When it comes to spatial relations, I’ve got absolutely no skills. Blame it on my female brain if you must, but I’ve never been able to visualize how furniture can move around in a space.  I can look at a design on a computer and tell you to the pixel how far over I want something to move (as my poor web developers can attest) but I can’t look at a wall and know it’s about 16 feet long. Just not my bag.

To get around this little issue of mine I generally draw out diagrams. This gives me a reason to buy graph paper, with it’s lovely little boxes all neat and orderly. But my graph paper plans inevitably get screwed up, which means crossed out lines and eraser marks… that totally ruin the whole orderly look I was going for in the first place. It might be time for me to get all 20th century and start doing my floorplans online.

I’ve toyed with a few different software and web applications, and right now I’m really digging “Floor Planner” (easy to remember name, eh?). Mostly because it’s easy to jump into and lets me create and save up to 5 floorplans for free. It’s also a web application, so you don’t have to download or install anything to your desktop other than the latest Flash player.

Here’s a screenshot of our living room, or something like our living room:

They could use some more furniture choices and definitely need to add area rugs to the mix, but it’s a good start. And it’s new, so I’m sure the library of “stuff” will grow. You can sign-up for a free account using your e-mail address, so go check it out. But beware, you could definitely get sucked in and spend hours pixel-pushing your couch around. Have fun :)

We finally got some rain-free weekend weather, so after three days of half-hearted painting, we’re about 1/10th of the way to a white picket fence. We’re using Olympic solid stain in “Snowflake” (white, but not completely glaring) – because, as one of our readers helpfully pointed out, stain won’t flake or peel the way paint would. With 200+ feet of fence to worry about, that’s an important difference!

It’s going to be a slow process. On Friday, I was all sorts of energetic and ready to paint. I had the day off, so I went out early and got a 5-gallon bucket of stain. I came home and got to work, thinking that by the time Teague rolled in the door I’d surprise him with all sorts of progress. 2 hours later, I finally finished the first of 28 panels. Frustrated and hot as hell, I did some quick calulations in my head and started wondering whether or not it was even worth it. 28 panels, 2 hours per panel – that’s 56 hours! I knew it would take some time, but I was thinking more like half that…

In the end, I sucked it up and kept going. It does look really good, and I don’t have much else to do this summer anyway. And Teague will be helping when he can, although so far he hasn’t been too excited about the painstakingly tedious work. We dug up the paint sprayer to try that route, but it kept getting clogged – so paint brush it is. Too bad I’m not a fast talker like Tom Sawyer, because I’d love to pawn this job off on someone else!

We did find something to make us work a little faster. Yesterday we had a private little concert in our backyard – an entire band of bagpipers! They were warming up for the Boxing Hall of Fame parade that happens right down the street. They asked if they could practice in our lawn – how do you turn that down?! If you can hire your own band, I highly recommend it. Here they are warming up – and admiring the fence, of course.

And here they are a few short hours later, looking dapper in their kilts!

The parade is a very big deal for our little town, so we clocked out early to go check it out. All sorts of famous boxers (and boxing enthusiasts) come to town to celebrate the sport. The weekend-long event culminates in a parade through town. I don’t know too much about boxing, but it’s fun to watch everybody drive by and wave. My favorite star this year was Bert Sugar, a famous boxing writer who rolled through smoking a stogie and dancing around in plaid clamdiggers. How cool is this guy?

The parade is small-town life at it’s finest. Where else can you see stuff like this? A not-so-happy pony looking totally smooth in neon sunglasses…

The parade was the perfect excuse to stop painting (and then never start again). I have the day off today, so I SHOULD be out there painting the fence. But I’m sure I’ll find a few more distractions before I get myself out there.

Every homeowner will tell you they make certain sacrifices for their house. Especially fixer-uppers, whose every extra penny goes directly into whatever project needs funding at the time. We’ve made all sorts of sacrifices over the past 2.5 years to keep Dirty Gert happy. Our honeymoon luxury cruise turned into a week in Florida so we could afford to fix the chimney, for instance. We settle for Hydrox instead of Double Stuff Oreos. And for the past few years I’ve been commuting in a paid-off ’94 Toyota Corolla with a whole lot of rust and a few quirks only a mother could love. Because all that money that would have been spent on a car payment got funneled straight into the house.

