Hurricane Irene

Saturday was supposed to be a work day... we had it all planned... then Hurricane Irene decided to grace us with her presence. Thanks, but no thanks. That chick is messy! So, we prepared for the storm as much as possible- removing items from the yard and making sure everything is as sturdy as possible. We decided not to board up the windows because we'd have to buy out the lumber yard to cover 30 windows. Besides, we were thinking that the western part of the area wouldn't get much. Boy, were we wrong!

The tree that landed on the neighbors

We hunkered down at the house in Suffolk and prayed for the best. The lights flickered some and we had a few large limbs come down but nothing major. We thought we were in the clear.... until about 10 am when the contractor called us (he lives close and was nice enough to go check on the house)..... There were no trees on our house, but one of our trees landed on the neighbors roof.... My heart sunk. It was one of my worst fears- that one of our trees would hit our house or a neighbors'. We know we have several to take down, but unbelievably the one that fell, wasn't on that list.  It was perfectly healthy, but down it went... straight into the neighbors living room. Thank God no one was hurt.

We quickly gathered our things and headed to the house. It took longer than normal as we had to detour a lot due to trees blocking off the regular route. As we got to the house, we noticed the neighbor standing out front, so we parked and went to talk to him. The tree man was there cutting up the tree and getting everything straight. Amazingly, they never lost power, even though the tree took the line down to the ground. They assured us that they were ok and that they would get it fixed. The tree landed on their roof at the living room and broke the rafters. The neighbors joked that it allowed them to get a new living room. I'm glad they are being optimistic, as I nearly had a heart attack. Apparently, several trees in the neighborhood came down on houses, but it didn't look like too much damage was done. Although, the area was hit very hard.

Fallen trees

So, after talking to the neighbors and being assured that everything was fine, we went to check out the house.... sure enough, we had some trees down too. Thankfully, they're not near the house. A pine and some other kind of holly-looking tree. They could wait... so we headed inside to see if any windows had broken. Amazingly, none had. Then, we went to the basement.... where we had an indoor swimming pool!

Indoor swimming pool. Also known as the flooded basement.

Even though the power was still on in the house, for some reason, the sump pump decided not to work. We had nearly a foot of water in the basement. After messing with the sump pump, we got it to start pumping the water out. So, I walked out the where the pipe goes out of the basement to make sure everything was pumping ok...it was a geyser! Something was wrong with the pipe and water was spraying everywhere! We quickly turned the pump off. After some reviewing of the pipe we thought we had the issue fixed and tried it again... now water was bubbling up from the ground (we have dry wells that the pipe and gutter downspouts go to. We think they need to be cleaned though). So, we shut it down again. I saw some PVC in the basement and figured we could disconnect the pipe to the dry well and just run the water into the yard. One way or another the water had to go! Well, it worked.... So, then Fred sees what looks like a small spring coming down one of the walls in the basement- but it's an interior wall, so he climbs into the crawl space to discover 8 inches of water in there!! After a trip to Lowe's to get a pump, Fred and his dad hooked it up to pump the water from the crawl space to the well in the basement, to be sucked out by the sump pump. It was proving to be a long process, so we decided to head home and Fred's dad would come back to check the water and turn off the pump. When he returned, the sump pump wasn't working- again, so water was filling up the well. We decided we'd look at it the next day.

When we arrived today, the crawl space had a lot less water than the night before, but the basement had about 2 inches of water in it. And of course, it was raining again. So, Fred and his dad disassembled the sump pump and cleaned it out. Then, they got a new connector to the pipe since the old one was split. After reassembling everything the sump pump seemed to work again, so we were able to pump out the rest of the water in just a few minutes... one crises down.

Break time from cutting trees and removing debris

Then, we went outside to tackle the downed trees. Man, were they a mess! Fred's dad started sawing them down so we could move limbs to the street for the city to pick up... In the midst of limbs and leaves and poison ivy, we trekked back and forth, limb by limb. We're still not done. We did manage to make a dent in the tree debris... maybe we'll finish it off this up-coming weekend. I'm all for letting nature do it's thing and leaving them there to compost. I figured if God can take them down, he can clean them up too. The worst part about it is none of the trees we need to take down came down... so, we have to clean up these and cut down more... grrrr, Irene knocked us down, but we're coming up swinging! And if that doesn't work, I'll get my raft and float around in the basement.

Blackwater River nearly to the top of the boat ramp

One issue we have to consider is that the Blackwater River is expected to flood again. It's not supposed to be as bad as Hurricane Floyd, but it could potentially flood downtown. We're not in the flood zone, but the company doing the kitchen is.... hopefully the cabinets aren't there, or they've moved everything to higher ground. We hope it doesn't flood and the latest figures show it cresting at 18 ft, but with the additional rain, anything is possible.

