i woke up early this morning, planning on working feverously until the dumpster was removed. that would have been great if they came and got it within an hour of me starting… because that’s about the time i was beginning to tire. my back being trash from the day before, you’d think that stretching and moving would be good for it, right? maybe so, but it turns out that stretching to yank out english ivy, and moving the landscaping axe with great force towards intimate objects doesn’t work so well. back is now worse than it was last night.

on the plus side, though… this is full!

tons (literally) of yard debris, felled tree, random crap, heavy crap and actual crap (see last post).

no more ivy, holly, rose bushes, dead flowers or fur (pulled a ~2lb “mattress of fur” out from there)!

(nice dead grass, though)

luckily the foreman approves of the work:

(more…)

… so this will just be “yard stuff.”

we got a 20 square yard drop box/dumpster (8 feet wide, 20 feet long, 6 feet tall… math doesn’t seem quite right, does it?), for 2 days. took the remains of the evergreen to it, and a bunch of other stuff that succumbed to the business end of a chainsaw (my favorite toy).
before:

after:

cut the shrub/bush/tree/horribly overgrown thing back about 2 feet, to the property line. we’ll continue the fence that’s on part of the back yard (our yard backs up to 2 other people’s yards… they’ve got narrow lots). the “dog house” is also gone… smashed it up and drug it’s ant-encrusted carcass to the dumpster. removed a complete (rusty) swing set that was hidden in the shrub, too.
spent a few hours digging an enormous hole to remove the old laundry rack which was buried 3′9″ deep (i measured)… in packed rocks.

(more…)

… it would be so much easier. you could just turn ‘em upside down and shake: clean slate!

unfortunately they’re not. they’re more like ever growing mounds of junk; horribly ugly trees; holly, nightshade and other poisonous plants; dog feces decomposing containers (don’t ask); mystery holes that you find while carrying something heavy; and dead grass.

luckily, the little one is great with garden tools!

all sorts of lovely stuff stashed under the hedge/bush/thing at the back of the yard

at least some of the stuff found under there is usable

alll that stuff above, rebecca drudged out on her own. it’s a lot of stuff! there’s still an old swing set stashed away in that bush…

the lovely “dog house” left by the previous owner. they must have hated the dog.

now… in any real yard, i’d enjoy a real tree… something majestic, and of beauty…

these, unfortunately are not in our yard. they’re in a close-by rain forest… i took the pics while we hiked to the top of multnomah falls (when i probably should have been working on the house… but this was more fun!)

instead, we have this:

nothing says “majestic beauty” like a butchered, overgrown and diseased evergreen… so out came the chainsaw.

countless saplings, turned into branches… turned into trunks of their own.

i tried to clean it up a bit, to see how it looks… but the thing has been topped, poorly trimmed and then neglected for a couple decades… so it’s pretty pointless. plus the position of this thing in the yard is pretty bad… so more chainsaw fun

chainsaws are loud!

now we’ve got firewood and a bunch of evergreen branches for the dumpster. (they’ll actually get chipped and recycled, so not to worry about ‘em being carted off to the landfill)

the yard now looks quite a lot larger. we’ll have to get the deck built and bring in sod, pretty quickly…

***

a bit of an update from inside of the house… rebecca found chewbacca! at least half a wookie, from under the stove

we also got a really, really cool house-warming present! not only is it beautiful, it actually eats annoying bastards like fruit flies and other pests! they’re drawn to the attractive leaves, and down the tube towards the nectar… where ‘hairs’ that grow downward keep the insect from getting out, and they’re slowly digested by the very nectar they were looking for… brilliant!

edit…

etch-a-sketch

chewbacca (a wookie)

there was a minor issue with the site (and my other sites, and all the sites i host), due to a wee bit of malicious behavior. servers crashed bad, data needed recovered… but it’s (mostly) all back.

anyway… on to house stuff:

the floors in the rear bedroom. for decades, the beautiful hardwood was covered with tared linoleum. until now. did we remove the linoleum, and restore the hardwood? nope. two reasons… one, the linoleum is on very, very well. two, the hardwood isn’t there. it’s plywood. don’t even know where to begin guessing why… but it’s plywood.

so… given that it’s plywood, there’s no sense on spending hour after hour of removing the very well attached linoleum, right? for a temporary fix so the room can be used, we sourced some salvaged and restored old growth southern white hickory planks. or were they knock-off brand pergo laminate floors that were on clearance for 85 cents per square foot? i forget…

ugly floors? cover ‘em!

my little helper…

“poppa, i’m helping!” (think this is when she’s putting the marker down my pants)

and the approval on the finished job!

we also painted the room. still needs the trim to be re-painted…

***

sorta got some more work done on the back yard, too… by selling the dog run! the guys spent about an hour taking the thing apart, getting tangled in it’s chain link, and getting torn up on the rose bushes on the way out.

