Sunday, May 19, 2013

The Bend: Outside

Now that the weather has begun to dry up a little and we don't have to wear our muck boots everywhere we walk (though we do keep them handy in the back of the swagger wagon, just in case), I took some time to take a few pictures outside last week.  It was almost at sunset on a cloudy day so the lighting isn't very good.  But here are a few of the outside details.

This is that oak tree I mentioned in an earlier post.  Believe it or not, I can't seem to back off far enough from it to get it all in one picture.  This picture makes it look smaller than it is. But this is the view of it from the back yard of the house.
This is a closer-up of the outhouse.  The door has come off and is  on the ground in front.  The white box inside is the potty seat, with two holes.  Maybe that was for the ladies who never want to go alone.  :)

This is the back of the house.  It is very shady because it has entirely too many Sweet Gum trees in the yard.  The plan is to have all of the Sweet Gums cut down (anyone need any firewood?) and just leave the oaks and a few pines. Hopefully that will bring some sunshine in so we don't have green slime growing on the back of the house.

The old pump house.  I haven't ventured in here yet to see if the pump, etc. are still there. Kenneth has tentative plans to use it to store his beekeeping equipment.  Since there will be no room in the house, I think that's a swell idea.

This bloomed up in the middle of the yard a few weeks ago.  Mimi has identified it as an Amaryllis.  I have identified it as gorgeous.

Last week Papaw (Kenneth's dad) made the kids a tire swing and brought it up to hang from one of the oak branches.  It was an instant hit.  With kids and mom too.  Every yard needs a good tire swing, and this one's a winner.

Friday, May 17, 2013

The Bend: Color Wonder

I don't know who invented paint, but they were brilliant.  It is hard to believe such a simple thing can make such a huge difference.  For our paint colors, we chose a pallet in the HGTV line at Sherwin Williams.  The colors are Outerbanks, Copen Blue, White Raisin, and Creamy White.  We are so happy with how they turned out and the great (and FAST!) job the painters did.  Good work, guys!
Here is the living room painted with Outer banks.  Also, the knew ceiling fan installed by electricians Kenny and Kenneth Thomas.

Kitchen in Copen Blue with track lighting from Lowes.

The original kitchen did not have a dishwasher (gasp!) so we had to take out more cabinets to make room for one there beside the sink.  Where that little short water heater and the breaker box were, Buddy built me broom closet. They also took down the board that ran between the upper cabinets to let in more light from that window. 

They did a good job reusing and recycling the cabinetry.  This wall didn't have any lower cabinets, just the uppers that were removed. So I'm not sure where those used to be, but now they are beside where the range will be.

Yay, Pantry!!

This is the laundry room. The same laundry room that had the asbestos siding and the mildewy ceiling.  When they took down the asbestos siding, this awesome tongue-and-groove siding was behind it.

Washer/dryer hookups.

The hallway painted Outerbanks.  That hole in the ceiling is the intake for the AC system. No more window units and space heaters.  (I'm going to miss the heaters---kind of hard to cozy up to a ceiling vent).

The color in this picture looks really funny, but it's the only picture I have of the bathroom at this stage, so I'm posting it anyway.

New light fixtrures.

This is the hall bedroom with it's Outerbanks paint and ceiling fan. I apologize for not being an expert photographer.  These are all snapped with my iPhone and sometimes the lighting leaves much to be desired.  

Back bedroom.  At this point the floors had been sanded and sealed, but not completely finished.  That will wait until most of the other work is done.

Master Bedroom in Outerbanks.

Hallway looking back towards the living room.
Thanks for looking!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

The Bend: Begin Again


 Now that all the walls were down and our little house had been stripped down to its bare bones, we were able to start fresh.  I think that our sad story was really a blessing in disguise, because now the walls and ceilings are so straight and fresh and new.  Our contractor for this project is Kane Overstreet Construction.  The brawn and unbelievable talents (and patience) of his crew, especially master carpenter Buddy, are amazing.  Whenever I say, "we did" in this post, what I mean is "they did". And they have done an awesome, awesome job.


We were pleased with the decision to take out half the wall between the living room and kitchen.  It was an adventure finding appliances that would fit and our dear contractors have been so patient through our many decisions and re-decisions.  They are storing up crowns in heaven.

One decision was where to put the fridge.  The original place was on that small wall between the pantry (left) and laundry room (right).  But I didn't want the refrigerator to be stuck out into the already small kitchen.  So the second place was in that corner between the laundry room and cabinets, where the old water heater used to be.  But that would have required a New-Zealand made counter-depth refrigerator which was the ONLY one that was shallow enough and narrow enough to fit in that space. And it cost about half a zillion dollars.  The third option was in the corner cater-cornered (is that redundant?) to option 2.  But seeing as how Kenneth had moved the electrical and Carpenter Buddy had moved the ice-maker plumbing from option 1 to option 2 and back to option 1, AND because Buddy had taken down the upper cabinets to make room for a refrigerator and put them back up when we decided against option 2, I decided I better nix option 3.  So we are back to option 1, original location between the laundry and pantry.  

Another do-over was the half-wall.  The first height of the half-wall was about 4 inches lower than it is now.  We went to pick out appliances and no-one makes electric ranges with the knobs not on a really high thingy in the back.  So the oven would have come up above the wall height, so Buddy put the four inches back on top so we wouldn't have to special-order a range.

