Urban wildlife in action...

So this summer we have seen, in our pretty darn urban area, countless birds, rabbits and squirrels, several possums, a bat, a very large raccoon, a Peregrine falcon (the last two making quick visits to the neighbor's yard) and yesterday, a fox managing not to kill itself on a main residential street. All but skunks, which we have smelled but not seen, and we are on par with our former suburban abode. Of course here there are tons of trees, plants and flowers everywhere and there it was endless goose-plagued lawns. So much happier now.

Finally back at it

Summer was a time of little progress house-project-wise but at least there were occasional bits of seasonal fun.

Now to get rid of the icky wallpaper in the bathroom.



WHY DO PEOPLE PUT WALLPAPER RIGHT ONTO NAKED DRYWALL?
Presumably they are so in love with the pattern, that they can't imagine anyone wanting to get rid of it, not even thirty years later. Argh. We had this in our last house, similarly bedecked in the '70's and made a mess trying to get the stuff moist enough to be scraped off without taking the whole face of the wall with it.

At least the rest of the rooms are still plaster...

Cool, affordable house numbers

Wow, some folks are actually reading this! Thanks houseblogs.net! I'll have to try harder to be interesting and amusing. So, I'll just add small things when I can, instead of always apologizing for not updating more frequently.

Our latest token home improvement is new address numbers. So far they were only on the door and not too visible. These will go on the front of the porch roof, much better.

We used House Numbers Only, a website with lots of funky styles, for about $10 each. Powder-coated steel, in black or copper color, about 5x2.5 inches. We went with the Craftsman, no surprise.

I emailed them to ask, and they said they are made in USA, yay. A bit of a hand-cut quality to them, but I think that is actually fitting in this case. Now to actually put them up...

Our five-year-old says:

Our Spiderworts are very beautiful. Our house is very nice. I like everything that's here and I like the yard. Better than our old house 'cause they tore down houses there [Gotta instill values somehow; maybe a bit much warping though. Ed.] and it's nice living in this house and I have a lot of new friends.

New copper mailbox

Apparently our 89-year old house has never had a mailbox. We are used to having one, and got tired of having our magazines and such folded and crammed through the mail slot in the aluminum storm door.

Trying to keep with our arts and crafts theme, with Celtic accents, we went with a handmade (but not obscenely expensive) one at Gaelsong.com.



Two days and no one has swiped it, great. We do read about people stealing copper downspouts nearby, so I don't think we are worrying needlessly. It's nice and solid and works great, though it is a bit rough in a handmade (in Turkey) sort of way.

It is bare copper, and we are a bit torn over letting it get a natural patina vs. trying to lacquer it and keep it shiny. Going the natural approach so far; worst
case we can polish it and spray it with something later.

We found a Linoleum Rug!

Ok, so we didn't buy anything at the Arts & Crafts Expo last week. Saw some Great Mission style furniture to long for. Maybe we can work up to a rocking chair one of these days.
Anyway.
In the closet under the eaves off the back dormer, we pulled up several layers of 70's carpeting and found a linoleum rug---

I guess the people we bought it from saved it when they redecorated thirty years ago, which was cool of them to do, though they never mentioned it to us.
It makes sense given that they said the place had original blue linoleum in the kitchen and white with blue hex tiles in the bathroom (which they covered with
beigh 80's tile, argh...).

I learned a lot about such things from Jane Powell's book Linoleum. I love that it is an all natural product that is so much more environmentally friendly and healthy than vinyl and gosh, they invented it in the 1800's. At least some companies are again offering the stuff, such as Marmoleum.
We hope to use that for our kitchen next year in something very similar to the original blue marblized pattern.

Arts and Crafts Chicago Expo this weekend

Can't wait to check this out. It is the second annual event, in River Forest, May 12-13, '07. Lots of vendors of all things Arts & Crafts. Hope they take credit cards :). Click on the photo from their website for info.

