bastards

Due to a minor rush of spam comments, I've disabled commenting for this blog. If you have something relevant to say, and you're an actual human being, you can find an e-mail address here. But if you're some asshole trying to sell something - particularly if it's in a language I don't even read - I will send Yngwie Malmsteen to your house to unleash the fuckin' fury.

merry tiler, more!

Most of the bathroom tile is in place. We ran into a minor detail of miscalculation (embarrassingly obvious) and so had to order more (which explains why the amount we paid initially was so much lower than our estimated budget...), but fortunately, there's no real delay, since it's arriving Tuesday evening.

So here's a shot of the area behind the bathtub:



Here's what's been done so far in the shower:



And here's the bathroom floor, so far:



On another note, my sister and brother-in-law have just started their own remodeling (theirs motivated by needing room for their two boys), and she's doing a blog of her own, called This Year's (re)Model (opting for the Elvis Costello rather than Roxy Music reference).

summer's almost gone

One side effect of this remodeling project: this has been the summer that never was, in some ways. Several factors combine to have made this the case, including some that have nothing to do with the project. Obviously, the energy and attention we've had to pay to the project have preoccupied us; and for the early part of the project, one of our main summer activities - hanging out in the back patio, cooking out or just sitting around - was impossible due to construction materials taking up the space. (And it occurs to me that in most summers, we have a couple of regular traveling visitors, neither of whom made their annual trip here for reasons mostly unrelated to the remodeling. Our friends Janet and Andy and their children were in town for a couple of days just as the project was beginning, and I saw them on my Grand Rapids trip as well; while our friends Bob and Susan skipped their usual Milwaukee visit in lieu of foreign travel this year - they're visiting in late October instead.)

So it's kind of weird that it's September already, feeling as if many typical summer activities never quite happened. (As a teacher, my seasonal calendar is in arrested development: the school year still delineates the end of summer at one end and summer's beginning at the other...although now that I think of it, something similar is probably true for parents of school-age kids, too.) But ultimately, it will be worth it: Rose and I are both in the habit of just wandering upstairs and sort of looking around, for no other reason than to imagine and enjoy the space. We were both up there this afternoon, talking about a couple of details and clarifying window treatments and the like, and it was just a wonderful moment: this is a project we'd been pipedreaming since we bought the house, eleven years ago (in some ways, before that: the idea of buying a house and remodeling it was in her mind at least well before we could buy a house in the first place). And to see it in real life is gratifying...despite its costs (including the monetary ones), minor setbacks, and its tendency to take priority over most aspects of our lives. All that's temporary. The fabulous new space we'll have - and the more it becomes real, the more I really love Rose's design - is permanent.

a date with Ikea

Today was a shopping day. We rented a van and drove to the Ikea in Bolingbrook, Illinois to buy furniture, primarily for the new bedroom but including a few other pieces as well. We'd done pretty extensive preparation beforehand, in terms of visiting the store earlier to select the items, making sure they'd look good in our space, and so on. We assembled a list so we wouldn't forget anything.

Only thing we forgot to do was make sure we'd be able to get it all home. First, a note: Ikea does deliver, but their rates are very high: it's essentially a per-item cost (as if each item has its own truck...), and so picking up the stuff yourself is considerably less expensive (assuming you live within reasonable driving distance). The risk, though, is that you can't have them hold stuff beforehand: if it's in stock, and on the floor, great...but if it's not...you're SOL. (And we had a very unpleasant experience a year or so back: one of the items we needed was in the store...but on a high shelf where it supposedly could be reached only with a forklift...and they refused to get it down until the end of the day since doing so would be a safety hazard to other customers. Why couldn't they just shut down that aisle like Home Depot does, I asked? No good answer. I was very, very close to monkeying up onto the shelves and trying to muscle one of the boxes down, when fortunately we were informed that the Schaumburg store had one of what we needed.)

Back to our shopping list: Rose had a conference in Chicago a couple of months back, so she stopped by Ikea on the way back and picked up two bathroom cabinets, two sinks, a bathroom shelving unit, and a few miscellaneous items. Good thing she did - because if she hadn't, there's no way everything would have fit in our rented van. Here's a photo of the rented van and all the stuff piled next to it: packed in the van, there was maybe three inches of room above the stuff, and no room anywhere else in the vehicle (except where we sat):



And here's a view of the stuff from the other side:



What foiled us is that Ikea's vaunted "flat-pack" thing does not apply to some of its seating materials. As we were purchasing a love-seat and a sofa bed, this was a problem: both were simply huge boxes (the large unit on the left, and the enormous box on the right, flanking the pile of other stuff). We ended up packing and re-packing the van several times, with the assistance of one of the store's loading guys. We finally got it right, though, and home with no problems.

(An inventory: four short bookshelves, about 30 inches wide; four short bookshelves, about 15 inches wide; two doors for those shelves; a bed in three parts; a set of headboard shelves for that bed in two parts; a mattress; a bed frame; a metal bed brace; two small storage units designed for the foot of the bed (although that's not where they're going); one love-seat; one sofa bed; two bathroom mirrors.)

first thing you learn is you always got to wait...

Unfortunately, the second application of insulation also failed in the same way the first batch did. Everyone is mystified - and, alas for my need to vent righteous indignation, acting with utter professionalism and integrity to try to figure out what's going on. Our contractor's worked with the stuff before; the installer's worked with it before, and of course the manufacturer has as well...yet even though everyone's followed all recommended procedures (as far as they know anyway), still things are going weird.