In other news on the house... the trim is up for the bathroom door frame and laundry room, which we now get to scrape and paint :-/. Hopefully, there won't be any more surprises in store weather-wise, so we can actually get some work done on the house instead of clean-up. Now that the storm is over, I want to tell Irene to stick it where the sun don't shine for dumping a foot of rain on the house and taking down perfectly good trees, but instead, I'm thankful it wasn't worse.

Finally, some visible signs of progress

So, it's been a while since I've posted and A LOT has been accomplished on the house... not so much by us, but by the contractor. We didn't actually do anything last weekend, but check things out and take pictures.

Laundry room

First off, we have WALLS!!! There are no more holes! They have finished off the laundry room walls and repaired the ceiling and wall in the dining room. The places in the ceiling where the plaster was coming down have been repaired as well. It's starting to look like a real house!

The contractor also went ahead and took out the tile to the downstairs bathroom, so we are down a bathroom again. There was an issues with the floor sagging, so it has to be fixed. The plus side is that the pink tile on the floor is gone... the downside is that the pink tile to the bathtub is still there :-/

Replacing tile floor in bath

Probably the most exciting part is that the railing on the patio is up and looks fantastic! They did such a great job putting it up and not destroying the brickwork to the patio. Even though it's not original to the house and we're trying to keep so much of the character, we had to put it up to bring it up to code. I'm just really glad it looks so good.

Railing for the patio

On to this week.....
 
Saturday, we got a very late start, so we just worked to wipe down the walls and trim in the kitchen and back stairwell from where we sanded everything down. We have found that damp paper towels work well for this. Sunday, we finished wiping everything down and then came the fun part....

Multitasking

I do actually do some work :-)

Painted partially up the stairs

We finally got to start painting... well priming. Finally the robin's egg blue color would vanish from the walls! Sort of. It's harder to cover up than we anticipated. Hopefully, the coffee color that we picked for the walls will cover it up. I had forgotten what a pain in the butt using oil-based paint is. Since the blue is oil-based and the white, which mostly peeled off, is latex, the very knowledgeable guy at the paint store suggested we paint over the oil-based paint with oil-based primer and then we can top-coat with latex. That should prevent peeling in the future. So note- If you have oil-based painted walls, you can still paint with latex, just prime the walls with an oil-based primer first. Thankfully, we don't have to use the oil-based primer in the whole house, just where the latex peeled off and the oil-based paint is showing. So, back to the oil-based primer being awful to deal with. I'm not a neat painter. I never pretended to be and I always wear as much paint as I get on the walls. This time was no different. The difference with oil and latex- oil doesn't just wash off. NO, you have to basically bathe in mineral spirits to get it off. My hands were completely covered in primer and poor Fred had it all over his arms and face from when he painted the ceiling and it sprayed down. He's as neat of a painter as I am. The only one of who actually stayed clean was Fred's dad and I'm still not sure how he did it. I think I'll need to invest in mineral spirits if we have to do much more oil-based priming. But, we got the kitchen primed and part of the stairwell before we ran out of paint. We probably would have had enough if I hadn't been wearing most of it. :-/

Primed wall

The next couple of weekends will be slammed full, trying to get as much done as possible. Our schedules are getting a bit hectic, so that should make this project even more interesting to maneuver. Our to-do list for next weekend: Finish scraping and sanding the trim in the Mater, 2nd bedroom, living room, and hopefully office, and them prime all of it. Can we get it all done? Gosh, I hope so :-)

Raindrops are falling on my head... and that's good!

Well that didn't last long..... we went to the house last weekend and the NEW downstairs HVAC unit wasn't working properly, and of course it was 400­° outside (that may be a slight exaggeration)... but we needed to work on the house, so we just suffered through it. I walked through the house to see what had been worked on for the week by the contractor, and he's moving right a long. He took the gutters down; which is awesome! Normally, I wouldn't think so since I don't like water pouring on my head as I go into the house when it's raining (like it was Saturday), but in this case, it's a good thing. The gutters were growing trees and were so damaged and clogged up that removing them was a necessity. The clogged gutters were causing water to go down the side of the house, and we believe is the source of a lot of the moisture in the basement. The contractor took down a few of the shutters, as well. He's also framed the door to the bathroom and laundry room, so they're not just gaping holes now. Hopefully this week, they'll be putting up walls!

Gutters removed

With and without shutters

Scraped door frame

So we continued our task of scraping and sanding the walls. Fred and his dad finished the kitchen and back stairwell, so once the walls are repaired, we can go ahead and prime them. While they worked on the kitchen, I started on the trim in the living room. There's a lot of trim in there! In two days, I completed 1 and a half walls. The large door frame really took it's toll on me as I had to scrape all the paint off and then sand. There are three layers of paint... two tones of blue and the top layer of green.  The frame has a lot of detail work that I had to carefully scrape and sand each section. Unfortunately, all the door frames have that detail work and I've only completed 3. :-(  Before we called it a weekend, I did manage to get to one of the built-in bookcases.

