This weekend we got down and dirty in our yard, finally attempting to tackle the ‘Back 40’. Technically, this is about a 58’ x 6’ stretch of uncharted territory along the back of our yard, a large part of it formerly occupied by a row of overgrown privet hedges.
We dug out the hedges when we built our fence a couple of years ago—and with so much else on the go, just left it. Its only use has been as a depository for other plants we’ve yanked out of the yard and would like to relocate down the road, like the lilac bushes that we moved from behind the house before we started the addition.

We’ve had welcome discoveries after removing the hedges, like two really lovely peonies that are both thriving now, but mostly, we’ve been met with quackgrass and weeds. Lots of them—and two in particular that I have now made it my mission in life to thoroughly eradicate from my yard.

It’s not that these weeds are new to us, it’s just that they are relentless. And we gave them carte blanche to multiply faster than rabbits. They are both of the creeping variety, so they send out runners and show up wherever they bloody well please. In abundance.

The first unwelcome weed is commonly known as Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens). I have been digging this scourge out of my garden beds for years, and now I have a battlefield of them.
The second seems to be some inbred cousin of Creeping Charlie that we have named Creeping Crap (Crapperrenialus vulgaris). This one’s easier to remove from the garden beds, but is completely taking over my lawn.

So, pitchforks in hand, we are attacking the Back 40 over the next couple of weekends. Our goal is to completely remove every weed and blade of grass. Then, we’re going to cover the bare ground with landscape fabric and hope to heck we never have a repeat performance of this magnitude. Just today, we have about 20 bags of yard waste. And we’re nowhere near being done.
We’ll probably lay a brick path down the centre of this area once we get the growth under control, so I can cultivate the existing garden bed from both sides. What will become of the remaining ground is still up in the air, but I think there’s enough space for both of us to be buried back there.

technorati tags: houseblog, garden, noxious+weeds, renovation

It’s amazing what just throwing a little light on a situation can do.

The Kitchen Triangle gives me a headache every time I step into it. I hate the cupboards, the knobs, the vinyleum (what little is left of it), the countertops, the powder blue paint that someone saw fit to paint the door trim with, the abysmal backplash tiles and the fact it’s cramped and has no window…I could go on, but I’ll spare you.

It’s kind of our last frontier in terms of renovating – lots of great ideas, but no money to execute them. That and the disruption kitchen renos place on your family life have made us gun-shy about taking any major steps in the area where our appliances and inherited cupboards reside.

I like to think we’re just honing our skills for the day when we can afford to really go all out on the kitchen…but I’m probably being delusional. We’ll be doing a band-aid renovation in this area, and I must say we’ve been taking our sweet time about it.

But now, when I feel hopeless about our progress in this room, at least I can look up and see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Since we didn’t really have a better place to store it, we went ahead and installed the light we purchased at The Salvage Shop last Saturday. It looks better than the pigtail that was hanging there before, and definitely brightens up the room (and me).

technorati tags: houseblog, home+renovation, DIY, vintage+lighting, salvage

Learning that I’m not the only naïve home renovator out there who thought they’d save money by purchasing cedar shingles and staining the suckers themselves—instead of opting for the more expensive, ‘factory-finished’ ones—comes as a great relief. I see I’m in good company (no offense intended, M&C).

Reading M&C’s post made me laugh because I’ve been there. Actually, I’m still there—with only a gazillion shingles left to stain.

Like my houseblogger comrades, I figured I could purchase better quality shingles and stain them myself with the same brand used for the pre-finished shingles. Well, two summers and several snapped clothes lines later, it seems my calculations were a bit off. Or at least I was when I hatched this plan.

What you see in the photo (taken last year, I might add) is just a tinted primer coat—applied with a brush on all sides, as the consistency of this solid stain makes for truly wasteful dipping. We’re using Cabot Solid Color stain, which is a premium product used by many wood siding manufacturers like Maibec, and there’s no way I’ll be letting so much as a drop hit the ground. The colour I’ve chosen is Spanish Moss, which is quite dark and will require two coats for coverage (after the primer).

