Nate's Fargo Fixer-Upper

We Closed Today

2008-12-22T23:20:00.002-06:00

It's no longer my Fixer-Upper. I'm not sad though, so everything's good.

I flew from New York to Fargo this morning, landing in the frigid tundra at 10:3o. By 11:30 I had a pen in my hand and I was signing, signing, signing. I had originally thought that I wouldn't be able to be in town for closing, so it was a nice treat to be able to take part. I'm glad that I could be there at the begininning and the end of this adventure. It was also really nice to see my realtor, Jenny again as we had only been conversing through email and phone-tag for months.

I also met the new owner. This situation could have gone two different ways and, fortunatelly, it went very well. He had two of his kids with him and he seems like a really great guy. He has worked as a contractor and has experience working on houses. Score! He's going to start refinishing the floors soon. I might just have to bring him some holiday cookies or something, just to spy on what the floors look like all cleaned up! His kids had already picked out which room was for whom, and they had picked out their new paint colors. It really made my day just to see them excited to call my old house their new home. Good stuff, people. Good stuff.

So, I suppose this is the last entry about the house. I'll make sure to alert you should I decide to buy another fixer upper someday. Trust me, I'm sure I will. It's just too much fun for me.

My best wishes for a special Christmas and an exciting, adventurous 2009!
-Nathan

Sold Sign Signals Sale Soon

2008-12-15T15:46:00.008-06:00

Lets hear it for alliteration today!

Martha, always my eyes and ears in the Fargo building scene, emailed me this fantastic photo of the house with its little red 'SOLD' sign. Thanks Martha!
From what I understand, that light blanket of snow has since turned into a blizzard. We don't have any snow yet here in New York. Go ahead, just ask me if I miss it.

Well, we're closing a week from today ladies and gents. My last week as a homeowner. You can't see it from where you are but my bottom lip is pushed out as I pout. On a happier note I'll also be flying back to North Dakota again for Christmas on Monday, so I'm pretty excited about that. I haven't been able to get into the Christmas spirit yet but hopefully the change in geography will get me there.

Before I sign off here, I need to extend a great deal of thanks to my realtor, Jenny Schuster, for her work with this house. I had no idea that it could be so much fun to work with a realtor and she has certainly gone above and beyond for me. It can't be easy to try to sell someone's house when he is 1500 miles away but she did a great job, offering her advice and expertise along the way. Might I add that she's hilarious. If you or anyone you know is looking into a real estate transaction in Fargo, get in touch with her. Trust me! Thanks Jenny!

Have a great week & take care everyone!

S-O-L-D

2008-12-12T22:00:00.005-06:00

Martha, you get a gold star for the day. I did indeed accept an offer on the Fixer(ed)-Upper!!!

I'd photoshop some kind of cool 'SOLD' photo with the house but my computer broke again.

We're closing in ten short days and I have to say that I'm very satisfied. There were a couple snags along the way (P.O. issues, STILL!) but in all it was a pretty easy deal.

It's a little bitter sweet for me though. It's nice to think that I've already made my last mortgage payment on the house, especially with the cost of living in NY, but it is hard to think back to all of the work my family and I put into the house. What makes it easier to give up is this next part. I'm totally stoked about this part.

The guy who is buying the house isn't an investor, he's going to live in the house himself. WITH HIS KIDS!!! I am so happy my house will be lived in by a family, not rented to more sketchy weirdos! The closing date is the 22nd, assumable so they can move in before Christmas. How nice is that? The mental image of a family opening gifts in my living room on Christmas morning is such a great picture that it makes all of the work worth it.

...AND I don't have to pay that stupid mortgage anymore! YES!!!

Commode, Copper, Cashmere?

2008-11-26T06:44:00.010-06:00

You didn't think you'd see it, did you? Another post about a repair project. The mind boggles!

I was visiting friends in Fargo yesterday when I received a call from my realtor. I was excited, thinking it was an offer or something, but no. The house was being shown and there was water on the floor in the bathroom from some sort of toilet leak. I think this house just knows when I'm in town and needs to have my attention.

I swung by the house to take a look and see where the water was leaking. Fortunately it was up top and not at the base of the toilet. I wasn't about to go pulling everything apart down to the floor! The coupling between the tank and the bowl was leaking due to a faulty seal, so off I went to the 'Depot for parts.

The part was surprisingly easy to find so I picked it up and then grabbed some insulation for the copper pipes that lead to the kitchen sink. Somebody in their P.O. wisdom installed the pipes right next to the foundation wall where they like to sit and freeze in the winter. I don't know if I blogged about running downstairs during the coldest parts of Jan/Feb with a hair dryer to get the water running again, but I did it a couple times. After some unnecessary browsing through tile and lighting (I can't help myself) I made my purchases and went back to the house.

The water didn't need to be turned off because I hadn't paid a water bill for quite a few months. Strange how I wasn't getting the bills in New York, huh. Later I had to visit the city office to get the water turned back on, but that's another story entirely.

I luckily found a screwdriver and pliers in the basement to use for the job. I really wasn't prepared to be doing house projects yesterday as evidenced by my skinny jeans and cashmere blend turtleneck. Yeah, I was elbows deep in a toilet wearing cashmere. Typical me, right?

Here I am with my toilet supplies, found pliers, and inappropriate housework attire:

I removed the leaky coupling and did my best to catch all of the water in an old mug that I found abandoned in a cabinet. After I dried everything off I dropped in the new coupling and bam, I was done. Easy.

Out with the old:

In with the new:The "under bowl" shot.Next I made my way down to the basement with my insulation to wrap up the copper pipes. I failed to do a spiderweb check and, as I crawled my way over to the pipes, I quickly found myself completely covered with them. In my hair, eyes, mouth, and all over my sweater. After a nice little freak-out session I put up the insulation and ran back upstairs.

I took some photos...

I took some videos...

Then I left, praying that nothing else breaks until it sells!

Lets Pay the Fixer-Upper a Visit!!!

2008-11-14T21:18:00.005-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted on here. Good news ladies 'n gents; I'm going to be in Fargo one week from today! I can't tell you how excited I am. Seriously, I haven't been back in over half a year. I'm going to take lots of pictures and post them on here. Pictures of my beautiful, refurbished house and me.

Flat prairies of ND, here I come!

Stay tuned next weekend!!!

New Blog!

2008-09-20T07:58:00.003-05:00

As this blog wraps up, I decided to start a new blog about how I'm doing out in New York. Actually it will be mostly pictures of the city and a lot of architectural shots peppered with little tidbits about what I'm doing out here. For some of my return readers: don't feel obligated to follow the new blog. Just because you enjoyed reading about fixing up houses doesn't mean you'll want to read about some mid-western kid dropped in NYC. I understand & take no offense!

No, the house hasn't sold yet.

Fashion Week Update

2008-09-11T02:32:00.005-05:00

Greetings loyal readers! It's been a busy couple of weeks. No the house hasn't sold yet but I hear it's showing really well. The activity has all been here in New York. It is really hard for new models to book shows in New York, as the designers generally prefer to use models they are familiar with. This year it was even harder for the male models because there were less menswear shows and the shows were using fewer models. Quite a few of my friends came up empty-handed this week, but I was fortunate enough to book a show! The show was a presentation, so I'll have to hold onto my runway walk for next season. The designer was Antonio Azzuolo and the show was on Sunday in the West Village. Here are a couple photos:
Pretty cool, huh? The day before I did some showroom work for 3.1 Philip Lim, which basically means I tried on every look for their runway show so they could take photos of how they wanted the clothes to look. The show was today and it was really interesting to look at the photos and think that I wore all of the clothes four days prior!

