Our Modern Mess

That thing in the basement

2012-01-16T18:48:00.009-05:00

When we moved into the house there was this giant metal thing in the basement and we had no idea what it was. After a week or so we realized it was a divider that went by the front door. Apparently it was taken out when the floors were redone.

For a while now we have been thinking about putting it back up or possibly using it somewhere else in the house. Today we decided to prop it up next to the front doors and see how it looked.

We like the look at lot. What do you think? Unfortunately the divider is filthy so it will need to be sanded down and repainted. This brings us to our next question, what color should we paint it? The color it is now isn't half bad but you can tell it used to be black at one point too. Would that make it seem too obtrusive if it was that dark?

End of line.

New purchases!

2012-01-15T16:00:00.007-05:00

We got some exciting new things today at Highland Row Antiques!

A fun little plant stand for a great price!

We don't have a good outdoor area yet but when we do I will paint it a fun color and move it outdoors. For now I'm thinking it could serve as a sometimes tiny table for our two chairs in the living room.

We also got.....

AN ARC LAMP!

I've wanted one of these for quite a while. It was in pretty good shape and the price was wonderful. Now when I sit on the couch and knit in the evenings I won't have to squint.

Has anyone else made any fun purchases lately?

Suggestions needed

2012-01-03T21:13:00.006-05:00

For Christmas Susan's Aunt Sue gave us this awesome Satellite Bowl sold by MoMA. We immediately placed it on our dinning table and stuck some leftover Christmas ornaments in it.

It looked great for the holidays but we are at a loss for what to put in it now. Do any of our readers have any fun suggestions?

Modern on the cheap

2011-12-30T18:08:00.006-05:00

We have seen this done on a few other sites so we figured we would try it out ourselves.

First take the interesting owl statue you got for free but is a little too 70's looking.

Clean the surface well to get rid of all the dust and oils from hands touching it. I used Mineral Spirits but rubbing alcohol will work well too. Be sure to use a cleaner that will evaporate quickly and not something that will leave any kind of residue that will mess up your paint job.

If the statue is not painted you will need to prime it. However, ours was so we were lazy and skipped the priming.

Apply 3-4 light coats of flat white spray paint. It's better to do light coats in order to prevent runs in your paint.

Let things dry and step back and enjoy your new modern looking statue. It almost looks like it came from the Jonathan Adler store.

Be seeing you.

Chop Chop Round 2

2011-12-24T09:30:00.031-05:00

Ever since we had the goats out we have been slowly removing the rest of the little junk from our backyard. We decided it was time to bring in some people to take care of the big stuff that we couldn't do.

We went with Limb-it-Less Tree Removal which is the same company we used before. Initially, we called them out to remove the logs on the ground and 2-3 standing trees in the back yard. After talking a bit we decided it would be cost effective to remove more trees since the tree guys would already be there with the equipment. 2-3 trees quickly became 7 trees which ended up turning into 11 trees.

I'm shocked this tree hadn't snapped yet. It was one of the tallest in our yard and there was hardly anything to it.

The first thing they took care of were the left over piles I had made and the privets we had not chopped down yet.

A loader was used to carry out most of junk and all the logs. If I had a good looking yard this would have bothered me but since it's all pine straw and weeds I didn't care.

You could never pay me enough to do this job. I'd either fall off the tree or cut my arms off on the first day.

I never get tired of watching trees fall. It's scary and exciting at the same time.

Our neighbors and I were happy to get rid of these trees for 2 reason. The first was because they were leaning towards the neighbor's house. The second is that now both yards can get a little more sun.

All of the stumps plus an additional 15 or so were grounded down the next day. We were so happy to have all the privet stumps done because it is a pain in the butt to dig them up.

It still amazes us how big our back yard is. We never assumed it was this big when we bought the house.

The next steps will be to install a fence and come up with a plan for what we are going to plant back there. We don't want it totally open like it is now but it's nice we have a clean canvas to work with.

It will be a while before we can fence or landscape though. We just found out the county is coming to dig up our back yard (as well as the yards of several neighbors) to get to a sewer line. More on this as it develops.

Be seeing you.

Susan's Christmas Gift

2011-12-04T17:32:00.003-05:00

This is just a start. I will post more about it as things get going.

How I made those eyes

2011-11-01T10:46:00.017-04:00

Someone requested a tutorial for the spooky house eyes. It's a pretty simple process.

1) Go to an office supply store, like Staples or Office Depot, and buy several packs of black poster board. The bigger the sheets the better.

2) Place enough pieces together to fill the window and tape them together. Some trimming and measuring will need to be done so it will fit nicely into the window frame. Our windows are 3 feet by 6 feet so we needed a lot of poster board.

3) Once the two panels are taped together, draw an eye on one of the panels. I made sure the pupil was in the center of ours so it would cover as much of the center window frame as possible. This may not be the case for you.

4) Flip the second panel over and staple/tape it to the back of first panel. I did this so I would only have to cut out the eye once and both would match perfectly. Just make sure you flip over the second panel otherwise you will have two eyes facing the same direction.

5) After everything is cut out place the panel in the window frame and tape it to the edges. This worked out fine on one window because there was nothing in front of it. However, the second window had a desk in front of it and made it difficult to tape up all the edges. The lack of proper taping and the fact that our windows get covered in condensation on the inside caused the eye to fall down after a few days.

6 - Optional) Cut some scrap wood, I used quarter round, and tack it to the sides and top of the panel. That made it more structural and prevented the sagging.

7) Attach some semi sheer fabric to the back of the eyes so you can't see in the window. Unfortunately, the fabric we used was a little to sheer so you could still see through the windows some. Next year we will just get some better fabric.