I’m on intimate terms with my shingles now, having spent so much quality time with them, but we’re having serious relationship problems.

My shingles are kind of like that boyfriend who moved into your place without you actually realizing what was happening—until it suddenly dawned on you that every time you turned around, you were tripping over a smelly sports equipment bag or tacky piece of rock memorabilia…or meeting the bottom of your toilet bowl quite unexpectedly in the middle of the night.
But now you were in too deep—he was firmly rooted in your place, and not going anywhere anytime soon.

Just like the boxes of shingles in my garage are not going anywhere soon…until I get motivated to complete what has been the most mind-numbingly dull job I’ve tackled recently.

It’s like, how much more boring could this be?
And the answer is none. None more boring.

technorati tags: houseblog, home+renovation, house+exterior, spinal+tap

What better way to celebrate Earth Day than to reduce, reuse and recycle—and for us, Saturday meant a trip to The Salvage Shop in Toronto.

We’ve frequented this shop for years—always finding something interesting or inspiring, and forever baffled at what prompts people to remove some of these beautiful items from their homes.

Roy, the proprietor, is a pleasure to deal with. He has some wacky stories and can recall the origin of most of the stock in his shop. In addition to salvage sales, he’s a popular source for film and theatrical props, and gets great business through Toronto’s many studios.
Our house is testament to some of the great items he carries—we have lovely French doors with glue chip glass lights separating the mudroom and kitchen in our addition. As well, Roy has antiqued several brass items for us in the past, and can be counted on to find a mate for a particular unique hinge pin or doorknob plate.

Incorporating salvaged finds into your home isn’t always the easiest thing to do, and our recent experience with a French door we’d picked up at The Salvage Shop several months ago is a perfect example. My husband spied the door, made of fir and with a gorgeous entry set, and noted that its measurements matched those of a more modern French door we have separating our home’s front hall and dining room.
Now, any veteran salvage junkie will tell you that when you find the perfect piece, jump on it—because it will likely be gone tomorrow. So, even though we were neck-deep into another project (our addition) at the time, he went ahead and purchased it with the intention of eventually replacing the dining room door with this gem.

It’s relatively straightforward to utilize salvaged doors when you’re building new doorways to accommodate a piece you have on hand—we’ve done this successfully several times—but problems can arise when you try to take a door from an old house and retrofit that into another old house.
Why? Because old houses are never square. And the likelihood that the doorway you plan to ‘a-door-n’ will be not quite square in the exact same way the door’s previous doorway was not quite square is…well, unlikely.
And so, we found ourselves with a beautiful door that would look quite askew if hung as-is, but if we’d tried to square it up, would be about an inch shy of the doorway at one end. Multi-light French doors have a nasty habit of being particularly unforgiving when it comes to looking balanced. Rats.

It was nice of Roy to allow us to return the door—not a lot of places would, especially after that long. What was nicer still (for him, I mean) was that we didn’t have to carry a store credit for very long, because the perfect light for our kitchen was hanging right there beside his head!

This one is very similar to the Rose City pendant light offered through Rejuvenation, and has a 16” shade. Roy had several fittings in various lengths, so we were able to get one just right for the 9” ceiling in our kitchen. Apparently, this particular fixture came out of one of the University of Toronto’s many older campus buildings.

technorati tags: architectural+salvage, houseblog, home+renovation

I’m not easily rendered speechless, but I was a few minutes ago—Salvaged Beauty has received its first little mention in the mainstream media, and from the Washington Post no less!
The Post serves up a great article about my fellow housebloggers down at Nightmare On Elm Street and Home Improvement Ninja, so be sure to check it out—and if you’ve arrived here with your curiosity piqued after reading all about us housebloggers, welcome! I’m one of the new kids in the friendliest neighbourhood on the ‘net.
And, like the busy little homewrecker that I am, I’m off on a trip to the Salvage Shop in Toronto to return a really beautiful old fir door we picked up that, unfortunately, was just a tad too small for the dining room.
Like I always say, it’s the journey…not the aggravation.

technorati tags: houseblog, DIY, home+renovation

An annual event in our town on Easter Sunday is the great Egg Hunt Race, and the kids really look forward to it because everyone’s a winner.