Before the next season rolls around, my agency wants me to develop a bit more and get some more exposure. They want to make sure that I'm not a stranger when the shows are casting in Milan and Paris. They are thinking the best way to do this would be for me to travel and book some magazine editorials... in EUROPE!!! So, now it sounds like they are going to look for an agency to represent me in Milan or maybe Paris. Not sure of anything yet, but I'll keep ya posted.

...somebody buy the house already. With that said, that's all for me.

Troubles! Fashions! Photos!

2008-08-25T23:06:00.006-05:00

Ok, so for the most part everything is going well with the house. We've had a lot of showings, and some interest already. No offers yet, but It's only been a couple weeks.

...now for the problem. Brace yourself:
Smack! Right on the neighbor's garage! There was some sort of storm that apparently couldn't wait until the house was sold. Fortunately their insurance will cover the cost of removing the limb and repairing the roof. Dad found someone who can reinforce the rest of the tree with cable so we don't have to take it out. Sadly, it was the best looking of all of the trees the yard had! This place never has and never will have pristinely manicured gardens, so I don't think it's too big of a deal.

My sister, who was living in the house the last couple months, got her paramedic degree and accepted a job offer in Iowa. The house is now completely vacant and ready for some new owners to take care of her. My wallet and I are hoping for this to happen soon...

For an NYC update, next week is Mercedes Benz Fashion Week and this week is when the castings are for those runway shows. I went to my first casting today, (saw a couple past ANTM winners there), and have another casting lined up for tomorrow afternoon. I had a couple test shoots last week and my agency ordered prints which should be ready by tomorrow. The prints will go in my book (portfolio... we call it a book) so clients can see my purdy mug all glam'd up. If you want to see the results of my test shoot, the best few shots are on my agency's website. You'll find me in the 'new faces' section. I'm the guy in the white, collared shirt under the name 'Nathan'. I'll keep you posted if I book any cool shows.

Take care everyone!

On the Market

2008-08-11T00:39:00.003-05:00

Well, the house is on the market and I'm just waiting for an offer. From what I understand, the house was shown twice this weekend.

Dad and Mom flew out to NYC this weekend to visit. It's been a lot of fun showing them my new city and catching up. They're heading home tomorrow morning though. Wish their trip was a little longer. Have a good week everyone!

Finishing Details

2008-08-04T00:22:00.007-05:00

Another batch of photos from Mom! She said that everything is ready to go now. A little cleaning here and there and a couple last projects. She painted the inside of the storm door, painted and hung the wood storm windows on the porch, painted the porch floor, and touched up some of the stain on the banister. The staircase is far from perfect, but the new owners need to experience some of the joy of old house ownership, right? Photo time!

The green-ified storm door:Paint for the porch floor and re-hung, painted wood storm windows:
For the staircase lets do a little retrospective. Lets start with the beginnings. Faux-wood paneling as far as the eye can see, a closet blocking the view from the living room, drop ceilings, worn-out rust-colored carpet. Behold the grossness:
DEMO!!! By far the easiest and most satisfying house project:Wall gone, paint stripped, carpet removed, walls repaired and painted. Lookin' good!Lastly, I'd like to wish a very happy 1st anniversary to my very, very good friends Eric and Lindi! I doubt they read the blog, but congrats to you two anyway! This is a photo from one of our Fraternity formals. Cute couple, no? They are seriously the most laid-back, easy going couple I've ever met. In the four or five years they've been together I don't think I've ever heard them fight... and I lived with Eric for a couple of those years. They're a perfect match.

Here's one of my favorite photos of the wedding party. We were in the limo midway between the church and the reception. As we passed a park we had a spontaneous photo session. I'm on the slide on the left, second guy in (look how short my hair was! What was I thinking!). Eric and Lindi should be obvious. He's the guy holding the girl in the white dress. Yup, that's her. Really, you should have already figured that one out by yourself. Fun factoid: The guy to the left of me and the girl standing to the right of Eric are my friends Tony and Laura who are getting married September 6th. That's right in the middle of Fashion Week so unfortunately I can't make it. Eric and Tony were best friends growing up and Lindi and Laura were best friends growing up. How did they meet? Lindi and Laura were my friends from high school. Eric was my roommate in the dorms and when we moved out Tony, Eric and I got an apartment together. Basically, they met through me. Cool, huh?

Somebody Else's Fargo Fixer-Upper

2008-08-02T23:53:00.004-05:00

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Get your very own Fargo Fixer-Upper! The house is officially on the market! Might I add, a couple G's above where the Realtor originally thought. Of course this is because the family did such an extraordinary job with the little details. Details now including:

A fresh coat of paint for the front windows:
(You'd never know that window was broken!)

New light fixtures in the stairwell and second floor hall:
A new downstairs bathroom sink! Look at the difference:The old sink had curling iron burns on the top and the home-made, particle-board cabinet was rotten from an old leak. The new one looks so nice and clean!So there you have it. One beautifully cleaned up 1928 gem. All of this can be yours... if the Price is Right! (Fargo house hunters... COME ON DOWWWWNNNN!!!!)

I'll be praying for multiple offers in church in the morning!

**Happy 28th Anniversary Dad & Mom!**

Fargo Photo Update

2008-07-18T17:10:00.004-05:00

More photos from Fargo! The newest shots to land in my inbox featured freshly painted trim and new brushed nickel light fixtures in the two South bedrooms. Mom gave the Southeast room a coat of Provincial Cream paint, which she said turned out a little more yellow than she though it would be. It looks really bright and clean though, so I like it. I think the khaki color is the only paint in this house that has turned out as planned!

Here are the before-and-afters of the work:
Here's the new light fixture in the Southwest room. Same as the other bedrooms, but still thought I'd post it.The downstairs bathroom has not only new flooring, but also freshly painted walls and trim.

Before and after:
If there is enough time before listing, Mom wants to put in a new vanity in this bathroom. I'm starting to wonder who's going to be sadder when this place sells!

Dining Room: Complete!

2008-07-15T09:17:00.004-05:00

This just in: dining room completed! I received an email from Mom this morning bearing photos of the cheap-o chandelier I bought on ebay dangling from the *ahem* near perfect ceiling in the dining room. It really pulls it all together. Let's view the progression of this room from grimy apartment bedroom (remember I found syringes in the carpet!) to glamorous dining room:

Before:

Demo of 80's closet addition:Demo completed, patching plaster:
Scraping loose paint from ceiling: (It's the best ceiling in the house now)
Walls are primed and painted:
Cheap replacement woodwork is sanded, primed, and painted:

Ceiling and walls painted, capstock on window trim, crown moulding in place, and dining-approved lighting:Finished dining room:
I always liked this room. There is so much natural light and the green of the trees in the backyard looks so nice. I bet you can see the new light fixture through the archway when you come in through the front door. It'll knock those house-buyers right on their butts the minute they come in!

The Realtor came over and had a few suggestions, but it doesn't sound like listing is too far off. The carpet needs to be removed from the stairs (done- Dad and my brother took care of it, my younger sisters pulled up staples), This fixture needed to be put up (done- thanks Dad) bathroom tiles need to be finished (my brother pulled up the old ones, new ones coming soon), and a broken window upstairs needs to have the glass replaced. Mom and my older sister painted the doors upstairs and started painting the trim in the South-East bedroom. It's really turned into a family project! Thanks for your help everyone, much love!

Whose House is THIS?

2008-07-11T22:42:00.005-05:00

Mom emailed me more photos today. I was floored. Shocked. Stunned. My jaw literally dropped. Did she break into someone else's place and snap some photos? I wasn't prepared for the sight of completed projects. One word: KITCHEN!!! I'm going to do before and afters of the pictures so those of you joining in late (or who need a refresher) can see the extent of the changes. I'm still blown away.

