Main Bath - Radiator and Lights

After the epic battle stripping the door, we didn't have capacity for any major other projects for this room. Instead, I just had a few little tweaks to make the room a little more functional and attractive.

The Radiator
First, the radiator was driving me crazy. There has always been this cage box thing covering it up, which is so large that it blocks my towel rack. So my towel is either bunched up so it never dries, or hanging over the stairs or somewhere else inappropriate. Plus the cage thing is ugly. So we took it off, I cleaned up the radiator, dusting off a hundred years of dust bunnies, and then gave it a light coat of radiator spray paint. The radiator is quite ornate, and much smaller than the cage was, so now my towel can actually fit on the rack - and should be nicely toasty!

radiator cage - cutting off my towel rack

cage removed, radiator cleaned up but dingy

getting sprayed

all done- my towel fits now!

Little Shelf

As soon as the radiator cage came off, it was clear we had created a new problem. Despite its ugliness and towel-blocking issues, it had been a helpful place to store things. So helpful, in fact, that it was always covered in stuff. So - I needed a replacement that was small enough not to block the towel rack, but just large enough to store one or two things. For simplicity sake, I just cut a spare board down to the length of the radiator, stained it, and placed it on top. I could've made something more complex, but hey.

little shelf for holding just a bit of stuff

Lights

Not a functional issue really, but we always hated the sconces in this room, which are super deco and also hum loudly. So - I just ordered 2 new ones in a basic style and finish that matches the rest of the house. Once we had a sunny weekend day without guys in the house, we finally switched them out. 

old lights - huge and hideous

 

new lights! 

New Art

Just a small thing, but I ordered a print from etsy and stuck it in one of our existing frames. Something to add a little color and make this look more like a kids' bathroom. (got it here). 

new wall art - both bathy and kidish

new art up over the new shelf

remember this? so much better now!

And now I'm calling it done. I had bigger ideas for this room - tearing out the closet, or replacing the sink - but for now - this is good enough. We need to switch over to another project. More on that soon. 

Main Bath - Door and Trim

So after I scraped and painted the walls and ceiling in the main bathroom, the trim started looking really bad. We clearly had more hazards to address.  

The Door:

The door had been painted many many times and was pealing and cracking in all the corners. As part of my on-going paint chip removal initiative, I wanted to fix it. So during our weekend naptime, I grabbed my heat gun and started to remove it. I was shocked to find the door underneath was stained and in pretty good shape. I spent an hour or so on three different days, and got it about as far as I could - most of the paint was gone, but it was still sort of gunky. So we took it off its hinges, took it out to the garage, and coated it with stripper. That removed the remaining scuz, but there were still a few spots left. I had one more night with the heat gun to get a couple more of the thick patches, one more round of stripper to clean it off again,  and then just stained it and coated it with poly and put it back up. Altogether - this was probably around 15 hours of unpleasant work, so I will think long and hard about painting a stained door again. (Sidenote: I don't recommend taking your bathroom door off for a week while you have lots of strangers in the house-- makes things really awkward). 

the offending door

closeup of some of the cracking and pealing paint

there's just so much pealing paint

after one day with the heat gun - hello stained door!

after another day or two with the heat gun - still gunky. 

after 1 round of stripper

and another round of heat gun

stripped, sanded, stained, and back in place!

Trim
While the door was off its hinges and waiting outside, I ended up grabbing a brush and giving the other door and trim a quick coat of paint. After spending so much time trying to remove paint, I felt bad adding yet another layer to the closet door - but it wasn't chipping or in bad enough shape to need to be stripped, and now it just looks brighter and cleaner, with no chipping paint!

closet door getting painted

trim gets freshened up

So now there is no more pealing paint in this small room, but there are a couple more little things I want to do to improve the functionality of this space and make it a little nicer looking. 