Meet the green beast. It’s not the kind of car you make an entrance in, unless you want pity and stifled giggles. But it was a good car, got great gas mileage, and most importantly no longer required a monthly payment. I was devoted to it, and vowed to drive it into the ground. Which is exactly what I did, right up until everything went at once. In the past 2-3 months, it has had the following issues:

• two blown-out tires (two separate occassions)
• rusted-off hinges on the gas door
• rusted out hole in the catalytic converter
• a constant whirring/chirping noise that sounds like exotic bugs mating
• a different chirping noise (more like a strangling bird) right at startup
• a few belt squeals
• 2 missing hubcaps
• a coat-hanger for an antennea
• no hood-prop
• blown speakers
• an oil leak that ate about 2qt/week
• a rusted-out front axle that needed replacing
• a rusted-out back axle that I was warned would need replacing in 3-6 months
• a hard banging in the engine (only in the morning, and only for a few blocks, but damn was it loud!)
• occasional door lock problems that resulted in me stuck out in the freezing cold numerous times
• a back bumper that was about to fall off

To top it off, just last week I busted a back strut, the air conditioning went, and the driver-side window stopped rolling down. All in one week. Which was my signal from the car gods to get the hell out of the vehicle before it disintegrated into a pile of dust while I was driving it down the highway.

So with great reluctance (because I hate parting with money, and hate car shopping even more) I bought a new-to-me cherry red ’05 Hyundai Elantra, the newest and nicest car I have ever owned. How glorious this new car is in comparison to my old one. It has fancy-schmancy 20th century things, like an antennea, a cd player, a remote car starter, and a place to hide my sunglasses. I earned this car – not only did I commute 45 minutes each way in a rust bucket 45 minutes for years, but I also searched high and low for the perfect vehicle. And I dealt with too many sexist and overly aggressive salesmen to bother counting. I had one guy excitedly point out the “purse hook” (gee, how totally necessary THAT feature is…), another guy call me sweetheart, and a third swindle me into test-driving a giant SUV that was about $20k over my price limit – not to mention a giant gas guzzling moster of an automobile that I had absolutely no interest in owning. Because, he told me, when we have kids we will really want the extra room. Mmmhmmmm…. I am sure it had nothing to do with the extra commission he’d make off a vehicle that was three times more expensive than the one I wanted to look at.

Persistence pays off, and in the end I found exacty what I had been hunting for – a 4-door hatchback. With this baby, I can shove all sorts of crazy construction materials into a small car and make the Home Depot guys smile in amazement. (They always doubted my cargo capacity with the Corolla, and will continue to doubt me with the Elantra I am sure.)

I played hardball all day today, and felt pretty good about my negotiating skills by the time I signed the papers. I left them with my lovely bucket-o-rust and drove home in my new ride singing along to the radio (that gets reception – neato!) and feeling very happy to have finally upgraded.  Even if it does take away from our Home Depot spending a tiny bit ;)

The life of a fixer-upper can be pretty chaotic. And I’ve got terrible short term memory. TERRIBLE. I sometimes wonder if I have early onset dementia and will soon be putting the dogs in the refrigerator instead of their crate. I don’t think it’s a crappy brain so much as too many things to remember. I am a type-A multi-tasker with a very short attention span. At any given moment I am usually doing 2-3 things at a time. Right now, for instance, I’m writing this post. But I’m also looking for used cars (in 3 seperate browser tabs), petting Nero, drinking a cup of hot tea, and thinking about a design job I have to finish by Thursday.  Which could explain why I feel a bit scatterbrained at times.

I have developed lots of little of tricks to keep myself on track. I have post-it’s everywhere. I carry a pen and an organizer wherever I go. I keep to-do lists in multiple places, both electronic and analog. And I use Gmail’s calendar to send myself reminders of any events/meetings/deadlines I have each day. But lately, I’ve been finding getting hooked on using my cameraphone as a tool for more than just communicating and snapping pictures of drunk friends. If you get creative, your phone can be your memory bank. Here are a few ways I use mine:

1. I send myself scheduled text message reminders using a task-list web application called Remember the Milk. You can set a “task” up, then ask to be reminded via cellphone. At the specified time, it’ll send the message to your phone. I use this often to remind myself of something I need to pick up on the way to or from work – like sending “Stop at Lowe’s to pick up primer” at 6:30, when I will most likely be sitting in my car singing along to the radio and forgetting about my errands.

2. I take photos of things I am thinking of purchasing, and I save them on the phone. I usually also snap a photo of the price. When we were considering options for beadboard, I went to Lowe’s and snapped pics of the various materials so we could sit down together and talk about them. On my phone right now I have photos of flowers I want to put in the garden, lighting fixtures I considered for the bathroom, and a house with a great exterior color scheme. It’s not always convenient to carry a camera around, but I always have my phone on me!