Here's Kenneth pulling up the rest of the yucky kitchen tile.  Since so many cabinets were torn down when the half-wall was made in the kitchen, I am so thankful for this little odd-closet-turned-cool-pantry.

Out with the old potty and sink, in with new wainscoting.

New walls and ceiling.

New walls and ceiling.

New closet walls and shelf.  Not sure where Kenneth will keep his clothes.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Landscaping Before & After: Spring Photos

I totally missed taking pictures when the lavender azaleas and dogwoods were blooming, but here are some from this week of the other plants which have leafed out since the winter.
Hosta's on the North side of the house.

When these hydrangeas bloom I'll post pictures again.

White Encore Azaleas between the deck and cart house.


Variegated Liriope, Little Gem Magnolia, and Loropetalum.


The muscadines are leafing out.  I wonder if we'll have fruit this year. ??


Strawberries and blueberries.

Plum and Nectarine trees. These do have little bitty fruits on them. :)

Behind the cart house and the apple trees.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

The Bend: A sad story

So they wired and they sweated and they spackled and they painted, until one day some bad old robbers decided to break in and steal a lot of hard work.

Sad, but true.  Kenneth and Papaw and Uncle Rob and Kenneth's apprentice Stephen worked six weeks getting the house completely rewired and up to code and were making quite a bit of progress.  Climbing into the dusty old attic, fishing wires through the walls, making sure all of the breakers were hooked up correctly.  Then one day, I met Kenneth out at The Bend to check out all the work they'd been doing.  We walked in and noticed the back door was open.  Then we noticed the new wire to the oven was gone.  Then we noticed the new wire to the fan was gone. Then we noticed the wires in the ceiling were gone.  

Remember this picture?

See all those nice yellow wires coming out of the breaker box?  Yep, they were gone. Every one of them.  There was even a big hole in the living room ceiling where the perp's foot came through while he was stealing all of their hard work.

So to save time and, believe it or not, money, we decided the best thing to do would be to rip down all of the old sheetrock and ceiling and just start over. That way the wires could be properly stapled in, the walls could be well insulated, and the time-consuming task of fishing the wires down through the walls could be finished rather quickly.  Drywall is cheaper than time. 

So down came the walls.  Down came the ceilings.

Living room looking through to the back bedrooms.  Only the lonely closet doors were left.



Mounds of itchy insulation covered the floor and filled dozens of garbage bags.

Looking into the kitchen from the living room.
Once we were down to the bare bones of the house, we decided to look around and see if there were any structural changes that we would like to make.  So we decided it would really open up the main living areas if we took down half of the wall between the living room and kitchen. Even though it would take away a good bit of precious upper cabinet space, we decided to go for it.  So down came the cabinets, the door to the kitchen, and the upper half of the wall in the above photo.

All in all, though exceeding aggravating and time consuming, we made lemonade out of lemons, and are thankful that we have not had anymore uninvited guests.




Monday, May 6, 2013

The Bend: Before the Renovation


Today I'm posting a few pictures of the interior of the house taken shortly after we bought it, but after we had done a little bit of demo work just to see exactly what we would be dealing with.  The house is in good structural condition as far as we can tell.  So the initial plan was to just paint it, clean up the floors, replace some appliances in the kitchen, and fix up the bathroom.  


This is the living room looking out the east-facing windows.  


The one (indoor) bathroom.
This was taken after we had taken down the bathtub surround thing.
This bathroom was meant to just have tub, so we have to figure out what to do
about the window being partway into the shower.

Living room looking out the window on the front of the house.
One surprise we were happy about was the heart pine floors in pretty good condition.

Back bedroom.
The house being small and old had been heated by propane space heaters and cooled by window units and ceiling fans which we had been removed by the time this picture was taken.

Bedroom Number Two.

Hallway leading to the three bedrooms.


Utility room off the kitchen. Kenneth and his dad, the world's best electrician, had begun to rewire the house and bring it up to code. More on that later.

Kitchen.


For whatever reason, the kitchen gave the creeps more than any other room.  I think it was the smell. It brought back suppressed memories from my (otherwise quite pleasant) childhood of cleaning out my dear dad's rental properties in low-income neighborhoods.  Those memories had been suppressed for a reason, but I've apparently not forgotten the odor. Ewww.


I was so despondent about this kitchen and the fact that I might one day be cooking and eating in it that I almost had a nervous breakdown when Kenneth and his sweet mom were attempting to clean it up a little bit.  Kenneth assured me it was just so he wouldn't get the cooties while they were working on the house. My position was that we were going to haul everything out to the dump anyway, so I was terrorized at any attempts to clean it in case he may decide to keep something.  As it turns out, dear Kenneth and his strapping friend Brian were in the process of hauling this refrigerator to the dump when it flew out of the back of the truck and ended up in pieces in the middle of the highway.
Good riddance.


The back door leading out to the outhouse.  One of my favorite things about this place is that enormous oak tree you can see on the other side of the house there.  It would make a tree hugger out of me.  If someone suggests it needs to come down, you will find me camped out in its branches, hanging on for dear life. I'd move the house before I'd cut the tree.