The Main Bath Project - Paint and Paint Chips

I haven't posted a lot about our main bathroom, which is currently our only full bathroom until the new master bath is finished. It's original - and not in a good way. It's covered in lots of black and white tile, with a bunch of cracks and broken pieces. The walls are a textured wallpaper that has been painted white, making it impossible to remove, while also being sort of fuzzy and always dirty. There's no vent, so trapped moisture has made a lot of paint peel and chip off -- which is really horrible in the shaft of the skylight - so the skylight window (which is meant to open and close in a very cool way) just stays closed all the time to prevent chips from raining down. Three years ago I tried to just clean up the skylight window, and we've done basically nothing since. The feeling has always been that someday we would gut it, so there was no point in bothering to do anything until then.

Well, now we have come to realize that we probably won't get to gut it ever. Our contractor explained that the tile is set in a bed of concrete and requires a jackhammer to remove, so he gave us a rough estimate of $20k to refinish it. We're never going to have a spare $20k to pay them, and I really draw the line of DIY at jackhammers, so I think the tile is staying put. That means that all we can do it clean it up and make some small tweaks to make it a little more functional and attractive.

While the contractors work on ripping apart the rest of the house, I'm focused on this bathroom. It's my new weekend project. We're starting with just getting rid of the falling paint chips.

Step 1: Scrape off the Loose Paint
Armed with a long scrap piece of wood with a paint scraper taped to its end - I got up on a ladder and poked all the paint in the skylight loose. Since I can't get above the swing window, I was pretty limited in what I could reach, but managed to do a decent job just poking at everything blindly with my eyes squeezed closed. This made a huge mess, which I then spent a couple hours cleaning up.

filthy skylight covered in paint chips

more pealing paint on the ceiling above the shower

 

see look - I tried to protect things

lots of pealing paint in the skylight shaft

after scraping - ugly, but no more pealing paint

Step 2: Paint Everything White
Once the chips were all scraped loose, I grabbed a gallon of primer and painted the skylight shaft and the ceiling white. To get up there - I was standing on the stepping stool, and then using an extender to get the paint roller as high as possible - so I'm not going to claim this was a work of precision. But I was able to get most spots pretty well. My hope is that it looks just good enough that no one will ever actually look at it.

skylight all white 

ceiling going white - so much brighter!

Step 3: Walls get Painted

So once the ceiling was all white and chip-free, the walls started looking really crappy. I pulled out the same gray that we have throughout the house to give everything a quick coat. Not only did it cover up all the smudges and discolored spots - but it added a nice contrast to make the tiles really pop and help blend this room in with the rest of the house. 

dirty shadow of art that used to be on the wall

 

so dingey

new paint!

no more chips and smudges 

no more dirt shadow

So - even though I always wanted to remove these walls and tile altogether - I think it looks a lot better. Just getting rid of the pealing paint so that you can confidently open the skylight window is a huge improvement. But just as soon as you make one thing nicer - now the trim and the door seem like eyesores in need of improvement - so maybe that's the next weekend project. 

Roof Stuff

So - two of our last major renovation projects just collided - 1) We had a contractor last summer install a vent through the roof of the sleeping porch to vent the toilet in the half bath below, and 2) we then sheetrocked the sleeping porch, trying to finish out the space. (10 points if you can guess what comes next)

we have a leak. 

So - it turns out that the vent was not installed properly, water slowly got into the roof, and one night during an intense storm - we heard dripping and saw a steady stream of water coming right through our newly sheetrocked ceiling.

this vent is somehow improper. 

Getting Estimates
We reached out to two roofing companies based on Angie's list and yelp reviews for quotes to fix the leaking roof. Since they were going to be up there anyway, we thought this would be a nice chance to put in some more skylights to add natural light to our bedroom and the spare room beside it (something we've always wanted to do), and to take a look at the nasty skylight in the bathroom, which is a constant eyesore. Inevitably, both companies also found a couple other problems on the roof, stuff that was either installed incorrectly or just old and needed to be replaced. Thankfully, both companies said that the main roof was in good shape - a huge relief.

a view of the bathroom skylight from below

I don't think it's supposed to do that.

