Mike had a busy summer working on the new sunroom, and we’re finally ready to let it rest over the long winter.

Here’s a rundown of his progress — and it truly is his progress. I participated very little, and the only help he had was when his friend helped him install the heavy sliding door. All else you see — all the framing, the new tongue-in-groove floor, the walls, 14 windows, the trim — that’s all Mike. It’s amazing!

This is pretty much where we started, although in this picture we had already cut down an overgrown and ratty arborvitae to the right of the one here.

The column bases and floor were so bad, Mike was afraid the whole roof might come down. So he propped it up -- those posts stayed up for months and months, though had to be moved and rejiggered way too often, with me holding my breath every time.

That's the weather side of the house, so the porch was in bad shape. Rotting floorboards and all. We had to pull up the floor anyway to replace the sewer line that runs under the porch, so that began our journey.

In this picture, the last arborvitae is finally gone, and Mike has already reframed the floor and replaced the joists. Oh, and that was only AFTER we waited weeks (or was it months?) for a mason to come and rebuild the brick piers.

We insulated the floor and installed a vapor barrier, but it will probably only be a three-season room. Too expensive to heat over the winter.

It was a relief to get the new floor down. The plan is to replace the rest of the porch floor (after we rebuild the other two piers) this same way.

It was a great day when the porch roof was resting on new columns instead of those blasted posts!

Framing the walls (which are mostly windows) came next. (See how nice the new brick piers look?)

It was exciting to see the first transoms go in.

The windows required a ton of shimming and finessing -- quite a painstaking job.

As I mentioned, the sliding door was big and heavy, but Mike and his friend, Gary, made quick work of it.

Trimming everything out was a huge job. We used plastic lumber to avoid future maintenance.

The last details took a while — bending the aluminum flashing around the base and finishing up the trim, especially. We were thrilled to see the last bits of wood and OSB covered. (Coping the inside corners of the crown molding on the porch was yesterday’s “I hate this” chore.)

Bending and fitting the aluminum flashing was quite a chore -- I mostly tried to hide while Mike was working on it.

Lots of clean-up effort this past weekend means the front porch finally doesn’t look like a construction zone. (And, a double bonus: With the garage no longer a staging/storage area, I can park my car in it for the first time in 6 months!)

Look! No wood to trip over. No ladders. No tools. And an actual "Welcome" mat at the front door!

We even put the antique wicker in its new (still unfinished) home and were thrilled at how cozy it feels.

Having a sheltered home for this 100+-year-old furniture we inherited from Mike's parents was a big part of why we decided to build the sunroom instead of just keeping the open porch. Good thing it fits in the room!

It may be next year at this time before the interior is finished, but that’s OK. This has been a huge one-man job, and we’re happy with the progress and the promise of having a pretty little retreat to relax in down the road.

And yes, there’s still the rest of the front porch to rebuild — maybe next year, maybe the year after — it’s been a tough year financially and scary that things don’t appear to be picking up, at least for my business. Life in fixer-upperhood sure isn’t for the faint of heart and light of checkbook. But we are so fortunate compared to so many, and probably not thankful enough for it.

And so, this project hibernates, but we don’t. Finishing the powder room — the “winter project” that hibernated over the summer — is again at the top of the list.

Winter is the time of promise because there is so little to do –
or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so.
~ Stanley Crawford

Muscle-Building Basics — Rocks and Bricks

Feel the burn in your biceps! To prepare for a new patio, participants remove heavy pieces of cut stone from a stack, carry them approximately 50 steps uphill, then restack them. Next, students pull flagstone and rocks from stacks in their own yard and restack them (temporarily) in neighbor’s yard. Class finishes by moving 100 or so bricks from one stack to another, 20 feet away.

Trees and Fences for Couples

Couples practice teamwork and tact as they cut down and trim trees and shrubs in the abandoned yard next door. (Note: Class requires use of 7-ft pole pruner with chainsaw on the end.) Extra credit for cutting out and removing wire fencing installed by their home’s previous owner — now hopelessly entangled in thorny barberry — without killing themselves or their partners.

Appeasement 101 — Wood, Wood, and More Wood

One participant appeases the other by loading a giant pile of wood from a month’s-ago porch demo into old pickup truck, with no clear idea of where to get rid of it. Appeasee practices appropriate gratefulness and diplomacy (refraining from suggesting abandoning both pickup and wood at nearest junkyard).

Furniture Refurbishment — What Not to Do

Students learn humility by improperly priming a small outdoor table. “Time-saving” primer-paint combo doesn’t stick, and must be scraped/scoured off so table can be repainted using different primer. (Students earn bonus humility points by painting two coats before acknowledging it’s not working.)

Improvisational First Aid

Participants receive first aid kit of ibuprofen, eye drops, allergy pills, sewing needles, aloe gel, potato chips, crunch-n-munch, iced tea, wine, and beer, and must decide how to best treat various cuts, scrapes, splinters, bruises, allergies, muscle aches, and random pains.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
~ Mark Twain

I am; my husband is not. (This came out at our pre-marriage counseling with the pastor — this was about as revealing as it got.)