Native Plants and Arts & Crafts

I will definitely ramble on more about this later, but for now, here is a photo of the currently blooming Shooting Stars (Dodecatheon Meadia). They are in the fledgling prairie garden along the south side of the house, with a bit of Prairie Smoke in front and yet-to-bloom Spiderwort and Nodding Wild Onions behind.

Definitely finding it cool, the more I read about the Arts and Crafts movement, the more I see how I have fit into all that all along, living more in tune with nature, having houses made of local materials and so on.

Getting back on track for Spring

It was winter hibernation time. We did nothing to the house over the holidays except decorate in a minimalist way. Sorry for the lack of pictures to anyone actually reading this.

The spring to-do list begins, which will definitely take years...even though we don't have tasks as major as many bloggers, like moving walls. Yet. (This is mostly for my own thought organization after I woke up at 4 a.m. thinking about fixing the front porch.)

Inside:

• Front Hall: Shortterm-strip 70's wallpaper, patch plaster, paint.
  Longterm-Replace wood flooring (use it to patch elsewhere) with cool porcelain tile. A light in the closet would be nice.
• Living Room: This and the dining room have barely been touched in 80+ years and that is a good thing.
  Shortterm-patch picture hook holes, paint. Take down lace curtains and replace shades with blinds I think. Get area rug.
  Longterm-Replace IKEA and hand-me-down furniture with cool Craftsman style items.
  Convert decorative fireplace to real (way longterm as it would mean moving the art
  glass window that is centered over it).
  
• Dining Room: Short/medium term-paint, perhaps add Arts & Crafts style border above plate rail. Same window treatments as above. Replace 70's light with cool antique or reproduction fixture.
  
• Bathroom: Shortterm-remove '80s floral wallpaper. Paint.
  Mediumterm-new toilet, light above medicine cabinet, ceiling light/fan.
  Longterm-The whole vintage thing, replace vanity, go back to original white with blue trim hex tile on floor that previous owner happily covered up. Restore bricked-up window. Better ceiling than suspended acoustic tile. Subway tile on walls, you name it.
  
• Kitchen: Shortterm-Remove '70s wallpaper. Paint. Figure out floor covering to replace '70s tile/pile carpet. Same window approach as living/dining rooms. New cabinet handles/knobs. Replace fruit-themed leaded glass hanging light. Get cart/island. Remove leaky '70s dishwasher and replace with recycling bin cabinet (Yes, we really are retro, we wash dishes by hand).
  Mediumterm-Restore bricked-up window on west wall (not in the way of anything).
  Longterm-Again, the whole retro/vintage treatment, new cabinets, remove cornice, restore other bricked-up window, maybe vintage or Elmira Stove Works appliances when we have a LOT more money.
  
• Master Bedroom: Shortterm-Replace green vinyl blinds with wood.
  Mediumterm-Figure out if we like the willow-patterned wallpaper on two walls. Maybe make other walls less white. Pull up carpet, refinish floors, get cool area rugs.
  Longterm-We'd Really like to expand the rear dormer (from smallish gable to
  full-width shed roof), to create a master suite with bath, and maybe rear balcony.
  
• Second bedroom: Shortterm-patch wood floor where previous owner expanded closet door. Paint whatever bizarre color scheme our child demands including funky
  area rug. Refinish floor.
  
• Third bedroom: Remove wallpaper. Otherwise, not sure yet.
  
• Basement: Shortterm-resolve moisture issue in workroom.
  Mediumterm-Replace suspended ceiling panels with tin-look ones in finished part.
  
  Exterior saved for the next post....

No more squeaky stair...

Yes, this is the sort of miniscule triumph with which I must content myself, at least until our previous house is sold and the holidays are over. Please ignore if you are one of the many folks single-handedly redoing your kitchen this week.