Notice anything missing? The antenna is gone! 

We have 10 windows scraped... only 20 more to go!

Our big accomplishment last week was meeting with the kitchen designer. We tweaked the design a bit, and picked out the color of the cabinets, granite, and tiles. Once we have everything ordered, I'll post the pictures of the design.... I don't want to jinx it.

The signs of progress

Laundry room and new opening to bathroom

It's amazing what can be done in a few days..... Last week, when we went to the house there were holes in walls, but it still looked like demolition was in full swing. This week, walls are being framed and new electrical and plumbing is going in. A lot has happened in just a few days....

The contractor has started framing the laundry room that will be on the second floor. It borrowed room from the bathroom, took out a linen closet in the hall (there's another one in the bathroom) and part of a closet in the guest room (there's another full closet in the guest room). The electrical and plumbing for the laundry room is starting to be roughed in and it shouldn't be long before walls go up!

Framed laundry room

The electrician was working hard to get the downstairs electrical upgraded. Side note- the house had two prong outlets in majority of the house. We have to upgrade to three prongs per code. The downstairs is upgraded and he'll soon be upgrading the upstairs. You'd be amazed at how three prong outlets are taken for granted, until you need to plug in the shop-vac and there's only one three prong outlet downstairs, so you're running extension cords through the whole house!  Thankfully, that is no longer an issue.

Fred doing some vacuuming

Our blonde moment of the week.... we've been working at the house for weeks with no running water. There is a leak from the upstairs toilet that we still need to fix and a few other leaks have popped up, so we keep the water off to the house. This means bathroom runs are usually taken at a local store and wet wipes help to wash hands (trying not to be graphic). So we worked yesterday thinking that there is no water to the house. We were covered in paint chips and plaster dust, so we tried to wipe as much as we could with wet wipes before leaving the house to meet Fred's parent for supper. While we were changing clothes, Fred sat on the side of the tub to put on his shoes (no furniture in the house either). He leaned back a bit and hit the nozzle for the shower and POOF water came out! We realized that the water was on in the house! It was amazing! I immediately grabbed the hand soap I brought to the house for when water was running and started scrubbing my arms and hands. It's incredible how something as simple as running water can make you feel stupid for not realizing it's on, but also be so comforting. Running water = progress! The leak upstairs hasn't been fixed yet and isn't a problem as long as no one messes with the toilet.

Fred and I are currently reviewing the quotes from cabinetmakers for the kitchen..... ouch. Thankfully, there does seems to be a couple that are reasonable that we want to discuss further details with them. Most of the quotes also include counters... a few include granite, which would be awesome, but I'm not holding my breath. At this point, we want good quality cabinets and floors (tile), and if we need to upgrade counters later, that's fine. So, now it's working on the details of the quotes and see where it goes from here.

We got our first rug for the house. It's red with gold and ivory details on it. It's planned for the dining room and I'm going to pair it with gold curtains. Thus, the great paint debate continues... I want a medium to dark brown for the walls and Fred wants something like cream.... I need more color than that. He also has suggested the living room be red. That may be a little too bold for me. We're also trying to decide on a color for the bathroom... we're both kinda thinking yellow, but I want more of a deep yellow and he's looking at sunshine yellow. We were able to decide on the colors for the Master (slate blue) and guest room (sage green).  Hopefully, we'll be able to find colors that we can both live with.... the sanding continues!

One day at a time; one room at a time

So Saturday was a bust on working on the house. The HVAC units are almost in, but not quite, so there was no A/C and the house was 96°. Needless to say, we didn't stay very long. We checked out the progress from the week before... so far the kitchen has been demoed; the ceiling and wall in the dining room has been ripped out (to find that leak); and the upstairs hall closet, side of bathroom , and closet in guest room (they are all right beside each other) has started to be ripped out to make room for the new laundry room. Our contractor has been busy! He also managed to get some of the cabinet makers to the house to measure for quotes.

Demoed kitchen

The original thermostat to the house... It was HOT!

Where the laundry room will go

It rained at the house Saturday night, so we figured things had cooled down some........not so much. We needed to get work done to the house, so we went over there Sunday to finish scraping the back stairwell and kitchen of its wonderful peeling paint. After figuring out how to work the ladder- it's one of those little giant ladders, we were on our way. Fred was nice to me and climbed up the ladder and got up the wall and ceiling of the stairwell, since I don't do well with heights, and I'm a little clumsy. I think he figured it was safer for him to do it, so he wouldn't have to take me to the ER.