And no, I don’t make daily lists that start with “1. Get up.”

I make lists for two reasons: (1) It’s the only way I can keep track of things when I have a lot to do (mostly at work) and most importantly (2) I need to see progress. Progress is very motivating. I might have 20 things to do, but if I’ve already done 5 of them, at least I’m getting somewhere. Making progress is what keeps me sane.

I once read somewhere the first step to achieving a goal is to write down everything it will take to make it happen, then have at it.

I took that advice to heart when I decided I wanted to work for myself. Sadly, I can’t find the list anymore (written on a 3½” x 3½” square of paper), but I think it included things like: Research business structures (e.g., S-corp, sole proprietorship); Get tax information; Choose name and register it…very concrete and doable.

I do remember clearly the last thing on the list: Quit my job.

Ten years later, I’m pretty sure making that list was a big part of my success. It forced me to concentrate on one thing at a time and just do it.

Shortly after we moved into the house, I started a House List. It’s posted on our extra fridge in the basement (relegated there after we redid the kitchen and got a new fridge that doesn’t deserve to have ugly lists posted on it).

Here’s where it stands, almost four years later.

Lots of things crossed out; others we won’t get around to for a long time. And it’s  rather out of date. I don’t even have “Build powder room” on it, though that’s what we’ve been working on for months now. Nor does it adequately represent our biggest ongoing project, the front porch repair/sunroom addition.

I keep the list around to remind myself how far we’ve come. Maybe sometime I’ll add more projects, just so I can have the joy of checking them off and marking our progress.

I recently, just for fun, started a different kind of list. Not to-do’s for a change, but wishes, ranging from pie-in-the-sky (a Kindle) to mundane (a narrow leaf rake). Maybe on my birthday, Mike will pick an item from the list, or I can refer to something on it for our family gift exchange at Christmas.

I’ve refrained from adding things like “Retirement home in Tennessee mountains.” Besides, Mike just found this list that considers Pittsburgh one of 10 great affordable places to retire. (Who knew that PAT buses would factor prominently?)

Hmmm….speaking of retirement. That’s a goal we’re all aiming for, right? What would that “just do it” list include?

I’ll start it:

1. Save $14,770 each year for the next 20 years.

I can probably stop there.

You will achieve a grand dream a day at a time,
so set goals for each day — not long and difficult projects,
but chores that will take you, step by step,
toward your rainbow. Write them down, if you must,
but limit your list so that you won’t have to drag
today’s undone matters into tomorrow.
Remember that you cannot build your pyramid in
twenty-four hours. Be patient. Never allow your day
to become so cluttered that you neglect your most
important goal — to do the best you can, enjoy this day,
and rest satisfied with what you have accomplished.
~ Og Mandino

I’ve wondered for a long time if we’re making good decisions about the house. With all the crises du jour — mortgage crisis, Wall Street crisis, election crisis, war-in-Iraq crisis – will we ever see any ROI from all the money we’ve poured into it? Or will life in this old house in fixer-upperhood ultimately be a losing proposition?

Mike’s perspective — one he often conveys to his clients — is that as long as you have to live someplace, you might as well make it what you want to live in. Frankly, I don’t see how we could NOT do the things we’ve been doing. Nothing we’ve done has been over-the-top — no marble floors or gold-plated fixtures. Just much-needed updates and maintenance with some all-purpose beautification thrown in for good measure (because we’re both aesthetic-minded people who care about such things). Much of it done by our own four hands. Our downfall is that the house needed so many things because of long-time neglect…and still has many more to go. (Which confirms what I’ve always believed — you don’t deserve and shouldn’t have a house if you can’t or won’t take care of it.)

Maybe the housing market will never recover to its post-debacle days. Maybe we’ll have bought high only to have to sell low someday. It happens. Or it may happen that we never sell, that this is the only house we ever have, and so we will have been right to fix it up as best we can. The perfect retirement house it’s not — too many steps and too much maintenance — but it’s better than having no place to call our own at all. There are far worse places to spend one’s golden years (a phrase that I suspect will have a new meaning by then — referring to having to work at the golden arches until you’re 80 or so).

Sometimes, you’re wise to hold back, save your pennies, and endure the peeling paint and crumbling facade a while longer. Other times, you just have to say, “damn the torpedos.” I hope this is one of those times — we always seem to be going full steam ahead with projects. Largely because of my need to be in what I consider a beautiful environment, not surrounded by problems that need attention and other people’s poor workmanship or unappealing decor choices. I push for things a lot more than Mike would. I just can’t help it.

These are scary times. We both work in service-type industries — marketing and architecture. It’s easy for our clients to eliminate spending in these areas when money is tight. Makes me wonder if those new golden years won’t be happening sooner than I imagine. I really wish I had spent some time working retail or food service and learned to run a cash register — I’ve a feeling those are skills that will come in handy. Writing schmiting — how about some fries with that?

My old father used to have a saying:
If you make a bad bargain, hug it all the tighter.
~ Abraham Lincoln

The not-so-funny joke when it’s in your basement…”sewer debris.”

