kids in the hall

We finished painting the hall! It was more complicated than I expected, what with the damaged walls, trim, bigass heating duct, and built-ins, but it looks nice. Our hall has a strange shape. The middle is much narrower than the ends, with an obviously added later section that seems to wall off the area behind our fireplace in the living room.



There are built-ins on either side of the section of the wall that sticks out: a little telephone cove and a ladder to the attic on one side, and on the other side a linen closet and drawers.



Horrified by this tale of hidden fireplace woe, I can't help but wonder what's behind our wall. As I mentioned before, we have unpleasant paneling in the living room surrounding our fireplace, and there is an old furnace back there. We have two chimneys, one for the fireplace and one for the old furnace.

We found something strange in the hall. I'm sure it's nothing like the fireplace woe in the link, but it seems that something cool has been altered. From the enhanced image below, you can see that there was an original archway that was covered, but only half of it. Where is the other half?

The theory. My husband suspects the fireplace isn't original, and that the house was once heated by wood stove. He says there's no reason to have a fireplace next to a wood stove. I guess I can see the purpose of the old arch then -- it opened up the living room to the bedroom wing and allowed heat to circulate in the back of the house. But the fireplace seems vintage since it's so simple, so I don't think I believe him. I do wonder what's behind those walls, though.

Lake Eugene

The recent storm left several ponds in our back yard. We knew the ground was hard clay, given the roots of the maple and elm have surfaced in several places, but we didn't know how poor the drainage was. The portion along the back fence is about three feet higher than the rest of the yard, and will be our garden in the spring. I guess the rest will be OK, since I don't really have plans to plant there. I'm planning to put in a terraced row to divide the top part from the bottom. I wonder if we can install some kind of underground pipe for drainage when I do so. I have absolutely no clue how to proceed.

what's black and white and stainless steel all over?

Why, appliance choices, of course! We're in the market for a new gas stove, and we have a black and white kitchen.


Chances are that we won't keep the banged-up black-and-white checkered linoleum when we remodel the kitchen, so we need to think future. Chances also are that the kitchen remodel is far, far away, so we need to keep mindful of said checkered linoleum.

As you can see, we need a new stove. But what finish? Here's what we have now:

- black dishwasher
- white and black stove
- white cheap-ass counters
- white cupboards
- brushed nickel knobs
- white cast iron sink
- white refrigerator

The black dishwasher will be going soon. The refrigerator is OK, but older, so it could go at any time.

As I mentioned in our profile, we are both long-time renters. As a consequence, we've had every kind of low-end stove out there. At our last place, we had a black stove, and it really didn't wear well. It was always greasy-looking, and the surface scratched easily. Furthermore, black appliances suck space and color out of a room. Our current black dishwasher gets dusty and streaked. So we probably won't go with black.

Stainless? We are planning to get a real range hood in stainless. Is it worth the cost? That means we'd have to upgrade everything to stainless. And does it really always look smudged and streaky like I suspect it does? Don't forget we're doing medium to low end, not the special super-expensive stuff that probably has some spectacular coating to prevent fingerprints.

I'm leaning toward white.

Can I tell you how much I want a new stove? It's not just the soy sauce explosion (we call this the Big Bang Theory) that must have happened in our kitchen at some point in the past.

It is not just what we found under the stove:



The previous owners used the stove, apparently, as a toy box, a place where old cookie sheets went to die, a repository of mouse droppings, a slick of used motor oil and soy sauce, and a convenient storage place for spaghetti.

But all this can be cleaned and, although gross, is not a reason for a new stove.

It's mainly that the damn thing has caught on fire in the past, and the wires have been stripped of insulation. The little boxes that fuel the burners are damaged, two so badly that they seem to have broken and crumbled:



Right now, two burners are operational. We have no vent. The oven works, but I'm leery of it, so I use my new crock pot for all stews and roasts.