3 . I use it to remember locations, especially when traveling… if I’m in a big parking lot, I will snap the lot sign my car is next to so I’m not wandering around IKEA muttering “Row 4 F” under my breath all day. I also occasionally snap storefronts or restaurants I’d like to visit so I don’t forget about them.

Those are just a few ideas. I’m sure you guys are using your phones in creative ways too – got any good tips/techniques I could use?

This weekend was a hot, sticky, dripping-sweat-just-sitting-around kind of affair. Summer seems to have descended upon us in one fell swoop. We didn’t ease into it the way we usually do, but I’m not complaining. I will take warm and humid over cold and snowing any day.

Since both days called for rain, our plans to stain the fence white were put on hold. We’re supposed to be enjoying our summer this year (rather than working straight through it without so much as a weekend of camping,) so we didn’t try to hard to find an alternate project to keep busy with.

But we accomplished something exciting nonetheless. We made progress on the hallway. The same hallway we gutted last July. We’ve been ignoring it on and off for a year now, which is easy to do. It’s not a fun room, one we’ll get to buy new furniture for or put a giant chrome fixture in. Nope, it’s boring and it’s long and it’s mostly just a big drywall job. Pffft. Who wants to bother with that when there are so many other fun things to tackle?

While I was away for a few days, we got final coat on everything – the hallway, stairwell, and ceilings. They even taped some seams in another bedroom just for fun. That’s what happens when contractors get together for a few beers – which is why you should all start getting chatty with those spackle encrusted guys charging through the Home Depot aisles.

Today, we spent a gloomy afternoon sanding. And sanding. Oh, and sanding some more. Not that their drywall job wasn’t great – it was. It’s just that we had quite a bit of wall and ceiling to cover for such a small space. And even the best drywall job needs a swipe with the sanding pole. We’re getting smarter, though. We taped off every doorway with plastic so clean-up was (comparatively) a breeze. I remember in our early days, this seemed too time consuming. We had 3 doorways and the big stairwell entrance to tape off and we would get lazy about it, skipping the prep work. But a little effort at the beginning saves SOOOOO much time at the end. Not to mention electronics and your sanity.

My arms resist any type of “up over my head” activities, so all day I whined like a two-year old who couldn’t have more Skittles. But now the sanding is behind us, the drywall dust is all vacuumed up (thanks to our Shop-Vac and a brand new filter) and it’s ready for priming. This day was a long, long, long time coming and I can’t wait to have a hallway wall I can actually lean against. I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten to work, only to find a big white smudge all the way down one sleeve…

Our fabulously beat-up digital camera heaved a heavy sigh and conked out last week, so I have been camera-less for about 8 days. I have been totally lost without it. I don’t take particularly good photos, but I take tons and tons of them. Without photos, I could not fully share how pathetic the baby birds were, or how large our plants have grown. I couldn’t share Bruiser’s satisfied and sleepy face while he lounged outdoors in his newly gated kingdom. So I splurged today and bought a new camera that ought to add a whole new dimension to my house photos. Because I didn’t get just any old point-and-shoot…. I’m the proud owner of a brand new Nikon D40. The prettiest little thing you ever did see, with capabilities so far beyond our old camera it’s not even funny.

So of course, today being my first day as a D40 owner, I had to take photos of something fantastic. And since I’ve been meaning to show you all the Oneida Community Mansion House for about, oh, two years now, that is where I headed.

The east face – front portico

(Same “East lawn” entrance in the 1800’s – part of the Syracuse University digital collection)

I grew up about a block away from the Mansion House in a little village called Kenwood, New York. The structure, which was home to over 300 members of the utopian Oneida Community, was built in stages starting in 1868. Part of the house is now a museum, so much of the interior remains just as it was. Nearly very nook and cranny in the 93,000 sq. ft. building is familiar to me. As kids we played hide and seek there, darting through it’s seemingly rooms and endless hallways and up and down back stairwells. Even the basement was not off limits, though I would never dare pass through those dark tunnels alone. It is a labyrinth; there are 10 ways to get just about anywhere if you know your way around.

