Last weekend we scored this week school desk for $10! It was fairly beaten up, paint was peeling and metal was rusting, but it just needed a little love…
Before
Taping it up:
Grant helping paint:
We bought some school house red metal paint and used some of the leftover polyurethane from my floor refinishing project. Three coats later…
After:
Yesterday I wrote a detailed guide on treating and preventing frozen pipes over the Minneapolis Metblog.
It’s written from experience. The pipes in the crawlspace of our 120 y/o house froze after 4 days below zero outside (low yesterday was -27 degrees). So instead of panicing I spent 2 hours with the blowdryer getting them flowing again. Then the trick is to keep them warm.
This was my set-up:
I reinsulated the outside access door with two layers of plastic. I have a baseboard space heater on high and a small fan heater (also on high). The cookie sheet in front of the blowing space heater was helping to deflect the air off the ironing board. I also have two heating pads wedged around the pipes, although one of them never got very warm.
I got up at 1:30 and 3:30 to flush the toilet, run the bathroom, bathtub and kitchen sink faucets, and ensure the space heaters and electric pads were working (and not starting our house on fire).
The above photo was taken last night at 3:30 a.m.
It’s a pretty good little system, but you can bet we’re going to invest in some of that electrical heating tape in the very near future.
As I was shoveling last night, I stared up at the stupid tree in my front yard — you know, the one that still has all of its leaves.
The high was -3 and the low was -20 degrees BEFORE WINDCHILL.
I have a feeling it’s dead, and we’ll have to take it out come Spring. Drat.
As I was raking our new yard this fall, the tree in our front yard was taunting me. It still had its leaves, and as I raked up my 9 bags for the season, it seemed to be mocking me.
“Go ahead and put away the rake,” it teased. “I’ll drop my leaves when I’m good and ready.”
Then the first snow came — which was when the tree at my childhood home would lose its leaves — but they held on and on and on…
This photo was taken on Christmas Day.
Those leaves just don’t want to let go. And I’m sure not raking now, so they can stay on until May for all I care.
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When narrowing down options to buy our first home, my wife and I focused primarily on century-old homes. I grew up in an 100 year-old house built by my great great grandfather, and both of us have a heart for the charm of hand craftsmanship, unique floorplans, built-ins and yes, those precious original hardwood floors.
So when we moved into our 1890 home three months ago, refinishing those floors was one of our top priorities. Last week my Dad came up from Florida, and the two of us spent nearly four nonstop days sanding, staining, varnishing and touching up.
Here are the results:
Mainfloor Bedroom
Before:
Sanding:
After:
Living Room
Before:
Sanding:
After:
Kitchen
Before/Sanding:
Sanded:
Dad varnishing behind the refrigerator:
After:
Stairs/Hallway
After:
Bathroom Floor (“Greg the Plumber” Part 2)
Before:
After:
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I bought a house two months ago. One of the former owners worked at a greenhouse and has built up quite the garden in the backyard, complete with cucumbers, green peppers, grapes and myriad flowers, plants, etc.
I’ve spent more than 10 combined hours hacking it all down to get ready for winter, and I promise you anything that doesn’t come up on its own next spring is NOT getting replanted.
One of the fun parts of buying the home of people who’ve lived there 20+ years is the adventure of discovering long-lost treasures. Every time I hack into a bush, tree or clump of flower stems, I unearth hidden bounty!
Yesterday I discovered a small plastic box filled with ancient Hot Wheels. Earlier this week I discovered this creepy frog planter thing under a giant overgrown bush.
Then there was this treasure — some sort of metallic flower windmill thing bured under a big bush (note: I have no idea about plant names, so they are either bushes, flowers or flower bushes). This one has sharp edges, so will probably need to go.
And we can’t forget the super classy toilet flower planter.
Former owners told us this is where the original outhouse used to be and warned us not to dig around it much. I think we’ll just leave it until spring.
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The base around the toilet in our 120 year-old house has been leaking. We just moved in 7 weeks ago and there is only one bathroom, so it was on the medium priority list.
This weekend we pulled up the carpet the previous owners had installed (carpet in the bathroom is wrong, btw) and immediately saw we had a very bad problem.
Rotted floorboards, black mold, a hole in the floor — all the makings of an Extreme Home Makeover.
So we took apart the toilet and gutted the bathroom floor — cut it completely out. Then I sprayed mold killer all over, let it dry, sprayed again, then polyurethaned it really well.
Then we installed a new floor made of plywood (also with multiple coats of polyurethane). In the next couple of weeks we’re going to be completely refinishing our original hardwood floors, so we’ll be sanding this flat before putting down new tile.
And then I completely gutted all the moving pieces, screws and seals in the toilet and taught myself how to put it together. Yes!
Just the first of many projects to come in our century-old house. But you can’t argue it doesn’t have character.
