Upstairs Floors

This is what we found under the bedroom carpet upstairs. Hardwood in rough shape.





About 15 years ago, the house was treated for termites. We do not know if this is old damage from before the treatment, or newer damage since then. The carpet padding was laid over it long enough to stain the wood, so maybe it dates from 15 years ago? I'll keep an eagle eye out for signs of termites when the weather warms.

The plan is to sand, repair, and refinish these floors, staining them to match the new hardwood living room flooring.

clearing the gutters

The gutters are full of debris. In one case, full of compost and seedlings. I like the hanging garden look, but this simply cannot be allowed.



After the big rainstorm, the sun came out and we climbed onto the roof to excavate.

Surprise Water Feature!

We had a hard rain the day the plumber came to power-scrub the sewer main.

Lo and behold, a beautiful water feature manifested! Isn't it lovely?



I choose to laugh instead of cry...

Wallpaper and Flooring

I thought I had a putty knife in the car when I went to scrape the backing off the entryway walls. Alas, I was mistaken. However, I discovered that the car's ice scrapers work well.



Now I just need a final wipedown to remove any gluey residue and I'm ready to patch the rough spots.

Tom and I spent the last bit of New Year's weekend testing two different makes of floor tile. Both are porcelain and mimic the look of natural stone, but they are from different manufacturers and have different colors.

(Great googly moogly, boxes of tiles are heavy! Remember to lift with your legs, folks! And don't be afraid to use several shopping carts at once-- I may have broken out the sides of the single shopping cart I used. )

Because we did not have enough of each make of tile to totally cover all the to-be-tiled area, we laid out all we had of one make, photographed it, then moved it to another area. It took a long time, and as the sun moved through the sky the lighting changed. So the comparison isn't perfectly equal from one make to the other...but it will have to be close enough.





It is so hard to decide which to go with! They are both beautiful, and cost the same.





I'll pick one, then the next day change my mind! Argh!





In other news, our favored contractor for the flooring is very slow getting back to us with estimates. But he says he can start January 9 and finish quickly, so I keep leaving him voice mail. I wonder if he doesn't really want our work, or maybe he's just crazy-busy.

Sewer Main Revisited

The high-pressure water blasting made no difference in clearing the blockage(s). The plumber was kind enough to charge us only for his time, and not for the use of the pressure-blasting equipment.

Current plan now is to dig a hole (either through the basement floor, or outside in the yard) down to the main to add a clearout. That way the auger can skip the three turns and go directly into the straight section.

We will be asking plumbers for bids later. For now, I am focusing on the floors.

The Kitchen Walls

This is what the "breakfast nook" looked like before and after I stripped off the wallpaper (also before it snowed).

I learned that I should not have used a razor blade to scrape the wallpaper off the wall. Doing so engraved some gouges into the wall that I will have to fill and sand before painting. Next time I will use a less-potentially-wall-damaging putty knife.

About Those Kitchen Cabinets

The internet has little to tell me about the cabinets made by Scheirich Kitchens. Most of the info I have gathered came from the responses to a post on The Pioneer Woman's blog.

Angela In CA said Scheirich was pronounced "Shy-rik". Good to know!

Many of the commenters referred to the website for Spencer's Scheirich Cabinets for replicas and replacement parts.

Generally, anyone who mentioned Scheirich cabinets adored them, and waxed nostalgic about how they used to be in gramma's kitchen, or at the little cabin by the lake, et cetera. They loved the cabinets' durability and quality of construction.

A comment from Jen states: "I don’t know about yours but I can’t fit a box of cereal, ketchup bottle or anything in mine! My new plates have to be put in at an angle and the door barely closes on them.... The things are hard to clean too! You wipe too hard and the varnish will come off and when they dry you have a light spot where you rub."

That was the only negative comment regarding these cabinets. Well, should I encounter those drawbacks, maybe I can do something about them. The shelves in the cabinets are fixed in place, which could be aggravating. Perhaps I can modify them to be adjustable-height. I'm not too concerned with keeping the insides of the cabinet boxes perfectly vintage.

Also, coincidence of coincidences, good friends of mine who live nearby (near where we live now, not near the house featured in this blog) have these exact same cabinets in her kitchen! I only noticed a few days ago! Theirs are in better condition than mine, and probably have the original handles. Plus, theirs has very nice glass doors on the cabinet over the fridge. I'll be sure to post a picture of that.

Dangit, where did I put my camera?