The South tower (click here to see a pic of this tower in the 1800’s)

I wasn’t allowed to take photos of the interiors, so you’ll have to settle for exteriors. But I highly recommend a tour; the “Green Room” (a sitting parlor) and the “Big Hall” are particularly cool. The schedule is on their website: http://www.oneidacommunity.org/

One of many side entrances

Cast iron urn

Front portico, close-up

North side (click here to see a photo from the 1800’s)

Last but not least, my absolute favorite part of the Mansion House – the “Summer House”, a rustic-style gazebo that we used to sneak off to as teenagers. It’s a nostalgic little place for me. In the shadows of that gazebo I smoked my first cigarette, chugged countless stolen bottles of Boones Wild Strawberry, and kissed a few boys. Always with my best friend Tianne, always hiding out from my parents – who were literally a block away. What a rebel I was…..

If you’re not sold on it’s charm, wipe away the image of me hacking my lungs out and look at it filled with small 19th century children:

The little girl posed sitting on the window ledge is my favorite. She looks so casual, especially when you consider how long theymust have had to sit still for this photo.

If you’re a history buff, there’s plenty of interesting stories about the Oneida Community; they are most widely remembered for their controversial sexual practices. These include the “complex marriage” system (every man and woman in the community was “married” and could therefore sleep together, but they could not form attachments or have babies willy nilly), “male continence” (their form of birth control, since sex was not discouraged but unplanned pregnancies were) and “ascending fellowship” (young virgins – about age 14 – were initiated into the Complex Marriage practices by an elder member of the community). But they had other strong beliefs, such as equality of the sexes, mutual criticism, and stirpiculture (essentially eugenics) that are interesting as well.

My favorite books on the subject:
A Goodly Heritage – Pierrepoint Noyes
Without Sin: The Life and Death of the Oneida Community – Spencer Klaw
Desire & Duty at Oneida: Tirzah Miller’s Intimate Memoir

Websites:

http://www.oneidacommunity.org/(main website, with tour info plus pics and history)
http://www.nyhistory.com/central/oneida.htm (NY History Net’s entry on the community)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_Colony (wikipeida entry with lots of good info and links)
http://library.syr.edu/digital/images/o/OneidaCommunityPhotos/ (a great digital photo collection)

Stay tuned as I  fall completely in love with my new camera, and hopefully nab some great pics to share with you guys!

Last night was full of excitement – if you’re lame and don’t get out much, and consider small animal rescue exciting.

When I pulled in to the driveway last night, Teague was leaning over a patch of flowers near the base of the porch. He called me over to see his find – a homely looking baby bird with patchy feathers and a stump for tails. He was flopping around on his back, desperately trying to turn himself over.

I come from a long line of animal rescuers, so the sight of this little guy made me 1) want to cry, he was so pathetic and helpless and 2) spring into action as if I were a highly trained bird specialist and this was my destiny.

After checking for a mother or a nest (neither in sight), I grabbed a soft cloth and gently picked him up with it so I could see just how badly he was hurt. He was pretty beat up, but it looked more like the result of a noisedive than a predator. While I was doing my 10-point inspection of his little body, Teague found another baby in the bush at our feet. The second bird was in much better shape – he must have been lucky enough to hit the mulch rather than the concrete. They were very young – too young to stand up or hop – close but not quite fledglings. They must have gotten sick of sharing a nest with rowdy brothers and sisters and decided to run away. I pictured them taking off like little rebels, all drunk on the newfound freedom, accidentally finding the shortest route to the ground.

We found a small cardboard box, lined it with clean rags, and set both babies in it so that the neighbor cats would be less likely to snatch them. Then we put the box on the porch in an obvious spot, hoping Mom would return and somehow save the day. i made Teague help me dig up some teeny-tiny worms, and I put a bottle cap full of water in there, even though I knew they were too young to know what to do with either. The effort, however meaningless, made me feel better.

For about an hour, I watched out the window to see if Mom would make an appearance. She didn’t. I called my mother, grandmother, and best animal-loving friend to get opinions on what to do. Leaving them out like two unwrapped snacks was quite obviously not going to save them… I knew I’d wake up the next day to either an empty cardboard box or two stiff bodies. Our best bet was to find the nest and put them back in it, but early attempts proved pointless.

Then we realized that if we couldn’t find it on the porch, and it wasn’t from a nearby tree, it must have been from the top roof. The really high off the ground, can’t believe they survived a fall from there, cupola portion of the house. We saw a medium-sized black bird swooping around in an agitated fashion, then watched her go in and out of a small hole in the cupola a few times. That, we decided, was mom. And there was no way she was getting two babies half her size all the way up there.

Luckily, my husband is as crazy as me. Evidence we’re made for each other: he was willing to climb up there and risk his life to push these two fugly little birds back into their nest, allowing me to sleep soundly last night.