The Realtor wasn't able to come today because she had to show 20 houses to someone from out of town. Yes, in one day. I gave her my sympathies. Mom didn't want to start painting in case she came, as there would be a big mess, so she and my sisters spent much of the day cleaning. I'm still not sure how she got the wood floors to look that good. They looked like garbage while I was there, but that most likely has more to do with my cleaning deficiencies. I think Mom said the Realtor will be coming tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be hearing back soon.

Mom mentioned in the end of her email, "It is going to be hard to see the house get sold...... I have become attached to it!" I didn't even need to read that because as soon as I saw that there were curtains hanging in the kitchen I knew. The house is similar in style and layout to Dad and Mom's first house after they got married. Their house was much cooler though with oak built-ins and it was in much better condition. I know, just get to the pictures, right?

The upstairs bathroom really just needed to have a good cleaning and accessories to get it market ready. I don't know where she found it, but that's the perfect shower curtain. Almost makes the stupid blue tiles look like they should be there!

Before:
After:Upstairs Hall: New paint, new wall on the West side with replacement doors and trim.

Before:
After:
Saved the best for last for you guys. The kitchen. Who wouldn't want this kitchen now? New appliances, new paint, new hardware, new faucet, new flooring. New curtains!?! (Mom's officially attached now!)

Before:
After:
It's so amazing. I wish I could just get the house picked up and dropped in Manhattan! I'm very excited for my next talk with my Realtor just to hear what she says. I think a listing isn't too far off! Again, hopefully up a few k's from her earlier estimate... still dreaming right?

Update Up North

2008-07-11T14:57:00.005-05:00

Mom sent me some photos the other day of her progress painting in the house. She's been working on the upstairs hallway and, might I add, doing a fantastic job. The trim received a fresh coat of crisp white paint and the walls are now enjoying a seller-friendly khaki that extends up from the living room. She said that Dad's finishing up a little plaster work on the ceiling so that will get a coat of white in a little while. The white for the doors were on her agenda for today.

I thought, instead of just showing the most recent photos of the hallway, I would take us back to last summer. Wait! I've almost had this place a year now! That is so weird to think about.

At any rate, the West side of the hallway: a fairly big transformation I'd say.

before:framing in the wall between the bedroom and the hallway:
a little drywall:
doors and trim:and finally paint!Looks like that wall's been there for 80 years doesn't it?

Now the East side. All we really needed here was to take off the door to the stairway and paint.

before:
and after:
I hope you noticed in that last set of photos how the stairwell went from 70's paneling to plaster.

This was kind of fun to see. I might have to post some other progression photos from other projects.

I called my Realtor this morning and she is going to swing by the house this afternoon and take a look around. I really trust her judgment and I know she'll give it to me straight. She'll let me know what needs to be done still and what isn't worth the work for the sale. Last time she was in the house was back in the tail-end of April so I'm pretty sure that she will be shocked to see how it looks now. I can't wait to hear what she thinks and I'm even more excited to get the house on the market. Maybe it will even be looking better than she thought and we can bump up that listing price a little. Hey, a broke New Yorker can dream, can't he?

5 Questions Game

2008-07-01T15:45:00.002-05:00

Well, it seems Jayne at Dainty Digs tagged me for this game. I never really feel like tagging anyone, but I'll answer the questions!

"The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”

1) What were you doing 5 years ago?

I had just graduated high school and was getting ready to move to Fargo and go to NDSU for architecture.

2) What are 5 things on your to-do list for today?

Hmm... kind of a boring day. I'll check my email to see if I have any castings or go-sees tomorrow, call my friend who is moving to New York to make arrangements for him to move into a vacant room in our apartment, the roommates are having an apartment meeting (something about cleaning... sounds dumb but I'll go), go for a run (from my apt down through Central Park, around the reservoir, and back up = a great 6 mile run!), and I was planning on laying out in the park today to try and even out the remains of a farmer-tan, but it's getting a little late for that.

3) What are 5 snacks you enjoy?

If I'm on the run, a bagel is always nice. Orange juice, breakfast cereal, and if we're talking street vendors (I do live in NY!) the honey-roasted peanuts and salted pretzels are up there! I'm a sucker for chocolate/candy/ice cream but I don't let myself have it anymore. Skinniness is more important right now :S

4) What are five things you would do if you were a billionaire?

Contract out finishing the house so nobody has to worry about it anymore, donate a new house to my Fraternity, buy a loft in New York filled with awesome furniture, clothes & shoes, travel the world, and start a real estate development company (after I finished school). Of course St. Judes, American Cancer Society, & the church would see some too. Did I forget pay off all of my debt? I guess that's kind of obvious right.

5) What are five jobs you’ve had?

Cashier/shelf stocker at a grocery store, front desk at Country Inn & Suites, front desk at the Hotel Donaldson, host at HoDo Restaurant, fashion model. (that last one still doesn't seem to fit!)

Well, thanks for the tag Jayne. Sorry to be a party-pooper and not pass it along.

FYI: Spell check doesn't like the word 'pooper'.

Gather 'Round Everybody, Pics from NoDak!

2008-06-29T14:41:00.005-05:00

So, while I've been playing around in New York, my parents have been putting the house back together. They sent pictures!!! I was so excited to open that email. Ready? Here we go!

The living room and the stairwell got their coat of khaki and are looking pretty good. Do you remember the hole in the wall at the top of the stairs? How about the paneling? Nope, me neither.The dining room has the new crown moulding and trim painted white. So crisp, clean.
The cabinets are now updated with a clean coat of white paint. Maybe the new buyers won't notice how small the kitchen is when everything's bright and clean? But where are the doors?Oh, there they are. They're upstairs waiting for some new hardware.
Even though I told Mom not to waste money on little details that won't up the selling price, she couldn't leave the front of the house without some color. I guess there's a flowerbed out there now. I bet it looks more like a home now. Thanks Mom!Well, that's all for now. The family's out of town for a bit so I'll have to wait until they get back before I can call the realtor. I'm going to have her go over to the house when Mom or Dad is there so she can see how things are going and what needs to still be addressed. I wish so much I was there until it went on the market. I mean, this was my project and I just left it for everyone else to finish. I hate not finishing what I started!

Guess Who Hit Newsstands this Morning?

2008-06-16T19:46:00.003-05:00

I grabbed a copy of DNR magazine this morning (by that I mean when I left the house at 2pm), and there I was. Page 10. I ended up being the only model who was printed with the story, so I guess I was lucky. Just thought I'd share!Looks like a few too many layers for 95+ degrees, huh?

An Update and a High-Five from New York

2008-06-03T20:29:00.007-05:00

In case anyone still checks this blog once and a while, (and per Kathy's request) I thought I'd leave an update.

The house is coming along, thanks to my amazing parents who are putting everything back together for me. I absolutely couldn't be doing what I'm doing in New York without them picking up after me. Thanks! From our conversations, the living room and dining room are all painted, and the stairwell is done too. I think Mom's going to email me photos, and I'll share them with you as soon as I get them. She said it looks really nice and that it's probably exactly how I would have wanted it to be while I was living there. I really wish I could be there to help. I feel like I left my baby with its grandparents and I'm missing its first steps!

My roommates have all moved out but my sister moved in, as she was looking for some short-term housing in Fargo after her roommate moved away. It's pretty cool because she can keep tabs on it and hopefully it won't get that weird vacant house smell. You know, the one you get at an open house that's been on the market forever and the owners are long gone.

Now, as for New York, it's been in interesting month!

I've moved into an apartment in Harlem, which is much nicer than the models' apartment I was staying at in the Bronx. It's nice to have a permanent place to make my own... even if it's a 10 X 7 foot room. It's a five bedroom, one bathroom apartment I share. Thankfully the lifestyle of a fashion model allows for a later wake-up call than the roommates. When I get up they're all gone and the bathroom is mine. MINE!