So we're going to buy, buy, buy. There's a T fitting underneath the house for a gas hookup that needs to be connected, and the electrician installed a new outlet. So we're almost all set for installation.

Done! Our Christmas present to each other was to finish the living room and sit in it. Accomplished.

And just in time, too. I was feeling pretty lousy when I saw that our cat had camped out under the plastic sheeting, just to relax in his own living room. Stabs a crazy cat lady in the heart, it does.



My husband decided he would install the stereo speakers (pictured above on the bookshelf) in the odd corners of the paneling wall; thus, a cosmetic problem is covered.

Having the living room done (with only the mantel, closet, and door trim to be painted, plus the fireplace to be mulled over, plus the drapes hemmed), I am almost ready to re-tackle the kitchen.

happy holidays

May your days be merry and bright, and may all your switches flip in 2007!

painting conundrum

We are painting our living room. We put it off for weeks, while our living room furniture languished in the back room. We had to have the floors redone, the chimney cleaned, the ceiling patched, the picture window sill stripped, the walls scrubbed of soot and grime, the peeling paint removed, the holes mudded, the grape juice stains bleached, the crayon removed, the dings patched, and several parts of the damaged plaster on the arches bolstered. We're finally done with the prep work and in the middle of painting.

We use Glidden ceiling paint. It's pink! It has a coloring agent in the white paint that allows you to see what you're painting so you don't miss spots. It dries white. We learned the hard way, however, that it's not the best choice for a small bathroom. When the surface gets wet, the pink re-activates, and you end up with temporary pink spots on the ceiling. I suppose this would change over time, but we decided not to chance it and repainted with a mildew-resistant semi-gloss.

Here's the conundrum. Our living room has a small fireplace that was painted white for some reason, and because the flue is located near the front of the fireplace (the chimney sweep sez this is a design flaw common to this neighborhood), it is marred with soot. The wall that holds the fireplace has (I assume added) wood paneling that we don't particularly like. It also has one strip of ceiling molding (to hide top of panels?), and the rest of the room has none. Worst of all, it has corner molding that only goes to about 2 inches from the ceiling molding. I'm assuming we need all the molding (or some replacement) for the paneling. How does one disguise this crappy job? Is it possible?

Also, what should be done about the soot problem? We citrus-stripped on part of the brick, and it's a nice red color brick underneath the paint. I'm not too excited about stripping the brick, having been really dissuaded by the goopy, icky job of just stripping the wood trim on one part of one window. But if we paint the brick again in white, and paint the mantel in white, it will soon be sooty. If we strip the mantel and stain it (it appears to be maple), it will look nicer, but maybe odd in a room that has all white-painted wood trim.

We're going to paint it in the trim color for now, but I think a stripping project is in our future. I have no ripping clue what to do about the molding, though.

historical exploration

Our house was built in 1947, during a post-war housing boom in Eugene, in what what then a fringe neighborhood. Our neighborhood was formerly a meadow, too soggy in the winter to sustain crops. The municipal airport, active during the war with military equipment, lay directly to the west. The neighborhood was otherwise largely left untouched until the returning veterans created a housing crisis for Eugene. Living in trailers or put up by sympathetic families, veterans needed affordable single-family houses. So, just like they're doing now in Bethel and Danebo, in the late 1940s and 50s builders put up house after house with no frills and cheap construction. This was an era of great change, and architecture was about to experience what some consider a revolution and others see as a crushing blow: the suburban ranch house. Our little house was born on the cusp of this revolution. It was never a grand dame. It was rather more like a decent-looking working-class chick at your local dive.

And yet.