8) Arrange the light(s) in the room so it will illuminate the eyes nicely. Usually we just place a lamp in the middle of the room that is sitting window height. If the lamp is too close to the window it won't look right. This will probably involve you walking outside and looking at the eyes numerous times until you find the right arrangement.

The hardest part of this whole process was laying out the poster board to fill the window. I went through several arrangements until I found the one that worked the best for our window. I know this probably isn't a big deal, but I wanted to use as little poster board as possible.

Next year I will most likely get a couple of sheets of luan and cut the eyes out of that. That way I won't have any sagging issues like I did with the poster board since our windows are so big. If your windows are smaller the poster board will be fine.

Since I didn't take pictures while putting the eyes together, here are a couple of after shots so you can see how it was done.

Here is the back side of one of the panels. This is also the one I attached the wood strips to.

Here you can see the panel placed in the window frame and the fabric attached to it. We were lazy and didn't trim the fabric to fit.

This is what it looked like during the day.

I hope this helps you make your house extra spooky next year.

Be seeing you.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-30T22:47:00.003-04:00

Happy Halloween from the O'Cropolis! We're watching you.

The most adorable way to clear a yard

2011-09-11T21:19:00.028-04:00

We had a VERY exciting week over here!

Since we bought the house our backyard has been a jungle. We don't have any official "before" shots but if you look in the background of these pictures you will get the idea.

Now, take what you just saw and multiply it by 20 or maybe 200. Only then can you understand what the yard was like. We couldn't even walk back there for fear of falling in a hole, getting bitten by a snake or being lost for all eternity. Every time I attempted a venture I would get a horrible case of poison ivy.

We got a lot of estimates from lawn companies to clear everything out. They were all laughably expensive. So after much (well, not really) debate, we hired a much cheaper (and more adorable) alternative!

Eweniversally Green!

The guys came to our house and set up an electric fence....

...that runs on solar power!

Then the real fun started!

Sheep and goats in the yard!

Lyndsay was the friendliest lady.

Ruby is the Anatolian Shepherd who makes sure everyone stays safe.

Nom nom nom!

In this video the sheep are being herded so that the fence area can be widened. You get to see the border collie at work and a cute puppy in training at the end!

We miss our temporary livestock. They made the house a lot more exciting. However, it is great that they're gone because look at the yard! We can walk back there!

Before they came EVERYTHING in those pictures was completely covered in English and poison ivy (as well as some terrifying spiny thing that would wrap itself around your pant leg and refuse to let go). We had been fighting it for months. The sheep and goats happily munched it all away in a matter of days. Now we can see that what we thought were mounds of dirt are actually trees. Hooray!? There are some other random goodies we will post about later

We tip our hats to you, Eweniversally Green! Thanks for giving us our yard back in the most amusing way possible. If you are reading this, tell Lyndsay we said hello!

Coming soon

2011-08-18T21:43:00.002-04:00

Two big things are about to happen at the O'Cropolis. The first one is a new roof. This is not something we had planned on but it needs to be done. It will be exciting to get rid of the tar and gravel and put down some modified bitumen. I'm tired of moss growing in the gravel and all the rocks piling up around the house. Also, the new roof will be insulated unlike our old one. Hopefully, that will make things a little better this winter.

The other big thing is the yard being cleared out. We had planned on having our yard landscaped this summer but the roof took away our hopes and dreams of that. However, we found an effective and cheap way to clear out all the ivy. Goats and sheep. That's right. We are going to have a bunch of animals clean up our yard for us. It should be fun to watch.

I'll be sure to post more about these projects when they happen in the next few weeks.

Be seeing you.

Hole in the wall

2011-06-24T05:40:00.027-04:00

A while back when we were re-doing the door we removed an old window unit from the side of the house. This project was completed a couple of months ago so I apologize for the tardiness.

The first thing we had to fix after taking out the A/C were the two studs that had been cut out when it was installed. We cut two pieces of 2x4 and screwed wooden strips on the side so they could be attached to the existing studs.

We ended up enlarging the hole for two reasons. The first was just to clean up the edges so when we put the patch in the joints would be nicer. The second reason was to hide the vertical joints under the new slats of wood we were going to put on.

Here you can see the patch with the four new slats we put on. We ended up cutting our own slats because the 1x2's today are not as wide as the ones that are on the house.

Primed and ready.

It's not perfect but I think it turned out really well. Then again, anything is better than the old AC hanging out of the side of the house. Eventually we will replace all the siding with Hardy board but that is way down the road.

Patching the inside was pretty straight forward. We filled in the hole with some new insulation and then cut a piece of drywall to cover the hole.

The main issue we had with patching the inside was that the wall was warped. The weight of the AC had pulled the wall in above the hole and pushed the wall out below. Once we started to do the mudding we realized it was going to take a lot it to make the wall look smooth.

This is the only picture I took of this stage of the job. Once all the mudding was done the patch was about 3 times the size of what it looks like now.

Now that everything is sanded and painted you would never know there had been a giant hole in the wall. We are so happy to have this fixed. Now I don't have to explain to people what the box on the wall is anymore.

I took this shot because Hayward wanted to be on the blog again.

Be seeing you!

We didn't forget the blog.

2011-06-18T21:31:00.014-04:00

Hello readers! Eric and I would like to apologize for being such terrible bloggers. We have no good excuse and can only give you the truth: We are lazy. Not with the house, there are a lot of new things going on there. And not even with taking pictures, there are tons on the camera. We have just been lax about getting the pictures from the camera to the computer. No more! We are going to be better bloggers! We will post at least once a week from now on until we forget about our promise to post once a week.