Yes folks, the long-awaited sewer replacement project is finally underway, after wasting 4 months waiting for a no-show plumber and finally finding someone else.

Yesterday — basement trenching, all 15 filthy feet of it on the laundry room side:

Plus another 3×3 hole in the furnace side where the old drain was cemented shut (duh, leaving no place for the water to go in the event the boiler blows off or needs to be drained down, which it has twice so far in the three years we’ve lived here, or the water heater goes belly up, which I’m sure we’re overdue for):

 Today — yard digging:  

The original plan of trying to run new plastic pipe through the old clay tile pipe didn’t pan out, so the plumbers had to dig out all the old pipe, including under the porch. (We ripped out the floorboards and the joists months ago, when we thought this would all be over in a couple weeks.) Talk about threading the needle, as the CAT man had to perch atop the hill, avoid falling backwards, and dig without harming our beautiful Japanese maple — easily the best thing about the house. (One of the plumbers, evidently a tree aficionado, suggested we sell it on eBay for $13,000.)

We were without running water most of the day – thank goodness for Wal-Mart. That minor inconvenience, though, is nothing compared to what our poor plumbers had to deal with — with good humor and considerably less swearing than I could have managed. Gives new meaning to having had a sh*tty day at work. It’s worth every considerable dime we’re paying them (don’t tell Mr. “We Should Just Do It Ourselves” Mike I said that, but even he has to agree with me on this one.)

Now the CAT man is busy trying to refill the hole. Plumbers will be back tomorrow (if they haven’t decided to seek a new line of work) to clean up around the inside holes, re-cement everything, and make a few more plumbing hook-ups we need to accommodate “the world’s smallest powder room” project and a maybe-someday project to add a master bath/laundry room. At least we have running water again.

We were very, very close to having another sewer backup (we’ve had two so far). This all happened in the nick of time.

Just another day in the hood — fixer-upperhood. One of those times when “la vie dans cette vieille maison n’est pas si fantastique” (“life in this old house isn’t so great,” assuming my college French hasn’t failed me).

Ah oui. C’est la vie. C’est la guerre. Et bien sûr — C’est le pew.

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little,
at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick,
at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful. 
                                                          ~ Buddha

New garage doors are installed — a marathon effort for Mike. The directions advise allowing 12 hours per door for installation for 2 people. Mike did them both himself over 2 long days, along with first reframing the openings so they would fit. Next step is to install the openers (a luxury I used to take for granted) and finish trimming everything out.

 Before  New floor in process
  New door going up
  Voila!

We also have the new porte cochere pier rebuilt and the new columns in place. Yes, it’s actually straight now, though my picture doesn’t make it look that way. We are blessed to have such a great neighbor who let us have ugly support beams in her lawn for so long — thank you, Chris! Next step is to clean/paint the columns (probably next spring) and get a stucco finish over the concrete block to match the foundation of the house.

  
Old leaning pier                              Old pier removed

  New pier in process

  Voila!

This about wraps up the outside work for this year. But no worries, next spring the fun begins all over again with a new retaining wall in the back of the driveway, repair of the front porch foundation, and maybe, just maybe, replacing (or tearing down and saying good riddance to) the dilapidated porch roof railings that I detest so much. 

Of course, there’s still PLENTY to do inside over the winter. Did I mention we’ve been remodeling the kitchen for oh, 7 months or so?

It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when
you’re tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired.
                                   ~ Robert Strauss

I, on the other hand, came to fixer-upperhood reluctantly. We needed a house, the location was great, the house really does have good bones (or it did before osteoporosis set in), we could afford it, I wanted to be with Mike. How bad could it be? After all, I grew up in a house built in 1900 that had (and still has) the original ’40s kitchen and one bathroom for all 9 of us (plus the “Pittsburgh toilet” in the cellar — kind of a half powder room for those of you not familiar). And precisely two electrical outlets per bedroom, right next to the door. Well, yes, for the last 14 years I had lived in new or almost-new construction — does that matter?  

Oh, you bet it does. I’m all about pretty — choosing colors, decorating, accessorizing, adding that splash and pop. That’s what newer houses are great for. I’m not about knocking down crumbling plaster walls or picking 7 layers of paint out of staircase molding with a dental tool. That would be my sister — she’s taken on a number of abodes of a genre we in the family now refer to simply as “Kathleen houses.” 

Yet, here I am, 2-1/2 years later, still in the thick of fixer-upperhood. We have remodeled the bathroom, added a sink in the dressing room off our bedroom, painted the dining room, living room, bathroom, upstairs and downstairs halls, our bedroom & dressing room, updated the electrical, reinsulated the attic, re-landscaped much of the yard, front & back, and spent the last 6 months remodeling the kitchen, still a work in progress. Oh, and when I say “painting” that means days of scraping, patching, caulking, priming, THEN painting, all the while cursing the previous owners who painted latex over oil, among other atrocities.

With many more projects to go (including our current “outside” projects, also in the works as winter approaches), the house is still winning. But — dare I say it? — we just might be gaining on it. 

Who will prevail? Stop back — it could still go either way.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
                                           ~Friedrich Nietzsche