I did paint the room when I moved in, so I guess that's close to being houseblog-able. I went for a steely blue color. I had photos but accidentally deleted them. Kinda upset about them, but more upset about the photo of me flashing gang-signs in my Bronx subway station at 3am. I could recreate it, but I don't think I'm going back to the Bronx. Ever.

As for work, it's been picking up the last week or so. I booked my first job on Tuesday, modeling for a press presentation for Topman that was held Wednesday. I was photographed by DNR magazine, and videotaped by the BBC. I have no idea if that video will ever surface, but I'd be interested in seeing it if it did!

I checked DNR magazine's website today, and it seems they decided to forgo the photos of the other models and me in favor of the company's owner, who I personally feel is a couple notches down on the chic scale from the rest of us. Even though I can't prove it, I was fully dressed in Topman, standing in front of that orange neon sign. I swear. I'm going to stop into a magazine shop tomorrow downtown and see if they included some more photos in the print edition. I had better be in there! I didn't wear a button down shirt, heavy wool sweater, double-breasted wool coat and gloves on a 95 degree day in NYC for nothing! I guess I got paid, so it doesn't matter.

Other than that, I've had some good go-sees lately. For those of you who don't watch the TV show America's Next Top Model, a go-see is when models are sent out by the agency to meet with casting directors, photographers, or designers. These people would take your information, might ask to see your runway walk, and take some basic photos to keep on record for when they have jobs that come up. I had a go-see Thursday with a very big casting director that went really well. He had me show him my runway walk, sat there with a deep-thought look on his face, then asked me if I could do it again. As I finished my second pass, he muttered "genius" under his breath. As I left he said "we'll see you soon"! He called my agency and told them he liked me and asked about my schedule for an upcoming show. Of course, it means nothing without actually booking the job, but at least I caught the attention of the right guy! I'll find out if I got that job this week, as well as another show I've been on hold for for two months. It would be really cool to book those jobs, considering they're in Florence and Milan!!! BIG name designers, but I don't want to jinx it.

Other than that, I've just been taking in the city and trying to keep up with people back home. I check my google-reader account every day, so I'm keeping current with everyones' blogs. It's sad, but I get my renovations 'fix' vicariously through all of you. I'm going through construction withdrawals!

Lastly, I was between go-see appointments the other day and I was trying to kill time (they were a block apart and scheduled an hour apart) so I did a little browsing. The building next door to the first go-see was an URBAN HOME DEPOT!!! I've never seen 'the Depot without a parking lot or freight entrance. I definitely had never seen one that had three levels. I took a photo, but that was in the batch of photos I accidentally deleted. When I'm back in the area I'll do it again. It just blew my mind. The merchandise was different from Fargo too. I think a lot of people here are looking to either use luxury materials or restore old buildings because there was a much larger selection of quality materials (hello, boards and boards of marble samples?) and vintage inspired items like amazing mosaic tiles, classic patterns, light fixtures that were NOT available to me, and the coolest entry sets. What I also saw was an obvious lack of the 'builders special' basic items that clone themselves into every suburban split level in America. It was just cool to see the difference.

Oh, sorry, rambling post. This one got long! Thanks to anyone with the patience to get this far.

Reporting Live from NYC:

2008-05-09T08:58:00.005-05:00

Good Morning loyal readers!

I've been in New York for two days now, absolutely loving it, but still need to post a few things from the house. As it got close to moving time I finished a couple projects, but didn't have time to post about them. Lets try to catch up, shall we?

First of all, I thought the broken window in the living room might be cause for concern for potential home buyers. In took four hours to finish what I thought would be a one hour job. Typical.

First, wearing gloves, I started chipping away the old glazing compound and removing the broken pieces of glass. Once all of the glass had been removed I chiseled out any remaining glazing compound from the window sash. I did my best to brush off any dirt or dust from the wood as that would make it hard for the new glazing compound to stick to.
Next step: cut the glass to fit the window. First problem I encountered? I got the wrong size piece of glass. Trip to the 'Depot. While I was in the area I also grabbed dinner from a sub place I knew I was going to miss. You're starting to see why this took 4 hours, right? Once I had the correct piece of glass at home, I used some of the old broken pieces of glass to practice cutting on.

The makers of the glass cutting tool recommend scoring a dozen passes on a scrap piece of glass to make sure that it is in good working order before you screw up your new piece. I measured out how much of the glass needed to be cut off, then used a T-square to make sure the cut was perpendicular to the edge. One quick score line across the glass and we were ready to break it. I flipped the glass over and used the little ball-end of the cutter to tap the glass along the score line. The glass cracked along that line and the new glass was ready to install.

The little groove that holds the glass in the window needs a little glazing compound so the glass has a bed of it to sit in. Once I suffered through trying to do that on a vertical surface (I didn't take the sash out of the window frame) I put the glass in and secured it with the glazing points. If you don't know, those are little metal pieces that are pushed over the glass into the frame and hold the glass in place, much like the prongs on a diamond ring. Finally, I replaced the glazing compound around the edges of the glass and used a putty knife to shape it into a 45 degree angle.In future projects like this I'll be using the glazing compound that comes in a caulking tube. For this project I used the tub of glazing compound and it was a nightmare. You pull out this wad of hard compound and work it in your hands until it is soft enough to roll into a rope to put on the window. Wait, if you work with it too long it becomes like silly putty and stretches and falls down. Also, it will stick to your hands and your putty knife better than to wood or glass. Just a little fun fact.

While I was having all of this fun with glazing compound I finished the storm windows for the two little windows flanking the fireplace. They will need to be primed, painted, and rehung still, but the hard part was getting them fixed up in the first place. For some reason, even thought I had taken the glass out of the windows, it wouldn't fit back in. You'd think that if you could pull the glass out of the frame it would fit right back in, wouldn't you? Yeah, I thought that too. I had to scrape down the wood on all four sides to make the glass fit back in... where it was for the last 80 years. I don't get it.

I think the house was just mad that I was leaving it without finishing first.

One last thing: Spring Cleanup saved my behind. Fargo, as most towns do, has a spring cleanup when you can haul almost anything to the boulevard and they'll take it away for you. I already mentioned that I had a washer and dryer get taken from the boulevard with a refrigerator. By the time that the garbage people came to collect, the garbage pile had been pretty well picked through by people. They took those appliances as well as an old computer, an orange traffic cone, fireplace tools, a pair of shoes, clothes, magazines, a cowboy hat, a broken bicycle that came with the house, and some old wooden shelves. Amazing.
One Nate's trash is another random stranger's treasure. In all, I threw out seven jumbo trash bags and eight boxes of stuff. It came out to about half of my things, leaving only about ten boxes to be stored at my parents' place. It felt really good getting rid of everything I don't need. A good word to use would be cleansing. I just got rid of things that I didn't need that I was holding on to for no good reason. I'm a recovering pack-rat, but I'm getting over it fast. This is how much stuff I have in New York. I'd say that's about as far from pack-rat as you can get!

I'm missing the house already (living in a questionable old building in the Bronx) but I love being in New York. I'll miss blogging about the house too. I'll just get my kicks reading & commenting on the rest of you guys' blogs.

NYC in 4!!! Gettin' Close!

2008-05-03T22:00:00.006-05:00

Guess what I did for my birthday yesterday? I repaired cracks in plaster.

No, it wasn't that bad. First I went to my friend from high school's wedding reception. It was nice to see a lot of my friends before the big move East. Got to say some goodbyes. When I got home I did stay up late to finish putting mud up so I could sand it today.

Dad and Mom came up today and helped with the work again. Dad cut & hung the trim in the North West bedroom, and Mom helped me sand down the walls so we can texture and paint. Here's the stairwell all sanded and textured. Just some primer and paint left! The wall above the fireplace and at the landing of the stairs are still drying, so I'll sand them in a little bit. There's a little sanding left in the hallway upstairs and on the living room ceiling. Then I'm done sanding walls. Hopefully for a very, very long time. Ugh. Hate it. Great tip though for you: If you are sanding joint compound from a textured surface, use one of those spongy sanding blocks. (see photo below) Just apply a little pressure and they sand over the texture. It worked so well that I was kicking myself for using a pole sander for so long in the dining room and bedroom.

