Warning: The following post contains images that will horrify you. Readers are likely to experience nausea, vomiting, uncontrollable weeping and outrage at what they are about to see. Salvaged Beauty takes no responsibility for your weak stomach or anger-management issues, and advises that you proceed with discretion…

Sick is the only way to describe how I feel now whenever I head into Toronto via Kingston Rd. in Scarborough. I know this stretch of road pretty well, having traveled along it countless times when I was much younger, on my way to and from dancing classes.

The red bungalow you see in this photo spoke to me even then—long before I knew or cared about architectural styles and craftsman design. It was just my favourite house, and someday when I was bigger I was going to live in a house just like it.
That was back in the ‘70s, when this home was on the outer perimeter of the suburb of Scarborough. At that time, its neighbouring properties were other homes, all with similarly large lots of almost an acre. But this one was special—its style was quite different from all the others. I thought it looked like a giant gingerbread house, a chalet in Switzerland, or somewhere Goldilocks might have lived if fairy tales were real. The gardens were lush, and in those days there was a forest of mature pines behind this stretch of suburbia.

In 2001, my husband and I decided to search for a new home, and were already fans of the arts and crafts movement. John, who commutes to the city daily, kept telling me about this gorgeous bungalow that was for sale, and borrowed my camera one day to take photos—even though we had no intention of moving closer to Toronto. I laughed when I saw the pictures, since I knew this home well. Priced at over a million dollars, there was no way we could even entertain thoughts of owning it—but we wondered who would buy it, since that stretch of road was now a wasteland of deteriorating strip malls, gas stations and used car lots, and every other single-family dwelling that once stood nearby was razed long ago.

The charming red house was eventually purchased by a developer and rented out to a tenant, and thus began its quick descent into the annals of bungalow perversion.

Ironically, its first and last incarnation post-sale was as a religious temple…a religion whose followers were definitely guilty of having God-awful taste in decorating. What they did to the exterior of this house is deeply…sinful.
Believe it or not, now that the house is abandoned once again, it actually looks much better than it did a year ago – the tacky plastic devotional statues, religious posters and garishly-coloured signage which cluttered the property are gone—as is a great deal of garbage.

I took these photos on Tuesday as we drove by on our way to Niagara Falls (via Toronto). Honestly, I felt like I shouldn’t even be photographing this building in its present state. It seemed pitiful and almost shameful, and I wonder if that’s what taking a photo of a victim of abuse or tragedy must be like for the photographer. You can document the injustice, but in doing so, how can you not help but feel like you’ve just violated them further?

I suppose the end is truly near for my beloved red bungalow. She was unique – a house that was once one of the most admired and well-tended in the neighbourhood. The home of my dreams.
Yet, even in her ravaged state she stands defiant—those strong, graceful lines softening her vulgar makeup…she’s still beautiful in her last hours.

technorati tags: houseblog, remuddling, craftsman+bungalow, home+renovation+nightmares

About 4:30 this morning, I awoke with a sudden, raging need to pee.
Still in a sleep-induced haze, I quickly realized that trickling sound wasn’t subsiding.
It’s that time of the month again.

If you’re puzzled as to why I haven’t posted lately, you need only look to the skies and the answer will become perfectly clear…kind of like gentle drops of rain falling from the sky upon your brow…
...your floor

I hate rain. I hate my house. I really hate my roof. And let me just say that the timing is impeccable once again, since I have yet to enjoy a long weekend since I moved into this God-forsaken place. I’ll bet it’ll be real easy to get help over the holidays.

I’ve sunk so much money into this problem over the past month that the urge to just strike a match to this place is almost overwhelming.
But I’m sure the house is far too wet for that to be effective, and my daughter probably shouldn’t see her mommy dancing around a blazing house laughing hysterically until the nice men take her away.

I could say a few choice words right now…but it would just be hopeless. You all know what those words are anyway…

I better go and empty the buckets…and I really need to pee again.

technorati tags: houseblog, DIY, hopeless+renovation+attempts

Leakage, as you might be aware, is a woman’s WORST enemy. Procter & Gamble have built an empire from the manufacture of products that purport to prevent leakage. But Kotex and Always have yet to come out with something that works on ROOFS.

What I need right now is some serious leakage protection…like a Really, Really, Really-Maxi Maxi Pad. Big enough to sop up the entire sky on those ‘heavy days’.

Believe me, PMS has nothing on what I’m feeling now. My roof is leaking. There is a bucket on my poor mother-in-law’s bed (as well as in three other places). I have slit the ceiling in her bedsitting room in several spots with an xacto-blade so the water would run out instead of making huge bubbles in the drywall. My husband is going to kill me when he gets home from work.
Nine years and two days of marriage—will this leak spell the end for us?

Oh, and it gets even better. I’ve been using a turkey baster to suction the water off the roof.

Now, before you spit out your drink laughing hysterically, let me just say that I had to quickly improvise, and son-of-a-gun, it actually seems to work pretty good, because the water is too shallow for a cup to be of any use up there.

