House and Home

House Hunting

Sunday we looked at two houses. The first we’ve eliminated from the equation; it was a 802 N. Highland in Cottage Homes. I might throw up the pictures of it later, because we’ve ruled it out. It was a cute little cottage, but was too much work to update the interior.

The second house we saw was pretty amazing. It has pretty much everything we have on our needs list, and what’s on our “wants” list also. The drawbacks are:

  1. Looks like the roof and gutters need work
  2. The bedrooms are oddly configured and might be awkward for our living needs (the lots of clothes issue)
  3. It’s just outside our price range (although we’re pre-approved for it)
  4. Its only the third house we’ve seen
  5. We’d have to jump on it pretty quickly, because it’s desirable, so it would be a sudden move.

Our realtor is nervous about the house because it’s unusual for someone to settle on a house this quickly — and I freely admit I fall in love with houses way too easily. So we’re looking at more stuff.

But there are some things about this house that really make my heart sing:

  1. it’s in a quiet, low crime downtown neighborhood I really want to live in. (Most else we’ve pulled up on Mibor is in Irvington. Which is cool — but you can’t get to Irvington from anywhere.)
  2. The laundry room is upstairs on the second floor, near the bedrooms (sheer decadent heaven!)
  3. The yard is nice and large for dogs to run around in.
  4. It’s Victorian, and looks it inside.
  5. The front porch is huge!
  6. Oh, yeah, this is funny: It has a murphy bed

I know I shouldn’t be attached to this house, and that we should look at more.

Continue ReadingHouse Hunting

house hunting ideas

Some notes we’re making about hunting for a new house, that will help us narrow down our search and also help our realtor (yes we have a great realtor) find properties to suggest to us.

Things about us
we have lots of clothes
we have lots of books
we have 1 dog & 4 cats
we have 3 cars
we recycle everything (and need to store recycling)
we both need office space
we both have craft projects/board games (table space separate from dining)
we like interesting architecture
we like having friends visit, and occasionally having parties

Needs
3 or 4 bedrooms – (space for offices, guests, craft room)
at least 1 and 1/2 bathrooms (ours and room for guests)
shower – bigger than a stall
8’6″ ceilings – for bookcases
2 car garage or better
fenced in backyard for Spike (or ability to easily fence in)
kitchen with lots of storage and easy to cook in
good mechanicals
neighborhood we can walk around in and enjoy
reasonable commute to work for both of us
outdoor living space – front porch or patio area where we can entertain, and yard where we can garden/grow raspberries
little to no renovation or improvements necessary
quiet street without lots of traffic & noise
lots of light – large windows, southern exposure
interior house style that’s artistic and interesting
ability to have friends park nearby when they come to visit

Wants
walk-in closets and lots of room for clothes
pantry area for food storage and to hide recycling collection
wood floors!!
recent updates to plumbing, heating, AC
space to display VW collectibles
ability to install solar panels someday
medium-sized yard (decent distance from neighbors)
exterior house style that’s artistic and interesting
attached garage
paved driveway
Herron-Morton neighborhood/downtown neighborhood
Broad Ripple/Monon area?? Meridian-Kessler? Butler-Tarkington? Rocky Ripple?

Dreams
enviro-friendly house (heating, efficient appliances, solar panels)
gazebo (with Rolf)
room for kitty jungle gym

Continue Readinghouse hunting ideas

Painting the Kitchen

We’ve spent our three-day weekend painting the kitchen, so I’ve been away from the internets. There’s still a lot of touch-up work to do, but the bulk of the work is finished. My kitchen was pretty fugly before, so the new paint is a serious improvement. The cabinets had been painted a dark green color, and the walls and ceiling and trim were a dingy off-white that always looked dirty even after everything was scrubbed and clean.

Kitchen Painting

Now the cabinets and ceiling and trim work are bright white, and the walls are “spring squash” which is a bright yellow-orange color that looks really sunny and happy. I’m really pleased with how it’s come out; the room looks much bigger and cleaner. There are still some other improvements I’d like to do; I want to mount a light under the cabinets so I can see my food while I’m preparing it. (As Lisa did in her kitchen) and I want to replace the overhead light with the clean, simple, unobtrusive ceiling fan I bought ages ago. I also want to replace the backsplash behind the stove with a clean aluminum panel. The ones that want to get the best paint can have a peek here to get a great finish.