I like to think they’re both cuddled up in a cushy nest in there, being nursed back to health by their diligent mother. I know that’s probably not true, at least not for the badly injured one, but at least he got to go home one last time. So what if we’ll have rotting bird carcass in our cupola? Totally worth it.

In part one of our little fence adventure we dug holes, poured concrete, and set our posts. Part one was kinda drawn-out and sucky, and carrying the 2-man digger around made my back hurt. So I wasn’t exactly looking forward to part two – putting up the panels. But it turns out this is the easy-breezy part of the job.

Thank god for the 8′ truck bed!

We bought 30 8′ gothic picket fence panels from Home Depot, which required two trips to get home. Two trips beats the $75 delivery fee, though. The first time around we didn’t pay much attention to what we were loading up because it was almost 10pm and the parking lot was too dark for assessments. Big mistake – 4 of them were either broken or had badly warped boards. The next morning I headed back to return the 4 defect panels and get 15 more – 19 total, which left the truck about 1 panel shy of absolutely totally full. I made the poor HD guys sort through a huge stack to be sure we were getting the best quality panels – they were surprisingly patient. I was laying on the girlish charm, which always helps. I don’t lift a finger at Home Depot anymore. I always used to load my own stuff, no matter how heavy or unwieldly, because I had something to prove to all the big boys hanging around the lumber aisles… but now I don’t care enough to bother.

Putting up the panels was pretty straightforward. Line ’em up, screw ’em in. I learned a new technique though, “raking” – which is how we got the panels to follow the various little hills and valleys throughout the lawn.

Here is a panel pre-raking. You can see that it looks all wonky:

To rake it, we put the bottom-right edge against the post, leaving the top edge free. I held the panel while he knocked the bottom-left edge with a mallet. This made the bottom part of the fence shift, while keeping the top alignment the same. So you end up with something much more appealing, like this:

Surprisingly, the panels only took us a few hours to put up – and we were being pretty picky about things. We also got a gate set up on the side nearest the driveway (and the lawnmower) so we can get in and out easily. We still need to cut down the posts, add some decorative toppers to the corners, and stain it white. We also plan to add a second gate at the back of the yard, but we put a panel up temporarily so we could let the dogs run free until we got to that.

The dogs, and the running free… that’s for another post. Because my dream of playing fetch and tiring them out so they become sweet and docile pups? Totally not happening. Not yet anyway.

Hey all, found something on the Syracuse area Craigslist that I had to share with you – some very cool antique porch railings at a reasonable price – $500 OBO. (Have you been to the salvage yards? Cause, yikes – these would probably cost 2-3x what this seller is asking.)

SELLER SAYS:

These one-of-a-kind railings are painted wood with flowers and leaves carved into the full length of each panel. Although these railings are not original to the house (an Italianate Victorian built in 1883), they were present when I purchased my home in 1966. There are four railings: one on each side and two on the front. The measurements are 27″ht. 2 are 65″ long, 1 is 80″ long, and 1 is 81″ long. $500 or best offer.

Interested? Get more info here: http://syracuse.craigslist.org/hsh/331796417.html

The house just happens to be an Italianate like ours, though it appears the railing pieces are not original.  I’d love to see some closeups of the porch posts and upper detailing, since someday we want to redo our own porch. In fact, all y’all with Italianates, send me some pics! I have yet to walk inside another Italianate and am dying to see how the stairs are structured, since that’s another of our problem areas. I’ve been collecting and photographing exteriors whenever possible – you can see them in our Flickr set, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fixerupper/sets/72157600214276355/

As an admitted house voyeur, I know that pictures are the best part of any good house blog. It’s like peeking in all your neighbors’ windows without the fear of getting caught. That’s why I sit around and obsessively organize our Flickr albums. Well, also because I’m an anal person and I like to see my photos neatly arranged into logical collections. Some call it OCD, I call it good organizing skills. I could have spent the time vacuuming dog hair dust-balls off the kitchen floor, but clearly this took precedence.

Hopefully you’ve noticed we have a Flickr pro account, and that’s where we keep our photo gallery. If you haven’t, well – pay more attention. Just kidding.

Now that Flickr lets you have sets AND collections, I went around and made some changes to our gallery that will make browsing our photos a little bit easier. Our collections page is here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fixerupper/collections/

I made some new sets, including a “best-of” set for our Befores, and Afters. So those of you newer to the site can see where we started, and where we’re going. You can check those two out by clicking on the mosiacs below:

So browse, enjoy, and let me know if you want to see a photo of something we haven’t got up there. Your wish is my command.