And I’m not using just any old turkey baster—this is my special Mackie turkey baster, which I picked up at a NAMM Convention in Anaheim about 10 or so years ago. Mackie is a company that makes mixing boards and other pro audio gear.
Usually, trade show swag is useless. But not today…

The guys who are working on our patio are going to have some good stories when they get home tonight—telling their friends all about the crazy lady on her roof with a turkey baster.
Actually, they were probably feeling a bit of pity for me as I ranted about the yard, screaming repetitive expletives and raving on about how it figures this would happen on a long weekend…
...and how it figures that it would be right when we’ve parted with any extra money we might have had to get it fixed…
... and how it figures it waited until the @#$%^ oak floor was in before unleashing its fury upon me.
One of them said they should take a picture (of me on the roof), and since I haven’t posted any photos of myself here yet, I let him have my camera. Here’s me with my trusty turkey baster:

technorati tags: houseblog, DIY, roofing, leaking+roof, desperate+housewife

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

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

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

I’ve noticed some recent discussion among the housebloggers pertaining to children—and more specifically, how those of us who have them manage to get any home renovation work done.
Some of you are new parents and understandably nervous and worried about how your activities will impact your young child; and others are maybe considering… well, let’s just say it must be Spring.

I’m certainly no expert on the subject of parenting. But I can tell you that if there’s one thing any kid loves, it’s a disaster area. I mean, c’mon—just go into any child’s room and you’ll see firsthand I speak the truth. Kids thrive on destruction, even at an early age. What’s the best thing about blocks? Why, the fact you can knock them down, of course!
Seeing the processes involved with change is great early education—maybe that’s why Bob the Builder is so popular with youngsters—so why not be the star in your child’s development?
This is obviously not giving you carte blanche to go on stripping lead paint or doing asbestos abatement with a child in the house, but I think new parents can be slightly paranoid at first about continuing with home improvement projects. Keep the projects within reason, your tools and harmful substances locked up and areas of potential danger off limits to young children for sure—but remember, that same innocent little angel is going to be eating bugs, dirt and far more unpleasant things in less than 10 months time.

Our daughter Deirdre was introduced to gonzo-style home renovating from a very early age. In this photo, taken when she was a year old, you can see that she’s being properly shielded from the harmful effects of viewing abhorrently bad kitchen wallpaper by wearing safety glasses.

Watching daddy saw pieces of wood or mommy paint a colour on the wall is far more interesting than any children’s show going; you might also be surprised to learn that the sound of certain power tools (at a reasonable decibel level) can be more effective in lulling a child to sleep than Baby Mozart. And a house under renovation, when viewed through the eyes of a child, is as filled with wonder as any amusement park.

I guess what I’m saying is don’t be afraid to take off the kid gloves and put on your work gloves.

technorati tags: home+improvement, houseblog, DIY, renovation,

Thanks to that - huge – geek over at Bungalow Dreams, I’ve been inspired to dive into the depths of hell and have managed to surface with some flaming ‘blog bling’.

I should preface this by saying that while I think I have a fairly decent eye for design, my only experience in formally learning anything to do with computer language was back in high school. That memory is pretty vague, since we learned Fortran and Cobol (long forgotten)...and used punch cards.
HTML wasn’t too hard to grasp in the beginning, because the whole ‘nested code’ thing was very much how I remember having to format word processing documents back in the days of WordStar. Then they had to go and complicate everything. Yep, I probably should be reaching for the Nice ‘N’ Easy now, but for some demented reason, my husband thinks those grey hairs are ‘sexy’.

But I digress…on to the good stuff. I did a fair bit of poking around and learned a few neat tricks today:

Styling my blog’s blockquote was something I’d been trying to do for awhile. Today, I think it came together. I just had to understand where to put it, and how to do it. An unexpected accomplishment (I was actually trying to figure out how to do something else when the dim bulb finally lit).

Incorporating Technorati Tags was another boggler, but I think I found an elegant ‘cheater’ way to do this (which will be of special interest to Ranch Redo and Bungalow ‘23, who are also hosted by Blogsome, but might work for others as well—try it).

I discovered this post on how to create a Technorati ‘bookmarklet’. This places a bit of Javascript code right on your browser’s bookmark toolbar (I’m using Firefox). Now, when I write my post, I just have to click on my bookmarklet and enter my tags and it generates the code to copy in at the bottom of my post. I even geeked out a bit and managed to personalize the code a little so it’s right justified.

Some of you are probably laughing now, but I feel like I’ve just split the atom.
Bungalow Dreams (Monica & Marc), you deserve all the credit here. Thanks for spreading the blog love.

technorati tags: technorati, blogsome, houseblog, insomnia

“Hi, Sienna? It’s Salvaged Beauty here. So sorry to call, ‘cause I know you’re really busy there at that fancy film awards ceremony and all … but I think that’s my Houseblog you’re wearing, and I kind of need it back.”

REVISION: There was a watermarked preview photo here of a great dress from WireImage, and they finally got back to me after I emailed them about usage—to view the photo, you would actually have to sign up on their website (and a basic—free—account only gives you access to preview photos from the last 30 days). Too bad, ‘cause she was on the cell phone and everything in that shot. But, you’ve got to respect copyright.
If you’re curious about the dress, I suggest you check out this post from Go Fug Yourself. Scroll down to the third photo.
Then look at the header for this blog. Definitely separated at birth.

Sheesh. Celebrities just think they can get away with wearing anything.
I didn’t know Bradbury and Bradbury was doing ‘Ready to Wear’ these days—but can I order that dress without the puffy sleeves?

_{(* Sienna Miller wore this little number to the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards on March 4)}