With the apology out of the way, here is a quick little post to show you some new things around the house.

My friend Lauren brought these great Fish's Eddy (click on the link! You will want to buy everything!) glasses to me when she came to visit from New York.

Lauren has since become a permanent resident of the ATL. I plan to drink many long drinks out of these glasses with her, hopefully on a patio.

I saw these cats on the wall at Sauced and decided I had to have them. My sister-in-law bought me a set off of Ebay for Christmas.

They look like they were made for this spot!

We have a few more recent acqusitions as well.

We took a trip to Kudzu Antiques today and got this coffee pot.

It is in really perfect condition with only a small scratch at the very top.

We also got this trivet. Who doesn't need a teak fish?

Last weekend we went to I.C.E. Atlanta to see what crafty goodness we could find, and also to support our friend and neighbor who owns Fattycakes Handmade! This little guy that she made now resides on our sofa downstairs.

Eric's favorite addition/obsession to the house has been kittens from the local artist known as Catlanta. You can read about him here on CNN.

Well, that's all for now. Like I said, we have a ton more posts coming up with everything from new furniture to a new backyard.

See you soon (for real this time)!

Northcrest home for sale

2011-05-03T21:16:00.005-04:00

Some friends of our are selling their home in Northcrest and I thought we should help them out. This is one of my favorite houses in the neighborhood so if you're looking to get into Northcrest this is a great place. Even if you're not looking to buy a house please check out the amazing photographs on their site.

http://www.wix.com/lynnray3386/mod

What kind of chair is this?

2011-04-20T22:46:00.005-04:00

Does anyone know what kind of patio chair this is? I have seen pics of chairs like it before and have always thought they were great. A local antique store has this one but I would love to have a pair. Should I go back and buy this one? Thanks in advance for the help.

Twitter me this

2011-04-15T12:04:00.004-04:00

I figured since we don't get a chance to post as often as we like I should make a twitter account for the house. This way I can easily update on smaller projects that are constantly happening around the house. I am new to Twitter so this will be a be a learning experience for me. I hope you enjoy it and feel free to follow us by clicking on the Twitter link that's just bellow the Blog Archive on the right.

Be seeing you.

Jabba the HUTCH!

2011-04-09T18:01:00.008-04:00

I am excited to announce the arrival of a new piece of furniture!

Finally! A hutch! I have been wanting one for a while. All my cute dish-type things have been hidden away in cabinets and drawers. Now they are out for all to see!

I'll do a more in depth rundown of those things in a later post.

We purchased the hutch for peanuts at The Ice House of Chamblee. As you can probably tell those legs are not original. Apparently when it was purchased for the store the original legs were beyond repair. The owner added these to it. Even though it might not be "correct" it suits us fine since it brings the hutch up enough to keep the vent uncovered. It looks stylish too!

It's also Hayward approved.

Ta-Door!

2011-02-21T20:51:00.004-05:00

The door has been painted and the color is...

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...Naples Gold! I hope you like it. We do!

Primed and Ready!

2011-02-19T21:20:00.002-05:00

The new doors are primed and ready for some color!

Get excited!

It's a Crestview!

2011-02-13T21:29:00.021-05:00

We finally had our new double doors installed and they turned out great!!! However, as with any home improvement, we did have some issues along the way. For one thing, the hardwood floor that was installed by the previous owner. The current floor sits higher than it should. The old door was trimmed at the bottom in order for it too open. This meant that the new door would have to sit higher than the old door and that means we would have to cut into the header. So a 3 hour job quickly turned into an all day job.

This first picture shows the installers from Cablik Enterprises, the Atlanta dealer-installer for Crestview Doors, checking out what they are about to get in to. They had to cut away the drywall to see what kind of header was above the door and if there was any room to play with.

Here you can see what the header is really made of. Two 2x10's and some strips of plywood as a filler. Not the best but it's lasted for almost 50 years so I guess I shouldn't complain. You can also see how they had to chop an inch or so off the bottom in order to raise the door enough to fit.

Getting ready to yank the old door out.

My Dad getting in the way of a cool shot.

It was kind of crazy seeing the front of my house look so open. You can also see the Cablik guys getting the new door frame ready for installation.

The Crestview Door kits are really well done and the look pretty easy to install. I wish I had more doors that needed them.

I was so excited when the first door went on!

This is how the inside looks at the moment. Even though the drywall still needs to be fixed, the trim needs to be put on and the doors need to be stained, it still looks awesome. It's so nice having the extra light coming through the windows now.

The outside of the house looks a ton better too. However, I still need to pick a color for the door. It's a really tough decision! Any other suggestions or links to house pictures would be much appreciated.

Hopefully by next weekend the doors and trim will be painted. I will make sure to post pics as soon as it happens.

End of line.

Demolition Man

2011-02-06T23:25:00.000-05:00

A couple of posts ago we talked about getting new doors. Well, the doors are sitting in our carport while we wait on the doorlite kit to show up so everything can be installed. Hopefully all of that will happen this week. Since we like to work on a budget around here we decided to do some of the prep work ourselves. We were curious about this step because we did not know how the door would be framed behind the drywall.

Unfortunately when we removed the baseboard the hardwood was cut. It does not go all the way to the wall in front of the non functioning side of the door. This will have to addressed once the new door gets in. Part of me is considering removing some of the hardwood in front of the door and replacing it with some sort of tile. This way when our shoes are wet we wont be messing up the wood as much. Thoughts?

We were lucky to find that there was another door behind the drywall and that all of the framing is correct for double doors.