This next week is Fargo's spring clean-up when you can dump your junk on the boulevard and the city picks it up. Convenient timing, no? You're allowed two appliances, so Dad and I brought up the disgusting washer and dryer. Not an hour later and some guys came up in a pick-up and asked if they could take them for scrap. Uh, YEAH! I mentioned that we had a working fridge they could have, so they took that too. That's not going to be the end of it; I'm going to give those poor sanitation workers a run for their money. Anything that doesn't fit into my suitcases and doesn't need to be saved & stored at the parents' house is going to find its way to the boulevard. I'm anticipating quite a heap. The city says that construction materials aren't allowed, but I'm going to put everything in black trash bags and hope for the best. Worst case scenario? I throw the stuff they won't pick up into the dumpster behind the apartment across the street! Is that illegal? ...probably. I'll just flee the state!

Speaking of fitting things into luggage, look at what I got myself for my birthday! I'm pretty excited because it's about twice as big as my old suitcase. This, of course, means I can bring twice as much stuff to New York! I'm also bringing this huge duffel bag I have and my computer bag (carry on).

My amazing parents got me the BEST birthday gift: a new digital camera! I borrowed Mom's back when I started this blog oh-so-many months ago and she just got it back today. She borrowed my brother's this whole time, so he gets his back now. The camera is a Nikon Coolpix with 10.0 megapixels, 5X zoom, and a whole list of other stuff that I'm to lazy to list. It's exactly what I need to have to take some great shapshots in New York. Maybe Europe too? Lets hope so.

Lastly, my hair stylist is buying my piano from me and she said she'll be picking it up tomorrow sometime. I'm going to be gone for part of the day for my cousin's confirmation, so Dad and I hauled it out onto the porch so she can pick it up. You really don't see a lot of pianos on porches, but it's kind of fun out there. I serenaded the neighborhood (to the best of my abilities) just because I think it's so ridiculous to see a piano on a porch.

NYC in 10: Trim, Trim, Trim.

2008-04-28T01:08:00.006-05:00

First, before the trim talk, last night I started working on the kitchen tile. Ugh.

It was a pretty straightforward job: peel off old tiles, lay down new tiles. Not too hard, right? No, not utill Nate decides to start doing things the right way. I already had a good part of the kitchen re-tiled but then, behind the fridge, I realized that the sheet vinyl underneath was coming up from the floor. "I should really peel that up first" I thought. Big mistake. I spent the next two hours redoing the work I had already done. Peel off the new tile, chip away at old sheet vinyl, replace tile. After about a third of the kitchen the sheet vinyl stopped coming off, so I had to use my scraper to kind of taper the edge off to the wood floor. Then I could transition from vinyl tile over wood to vinyl tile over sheet vinyl. Here's a photo of that transition.

By the way, check out how amazing that sheet vinyl was. I want to meet the person who decided that was the best option for their kitchen. Seriously.
Here's a photo of the part of the floor that is done. The rest has to wait until the subfloor dries out from the leaky shower. Yeah, that's on my to-do list too. Just imagine white cabinets and window trim. The hardware we picked up today was the wrong size, so we'll have to exchange that. Yeah, I forgot to measure it and just took a guess. Of course I was wrong.But, back to the main topic of the post: TRIM!!!

Yesterday Mom and Dad came up and helped me get started with the trim replacement. After a trip to the Depot to get lumber, Dad and I started cutting trim while Mom primed the boards. We replaced all of the missing baseboards and quarter-round trim on the first floor. Photos:

Today they came up again with my brother and sisters. After another trip to the Depot, we started with the crown moulding. After about a hundred bad cuts, we finally got it up. We've got some filling to do at the corners and seams, but it's good enough. Yeah, I don't think we have a future as a father & son crown moulding company. Next came the cap moulding over the window and door trim. Check it out!

After we finished, we moved upstairs and Mom primed all of the wood. We need a little paint yet, but we're on the home stretch.

Upstairs, Dad and I hung the trim around the North West bedroom door (inside and outside trim) Next we hung up the door to the linen closet. It went up really easily, much to our surprise. It only took, like, 20 minuets to hang an 80 year old door in a new frame in an 80 year old house. Everything just lined up level on the first try. After we put the trim up around that door, the family took off for home. It feels so good to have this much progress happen in two days. I'm feeling a little less stressed out. Next step? Finishing the baseboards and quarter round trim on the second floor, priming, then a couple coats of paint. Then big old before and after pictures. I love nothing more than some good before and afters!

Keep on Working: NYC=11 Days.

2008-04-26T15:41:00.006-05:00

Today is all about plaster repair so I can paint. My heart's just not in this anymore. Remember back when I was fixing the walls in the dining room? Yeah, those turned out beautifully, but I think that's where the precision is ending. I've essentially conceded to the fact that the person who is going to buy this house is just going to be an investor who is going to rent it out to crack-heads who don't care a thing about it. Basically, I'm slapping the walls together so I can get paint up. I'm still going to be sanding and texturing, but if things end up a little lumpy who cares. At this price point in the market, new paint will be good enough for the house to stand out.

Here's part of what I did today. I patched up the holes in the ceiling of the hallway upstairs and taped along the edges. (sanding, second coat, sanding, texture, paint needed still)

And I'm in the process of patching up those holes on the stairwell wall. I know it looks terrible but I'm essentially skim coating over it. (more mud, sanding, second coat, sanding, texture, paint needed here)
I put the second coat of mud on the cracks in the stairwell, just need to sand, texture, paint those. There is a large crack up too high for me to reach though... we'll see what kind of scaffolding I can create with various pieces of furniture and scrap boards. I might write my next post from the hospital. We'll see.
So, yeah. I'm thinking pretty realistically now. I have a small handful of days left and years worth of projects, so I'm basically slapping a coat of paint over everything so it will look good for the next 6 months or so. I wouldn't be surprised if the house spends the next 15 years as a rental property that falls into greater disrepair, and eventually becomes a parking lot for the hospital around the corner. Can you tell I'm in a bit of a stressed out mood? The optimism is overflowing.

This doesn't help: May is next week, ladies and gentlemen. What's up?
Funny story though; I locked myself out of the house yesterday. I was stranded out on the porch until I had a great idea. That broken window that I haven't gotten around to replacing could be a good access point. The window was locked, but I slit a hole in the tape where there is a hole in the glass big enough for my hand to fit through. I took an old piece of weatherstripping and made it into a loop so I could catch it on the sash lock and open the window. I pulled the lock open, then up went the sash and in I fell onto the couch. I thought it was very 'McGuiver' so I felt pretty smart. At least until I remembered that my absent mindedness got me in that position in the first place!
That would be me re-enacting my break-in job. Smooth, huh?

I Hate Fargo. Can I Move Yet?!?

2008-04-25T19:30:00.001-05:00

It's April 25th. It's 31 degrees and snowing. SNOWING.

12 days.

Photos of the Exterior Paint

2008-04-19T16:08:00.006-05:00

Well, the windows upstairs need another coat of paint, and you'll notice the mismatched shutters. Give me just a little bit of time and that'll get fixed. It just adds to the crack-house charm right now. I have yet to scrape the excess paint off of the window panes on the doors, so pretend that I've already taken care of that. At any rate, here are the photos:

The house as I found it:
...and with a little green. Still in the works...

The front door before:The front door after. The trim was screaming at me that it didn't want to be treated like siding. 'I don't want to be white anymore!' Green it is.