Our stairs to the second floor are carpeted (for now) and the second one made the most horrid "eee-oooooo, eee-ooooooo" noises such that we had to stretch our legs to step past it at night to avoid waking the child. I managed to slit the carpet neatly along the back of the stair below it, peel it back, and marvel at the gorgeous oak stair that was revealed, once I scraped off some of the 30-year-old foam padding. Eventually we hope to replace the carpet with a spiffy Oriental carpet runner or some such.

I drilled pilot holes from the tread down into the riser near the middle and on each side and screwed in wood screws, which I somehow remembered to put soap on so they went in more manageably. (They are black, so they don't show, and I was too lazy to inset them even more to allow for wood putty). Squeak completely gone, carpeting, alas, replaced for now and risk of waking child removed. Sometimes it's those little things....

A great bungalow resource and more

We went to the Historic Chicago Bungalow and Green Home Expo at the Merchandise Mart Sept. 30th. It had lots of great displays and information from all sorts of vendors, ranging from really nice Prairie-style cabinet hardware, furniture and Oak radiator covers to environmentally-friendly building materials like linoleum (the real stuff like our house had when it was built , not vinyl, and it lasted 57 years) and tankless hot water heaters (looking like a good option to replace our aging tank).

We are hoping to go for a combination of vintage (to replace the '70's kitchen, for instance) and environmentally friendly improvements over time. I feel like such a slacker compared to so many houseblogging folks. This place is really pretty livable for an old house, though it needs some plumbing, electrical, plaster and masonry work but most of that will wait until early next year.

Catching our breath

Ok, in the last 2 months we have finally moved in, I turned 40 just for the fun of it and we had two dozen relatives over for our child's birthday. Not much in home improvements beyond taking down some very lacy curtains and lusting over Arts & Crafts furniture we can't afford.

These are some of my favorite parts of the house:

OK, so it's fake and always was. Actually, it was gas originally, in that now non-OSHA-approved scary unvented way.


The walls have one of those embossed design kind of panels (I am thinking Lincrusta or Anaglypta; need to research more) and a plate rail.


All this has gotten me into reading up on the original Arts & Crafts
movement and how it was a reaction to industrially mass-produced shoddy merchandise
from the Victorian era. And how much that seems like the case today with China leading the world in such things and I spend half my time fixing the badly made toys people keep buying my child.

It all inspires me to create the art and furnishings and so on, if I can get caught up with fixing the kitchen sink drain, and everything else, before I die.

Getting to know our new friend

As with everything, I read, research, delve into and so on, sometimes too much for my own good. We haven't even finished moving in, yet I have looked at most of Jane Powell's bungalow books, plus others. They are a great source of info on original details, and so on, but also make me more nuts about many aspects of our house. Like how the previous owner covered the rafter ends with aluminum and vinyl siding. Hard to justify tearing it off right now, though, when most of our possessions are still in boxes. Much '70's wallpaper to remove as well. Scary diagonal plaster cracks in several closets, which go with the sloping floors and doors that no longer close straight. Potential moisture issues at the ends of the basement, with its brick foundation. We are appreciating all its character. I have always loved older houses but lived in
'60's and '70's ones, except for three years during college in an 1891 two-flat that was pretty cool.

It's Finally Ours

We closed on the house today. Our "new" 87- year- old- house. Here is a better picture. Yes, we will trim the bushes, though some are the neighbor's. This place has more natural wood inside than any house we looked at. Great mostly original living and dining room with decorative fireplace, built-in bookcases, buffet, plate rail and so on. Less exciting '70's kitchen. More pics by the end of the week and I'm getting all psyched on this Arts and Crafts stuff. Growing up in the Chicago area, we called these Queen Anne bungalows but I now know that refers more to earlier, more decorative Victorian hold-overs. Perhaps it is to differentiate them from the more common Chicago bungalows. Any thoughts?

First test post

I have been meaning to start a blog all year anyway and now there's all this publicity on houseblogs, so I'm finally motivated. We close on our house in less than a week. I'll write more then, and have better pictures.