Sponsored by a local chocolatier, this is the 18th year for the event. The downtown’s main street is closed to traffic, and the children are divided into age groups and must race down the street to where coloured, egg-shaped rocks have been placed.

Once the children find a rock with their age written on it, they trade it in for a generous bag of candy—which includes some very nice hand-made chocolates. Certain bags contain a prize that entitles the child to a large chocolate Easter Bunny as well, and our daughter received one of the special bags this year—like she needed any help in the hyperactivity department! You may be asking yourself why my kid isn’t wearing a coat, since it’s only about 12 degrees Celsius…apparently, not only is it not pink, but it slows her down.

We feel really fortunate to live in a community that cares so much for its future. I hope everyone had as wonderful an Easter weekend as we did.

Description of home improvement project author did/did not complete last weekend. Minor rant about incompetent contractor/painter/carpenter or nosy/possibly criminal neighbour. Sentence complaining about lack of time or money.

Paragraph delighting that weather is now warmer, including undertones that cabin fever or spontaneous demolition of own property was a distinct possibility.

Photo of dirt patch alongside contrasting photo of professionally-tended formal English garden in warmer climate zone author hopes it looks like by end of summer.

Paragraph boasting of spouse’s proficiency in electrical/plumbing/house-jacking/faux finishing.
Close-up photo of hole in wall with wires poking out.

Explanatory paragraph stating that motivation for current post was entry on web log author reads regularly as a diversion from preoccupation with own home, which was inspired by blog post garnering bizarre comment thread at web site author had never visited before.

No apologies for fragments or Canadian spellings.
Final sentence with wish that reader finds off-topic post links amusing.

If you’re trying to restore or renovate your home, you probably already know that the PO holds a special place in your memory, living on long after they’ve vacated the premises. The painted over woodwork, lack of footings on additions, multiple flooring layers and walls you can see daylight through are some common territory markings of these faux-paneling aficionados.
“Will they stop at nothing?!!” you whine, as you slide deeper in debt fixing the errors of their ways.
No. They won’t stop. And I know this for a fact because against this homeowner was done the most atrocious indignity a PO has ever committed.

Our PO gave birth in our ceiling. To quintuplets.

Now, while I’m sure she completely considered herself the owner, Roxy Raccoon will be not-so-fondly remembered as the Previous Occupant of our kitchen addition.

About this time last year, we’d just finished insulating and hanging drywall. A few weeks earlier—after our windows arrived and were installed—we finally broke through the former exterior wall to embrace our new space. Then a rather brutal late cold snap hit, and with no heat being supplied to the addition yet, we hung plastic between the original kitchen and the work-in-progress, using a portable heater when we had time to work in there, which wasn’t very often.

You could blame the fact that our presence in that part of the house was generally accompanied by the sound of power tools…but I think we were just clueless twits, because it was into May before we realized that it wasn’t only the heating bills that had hit the ceiling.