The screen door was burgundy and white and ugly. I just slapped the green on it too and I think it looks better. I still need to clean up that glass.I hope that looks like a 1920's Arts and Crafts green, not baby poop green. At least it's clean and better than before!

NYC in 20: Today's Theme is Curb Appeal

2008-04-17T22:44:00.002-05:00

In probably every real estate book I've read, they all say that you should change up something on the exterior right before you sell your house. That way people who pass the house on a daily basis notice that there are changes taking place.

Well, I did that today. At least started that. I painted the porch door & door trim, front door & trim, screen door, upstairs front windows, and shutters. The upstairs windows and shutters need another coat, but I can square that away tomorrow.

The color I used was kind of an earthy green that I thought would compliment the white well. Hmm... it's growing on me, but I'm still not sure. I wanted something that was reminiscent of 1920's arts and crafts design, so I thought the green would work well. People will either think of arts and crafts when they see it or of a baby's dirty diaper. I'm hoping people will think of the first reference, not 'lets not buy the house with the diarrhea trim'. It was dark out by the time I finished, so I haven't had an opportunity to get a good look at the place. It was also too dark for pictures. Sorry, I'll get 'em tomorrow.

Tomorrow will mark my last day at the Hotel Donaldson, leaving me unemployed and ready to kick the house repairs into overdrive. With each little thing that gets done I can take a little bit of a deeper breath and my shoulders relax slightly further from my earlobes. I'm just kicking myself for being such a lazy putz this winter. I could have had so much more of this done!

NYC in 22 Days! Panic Mode!

2008-04-15T10:40:00.003-05:00

Wow, so I'm in a mad dash to the finish. Finish in relative terms... I could spend five years working on this house! So far I've mostly been running in circles trying to figure out the best place to start. A few days ago I painted the trim in the kitchen white
and this morning, on a whim, I decided to paint the walls in the kitchen. What is wrong with me and picking out paint colors? I can't seem to do it. I picked up this paint about five months ago. What is it that takes the paint from the nice light sage green on the paint swatch and turns it into a dark SEAFOAM green mess on the walls?

Ok, so it's a little bluer and darker than I would have wanted, but I think it's ok. It does make the white trim 'pop'. If the realtor says it will hurt the sale, I guess it did only take me about three hours to do the job. I still need to paint the ceiling and cabinets a nice pure white. Not a job for today. No way!

Usually I'm not one to be extremely boastful about things, but I captured this bit of sheer magic on film for you. It's me cutting in with a paintbrush. I haven't used painters tape in years and I think it's my best quality in the scheme of home renovating. Steady hand... check it out!

Oh yeah!

More to come soon. Nothing like an impossible deadline to keep you moving!

More Photos! Wood! Stairs!

2008-04-01T19:59:00.004-05:00

Ok, I just finished stripping paint for the day and I'm really happy with the results so far. I have all of the spindles done on three sides and have four of the backs done. I shot a few more snapshots because I'm really excited to see so much woodgrain going on!

Notice the laptop on the stairs. The ipod decided to take the 'dirt nap' (as my professor calls it) so the headphones had to connect to something!

Too bad the house smells like old, melting paint. Sorry roomies!

I believe I've made a decision...

2008-04-01T17:09:00.004-05:00

I'm going to sell the house. I'll be working hard to get it ready to list in May. Plan to see big changes; big inexpensive changes.

My Realtor came over today and we sat down to talk about selling the place. She had a list of homes on the market now that would be comparable to my house once I make those fixes I posted a few days ago. Her estimate fell about where I expected it. Basically the value is higher than when I bought it, but the fees associated with the sale cancel out most of the increase. If I got my asking price I could make a little pocket change, but not too much. There'd be even less if anyone asks for closing costs.

Basically, I just need to not have this liability in North Dakota when I'm in New York, Paris, Milan, etc. What if I couldn't find renters? The furnace breaks down? Renters damage the house? Just too much to worry about.

Now for some news that's a little more fun: I'm working on the staircase today. Blasting off that paint with my best friend and favorite tool. See it there? Sitting on the newel post. Just waiting to play!

The two whitish spindles are the ones that, for some reason, someone decided to sand and prime before painting. Jerks! This is one time I'm glad that the P.O.'s were too lazy to do things the right way.

I found that a box works really well for dropping the hot paint scrapings into. The cardboard is easier to scrape against to get the stuck-on pieces off instead of newspaper or paper towels.

Anyone for some delicious chips? Paint chips? Now featuring 30% MORE lead!
Scrumptious!

The Realtor Said I Could Sell Easier if I Kept Stripping...

2008-03-28T07:13:00.004-05:00

The staircase, people. The staircase. Although, if it raises the value any, some other arrangements could be made ;)

I had a Realtor come over yesterday to help me decide what to do with the house. She is awesome and I wish I had worked with her in the first place. Direct, to the point, honest, and EASY TO COMMUNICATE WITH. Even a sense of humor. Perfect.

She walked through the house with me and told me what changes were worth my time and money if I plan to put the house on the market this spring/summer. Things like, don't bother with the ceramic tile but instead replace the vinyl tiles with more stylish new ones. Things like that.

I don't think you'll be seeing the 1920's inspired dream bathroom that is bouncing around my imagination. It's just not worth my time/money. Like I stated earlier, she did think it would be a good idea to finish stripping the banister, so that's on the to-do list. Here's that progress pic I promised you:Gotta love the 'Flame Thrower' and it's magical abilities. I just feel like the wood grain can finally breathe! Once I get the rest of the spindles all toasty-warm and paintless I'll go back with the chemical stripper and get the rest of the paint off.

I guess I'll also post the photos of the dining room trim all painted and the blinds FINALLY up.

Basically, the things I need to get done to put the place on the market would be to:

* Paint the kitchen cabinets a fresh white, replace hardware
* New vinyl tiles in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom
* Paint the walls neutral colors and the trim a crisp white
* Replace a couple light fixtures
* Finish replacing the missing trim
* Refinish the hardwood floors (argh!)
* Paint the front door
* Get the upstairs plumbing working again
* Find remnant to replace the carpet on the stairs
* Find a vinyl flooring remnant for the upstairs bathroom
* Either find carpet remnants or refinish floors in the bedrooms
* Repair broken bead board on the porch ceiling (porch swing fiasco)
* Replace shower curtains with ones with bright colors or patterns. They will distract the potential buyers from how much the bathrooms suck. This is also why she liked my roommates bright paintings.

She said she was going to go back to the office and run some comps from my area. She hoped to get back to me today with an estimate. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be enough to cover the costs associated with selling the house (realtor commisions, etc.) and pay off the mortgage. A little extra in the pocket so I don't have to beg for change in the subway would be nice too!

Crazy Crazy! Gotta Get Going!

2008-03-24T16:33:00.004-05:00

Oooo! Life's getting crazy! I have less than two months to get everything straightened out here in Fargo. I'm starting a big push to get as much done with the house as soon as possible.

You'll have to forgive my lack of photos (camera's at my Fraternity house) but I've actually gotten some stuff done! I painted the trim in the dining room (except for the trim that I haven't replaced yet: crown moulding, baseboards, cap around doors/windows) and I started stripping the paint off of the banister.

Yup, I broke out the flame-thrower! Yesterday I accidentally took one of those Sunday afternoon naps that goes a little too long. What was intended to be an hour nap turned into a 6 hour slumber. One of those times when you wake up and the sun's just gone down, but your body says 'Good Morning!' I pulled paint off of the newel post and the first four spindles. I will still need to get some citristrip on there, but for an initial stripping I think they look pretty good. Here's a before:
I'll make sure to post a picture of the progress as soon as I can.

I'm going to get a Realtor over here this week to give me an estimate of what I could get for the house if I decide to sell it this summer. I'll get an idea of what would need to be upgraded to get my money back out of the deal. Then maybe estimates from contractors? I'm not sure what I'll do yet but I'm trying to keep my options open.