I have a theory (no, it's not bunnies).

You may recall that the morning the insulation was initially installed, a poor little squirrel had entered in through the eyebrow dormer window in search of rancid cookies and, presumably frightened by the men in moonsuits making noise and carrying scary hoses, skittered off into the soffits to hide. Once the insulation was installed, poor Soffity the Squirrel was trapped! He was scared to death - pooping all over the place, desperately scratching and looking for a way out, like Buffy when she woke up in her tomb after Willow's spell... Fortunately, we eventually figured out what was going on, and opened a hole for the squirrel to get out.

But it was too late.

As soon as Soffity recovered, he and his squirrel brethren and sistren pronounced a Squirrel Curse upon the evil insulation that had trapped him.

My theory is the insulation will work only if we propitiate the squirrel gods. I think scattering a bunch of nuts in the front yard ought to do it. A prayer or invocation or suchlike will probably help, too: "O Great Squirrel God, we are heartily sorry for injuring and traumatizing Soffity, your faithful hoppity, fluffity-tailed worshipper!"

(I think the Great Squirrel God's name is "Buddy")

and an update

Siding on the bathroom/closet dormer is nearly complete; siding has begun to be attached to the stairway dormer.



The second paint coat should bring the color closer to the brown of the gable in the back of the house, although the difference now is pretty minor and in keeping with new construction compared to existing, somewhat weathered construction.

Tomorrow the insulation folks are scheduled to core out the insulation in the places where it failed to adhere properly to the wood (a prep issue, it seems - not a problem with the insulation itself). After that (which they supposedly can take care of in a day or so), the new insulation will be applied. We're also going back to our original plan of furring out the ceiling by a half-inch or so and also putting in rigid insulation, just as insurance against any possible unseen contraction in the foam insulation that might occur after it's drywalled over. It's not supposed to do that, and all indications are that the only reason it did so were related to the adhering issue - but more insulation will save money in the long run, and the ceiling height change is minimal enough not to affect anything.

a little sumthin' on the side...

Siding is starting to get put up on the new dormers:



Elsewhere...delays due to situations I'm reluctant to be specific about until we have more info... We don't think it's anything insurmountable - eminently solvable - but a bit of a headache...

becalmed...

This is the stage of construction when things slow down a bit, as various subcontractors need to be scheduled, supplies be delivered, etc. - as opposed to the earlier stages, where a particular crew was handling nearly all of the work. So, in other words, nothing new to report...just a few minor bugs being worked out (the sorts of things that any complex project is bound to exhibit, with multiple channels of communication inevitably experiencing a few trivial breaks).

a brief lull

The holiday, the weekend, the rain, and the stage our remodeling is in mean that there's little tangible news to report - thus, this metareport:

One of the more interesting aspects of this project has been the insights I've gleaned on how houses work. Seeing the various systems and their interactions as they're assembled is fascinating - I've always been intrigued by that sort of systemic interaction (too bad I didn't try to make some sort of career out of that fascination...) and experiencing it in action, step by step, is quite instructive. Every particular step is relatively simple and straightforward - if not to execute, to understand (tools and knowhow are key) - but in total, the whole thing is quite complex. Still, it's relatively easy to break down the entire system of the house to a series of discrete steps - at least when you're working in this way, doing a remodeling to a structurally sound existing house. I imagine both building anew and trying to work with a more compromised structure present their own, more complex challenges.

plans and floors and roofs and things

Rather a whirlwind of activity over the past few days. By Wednesday, the eventual profile of the roof of our dormers was becoming clear:



Yesterday we had two teams of workers, our usual carpenters inside and roofers outside, the latter tearing up the accumulated three layers of shingles and making quite the impressive racket and equally impressive mess all over the ground. Or rather, all over a large tarp they'd spread on the ground. And then, about half an hour before they were probably due to finish for the day, a sudden downpour forced them to scramble to make sure everything was watertight. They decided to put in some extra work today (a Saturday), and they finished about a third of the roof with new shingles (and cleaned up that mess as well).

Inside, we had the plumber running the drainage system for the bath and shower and two bathroom sinks (and if someone can tell me why Blogger insists on rotating that second photo, I'd like to know: it's correctly oriented in every other display of it I can come up with) -




- while the next day, the carpenters built the frame support for the tub surround and put in the subflooring in the bathroom:



Meanwhile, they also installed the frame for the double pocket doors for our closet -



- and the rough framework for an alcove space, which was originally going to be a gas fireplace (until budgetary reality hit home: we're still running up a gas line behind this space, so that if we decide to put in the fireplace in the future, it'll be easy to do so):



Meanwhile, we were busy too: we finally decided on the plumbing fixtures, and purchased bathroom accessories (towel bars and the like) and all the lighting fixtures for all four spaces (bedroom, hall, bathroom, and closet).

Our contractor (and friend) Erik also kept himself busy: now he's a farmer...and a budding video star... (This is a video put up by Outpost Coop, our community coop store, at their YouTube site.)

[clears throat]

Nothing here yet. If you found this because you're looking for info on Roxy Music (from whose song title I stole the name of this blog), sorry: I love the band too, but that's not what I'm writing about here. This entry is a placeholder until things get underway, in other words.