Since we were feeling good about the ease of the door prep we got ambitious and decided to tackle the ugly box in the wall. This thing has been an interesting conversation piece. Most people don't realize that this finely crafted box was covering the old AC unit that is still hanging out of the side of the house. I was always curious why a nice box was made instead of removing the AC unit. Well apparently the reason is that the AC unit is heavy as hell. At first we tried to take the easy way out and just push the unit outside the house. That was a quick failure. Then we thought about just pulling it out on the inside of the house. We figured, due to the weight, that this would end in a failure as well. So we decided we needed to try and take apart as much of the unit as possible in order to lighten it. After about 3 hours we probably took off about 15 pounds. It was starting to get dark outside so we decided to just go ahead and pull it out. Luckily we didn't die when it eventually came out but it got scary for a minute there.

I was very worried what were going to find growing or living in here but we were surprised how clean it was.

Once we got the guts of the AC unit out we still had trouble getting the damn housing off.

After a lot of banging and bending it eventually happened.

I think the temporary cardboard patch adds a nice DIY touch to the house.

Before...

After...

Progress has never looked so crappy.

Hopefully in the next couple of days we can patch up the hole and make the house look normal from the outside for once.

End of line.

Hothlanta!

2011-01-22T20:59:00.024-05:00

As you may recall Atlanta had some crazy weather last week. Since we never see snow we took a lot of pictures!

Hayward was not a fan of the snow at first but that quickly changed.

We met up with our neighbors and took our dogs for the best walk ever.

We tried to go for a swim...

... but the club was closed.

Hayward haz a happy.

I have to be a dork and end with a silly poster I made for this fantastic event that was nicknamed Hothlanta.

Our 15 minutes of fame

2010-12-19T21:43:00.002-05:00

This is old news but a while back we were featured on Retro Renovation. I'm sure some of you found us because of that article but if you have never seen it here is the link. It's a great little write up on how we got our house and the pink bathroom that came with it. I hope you enjoy it and thanks for reading our site.

Susan becomes a fan of her 1962 Jack 'n Jill bathroom

We need your suggestions! New front doors?

2010-12-19T21:19:00.010-05:00

So our house is a bit odd when it comes to the front doors. From the outside it looks like we have double doors. However, only one of the doors is functional and the non functioning door on the inside is covered with drywall. On the outside it looks like we double doors and on the inside it looks like we have a single door. I have yet to run into a neighbor that has a similar situation.

Since our front doors are old and don't seal well we are looking into replacing them with real double doors. We had debated about doing a single door with a window next to it but once we saw this kit from Crestview Doors we knew this is what we wanted. We have priced it up and are close to pulling the trigger on the project but we are curious what you guys think and if you have any color suggestions. I am posting 3 pics for possible colors but feel free to either mock up your own example or share a color swatch.

UPDATE

Here are two other color options we were thinking about.

The Den

2010-11-28T21:28:00.016-05:00

The downstairs den is one of the rooms we spend the most time in but sadly it's one of the only rooms to not be fixed up well. Lately we have been trying to change that. Some new furniture and a little paint has helped a lot.

The biggest and most noticeable new piece is the sofa. I had seen this sofa from Macy's on numerous blogs before. We loved the look of it so my parents were kind enough to buy us one for our first anniversary. Thanks Mom and Dad!

This corner table was the first piece of furniture we actually purchased for the den. When we bought it we did not know who it was made by. Then one day when I was browsing blogs I saw that these guys had posted about some tables they had found at a thrift store (lucky!). So thanks to them I knew it was made by American of Martinsville and we were able to search for a matching side table.

We recently found this side table at Kudzu Antiques. One day in the future we will have the two tables refinished since they are not in perfect shape. They look great for now though.

I got really lucky and scored this awesome lounge chair from an estate sale for $80. Everyone at the sale kept asking me about it so I knew I was lucky to snag it. I have been looking for one of these for a long time and I this is the first one I've found in my price range. Eventually we will have the cushions recovered but the frame is in perfect shape.

It took forever to decide on window coverings for the sliding glass doors. We ended up going with the Kvartal system from Ikea and we are very happy. The shades let a lot of light in but you can't see through them at all. The only issue, and maybe we are doing something wrong, is that you can use one pull rod to open all the curtains but you need multiple rods to pull everything shut again. That seemed a little odd to me but maybe I was expecting too much from Ikea.

I got this clock for pretty cheap from Storehouse when they were going out of business. Initially it kept horrible time so my Dad changed the clock mechanism. It works like a charm now.

Also, you may have noticed that the floor is a different color. When we first pulled up the carpet we put down a coat of primer as a quick way to hide the ugly brown tile. That got grimy fast so we have now painted the floor with some honest to goodness floor paint. We still plan to redo the tile one day but until then we will rock this painted floor, which actually looks pretty good. The only other things we would need to address down here are a new coffee table, some matching lamps, an area rug and what to do with the bar. We plan on keeping it but I would like to rebuild it. The the wood panelling is not doing it for me (soon we will post some better pictures of the bar and ask you, our valued readers, what you think could be done to improve it). Either way I am finally happy with how this room is looking.

End of line.

2010-11-24T22:04:00.011-05:00

Thanksgiving is almost upon us! We are not hosting this year but here are some things I might be doing if we were!

Oh Martha, you always make my crafty heart go pitter-pat.

I love these turkeys! You are never too old for elementary school type crafts.

This is like something from the Muppets (and that's a wonderful thing).

Nice chairs. I could handle my Turkey Day table looking this classy.

How about something stylish to put your gravy in? The Kitchn has a nice roundup of stylish gravy boats. The lovely Classic Century Sauce Boat is featured and if we were hosting Thanksgiving I would have to buy it. I already have the coffee set.