Gah! I wish there were three of me right now!

Sell? Keep? Burn to the Ground?

2008-03-15T15:22:00.005-05:00

Well, loyal readers, there is a reason you have not heard from me in quite a while. A 100% life changing opportunity has occurred over spring break and now I find myself moving. To New York.

Yes, the big apple. I need to be there in May, which doesn't give me much time left with the house here in Fargo.

Due to Fargo's current market (crap) I'm pretty sure that I'll hold onto the house and keep renters in it until more favorable conditions surface. I'm also expecting my neighborhood to go up in value in the not too distant future due to some recent and planned development. Basically as much as I would like to just cash out right now, I need to hold until I can get my money back out of the deal!

The reason you ask? I went to New York for spring break and while I was there I dropped off some photos at some modeling agencies. As luck would have it, I signed a 3 year contract with Fusion Model Management, one of the top 10 agencies in New York. Your little Nate up in Fargo will now be a high-fashion editorial and runway model. Didn't see that one coming? Yeah, neither did I.

I'm putting school (and home rehabbing) on hold to take advantage of this amazing opportunity that fell into my lap. My agency wants to get me started in New York as soon as the semester is over and, hopefully, I'll be in position to go to Europe for castings this summer for Paris and Milan's Fashion Weeks.

So, yeah. I need to hurry up and get some work done on the house to make it presentable to renters by May.

How's that for an interesting post?

Fridge Fun

2008-02-27T22:23:00.002-06:00

I had a couple spare minutes the other day and I felt in the mood to mess with my roommates. The refrigerator and freezer doors were swinging the wrong way for the fridge's placement in the kitchen... so I switched 'em! Imagine if you just came downstairs for a glass of juice and... wait... now the handle's over there!?! Ha!

WINTER SUCKS

2008-02-19T23:38:00.003-06:00

This is just a quick comment about the weather in Fargo right now. Tonight is a record-setting night for how completely freezing it is. Get ready.

It is currently -25 degrees. With the 20-30mph winds the air feels -50. Can you believe it?

WHY DO I LIVE HERE???

Tomorrow I'm leaving to go to Chicago for five days. I'm excited to go to Chicago because it will be a warm change of environments. Who else can say they're excited to go to Chicago for the heat?

Hmmm...

2008-02-16T17:15:00.002-06:00

Well, it's been a few weeks and there's nothing to report. Due to a recent financial dip I haven't done much work. Or maybe it was all of the other time commitments. Either way, sorry!

I Believe that Christmas is Over

2008-02-02T02:24:00.001-06:00

A couple days ago I decided that it was time to take down the 'ole Christmas tree. Gettin' towards February. The ornaments were getting dusty.

The tree was so completely dead! Barely touching the tree caused a shower of needles. I think that by the time I got the tree out to the curb there were more needles on the floor than on the branches!

Just look at that mess. It took four dustpan loads to get them into the garbage. Maybe I could have taken care of this earlier.

I unplugged the lights outside, but I'm not going to be taking them down in -10 degree weather

Doorknobs from Ebay!

2008-01-30T00:44:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I just randomly click on over to ebay to see what's there. Since I got the house I've always kept an eye out for doorknobs. You know it's really hard to find matching hardware for old houses, and my doorknobs are especially difficult. They aren't the mortise lock type doorknobs that most houses this age have. The doorknobs are made by Schlage, and are what I'd assume are their first crack at the modern doorknob. During the duplexing process, some of the original doorknobs went missing, so my quest finding replacements has been rather unfruitful...

Until now!
I found some on ebay last week! They are pewter, not brass like the majority of my knobs, but they are from the same time period. The metal ones have a hammered look to them, but some of them are glass and match the ones I have already in the house. A couple of the glass ones were made with black glass. How cool is that?

Even though some of these knobs are different, they are period-appropriate so they should work. Of course, this means that I'd have to get back to working on the house. Maybe they'll just stay in the box until spring break. We'll see!

BTW, I'm glad I paid for shipping on parts of the doors! What's up with that?

On a different topic, my friend Martha from the neighborhood association emailed me with some great advice for my water leak issue. It was so obvious I felt absolutely dumb for not thinking of it myself. A mug. A big mug from a local establishment's mug night. You see, when you put the mug under the drip, it stops the water from spreading out into the rest of the room and the rug. See why I feel dumb for not thinking of that? Wow.

So Busy, Yet House Still Falling Down

2008-01-26T21:14:00.000-06:00

I've been insanely busy with school, student organizations, committees, councils, advisory boards, and work lately that I haven't gotten much of anything done. You know how that is? You try to do a little of everything and you just get farther behind as a whole. Argh!

While I'm trying to manage everything else, the house decides to erupt in plumbing fiascoes. Here's the readout:

Kitchen: Plumbing to sink freezes again. The hot and cold water lines run right along the foundation, causing them to freeze when the air temperature drops below -10 degrees F. This leads to piles of dirty dishes, a messy kitchen, and crabby roommates. I saw an article online from This Old House that showed me how to get the pipes thawed out. I used a hair dryer (I couldn't find my 'flame thrower' heat gun) along the pipes to break down the ice. I turned the faucet on before I started so once the ice melted the water would run through the pipes into the sink. The flowing water helps melt the remaining ice in the pipe. It was such a great sound when I heard the sink drain start funneling water down to the sewer!

Upstairs Bathroom: This room has always had poor water pressure, but after the little freezing incident it's gotten worse. The tub works alright, the toilet is fine, but the sink is barely putting out anything at all. How ghetto is it to wash your hands in the bathtub after using the facilities? It's a proud moment as a homeowner... I really don't know how to fix this myself. Anybody know of a good (cheap) plumber in Fargo, ND?

Downstairs Bathroom: EVERYTHING LEAKS! As noted before, the shower leaks through the floor into the basement, but it has since gotten worse. The sink faucet cold water supply valve leaks down into the basement as well. Since the big freeze, the toilet's tank has started dripping from where the tank and bowl connect. This is more of a problem because it doesn't just drip into the basement like the other plumbing fixtures, but creates a nice little cold-water puddle underfoot. This puddle starts first by filling the cracks between the peel-'n-stick vinyl tiles creating an unexpected sock moistness that's really uncalled for. The puddle growth ends by swallowing up the entire bathmat from the bottom up. From the top it still looks like a nice dry bathmat, then SQUISH, you're up to your ankles in toilet water. SuRPRiSe! The other fixtures can just keep dripping into the basement for a while (the water just trails down to the sewer), but that toilet needs to be fixed soon.

I just don't have the time for all of this right now!

Did I mention I'm about a week and a half behind in my marathon training? I'm so out of shape!

Update:

2008-01-16T11:55:00.001-06:00

We have water again. Heat and water both at the same time. It feels like another Christmas!

Brrr... a.k.a. I love my life.

2008-01-16T01:33:00.000-06:00

This is a story about how amazing yesterday was. Get ready.

Lets start this off with a quick announcement. The temperature was -15 degrees. This does not include the wind chill. For those of you who live in a land that God remembered with sunshine, the wind chill is how cold the air feels on your skin. In Fargo, this can range down to -50 or more. I bet some of you didn't know the air temperature goes that low. Freezing happens at 32 degrees, then you get to zero, then you get to go below that zero. Last year we got to 3o below without the wind chill. I'm sure it's still coming this winter. Joy.

So... my car's blower fan is broken, thus no heat or defroster. It's ungodly cold in Fargo. There is frost hardened on the INSIDE of my car windows. I can't scrape it off. There's a hole in the windshield's frost about a food wide that I can use that to see out of on my way to school. Following so far? Good.