But by then, it was already too late. Idiots that we were, we thought it was a squirrel we’d been hearing at first. It was actually our daughter—whose lack of stature gave her a bit of an edge here—who spied the raccoon from the window as its tail end disappeared into the rafters one morning. We left a message with a pest control company before heading off to work, and my husband returned home with some hardware cloth and began to staple it around the roof’s perimeter—until pest control returned our call that evening and mentioned there might be a litter up there. They said they’d be by around five the next evening and would survey the situation—so we left some open space where she seemed to be entering. That night, John and I (wearing sweaters) quietly sat reading in the addition and—surprise, surprise (not really)—heard the mewling of baby raccoons.
The following day, John came home from work armed with a flexible borescope (he works in A/V, so he uses them from time to time), impressing the heck out of the pest control guys. They investigated the space and could see what looked like a nest…but no babies. They told us it was possible the mother had moved them. The plan was for us to try and pinpoint the nest location, then they’d probably have to cut a hole in the new ceiling to retrieve the litter. They left us a couple of live traps.

Did I mention that we have a flat roof above this addition? Did I mention that there was no soffit or fascia installed yet? Did I mention that my backyard was, at this point, now strewn with bits of brand-freaking-new insulation? Once again, John and I spent the night fuming in the unfinished addition, trying to guess where the nest was. At one point in the wee hours, we were sure we’d figured it out. But then, we heard a sound somewhere else…then somewhere else.

A couple of days later I was at the side door, rummaging in my purse for keys, and happened to glance upwards. Five cute little buggers were staring down at me, and they didn’t look as small as I’d guessed. No wonder we heard them everywhere—our painstaking work was being used as a ‘coon kindergym. Great.

We were now waging a humane war, knowing that cutting holes in the ceiling would be futile. We tried everything—we shoved lights and an ultrasonic mouse repeller up into the space…we collected hair and pushed it in (hey, it works on deer)...we even rigged a few cheap speakers up and tried to blast them out with various tone frequencies, electronica and pulsating dance crap that tries to pass as music—but it became really annoying…to us, I mean.

A raccoon with kits can be quite aggressive, and this furry fertility goddess definitely was. With a four year-old running around the yard at the time, we didn’t want to chance a confrontation—and we’d had a couple of close calls by this point.

As our last resort, we tried the supreme raccoon Piss-Off, filling a large live trap with a delectable smorgasbord and placing it against the exterior wall near where she gained access. In a few hours, not only was she trapped, but we had her where she could easily see her offspring…and they could see her. Now, we just needed to wait. Fortunately, the place we’d located the trap didn’t get much direct sunlight throughout the day, and we’d ensured that there was more than an adequate amount of food and water (which was topped up several times). We also set another trap up beside the mother’s, in case any of her young ones got the courage to venture down to her.
The plan was not without its downside—which we realized right away when the raccoon began clawing at the house wrap—but we resisted moving the trap and took turns being sentinels at the window to keep an eye on things. It was admittedly a bit difficult to watch how agitated the raccoon was at her present situation, but we waited it out, not sleeping all night.
The next afternoon, we released her and she high-tailed it out of our yard like a shot. At some point that day, she returned and removed her kits, but we never saw her again.

We had won. Kind of.

What R-value remains up there in the addition…will remain a mystery. We still don’t have soffit or fascia installed, but at least any droppings left will have had lots of time to decompose in a well-ventilated space. We’ve never smelled anything, even at the height of summer, and hear raccoons are apparently very clean when it comes to their nesting area.

I’m hoping that’s true, because I’ll be leaving whatever mess is up there for the FO (Future Owner) to discover.

* no animals were harmed or relocated during these events, just strongly encouraged to find themselves another place using humane methods.

technorati tags: Home+renovation, houseblog

Another weekend, another few loads of laundry! Most people don’t get too excited about doing this, but having been without my washer and dryer for awhile last month, it’s sure been nice to fire them up again in their new location in the mudroom addition. We haven’t completed this part of the house by a long shot, but it’s in a usable state.

Future plans for this area will include some wall-mounted cabinets above the washer/dryer—I haven’t decided whether to go with white or stained wood cabinetry at this point, but whatever we choose will also dictate the cabinetry on the other side of the room, which will be coat storage and possibly a broom closet.

