

I'm Famous!

Ok, not really... but I've been interviewed! You can see the full interview here on One Project Closer. It's a pretty thorough synopsis of what our house IS and what we are hoping to do.

Thanks to Fred for giving me an opportunity to blabber even MORE about my house. I love my house. I could talk about it indefinitely.

House, house, house. House, house, house. Garden. House, house, house. Dogs, Dogs. House.

Also, take a moment to check out One Project Closer. You will find good observations from Fred, Ethan, and other commenters from a wide spectrum of DIYer's on various home improvement tools and materials, from CFL's to quality paints and used tools.

Now, off to scraping. Scraping, scraping, scraping along.

On Tulips and Buds

Yesterday was a glorious 57º outside. I grabbed the rake and set to work on the winter debris buried in our lawn. I was pleasantly surprised to see that our fall seeding worked! There were lots of little "grasslings" growing in the formerly bare spots.

I saw signs of spring everywhere...


Tulips emerging from the earth


Buds against a cold morning sky

Spring is coming!

The Master Bed/Laundry Room Shell (AKA The Back Room)

I have been struggling with ideas for how to renovate our back room. It is a 10' by 20' room that was added on in the 1920's. It has a slanted roof, windows into the main house, and 2 HUGE windows. Oh, and peel and stick vinyl tiles.

When we moved in, we decided we would convert it into our master bedroom and laundry room. We moved the laundry out of the kitchen and into this room the first weekend. We moved a bed and a clothes rack in for the bedroom side.

And then we planned. And planned. And planned.

And three years later, we are still sleeping in the room. We added a freestanding closet to separate the laundry area and the sleeping area, but it is still open to the rest of the house.

I discovered Google SketchUp tonight, and drew a mock-up of our back room:

I added the washer and dryer (the two boxes), as they are likely NOT moving. The top of the picture is attached to the house, and the other walls are exterior.

We are definitely removing the two HUGE windows on the bottom of the pictures, along with the window into the guest room at the top left. We are putting in French doors on the bottom.

Nothing else is final.

The room is 20' by 10' and we need:
A bedroom
A closet
A laundry room

I'm trying some ideas out in SketchUp right now! Any ideas?

Wanton Waste and TV Home Improvement

No progress on the bathroom today; I am holed up in a hotel room on a business trip. We don't have TV at home, and I so am watching HGTV. I am watching people smash toilets, attack cabinets with sledgehammers, and otherwise destroy or trash perfectly usable items. It kind of makes me sick.

What have I seen destroyed in 1 hour of home improvement and decorating shows?

• A Yellow Toilet. Now, I know that yellow toilets are not the most popular decorating choice... but did they have to smash it? Surely someone could use it... even as a garden planter.
• A Blue Recliner. Perfectly usable, not stained. Admittedly very comfortable. Its only sin? Lack of fashion. Sentenced to the trashcan (instead of a local thrift store or freecycle). Hopefully someone rescued it.
• A HUGE Bathroom Mirror. Sure, small framed mirrors are the mainstay of modern decorating. Sure a big full wall mirror is outdated. However, it is so USEFUL. You could cut it down into smaller mirrors and frame those... or you could find a home for it with someone who needs a big mirror, like a musician, music school, or dancer. Why did you need to smash it with a sledgehammer?
• A Full Kitchen of 50's Wooden Cabinets. Again, again. Someone could use them, even if just as garage cabinets. I know I could! And, I'm sure there are lots of you LOOKING for a matching cabinet or two for your 50's ranch restoration. No need to smash them.

Too bad they are not showcasing positive deconstruction techniques. Too bad they are promoting destruction instead.