One Sixty: Frustrations

Frustrations

You know of course that no weekend could be as productive as last weekend.... which has got me wondering, "Why am I so tired right now?"

I vaguely remember waking up from a bad dream last night - and although I can't remember the dream, I have a feeling it may have been Historical Commission related, or at least Historical Commission induced.

All weekend I felt stressed - for no particular reason I could figure out. Just a little of that dreaded free floating anxiety.... And I really believe it's all due to this upcoming meeting.

I'll catch you up if you've fallen behind - a new Demolition/Alteration bylaw requires us to appear before the Historical Commission before we can get our farmer's porch permit approved. That's the short of it. The stress of it is - Andersons. They're our neighbors and they don't like us. And they like to share their dislike of my husband and I (and our house) at public forums. Like this upcoming Historical meeting.

There's this little worried voice in my head that even worries about this blog. I mean, you can pretty much figure out who we are, what our address is, etc etc if you just put a few pieces together. And the pics don't lie either. Those Andersons could be reading this very sentence right now... as unlikely as that is. They're older and don't seem like the tech-savy type. But you never know.

And I realize that's probably silly. What could they say anyway? A farmer's porch is unhistorical? It's ruining the neighborhood? I can't even imagine...

I've got a girl friend (not a girlfriend, mind you) who's already got her farmer's porch half done. Sans permit. I'm so jealous I can't see straight. My carpenter and good friend TJ assures me that we'll get started ASAP once our permit goes through. And why am I in such a hurry - it's not even warm enough to go out and sit on it yet!

This is just all the mental madness I'm going through right now and it's exhausting.

That's why Mike is going to the meeting without me - I get waaay too mental if and when sh*t hits the historical fan.

Blog Story

My now husband Mike and I purchased this quaint home back in spring of 2004 - our first home - and, being the handy folks we are, expected to have the entire thing renovated in about a year or so.

And here we still are... renovating away.

This house needed a complete overhaul. Its plaster walls were uninsulated, its attic floor covered in 2" of bat guano, its basement - dirt and snakes, its exterior - asbestos siding, and lead paint windows in every room. The electric had not been updated and light sockets hung bare from the ceiling. Plumbing featured cast iron radiators - and only one for the entire upstairs.

We began by gutting almost the entire house from top to bottom. (sans bathroom - we needed to pee) We rebuilt the entire upstairs, with a new floor (not new carpet or wood - the once unstable framing underneath) and turned 3 small rooms into two. We reinvented the downstairs by turning a closet into a hallway and eliminating interior exterior windows and doors from old half-assed additions.

New insulation, windows, electrical wiring (including phone and CAT-5 internet), plumbing and baseboards, and drywall were all added.

We purchased kitchen cabinets from a yard sale. (None existed previously.) Our families helped us replace and purchase new appliances including the once also missing washer & dryer.

Then we had the entire house lifted - straight into the air - dug out the dirt, and had a real basement foundation poured. We updated our oil tank and burner and created heating zones.

Outside, we took down trees and planted grass. We dug out an awkward hill to create a 2nd part to the driveway and used the rocks our house once sat on as a retaining wall. We electrified and repainted the garage.

And of course, we spent many an hour on finish work like paint, trim, closet doors, lighting fixtures, hardwood floors, curtain rods, dimmer switches, and many other things everyone else takes for granted. We are still working to complete all this final finishing, but happy to report that we are FINALLY nearing completion of all little things in all rooms!

In 2008 we began overhauling the exterior by creating a new french door entryway and building a farmer's porch and garage addition. We replaced our roof and then stripped off our siding and replaced with new clapboards. We then planted two new flowering trees and a maple in the front yard - our first major landscape purchases. I'm happy to report that here in 2011, the porch is nearing completion and the back yard is on the road to recovery with some new loam and grass. More plantings soon to come!

In 2012 we plan to attack the last MAJOR (emphasis on major) job in the house - the dreaded BATHROOM! We plan to first add a second bathroom in the basement. Then, demolish our current bathroom and rebuild it, adding a second bathroom on top for the upstairs.

And that pretty much brings you up to date. The battle continues day to day as we try and complete everything.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Ugh, what a pain! It's times like this when you need to go do something non-house related, spend some time away from it and just treat yourself to a nice afternoon in a cafe or coffee shop or something, and relax. Fretting isn't going to get it going any faster. :); 11:53 AM
kitrainia said...: I need to do those things anyway... it feels like I go to work to relax after going crazy all weekend.

But if you check out today's post - all is so good. The meeting went awesome and all my fretting was for nothing... And that's the way I like it.; 5:47 PM

One Sixty

Frustrations

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