***

now i’m sitting in some quasi-crappy hotel in downtown los angeles, bored out of my mind, missing the family and thinking of all the other work the house needs ASAP…

exterior:
• strip clapboard siding and allllll the trim
• remove cedar shingles, replace with new hand-split ones we’ve yet to source
• paint the siding, trim, eves, and all the other stuff with colors we’ve yet to decide upon
• strip the porch and restore the wood
• skim coat the masonry portion of the foundation
• figure out if the chimneys are going to fall over
• decommission the oil tank (oil heated house)

interior/mechanical
• re-rope / restore all the windows (guess that’s sorta exterior, too)
• get the leaded glass repaired
• new (tankless) water heater, before the rust completely consumes the current one
• new HVAC + heat pump
• new wiring to replace the knob and tube

landscape
• grade the land so the house isn’t in the low section of the yard
• trench for curtain drains, irrigation, underground conduit, moat (ok, no moat)
• sod!
• retaining wall in the front, to level the yard
• redwood playhouse / swing set / slide / activity center

the ASAP list is actually a lot longer than that….. a lot, lot longer…

back yard, this time.

we’ve got this monstrous fig tree (bush?)…

reckon i’m an arborist, me…

and let there be light…

this thing had countless saplings that had become 2″ trunks…. and at least eight 5+” trunks… otherwise known as a complete mess. it’s looking a lot healthier at this point, but i’m not sure how much life is left in it. the main three trunks to the left in the photos have major rot/disease issues, and are somewhat un-sound. it’s in a pretty poor place, anyway…. so i figure once it gives the ghost we’ll plant something better, in a location that doesn’t make one lose blood from the head when navigating the ankle-twisting mess of a yard and running into it because the damned thing is in the middle of that area.

the structure behind the tree is a carriage house that’s had the front door framed in, a cheap big box store entry door, and vinyl siding slapped on it. the sashes are original, pretty dry… but likely can be restored; the structure is sound with no rot; the roof is re-sheathed and only a few years old; the foundation/floor is somewhat cracked, with a good 2.5″ of settling in a rear corner. i’m hoping to find a salvaged carriage house door with some kinda cool glazing/windows, re-siding in cedar, and painting to match the house. it’ll make a fine (albeit wee bit small) workshop… but for now it’s just good storage.

esmee having fun: (and a view of our horrible 80’s remodeled kitchen)

spent a couple hours with a shovel and a chainsaw, removing the horrible english ivy which has been taking over the yard. this stuff actually had stumps, about 3″ in diameter… and a lot of them.

most of the time was spent with the shovel…

more shovel time…

done, for now… the ivy was covering about 2 feet of the driveway, roughly 100 square feet of yard/planter space, and growing across parts of the house.

we need to get a large dumpster for stuff like this, the carpet that was pulled from the house (which sits stacked on the front porch, ghetto style), and a lot of other growing piles of miscellaneous junk.

going to trench for the curtain drains and gas line… then build the retaining wall to level the yard and wrought iron & cedar fence and gates… sprinklers, sod, moving the camellia bushes (trees?), tons of landscaping… need to find a lawnmower that can actually deal with damp grass (48″ of rain per year, here), and some other toys… i mean required equipment.

****

the bathroom also received a bit of attention (to which esmee approves)…

sign of the crab tub filler/hand shower combination. we searched high and low for a salvaged original, with sad results. this thing cost more than my first car (and not much less than my current car’s purchase price)… but it sure is pretty… and it’s very nice being able to take a shower, again!

figured a few more pics wouldn’t be a bad idea… that and i already miss working on it… want to get back and get going again.  a few more days and we’ll be there, able to move in.

50′ x 100′ urban lot, the footprint of the house takes up a huge chunk of it:

a retaining wall is going in the front, so we can level the yard. trying to track down some salvaged “stonework” bricks used on the foundation of the house, for the retaining wall. need roughly 200 of them, and they haven’t been in production for about 80 years. might resort to knocking on people’s doors with a hammer, chisel and cash talking about “i’ll give you five bucks per brick!”

paneling in dining room…. notice the lovely carpet? (that’s what was removed on day 1). also shows the sweet oak grid cool air return (1 of 3 in the house, all original)

the dining room’s built-in

one of the living room’s built-ins… almost all of the leaded glass in the house is still in excellent condition (save for 2 broken panes, elsewhere)

from what i can tell so far, the woodwork in the house (and there’s a LOT of it) is a mix of: (very) old-growth douglas fir, american mahogany, american walnut, and a bit of oak here and there. most of it is in excellent condition, which after looking at countless houses seems to be a rarity. so many of the other places had it all removed and modern 2″ baseboards, no crown molding, and everything else painted white or replaced with MDF shelves.

other randomness…

• building started in 1911, completed in 1913
• the sidewalk is original, and still has a horse loop in it (for tying a horse to)
• the carriage house is still on the property
• all the original wood lath plaster walls/ceilings are in near perfect condition
• the only non-mechanical interior feature that’s not original in the house is the kitchen and bath cabinets (which i’m sad about)
• overall finished living space in the house will be 3180sq feet
• when we’re done it’ll have 5 bedrooms, 3 baths… all done as period correct as possible using salvaged dimensional lumber (more old doug fir), fixtures, tile and paneling. some sheetrock (plaster floated over), and a jacuzzi tub in the master