So, I continued to work going down the stairs in the places I could reach (no short jokes! :-) )  Once Fred really got going scraping, I felt like I was in a blizzard! There were paint chips going EVERYWHERE, mostly on me. Thankfully, I finished my part and moved into the kitchen to scrape the ceiling. Fred's parent brought us lunch and started helping by scraping the windows. When Fred finished the stairwell, I was partially down one wall in the kitchen. My back was starting to hurt and I didn't like being on the ladder so I asked Fred to finish the kitchen while I started sanding the stairwell. This proved to be more difficult than sanding the bedroom walls, as the oil paint underneath is far more prominent and very slick. So I sanded and sanded and sanded to get the lines smooth. Hopefully, once we prime it the lines will blend. I sanded all the way down the stairwell, where I could reach without the ladder and Fred finished scraping the kitchen. The windows in the kitchen are almost done being scraped too.

Back stairwell after scraping and some sanding

We're tired!

All in all, we got a lot done.... especially for how hot it was. We went through 9 bottles of water. I have not been so tired and sick feeling. Hopefully, the A/C will be working for when we work this weekend. I can't handle many more of these extremely hot days, working hard and only having a fan for some relief.

Our task continues... we have to finish sanding the stairwell and kitchen so we can prime and paint once the plumber and electrician finish roughing in everything. One day at a time; one room at a time.

Our other projects continue. We're still working on getting the paint off the brass hinges and hardware. It's a slow process, but we don't want to use any chemicals. We're also slowly picking up items for the house. We found this fantastic brass coat and hat rack at one of our favorite spots: Urban Relics of Suffolk. They have such cool stuff and great prices!

Brass coat and hat rack

It's hammer time... to the kitchen

Demolition in the kitchen has started! Our contractor called yesterday to let us know he had starting ripping out cabinets. When we arrived, the kitchen looked completely different. All of a sudden there is tons of room.

Now the fun begins! We've designed a layout that will hopefully work with the weird shape of the kitchen. It's hard to contend with 3 windows, 4 doors, and a staircase when it comes to laying out cabinetry. Hopefully, we succeeded. Our task this weekend is to start scraping and sanding the walls in the kitchen. We also get to go look at tile for the floor!

Click on the layout to zoom in

We need to figure out colors for the kitchen. I want the walls, cabinets, and tile to complement each other. I need opinions... what's better- painted cabinets (I'm thinking Antique white or ivory) and medium brown walls with medium to dark tile, or stained cabinets (thinking maybe a dark walnut or mahogany) with light brown/cream walls and a lightish/medium tile ( I don't want the tile too light)? Any other thoughts/suggestions?  There is lots of natural light coming into the room.

The windows in the kitchen. The sink and dishwasher will be under the double window

Soaking the blues (paint) away

Another weekend gone and we're slowly making headway in the house. We got a late start on Saturday and after a quick stop to the Restore, we headed to the house.

If you're not familiar with the Restore, you should be. They are awesome! There's one in Newport News and Franklin. I'm sure there are more in the area, but those are the two I've been to. If you're trying to find materials out of an old house, say for instance, old style tile, they are great. They carry lots of building materials that are priced very well. Plus, they help Habitat for Humanity.

Anyway, when we got to the house, my task was to start sanding the walls where I had stripped the paint. Since there are places that wouldn't strip off, we sand to smooth out any lines that are left. So now the house is a giant dust storm.

Fred took on the task of the yard.... such a brave task. He started to trim the Holly bushes, so they actually have a shape. The yard is starting to look better, but we're still tasked with having to dig up many Magnolia and Pine trees. They are free to a good home for anyone who wants one in 757. We'll probably start digging those up in the fall. I read that is the best time because they start to go dormant, but the soil is still warm enough for transplantation.

We had several guests stop by. One of the neighbors popped by to say hello. We had met these neighbors before and welcomed the break. Also, my mom, uncle, and grandmother stopped by to see the house. It was good to see that they all like the house as much as we do.

Our neighbors also showed us a storage shed on the property that we would have never known was there. It's covered by ivy and looks like a big bush. It's pretty cool though.


We went back to the house on Sunday to get some more work done and I think we got a lot completed.... Fred and I started off with removing doors. They all need to be sanded and repainted. Some are blue, some green; none in what I would call a pretty color. We wanted to take off all the hinges. They are real brass and have been painted over multiple times. We're determined to get the paint off. We found a process that we're hoping works. Take an old crock and put the hardware in it with warm water and dish soap. Turn it on low and let it soak all night. The paint is supposed to peel right off. We tried it and it seems to be working! (http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20055784,00.html)

So after we removed the doors upstairs, I got to work stripping more paint in the stairwell. I spent all day doing that and the stairs are almost done... hopefully I'll be done scraping and onto sanding next weekend..... until then, we're hoping the demo starts soon!