You could always go for something a bit more authentically mid century

Or maybe this? Maybe not.

If I was really into Thanksgiving I would put this on the roof to announce the festivities.

So there you have it, my random Thanksgiving post.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

HALLOWEEN at the O'Cropolis!

2010-10-31T20:08:00.012-04:00

Here are just a few pics of what Halloween is like at our house. Sorry for the poor night shots. I really do need to get a better camera one day.

Halloween! The day on which we traumatize our pets! -Susan

Susan did a great job making this bat lamp thanks to an idea from Martha Stewart.

I buy Martha's Halloween mags every year and this is the first year I've managed to make a decoration from one!-Susan

These were really easy to make but I am sad I couldn't take a good picture of them. They looked really good in person.

Well, we DID have a Preway fireplace in the living room....

2010-10-25T13:20:00.011-04:00

... but we decided it didn't quite go.

The in-laws were renovating their den and we saved the fireplace from certain doom. We thought maybe it would look cool in the house.

Here it is sitting in our corner without the stack on it....

Err.... yeah. Not so much. Maybe if the window didn't end so close to the corner it could have worked out. We kept it up for a few weeks, shifting it here and there. It didn't even look good enough in any position to warrant more pictures. Finally I couldn't take the cluttered feel anymore and our poor Preway was relegated to the basement.

However, all hope is not lost for our sad fireplace. When we finally build a real patio out back I'm thinking something like this:

Not the dress, which is not that exciting, the set-up with the fireplace (and while we're on the subject of , could someone please buy me this? Thanks in advance) I realize the picture is taken in some kind of sun room but I think the basic idea could certainly work out on a well planned deck situation. That project is slated to start when one of those home shows decides we would look great on TV. Anyone want to nominate us?

UPDATE
Here is a pic I found on my phone of the fireplace right before I took it out of my parents house. I loved the look of it with the brick. - Eric

2010-10-23T22:05:00.001-04:00

We haven’t updated the blog in a while but I promise we have a good reason. A really adorable and good reason!

House projects are being completed and blog readers' opinions are needed but lately all the camera time has been taken up with our new addition; Hayward the Potcake Rescue Puppy!

We will return to your regularly scheduled remodel soon!

NEW FLOORS!!!

2010-09-03T21:57:00.031-04:00

That last post about us ripping out the rest of the carpet actually happened about 4+ months ago. We were happy to get rid of the nasty carpet but the floors and stairs underneath were not much better and it made the house look kinda crappy when we had guests over. Here is what they looked like in case you forgot.

When the stairs were removed here the majority of the space was filled with pine straw and leaves. It did not look like a nest of any sort so we have no idea how all of it got there. One theory is that when the house was being built all of it was just swept into the space instead of being thrown into the trash.

Unfortunately I had to go into work so I missed the rest of the demo and most of the new wood being installed. Luckily the floor guy was kind enough to take this picture for me on his iPhone. This makes me wish the stairs could lift up and we could have a secret room in there.

We wanted the new floors to be blended in with the original ones so strips were taken out and new wood was woven in to make a seamless transition. I almost didn't do this but I am very happy that I did.

Our old stairs creaked like crazy but the new ones are rock solid. I was very impressed with how well they turned out.

This was the only picture I was able to take of the floors being stripped before I had to go to work. I was bummed I had to miss such an exciting project going on in the house.

However, when you leave for work and the floors are all bare and you come to them looking like this that bummed feeling quickly goes away.

Every time I see how good the floors blend into one another I have to smile.

Installing all of the new wood only took one day and the staining and sealing took 3 consecutive days. It was kind of a pain to come home from work and not be able to walk through most of the house but it was worth it. Everything was done by a company named Cearbaugh and Son Hardwood Floors. The owner is a real craftsman and I was very impressed with his attention to detail.

Now that all the upstairs floors and stairs are done the downstairs floor looks like crap. We need to decide what we are going to do down there. Until then there is lots of painting and other little odd and ends to do.

Be seeing you.

Carpet Removal Round 2

2010-07-15T21:10:00.006-04:00

Well, after taking up the carpet downstairs I felt it would be a real pain the in the butt to pull the vacuum out just to vacuum the hall and stairs. Also, once we installed our fancy new lights in the hall we realized how dirty the carpet was. So up it came. I never knew it was such a pain in the ass to pull carpet off of stairs. Not only did it take a while to get the carpet and pad up but there were a zillion staples all over the steps and floor. Since we planned to just deal with the plywood floors until we get new hardwood all of those staples have to come up.

I spent several days like this taking out all of those staples.

End of line.

Drainage Issues

2010-06-25T22:35:00.006-04:00

When we had our home inspection the inspector pointed out that we had a few drainage issues at the back of the house. He didn't seem overly concerned with it so we didn't think much about it. Until one day when I happen to go into the crawl space when it was heavily raining outside. Apparently the two large planters in the patio just let all the water collect in them and then drain into our crawl space.

Unfortunately, our patio is cracked in 4 parts and the two parts against the house are sloped towards the house. This just causes even more water to drain into the planters and then into the crawl space. So work had to be done. The first thing we planned to do was to eliminate the main source of the problem by filling the holes. I have no idea why this was never done in the past since I am sure it has been going on for some time now. So my Dad and I went to Home Depot and optimistically thought 4 bags of concrete would be enough for the job. We were very wrong and ended up having to rush back to the store to buy more bags before the concrete dried. We ended up having to use 5 bags per hole. Mixing that many bags of the concrete in a row sucks. I ended up have to use a hand shovel because my Dad was using my only full sized shovel to dump the concrete into the holes. It was a very long day and was way more work than I thought it would be.