We also plan to install countertop above the appliances that will stretch from wall to wall and will include a utility sink. We found the perfect model to fit the space through a plumbing supply house that ‘Fearless Bob’ turned us on to. It’s compact (17”) and deep, and manufactured from a material called Durastone.
The same company (Mustee) made the washing machine pan which we decided to install beneath the washer. This provides extra insurance in the event the machine ever floods, containing the water while allowing it to drain away. Since we have oak flooring within a couple of feet of the washer on two sides (starting on the other side of the walls) it was definitely worth the price (about $150 Cdn).

Two Sundays ago, we ran the electrical for the dryer, pulling the wire from the old location out of the walls and thru the floor joists right back to the panel; and completely replacing that with a direct run of new wire leading to the designated laundry location in the mudroom addition. There was a lot of swearing (my husband banging his head while he ran wire through “the scary place“) and fatigued arms (mine, from holding a giant mag light above my head—for what seemed like an eternity at the time—while John fiddled in the pitch black of our cellar to connect everything at our awkwardly-placed electrical panel). There were even looks that could kill being exchanged. How we’ve managed to stay married is truly baffling at times.

After installing some flexible dryer duct and screwing on a couple of outlet plates (we used electrical outlet insulators behind the plates to minimize drafts), we were ready to move the dryer in and hook it all up.

Here’s to sorting socks, folding clothes and catching up on everybody’s dirty laundry!

Now that it’s warm enough to venture outside with a camera, I thought it was about time to show this blog’s readers what the Salvaged Beauty looks like. I snapped this photo last week after raking up an awful lot of crap off the front lawn; since then, I even got John to take down the Xmas lights you see in the photo.

To the best of our knowledge, the house was built around 1915 by a member of the Carnegie family (a prominent Scottish family in the Port Perry area that operated both flour and lumber mills here at the turn of the last century).
I suppose the style of house is closest to what many of you would call a Foursquare, although I’d never heard of that term until recent years (perhaps it’s not used within Canada much). I have noticed that the floor plan of our house has many similarities to certain Sears and Alladin kit home models, and I would guess that many homebuilders of that time period (especially if well-connected to a planing mill) were influenced by the mail-order houses.

Since we purchased this money pit in 2001, we haven’t made any significant changes to the front of the house, although it is desperately crying out for some TLC. What this photo doesn’t convey is the punky porch planking (exacerbated by the fact it had been covered with indoor/outdoor carpeting) and failing paint on the porch columns and railings. You’ll also notice that the porch is missing the lattice on the bottom, which we removed last summer while working on the brick porch pier at the left of the photo. We plan to make up new lattice, as what we removed was in pretty sad shape. One other item on my lengthy ‘honey-do’ list is getting rid of the damned television antennae, which serves no purpose except to offer welcoming easy access to any critter interested in chewing through our roof’s soffit and fascia. It doesn’t surprise me that no one is willing to do this job…but the scrap metal is free for the taking.

We’ve already had to remove a lot of foundation plantings that had become too overgrown and unfortunately, the future of almost every bit of plant life you see in the photo is up for debate. We hope to do more porch work this summer, so I doubt we’ll be planting anything new for some time yet.

Last summer, we ripped out two large cedars that flanked the porch (you can see these in the photo at the right, taken about the time we purchased the house). One’s root system had already displaced a porch pier, and it had to be completely dug up and the pier rebuilt. We used the original bricks to rebuild the pier. The stump of the cedar at the right of the photo remains, because the one planting I refuse to disturb is the beautiful Peegee hydrangea (H. paniculata grandiflora), which is a profusion of white blooms at the end of summer, changing first to green and later, to rich rose and gold tones. It’s a real stunner.

Looking at the front of my house, so bare at this time of year, it almost seems like we’ve taken a step backwards in terms of its curb appeal…but I suppose that no amount of flowers and foliage will remedy the multitude of problems that truly need to be addressed.

technorati tags: curb+appeal, renovation, house+exteriors, landscaping