Kitchen Painting

Also, my friend Kathy came over and cut out the extra pipes that ran up the wall in the corner to the now non-existent kitchen that used to be upstairs. I’ll still have to repair the drywall in the corner, but that’s a future project.

The kitchen really needs to be completely ripped out and done over. The floor is bad, there’s very little cabinet or counter space, and the sink is in a really poor spot. The drywall in the whole room needs a makeover. But none of that is realistic right now, so the simple improvements will at least make a grungy room tolerable and cheery.

Continue ReadingPainting the Kitchen

Weekend Update 2005-10-24

The end of my vacation went out with a bang. On Saturday, we went up to Chicago to celebrate my friend Amy’s birthday by seeing the musical Wicked at the beautiful Ford Oriental Theatre. Then we had dinner and Rainforest Cafe and drove home. Sunday my friend Kathy came over and helped Stephanie and I do a bunch of activities around the house. We put stuff in storage for the winter, winterized some of the house, and did a massive clean-up of the attic by gathering up old insulation and putting down spanking new stuff. Kathy has a lot of energy; she got a ton of stuff done. Stephanie carried 15 trash bags of old insulation down to the patio. We had a small glitch when Kathy put her foot through the office ceiling, (d’oh!) but shit happens. We’ll have to tackle that project later.
I feel alot better about the vacation now; I got a ton of stuff done. (With lots of help).

Continue ReadingWeekend Update 2005-10-24

Working on Fireplace Tiles

For the past couple days, I’ve been working on stripping the paint and crap off the fireplace tiles and fireplace surround in my living room. See my flickr photo set for pictures of the project.

My Fireplace

My dad, as a Christmas present for me, crafted the fireplace mantel you see in the pictures. He found two old fireplace mantels that matched, stripped and customized the size of them to make one mantel that fit my fireplace, and then finished it and came by this week (with my stepmom Carol) to install the mantel. So I’ve been working all week on getting the paint stripped off the metal surround and ceramic tiles.

2165 N. Pennsylvania - Walkthroughs

At some point, one of the previous tenants of the house painted the surround, and used fleckstone paint on the tiles to cover them up. If you look at the pictures further up the page, you can see some of their handiwork. Ah, fleckstone paint. Weren’t the 80s wonderful?

I have some more pictures to upload to this page at some point, because I’ve uncovered more of the tile and the patterns in it. Also, the metal surround has a copper coat over the steel that will shine up nicely once I get the paint out of all the little nooks and crannies.

antique fireplace mantel custom fitted for original fireplace
Continue ReadingWorking on Fireplace Tiles

Neighbors Tore Up My Backyard & Patio

If you recall last year in mid-September, I took a week off work and put in a new patio and walkway in my backyard, with a great deal of help from my friend Kathy and a lot of hard work myself. I dug out the pit for the walkway and laid the pavers for it by myself, and it was one of the most difficult (and rewarding) things I’ve ever done.

Turns out it didn’t even last a year.

I came home this evening and found this:

[edit needed: update photos from 2005-08-31]

The neighbor’s contractor is building a garage, and he decided to drive his backhoe through and across my backyard (which was made from one of the unique types of residential hardscaping) while digging the pit for the garage. The pavers are now uneven, and scraped up where he dragged his blade across them, and the grass I’ve been cultivating for 3 years is completely gone — he took out half of my lawn. I can’t imagine how he plans to explain that to me — there’s no way in the world that he could justify this, at all. He had no permission whatsoever to be on my property, and he drove halfway across it.

Needless to say, I’m furious and upset. I don’t know the name of the contractor yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll be posting it here, and on Angie’s List and the Better Business Bureau.

I think the thing that upsets me most about this is that I’m not strong enough to fix this. I can’t do what I was able to do last year; I can’t pick up these pavers anymore. Just having the garage sale was way over-doing it for me, especially moving and carrying the stuff in and out of the house. There’s no way I can fix up this problem. I can’t even keep the front yard weeded and in order, because I’m not strong enough to pull some of the weeds.

UPDATE: I believe the contractor’s name is:

This is the info from contractor’s permit site from Indianapolis:
Pro Built Inc.
Bob Abbott
11585 E. 241 St
Cicero, IN
317-984-8280

This is what Angie’s List says:
Pro Built Garage Co.
PO BOX 598
CICERO, IN 46034
Phone: (800) 878-2845

Contact’s Name:
BOB ABBOTT

According to Angies List: ALSO KNOWN AS “ABBOTT’S PRO BUILDING SERVICE INC.”