So far filling up the holes has been great. The past few times it has rained I have yet to notice any water in the crawl space. I think we may end up putting a gutter in over the patio area since we plan to remove the patio and build a deck one day.

Be seeing you.

The Winnings!

2010-06-06T17:31:00.006-04:00

A while back I posted about how I won a contest over on Atomic Indy. Well I got the goodies a while back but I figured the lights looked so good that I needed to repaint the walls. Also, we needed to wire up for a second light since the hallway only had one. Luckily there was a closet right behind where the original light was and that made installing the second light easy.

So finally the walls are painted and the lights are up. SO IN LOVE! These lights made our boring looking hallway so much cooler. If you are thinking about buying these lights from Rejuvenation please do. I can not say enough good things about these guys and their products.

Oh and I got one other goodie from Rejuvenation but I have yet to install it. Hopefully, I will be posting about that soon.

Thank you Atomic Indy and Rejuvenation.
Be seeing you.

These are the only good pics I can get of the lights installed since the hall is so narrow.

Finally

2010-05-17T07:23:00.003-04:00

I am happy to say that almost a year after we moved in I finally got a chance to bring my Vespa over. I am keeping it inside instead of the carport and luckily it doesn't take up a whole lot of space. This is the first time in the 4 or 5 years of owning the scooter that I have had it where I live.

I know this doesn't have anything to do with the house but I felt like posting it anyway.

2010 Northcrest Tour of Homes

2010-05-08T22:24:00.024-04:00

Every year there is a tour of homes in Northcrest. This is the second year I have been able to go on the home tour but it was the first time I got to go as a fellow Northcrester. It is so inspiring to see what other people have done to their homes.

House 1
The first house on the tour belonged to some friends of ours and this was the first time we got to see the inside. It was featured in the Atomic Ranch article about Northcrest titled North by Northcrest. Holy crap this house was amazing! They have the same origianl layout we do but they renovated and expanded the hell out of it.

Wall unit = drool.

Getting rid of the upper cabinets over the island thingy opens the kitchen up so much. They made up for this loss of storage space by adding cabinets to the back side of the island. There was also a great built in pantry under the planter that I did not take a picture of.

My parents have a black fireplace just like this. My mom hates it and hopefully that means I will get it one day since it is in perfect shape.

I want to live in this bathroom and so did everyone else.

This was a great office and I really like the design they had on the wall. I should have asked if that is just painted with a glossy version of the same paint or if it is a clear sticker. I am thinking it is something like the latter.

UPDATE from one of the owners.
FYI the mural in my office was done by Matthew Craven. He did the mural by basically just freehanding clear gloss over the background color in the retro shapes and just adding them in as he went along.

I saved the best pic of this house for last. What better way to add some zazz to a home tour than to get Lucy to entertain your guests?

House 2
The 2nd house was also featured in the Atomic Ranch article about Northcrest. This house was recently purchased by a young couple that we got along great with. The wives went crazy over their love of knitting and and of course we, the husbands, had to make fun of them for that.

This was a great kitchen and we may redo our layout one day to be like this.

I am sad this picture did not turn out that great but oh well. I really liked the feel of this room. The light colored floor complimented the dark colored walls very well. Also, they have the exposed brick wall showing unlike us. I would like to uncover our bricks to get this look but Susan is against it. Maybe one day she will realize how awesome this look is.

I love our pink bathroom but I think I like the blue even better. It looks so good with the dark colored cabinets and trim around the window.

I am jealous that they still have the original faucets in their bathroom. They are so much better looking than ours.

House 3
The 3rd house on the tour was pretty much a museum of mid century awesomeness. I wanted everything in there. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of the outside of this house. I loved the way it sat on the lot and really wish I had taken some pics.

The living room was amazing.

Susan was in love with that hutch/credenza thing and so was I.

I love wall units and this one was beautiful. They also stole my idea of having multiple clocks together but I will do something a little different than this.

The downstairs was pretty simple furniture wise.

However, they had done something I always wondered about. They took down the wall beside the fireplace and made the downstairs den huge. I loved the look of this and I want to do it too. Sadly if we were to do it we would loose a majority of our storage space and my workshop. Maybe one day this dream of a bigger downstairs can happen but we will have to sort out the storage issues first.

This was the downstairs bathroom and it was beautiful. This picture does not do the tile work justice. Hopefully when we redo our downstairs bathroom it will look this good.

Our goal is to be on next year's home tour.

Chop Chop

2010-05-03T22:13:00.012-04:00

A few months ago we decided some trees around the house had to go. Since our yard is a mini forrest it doesn't look like we did anything even though we cut down 11 trees. Here are a few before pics showing how many trees we had to deal with.

These 3 trees were so close to the house it was ridiculous. Whenever it was windy dead branches would fall on the roof and cause more damage.

You couldn't pay me enough money to do this job. Watching the tops of the trees drop was scary as hell every time. I kept thinking that one of them would hit the house but luckily these guys knew what they were doing.

Our front yard is so much more open now. It's nice to be able to see our house from the street. Here are some after pics.

Until I find some dirt to fill the hole we have a cute little pond in our front yard.

Sadly with 3 trees gone you can see the lovely A/C unit that was left on the side of the house. We will be removing that very soon.

All of the work was done by a company called Limb-it-Less Tree Care. These guys were great and we will be using them again in the future.

Carpet Removal

2010-04-17T22:37:00.014-04:00

Ever since we moved in, the downstairs of our house has always felt damp and smelled a little funny. Also, the previous owners had dogs so the carpet was kinda gross. We were waiting to remove the carpet until we could afford some hardwood floors but we were tired of the smell. So up came the carpet.