 

our big old skylight with some chimney leftovers

Both companies had different approaches to the issues - one wanted to just patch the roof and clean up the old skylight, while the other wanted to rip off and replace both. One company wanted to install two new skylights in the bedroom, while the other wanted to install solar tubes. We weighed both options, decided we wanted to do half of one quote and half of the other - and then I managed to negotiate the one company to match the other - so we got 2 new skylights in the master suite, replacing the old skylight, and ripping off and replacing the sleeping porch roof - all for the cost of the original quote. (I am apparently a master negotiator). We signed the contract and were ready to go the next morning.

Placement Issues:
So once we knew who we were using and had settled on skylights (instead of solar tubes), we had to tell them where to put them. This was a bigger issue than you might think, since we have lots of future plans for these spaces. We wanted the skylights centered in their rooms, but we have plans that will change the size and shape of these rooms (adding a new master closet, removing the current one). So we had to quickly map out where the future walls for the walk-in closet are going to go and where the ceiling fan will be once the current master closet is removed to figure out where to put them. They will look super weird until those changes get made, so this more or less committed us to actually doing all of these projects.

time to finalize the plan for the master suite so we can figure out where to put the skylights

Work Day:
Amazingly, they were able to get everything done in one day. I would have loved to stay home and watch, but had to go to work. Thankfully, the roofing guy took a bunch of pictures for me.

cutting a hole for a new skylight

building a new frame (apparently called a curb)

frame gets covered in roofing material

then they plop the new skylight on top

old nasty bathroom one gets replaced

check out all my roof bubbles!

 

oh - and they solved the original issue, by replacing everything on the sleeping porch

Closing thoughts - 
1) I am consistently disappointed every time we hire a contractor (who caused the original damage that led to all this). I feel like we decide to pay the extra money to have a professional do the work instead of doing it ourselves, because we think that means the work will be guaranteed to be done correctly, to code, and whatever else -- but every time, even well reviewed ones cut corners, create new problems, and leave me thinking I should've just done it myself, or hired the subcontractors directly. Working directly with the roofers on this one made things so much easier, even though we now have to find someone else to do the sheetrock work so we can actually see the skylights from below.

2) We now have quite a few sheetrock projects that are accumulating, between closing in the skylights, patching the sheetrock in the sleeping porch, and closing in the air conditioning vents, and maybe a couple more new ones I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about just hiring out sheetrock work in general, since this is really hard to do ourselves and a team that just does sheetrock is quick and relatively cheap.

3) Light is nice. Already the bathroom seems brighter. I very much look forward to cutting into the bedroom ceiling to see the new skylights to let in more light. This is a major downside of rowhouses - inherently dark.

4) It seems like we have to spend a lot of money just to maintain the house, and get to spend much less on actually making it nicer. I don't know if that's just a general rule for houses or old houses in particular - but I think I previously had the impression that houses were a little more resilient. Since we bought this house, we've spent a lot more money on maintenancy stuff than improvementy stuff - we've totally replaced all the guts of the house (water heater, boiler, pump), and replaced most of the pipes in the walls - all projects that aren't even noticeable.  Thankfully, because of the skylight work, the project was at least half about something that makes the house nicer. I'm ready to start working on projects that make the house feel nicer and more functional.

5) We are now committed to the master suite idea - so we are about to get moving on that project. Since it's on top of the kitchen, which also needs to be done - we're about to start both of those projects at once. It's going to be more complicated to do them together, but ultimately cheaper and better than having to tear things back out down the line - so stay tuned.