Continue ReadingNeighbors Tore Up My Backyard & Patio

Choosing the right cookware

Stephanie and I have had several discussions lately about cookware, including one with her dad, who’s an engineer and who has tried cookware made from several different materials. Make Magazine posted this interesting article on cookware materials from an engineering perspective.
About halfway down the page are charts comparing the various materials. I didn’t have a chance to read through the comments.
I recently replaced my teflon-coated fry pan with a copper-bottom stainless steel one. I was worried about the scratches on the teflon coating.

Continue ReadingChoosing the right cookware

Refurbishing an Old Gas Grill

Master Flame 8000

Having just finished (or almost finished) this task, I’m infinitely qualified to give advice on the subject. So here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get the most out of an old gas grill:

1. Throw the old gas grill in the back of your truck.
2. Drive to the local landfill.
3. Give the attendant money to take the grill.
4. Drive to the store and buy a brand new gas grill.
5. Cook.

Trust me, you’ll spend far less money and HOURS less time this way, than if you do what I stupidly did and take the old one apart and repair it.

Don’t let my friends or family members fool you into trying to do it yourself, no matter how hard they try.

“It’s easy!” they say. “Just buy replacement parts and put them in!” They’re liars. I love them, but they’re god-damned liars, every one.

In the summer of 2003, I bought a burner to replace the old one. I bought the wrong size, of course, so I had to take it back and get a different size. I managed to remember to do that in the spring of 2004. I opened the burner and read the instructions. They were so complex that I didn’t bother to try to figure them out.

Then I realized that I also needed the ignition switch and grates, too. So the grill sat for another season until spring of 2005. I went to 4 different stores to find the ignition switch.

Replacing the burner was a BITCH. I’m not kidding. Taking the old one out almost kicked my ass and took 3 hours. And putting the new one in took me 4 hours, and the help of my friend Kathy to force the burner into place after I assembled it. The assembly was difficult because it was customizable for several different grills, and I had to measure and figure out which assembly went with mine, and follow unusable instructions to do it. It took an hour to replace the ignition switch, for the same reason.

I also had to replace the rock grate and the food grate. I went Target, Menards, Lowes, Kmart, and WalMart before I found the right size. I bought and returned 3 grates that I thought were right (yes, I measured) before I found the ones I needed. I found the rock grate at Walmart, and the food grate at Menards. Stephanie also found new grill knobs at Menards.

After all the running around, I spent about $80 on replacement parts for the old grill, and about 12 hours either buying parts, measuring the grill, or putting stuff in. (For less than $100, I could have had a new gas grill, and 3 years sooner.) Finally, I was done. Finally, we could eat. Maybe.

Today, I went to replace the empty propane tank with a full one. I went to a gas station nearby that carries them, but the lady behind the counter had no idea how to trade mine out. So I went to 7 other gas stations downtown. No propane. Maybe tomorrow I’ll finally be able to grill out.

Continue ReadingRefurbishing an Old Gas Grill

Weekend Update 2005-07-11

We received a company e-mail this morning to tell us that one of our company’s employees from their London offices has been missing since Thursday’s attack. That’s very distressing news. I was discussing in an e-mail with my sister, who lives with her husband in a town outside London, the terrorist’s choice of targets. They’re incensed at the attack on the double-decker bus because it’s such an iconic symbol of London. Which made me think about the World Trade Center — they wanted that target so badly, they attacked it twice; once from below and once from above. If they were truly trying to attack our freedom, they would have blown up the Statue of Liberty, but they went after the twin towers. I’ll bet money Bush has never really sat down and thought about that, and why. Because I think it says a lot about what bin Laden is really after.
Stephanie and I went to Kathy’s softball game on Friday. Saturday we did some reading (we’re both re-reading the current Harry Potter books) and some work around both our houses. I had two birds in the house on Saturday morning, which was fun for the three cats, but not so much for me. I think they came in through a hole in a screen in the spare bedroom, so I fixed the screen.
On Sunday, Kathy came over and started breaking down the concrete stairs beside my house. I worked on replacing the burner and igniter for my gas grill, and on painting the lawn furniture that Amy gave me. I also talked to a gutter guy about giving me estimates on getting my gutters fixed on the front corner of my house above the front door. I’ll have to see how much they are.

Continue ReadingWeekend Update 2005-07-11