Unlike the slapdash and dreary prefab houses they're building now, our house is as solid as a brick, er, cedar shake-shingled shithouse (see previous post). I consider it closest in architectural style to the WWII-era cottages, since it has no eaves (in the PNW? WHY???), minimal detailing, windows that cozy up to the corners so they almost wrap around the side of the building, one story, and a blocky floorplan. It also has elements of earlier styles, like a couple of coved arches and built-in nooks for a telephone and a ladder for the attic, a bookshelf for decorative plates in the dining room, and oak wood floors. It's also quite large for a cottage, with a bedroom wing with two larger (11 x 12) and one small (8 x 10) bedrooms. The garage was converted long ago to a laundry room and well-insulated "bonus" room, and a back patio was added that simulates ranch-style covered patios. Every piece of the house has its own foundation, and the walls are reinforced with horizontal beams about waist-high that add structural integrity. The original walls seem to be a mix of plaster-and-lath and plaster veneer over drywall. According to our electrician, for a short time after the war, the plasterers union was powerful in Eugene, and they insisted on covering the new technology, drywall, with plaster to strengthen it. Quite frankly, it worked. I don't have a single major crack in the ceiling or walls. There are a few superficial cracks near the windows, but small enough to caulk. We'll see how they hold up. (A caveat: I know there have been some repairs on the roof, so the ceilings may be drywall -- this remains to be seen.)

It's not a unique floorplan like a bungalow, however. There's a house around the corner that looks almost identical to ours (minus the renovations). I see many houses in Eugene that look similar, many in poorer neighborhoods, rundown, ill-painted, overgrown and sad. But they're holding up and have been doing so for 50 years. I like that tenacity. Because each of these houses are slightly different, unlike the ranch tracts that were put up on the same streets just a few years later, I like them much better than the ranches. I suspect that this house may be a kit house, like the Sears cottages sold on the East Coast. I haven't had a chance to research the deed and plat information yet.

An excellent place for historical information about Eugene residential neighborhoods and architecture is the city's historical preservation site. See the links list for more info.

plumbing the depths of crappy repairs

The plumber fixed a few lovely things over the course of a very long day. We are continually astounded by the previous owners' cheapness. Things he's never seen before include the hard-wired plumbing for the crap-ass dishwasher (so it can't be pulled out), gas piping used instead of galvanized water pipe for the bathroom sink (so it has no protection against rusting inside the pipe) and a brick being used inside the toilet NOT as a water displacer but as a frickin' fix for the lever.



He took the brick out, shaking his head, and fixed the rotting parts inside. Then the toilet wouldn't work, so he realized that the brick was actually holding the ball up because the lever was broken. The options at that point were to have him fix the damn thing properly for $75 or to just buy a new toilet at $110 or so. Even though I adore the ancient (and not cute-ancient), mildew-laden, unmatching, 5-gallon flush unit, we opted for a new one.

Other treats include the sink in the small bathroom being held up only by its plumbing, the garbage disposal being about to fall off, and our kitchen sink having absolutely no support in the front, so if we lean on it it could also fall through the cheap-ass counter.

We purchased an American Standard Cadet 3 at Home Depot at the plumber's recommendation, and an elongated seat because every king deserves a throne. The thing flushes like a dream, doesn't waste water, and the back isn't furry with mildew. These are all qualities I find pleasant in a toilet. Plus, we received a $25 energy bill rebate for replacing the 5-gallon monstrosity and a free robe hook from American Standard (a rather odd promotion but who's counting?). So, if you're in the market for a new economy toilet, we say two thumbs up.

remodeling for the rest of us

There are a few good blogs about renovating ranch and cottage-style houses for people on a relatively small budget, but most are geared toward do-it-yourselfers with some professional affiliation or design acumen. We have neither. Until a few months ago, we didn't even own a decent measuring tape. We have rented for our entire adult lives, having spent most of that time in academia in godforsaken California, without hope of owning a house.

Raccoon Tree Acres is our first house. We named it because the contractor ousted a raccoon from the crawl space, and we found the poor thing living in our elm tree. He's since moved on, but he was symbolic of the state of our house. It's cute and cozy but a bit of a wreck, having been sucked dry by the previous owners, who deferred maintenance and did a really crummy job with everything they touched. We're trying to remedy that. Wish us luck.