The 15 Week Shape Up

So at some point I read that men are more likely to view their houses as the places that they live, whereas women are more likely to view their houses as a part of themselves-  which allows a messy, disorganized house to reduce a woman's self confidence, while it would have little to no impact on a man's confidence. (I can't find the article, but here's another interesting read on the gender gap of self confidence).  For sure, I feel like my house reflects on me, so it messes with my confidence when I know it's a disaster. But then again, my confidence is already kind of messed up right now anyway. There are aspects of both the house and myself that are kind of embarrassing and cringe-worthy, that I've been very slowly trying to fix up or just putting off altogether. For a variety of reasons, the time has come to get both the house and myself back in shape.

house shame 1: the plywood gap-filler between the dining room and kitchen floors

Part A: Me
So, more than a year since having a kid, I'm still carrying pregnancy weight that just won't get lost. I'm tired of not fitting into a bunch of my clothes and feeling not like myself. I have been losing weight steadily over the past 8 or 9 months, but not fast enough - so it's time to get in gear. My goal: in 15 weeks, I will lose 15 pounds. I don't want to turn this into a weight loss blog, but I'm tired of feeling crappy about myself and ready to be back to normal.

Part B: The House
If you've seen our house lately, you would think that we're in the middle of major construction - but really nothing much has happened in quite a while. After the Great Renovation of 2014, we left a bunch of half-finished spaces that we thought we could close up ourselves, but never got around to. Other spaces, like the bathroom and kitchen, have not been touched really since we moved in - more than 3 years ago. The time has come. First, the spaces are just hideously ugly and constantly filthy, which drives me crazy. Second, the kid is basically walking now, and can easily and quickly get to all of the hazardous and dangerous places - which are of course, exactly where he wants to be. He crawls over plywood floors, tries to eat bits of plaster that fall from the ceiling, and picks at the chipping paint and black mold - so, as a well-intentioned parent, I need to do something for his safety. Third, most of these spaces are completely nonfunctional - we have piles of books and office supplies in the office, and piles of trash and donations in the half bath. So, the goal is to finish up all the partially finished spaces (half bath, mudroom, dining room, kitchen, sleeping porch/office) and to redo the main bathroom - or, generally to fix anything that makes me cringe. This is a considerable amount of work to do, but not quite the entire house to-do list - these are just the big projects that have safety/health issues, or major functionality issues. I'll leave the smaller cosmetic things, like refinishing the fireplace hearth, for another time. We've already got a contractor lined up to get started on some of this, but will do most of the work ourselves.

house shame 2: "mudroom"

Here's the list:

• Finish the back porch
• Close in open ceilings and floors in kitchen and dining room
• Fix the eyesores & other hazards in the kitchen
• Finish Mudroom
• Finish Half Bath
• Finish Office
• Refinish main bathroom
• Finish the entryway
• Renovate the kitchen?

For the Boy
So, obviously, this is largely for myself, but it is also hugely related to the kid (as is, basically everything we do now). On the house front, most of the projects on the list are there because they pose health or safety risks to the kid - either rough edges that he could cut himself on or flaking paint and plaster that he could choke or poison himself with.  It's impossible to make a completely hazard-free house, but it would be damn close to irresponsible if we don't fix these things. On the me front, while he isn't quite talking yet, he is already absorbing and repeating just about everything we do in front of him, so we are clearly teaching him all kinds of things right now, including both healthy and unhealthy habits. Just as I wouldn't want him eating junk food and sitting around playing video games all day, I wouldn't want him to feel self conscious about his body when he's older - and that all starts right now. So my goal is to create both healthy lifestyle and habits that he will see and repeat - like exercising and eating lots of produce, and to eliminate unhealthy body shaming and weight loss mentalities.  If we had a girl - I would be even more psycho about this, but even boys get a lot of pressure about body image, so I want to get him off to a good start.

this guy. 