Tearing up the carpet went pretty fast. However, removing the tack strips took some time. We wanted to be careful and not damage the tiles to much since they could possibly contain asbestos. We made sure to wear masks for that process.

Since the tile was in poor shape and was ugly looking we decided to paint the floor. Painting will not only make the floor look better but it will add a little protection and incapsulate the asbestos tile. I know mastic is better for incapsulating but painting is a lot easier and faster. Also, since we plan to put hardwoods in those will also help to incapsulate the tile.

Here is the finished product. It's actually not that bad looking for a temporary solution. Also, the dampness of the room and the smell have gone away and that was the ultimate goal of this project.

Kitchen Refresh part 3: The Exciting Part

2010-03-13T19:30:00.013-05:00

The last major hurdle of our kitchen refresh was to install a new gas range. The current electric range worked horribly and we did not feel it was worth fixing. One would think replacing the range would be easy, but not when the old range is 27 inches wide and the new one is 30 inches. So we had to cut the cabinets.

My dad, the engineer, taking measurements.

If you look at the top of the cabinet you can get an idea of how much we had to cut off.

Once the counter tops and the fronts of the cabinets were cut we removed the side panels and saved them for later. Here my dad is measuring the bottom of the cabinets.

After everything was cut we replaced the side panels we had saved from before. I put the old range back in and told Susan we were done. She did not approve.

By the end of the second day we were able to put the new range in. Sadly the gas line did not get hooked up for another day or two. It was worth the wait though.

One of my favorite things about the new stove is that the grills cover the whole top. That way it makes it easier to slide heavy pots off the burner without having to pick them up.

I have to admit that my dad did most of the work for this project. So thanks a bunch dad. All we have to do now is put some new trim along the edge of the counter tops and bake a cake.

Score!

2010-03-13T18:58:00.004-05:00

For a while now, I have been looking for some proper chairs for the dining table. Today we got lucky at Kudzu Antiques and picked up some great fiberglass shell chairs. They are not Herman Miller chairs, but they are very nice vintage knock offs by a company called Domore. Oh, and the best part was that the set of 4 chairs was only $85. I think that is great since you usually see 1 Herman chair for about that price. I'm super happy but Susan needs some convincing.

I WON!!!

2010-03-08T11:26:00.003-05:00

The Atomic Indy/Rejuvenation MCM Contest

I think this is the first time I have ever won something! I can't wait to post about what I won.

Happy Monday!

Almost done!

2010-03-08T08:12:00.005-05:00

We spent all weekend cutting up cabinets and test fitting a new range. Sadly we did not finish but, we are so close. However, the sight of this did make me happy. I think the range was on the curb for maybe 2 hours before someone took it. I hope they have fun fixing that hunk of junk.

Hopefully I will be posting again in the next couple of days about the final installation.

Be seeing you.

Kitchen Refresh part 2

2010-02-26T17:44:00.017-05:00

So after aligning all the doors and putting the drawer fronts on we had to find some hardware that we liked. We really wanted the boomerang drawer pulls from Rejuvenation but they were back ordered. We actually waited a month or so to see if more would come in but that didn't happen. So we opted for our second choice, which was the satin dish knobs with the back plates. We love them!

The next phase of our kitchen refresh consisted of two parts. The first would be a new sink and a garbage disposal.This was a very welcomed addition. The hardest part of this install was the electrical. We were tempted to just put the on/off switch under the counter, but my dad and I were feeling ambitious and decided to mount it in the wall. Since we were running wires through the wall we decided to install another receptacle. We also mounted some under cabinet lighting and yet another receptacle at the end of the counter.

The second part was to install an over the range microwave. Our current microwave took up too much counter space and there was not a great place to put it without the door opening being awkward. Sadly this meant we had to remove the Nutone fan above our range. At first we mounted the microwave without venting it to see how well it would do with just circulating the air. This was a waste of time because you might as well not be using the fan it worked so poorly. So back down the microwave came and we spent 2 days cutting holes and routing new duct work into the existing duct work from the Nutone vent. Sadly once we got everything back together the vent was not lined up right and we had to take the microwave down again. I think we did this 5 or 6 times before we eventually got it right. Now we have tons more counter space and the kitchen looks so much better.

The next part of our kitchen refresh will be a gas range. The current oven works horribly and looks like crap now compared to the fridge and microwave. This is will a big undertaking though since we have to run lines for the gas and we have to cut up the cabinets to get a modern range to fit. We also plan to remove the horrible wood trim along the counter edges since it does not go with our current look.

Here are a few additional pics of the kitchen that I liked and wanted to share.

Be seeing you.

SNOWPOCALYPSE!!!

2010-02-12T22:25:00.007-05:00

This is nothing like the rest of the East Coast but it's Atlanta and it rarely snows here. Enjoy our first winter in Northcrest.

Our neighbor's house looked really good.

Our mini snowmen are here to welcome you into our house.

Kitchen Refresh part 1

2010-02-01T18:55:00.015-05:00

So even before we purchased the house we knew the kitchen would have to change. I know some people would call this blasphemy since it was the original kitchen. Oh well! It was time for a change!

The first day I was in the house I took the cabinet doors off. So our kitchen looked like this for a month or so before we actually got to work. In this picture you can see how we filled in the old cabinet hinge holes because we were using a different style hinge.

Once the holes were filled I got to sanding all the layers of paint off. You can't see it but I am wearing a mask due to the likelihood of lead paint. We also laid out plastic drop clothes everywhere to help with clean up later. The sanding process was a huge pain and my original plan of going all the way down to wood did not happen. I decided that sanding it till smooth was good enough.