The Plan
So, for me - the plan is the obvious  "exercise more, eat less bad stuff" plan. I'm signing up for a 10 mile race in October to keep me on track - so I have plenty of time to build my base before starting a 10 week training plan. I'll plan to mostly use my lunch hour at work for running and a couple yoga classes for weight training/flexibility to reduce my likelihood of injuring my bad knee. I'll have to do long runs on the weekend, so scheduling that around the boy will be a little tricky. For food,  I'm going to make an effort to bring in my lunch and snacks so that I don't have to buy food at work, and will cut back on useless calories at home.

house shame 3: the current office/sleeping porch

For the house - we have already hired a contractor to get started on some of the stuff we can't do ourselves. For the rest of the stuff, the plan will be to work  mostly during weekend nap times, with some minor work during weeknights after the boy goes to bed. We might also have to take a day off here and there. Balance will be key - since we also want to do fun summer stuff and don't want to waste the whole summer working on miserable projects.

So, a very ambitious, but hopefully doable plan to get everything back in shape by the fall. I'll report back with updates as we proceed. Wish me luck!

Three Small Things

Yipes - it's been over two months since my last post. As you can imagine, we rushed to finish the kid's room and then basically stopped everything housework-related. I got a tiny bit of yard work in, and then quickly got both too huge and too hot to do anything else. Then the kid arrived, and we spent a couple weeks recovering and learning to live with a newborn. Three very small things got done around the house.

1. A New Kitchen Light
Do you remember our Tiffany-style kitchen light? It dangled pretty low into the kitchen, which meant that it not only cast shadows around the room, but it reflected a really red/orange color as well. And because it dangled so low into the kitchen, it should be no surprise that it got bumped all the time. At some point, something wacked one of the lights so that it was bent out of position, and one day it started crackling and smoking. We quickly turned it off and went online for a new temporary, cheapish option. I always hated this light and wanted to get rid of it, but we were holding off for the big kitchen renovation that is coming eventually. So, in the short term, we just wanted something cheap, bright and noneventful. We found one, ordered it, and quickly installed it - following the same directions that I described here. The new one is so much brighter and makes the ceiling feel so much taller.

the old Tiffany light created shadows in the kitchen

the new light makes the kitchen so much brighter

new light is much closer to the ceiling and makes the room feel taller

2. A Hallway Runner
After we refinished the upstairs floors, we started noticing tiny little scratches in the hallway. After minimal sleuthing, we determined that the problem was Wally, the kitten who still lives with us. One of his favorite games is to suddenly bolt across a room at full speed and to gallop up and down the hallway. Not only does this sound like pack of horses running through the house (awesome at 6 am everyday), but it scratches the floors as he goes. So we opted to get a runner to help cut down the noise and protect the floors. We picked one from Macy's and then waited for it to go on sale. Once they started the memorial day sale, we finally ordered it. With a nice little rug pad, it now helps cut down on noise and protects the floor. The color is a bit different than the picture online, but it's close enough.

closeup of the new rug

Wally on the new rug

3. A New Toilet

Tragically, just after we returned from the hospital, a time when everything was completely out of control, we noticed that our upstairs toilet was leaking and running constantly. It seemed that the wax ring had busted, so the toilet water was slowly pouring onto the floor, creating a huge, nasty puddle in the bathroom. So, spouso ran out to the store and picked up a new toilet. The old one was old and inefficient, so we wanted to upgrade it anyway. Switching out a toilet should be a really easy job, except that we still have galvanized pipes upstairs (we upgraded the pipes in the basement, but not the rest of the house). He easily removed the old toilet, but had to work hard to bust off the old rusted, iron flange. In the process, quite a bit of the floor tile and substrate was broken loose, so he had to pour in some cement to support the new toilet. Meanwhile, I was completely busy with the new kid, so I didn't help at all (perhaps a good indicator of how difficult house projects will be from now on). The new toilet is much nicer, almost 5x more efficient, and most importantly, not pouring water on the floor. 

nice new toilet

So, that's it lately. Now that we're starting to get a hang of parenthood, I would love to get started on some of the bigger projects around the house.  Stay tuned.