Here you can see how things ended up before we started painting.

The two things we wanted to change about the kitchen were the doors and color. Since we couldn't afford to buy all new custom doors my Dad suggested that we buy some nice plywood and make our own. That idea worked out great because we wanted simple flat doors and it only cost $100 for the wood. Of course Susan thought this idea was crazy and the kitchen would never be finished. Luckily she was wrong. This is my dad painting the doors in his shop. One thing to note is that we put on a wood veneer binding along the edges to give the doors a more finished look. That was my Dad's idea and I am glad he suggested it. My Vespa was kind enough to provide the quality control during the painting process.

The color we ended up using was pistachio color and it looks much better in person than it does in the pictures. Also, our kitchen is usually not this messy.

There were some alignment issues when we first hung the doors but that was quickly fixed.

Now the next hurdle was to decide what knobs to use...

Busy busy

2009-12-03T23:01:00.003-05:00

Sorry we have not posted much lately but life has been a bit busy and...

we GOT MARRIED!

Kitchen tease

2009-12-03T22:42:00.004-05:00

We will post more about our kitchen redo soon. In the meantime, here is a preview of our kitchen with knobs from Rejuvenation.

Out with the old in with the new.

2009-12-03T20:12:00.005-05:00

According to Susan I am something of a lamp tramp. So I am sure you will see a lot of posts about lights from me on here. My latest find happened when I was walking around Handy Ace Hardware. Handy is one of those hardware stores that has things on the shelves from years ago. So it's always fun to see what you can find there.

I was excited to see they had curved glass lights with retro patterns on them. Usually when I see these lights they just have a white glass. So I had to get this as soon as I saw it. I painted the base of the light silver to fancy it up a bit because the original white was not doing it for me. I also got a chrome fastener for the glass because it came with a cheap looking white plastic nut. This light will be a big improvement over the single light that was there before. Enjoy the before and after shots.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2009-10-31T18:05:00.005-04:00

We are spending our first Halloween in the house giving out candy, something we were never able to do in our apartments. I'm looking forward to seeing how many trick-or-treaters we get!

Happy Halloween from Northcrest!

I almost forgot

2009-10-19T21:51:00.003-04:00

This is the light that the Nelson lamp replaced. I don't think I need to express how ugly we thought this thing was.

Let there be light.

2009-10-11T22:40:00.007-04:00

So even before I owned a house I always knew I wanted a George Nelson bubble lamp. Today that dream has come true thanks to my bosses Mark and Loren. This was a wedding gift for Susan and I. I am lucky to work with such good people and even luckier that they have good taste. Now on to the pictures! Oh, and apparently it is a bad idea to take a picture using the flash when a person is working with live wires. Sorry dad, but thanks for the help.

I already find myself just standing there staring at the light with a smile on my face. I'm sure Susan thinks I'm a weirdo.

SALE!!

2009-10-11T22:24:00.003-04:00

We just had our first garage sale at the house and we did great. Most of what we sold was old junk stuff of my mom's but we did have some new in the box kitchen items that were wedding gifts to my parents in the early 70's. We kept a few of the nicer items for ourselves they go so well with the house. Hopefully the next neighborhood garage sale will be just as good.

A New Banner!

2009-10-08T12:28:00.000-04:00

We have a new banner! That is all, really.

A Quick Tour

2009-09-29T22:06:00.013-04:00

I figured since this is a new blog it would be best to give everyone a tour of the house when we purchased it. These are all "before" pictures.

I always wanted a house with lots of windows and now I have it! However, I am sure I will be hating them when winter comes around since they are pretty much just glorified storm windows.

We instantly fell in love with the tongue and groove pine ceilings. Even after a couple of months of living here I still find myself sitting around and staring at them in awe.

This is looking into the dining area from the living room. We have acquired some great furniture since this picture was taken.

As you can see in the picture above, I quickly removed the kitchen cabinet doors. They were original to the house but some things are better left in the past. We just recently finished a big kitchen project. It looks great! I will do a post soon about the joys of our kitchen renovations.

(This is a realtor's picture. That awesome coffee pot is not ours)

Here is downstairs den where we do most of our hanging out.

This fireplace is also in the den. The fire place is another of my favorite features. I realized after some poking around that the wall to the left of the fireplace is brick as well and was covered up by the original owner. We are debating about taking the drywall down so the brick will be exposed again. Many changes have been made to this room as well. Stay tuned!

"After" pictures coming soon.

Our den!

2009-09-04T10:09:00.008-04:00

We just got done snazzing up the kitchen. We'll post pictures once we get them together. While you're waiting, a look at the den! Before and after...ish.

We love the den. It's the room we hang out in the most. It has a wet bar and an awesome fireplace! When we first purchased the home then den was a bit.... dark.

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Maybe they were trying to mimic the original wood paneling?

Behind the wet bar wasn't dark. Just kind of blah
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(While we're on the topic of the wet bar lets discuss the counter top. It most certainly needs an upgrade, but to what? Any thoughts are welcome!)

I decided I could not handle the cave-like atmosphere so the first day in the house we did some priming.
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After much debate and a million of those cute little sample paint cans we decided on this blue:
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Those are all the shots I have currently. We have made some other den improvements recently. Very exciting.

Hello there!

2009-08-30T20:30:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the neighborhood! This is our 1962 split level of awesome. As you can see there is work to be done...

...and as you can tell by how good we look in this picture we have been doing it. In this blog we hope to chronicle the trials and tribulations of restoring a mid-century home on a tiny budget.

Check back soon for more pictures!