While backing out of the driveway I roll down the passenger window so I can see if any traffic is coming. This will be the last time the top of the window touches the door frame that day. Just wait, it continues to get better.

After class I have some obligations that last until about eleven o'clock pm. My days usually last about fourteen hours before I get any time to relax. But back to yesterday. I get a text from my roommate that says, "why is the house so cold". I don't know why at this point, but I already know that it is very bad, will be expensive, and will make me want to burn down the house and flee the country. My other roommate texts me that "the house is 43 degrees". This is so not good. I want to gather myself into the fetal position and cry.

I go home and find that the oil tanks, although clearly stating that they contain just under 1/8th of their capacity, have decided to become empty. At that point the furnace says "screw this, I'm done" and takes a nice nap.

Cut to the pipes freezing over.

I set my alarm for the EXACT time when the oil company will begin taking phone calls, say a little prayer for the pipes not to burst, then layer on a parka and two extra comforters and go to bed. Shivering, lots of shivering.

7am. Phone call happens about five seconds after the alarm starts. The oil guy will be over at 9:30. The house is 36 degrees. Awesome. By the time he arrives the house is at 35 degrees. He comes inside, checks things out a bit, then pumps in 300 gallons of oil (the two tanks hold 550) and starts up the furnace again. I pay the nice man ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. I didn't even get the tanks filled up all the way. I'll probably have to get them filled again in March.

It's 2am the next day and the water still isn't running. I'm still hoping the pipes are thawing and the water will magically turn on my the morning. I know, fat chance, but I really don't want to have to fork over more money on a plumber.

Lesson learned: Don't purchase real estate north of the Mason-Dixon line.

...it could be worse though. Two blocks away a homeless guy was found dead in front of the Cathedral's bishop's house. Apparently he had stopped by there a few times before and asked for help. This time the bishop wasn't home and he must have fallen down and froze to death. The mail carrier found him. I guess things could be worse for me huh? Puts things in perspective.

More Like My Home

2008-01-11T10:49:00.001-06:00

Last night I had a few minutes so I hung up some picture frames in my room. It looks more like a finished room with my stuff up on the walls, so I'm really happy about that.

The wall by the door has a certificate that I received when I was initiated into my Fraternity and a cross that I got for my confirmation. It hangs a little crookedly, so I threw another nail inside the little dove to keep it level.There's a little wall next to my nightstand, made from where the closet sticks out a couple feet into the room, that you can't see from the room's doorway. I decided that would be a good place to hang the stuff that doesn't match anything but I still wanted to hang up. I have my medal and bib number from the half marathon I ran in May. Hopefully seeing it everyday will keep me motivated as I train for the full marathon this May! The plaque I received this past May as well. It recognized me as the 2006 NDSU Greek man of the year. I need to stay motivated this year since I took on a pretty big role on the Interfraternity Council, so seeing this everyday should help.
The big wall next to the bed turned out to be the perfect place to display my composites. For those of you who don't know much about Greek Life, a composite is a display of all of the members' pictures. A new one is printed each year, and I have three of them. I haven't put the most recent one in the frame yet. The redish one is from AGD Sorority who I was the sweetheart of in 2006. They gave me a copy of their composite so I put it in with the rest. The new blinds are from the elegant Walmart Mainstays collection. $4.Here's my mugshot from 2006, just to give you an example. Yes I blocked out my last name... stalkers! Below everyone's picture is the job title or position they held in the chapter. Eminent Commander is just our fancy name for President.
On the wall with the dresser I hung up a pencil drawing I did two years ago for one of my first art classes at NDSU. It's a copy of Vermeer's 'A Woman Weighing Pearls'. The dresser will be a few inches higher when I get around to painting the bun feet black and putting them on the bottom. Somehow they got separated from the dresser a while back. The boxes to the left need to be taken out. One of the boxes is completely packed with old clothes I have to donate. I organized my closet and there just isn't enough room to hold on to the old clothes I wouldn't wear out of the house anymore. I still have one load of laundry that I'll need to squeeze in, but just look at how great and ORGANIZED this closet looks! I need to hunt down my tie rack and put a shelf up over the hanging rod, but other than that everything looks pretty good. See?

Dining Room Woodwork = Primed.

2008-01-06T03:41:00.000-06:00

I stayed up and primed the woodwork. Photos:
Enjoy.

Dining Room: Trim Prep 2

2008-01-05T23:55:00.000-06:00

Tonight I sanded down the woodwork in the dining room to get it ready to be primed. I filled the nail holes (which hadn't been filled for 23 years) with joint compound. Yeah, wood putty would have been better, but the Depot is really far away and I'm just painting the wood anyways. Go ahead and call me lazy... I am.
I'm leaving tomorrow at noon for a executive retreat for NDSU's Inter-fraternity Council where we'll be trying to figure out how to make that organization better. I was just appointed to the vice president position and I know we're going to need to put a lot of work in this weekend to get a head start on the semester.

The retreat is in a cabin in the woods. Yeah, that'd be one of my regular hangouts. NOT! Although I'm really not that enthused about hanging out in the wilderness for a weekend, I am excited to get out of Fargo for a couple days.

Classes start Tuesday. I'm ready to be done with this holiday break. Overall, it's fallen pretty short of my hopes, so It'll be good to get back into my regular routine.

Downer of a post, huh? At least the dining room will be done-ish soon.

Dining Room: Trim Prep

2008-01-03T02:20:00.000-06:00

Happy 2008! First post of the new year; excited?? ...not really that cool of a post. sorry.

Tonight I started the prep work for painting the trim in the dining room. The main boards of the trim are going to be saved, but the moulding that rides along the edge of those boards is too small and needs to be removed. You know I like breaking things, so I had fun with that. Here's a photo of the old trim, and a photo that shows the size of the moulding that should be wrapping around the large boards.
Old trim piece left, new -correctly sized- trim piece right:
All I'll need to do now is give the wood a light sanding and I can get a coat of primer on there. Then paint. I'll put on the new trim pieces later, once the larger boards are all done. I just don't think I'll have time to get to bustin' out the miter saw during break. The same goes for the crown moulding. It's so frustrating that I'm not getting done what I wanted to get done.

I'll be gone all weekend for leadership retreats for two different student organizations, so anything that's getting done over break is getting done before Friday. aka: dining room is it. No living room, no stairwell.

Paint! The Dining Room has Paint!

2007-12-31T14:51:00.000-06:00

There's nothing more satisfying than rolling some clean, new paint onto an old wall.

I started with the ceiling, like you're supposed to, rolling on the white paint with my roller attached to a broom handle. It was going really well until the roller pad started to shift off of the roller. I thought I'd push the pad against the ceiling to get it back onto the roller. *SNAP* Broke the broom handle. Roller hits the floor. Good stuff huh? Clean up on aisle 4!
After I finished painting the ceiling (and floor!) I started on the walls. I picked out this khaki/tan color for the living/dining areas and even though I was concerned it would be too dark, I'm actually really happy with it.

Progress pic:
Finished product (just imagine crisp white trim, chair and crown moulding):
If you've read previous posts, you'll know my problem with the trim. It was all replaced in this room back when it was converted to a duplex. The wood is inferior in quality and I wanted to make sure it wouldn't look too bad if it was painted. I painted a little swatch with ceiling paint to see how the wall color would look with white trim.
I'll have to take a sander to the trim's varnish first to make a surface the paint will adhere to. I like the wood with the khaki, but it'll be more cost effective to just paint it rather than replace with good quality wood. The living room retains its original fir woodwork, so I'll be able to have the nice wood with the khaki there. Compromise, right?

There are a couple areas on the walls that need another coat of paint, but after that I'll be able to attack the trim and finish up. I'm thinking that room will become the living room while I redo the real living room next.

I'm almost at the end of winter break and I'm nowhere near as far as I had hoped to be. I guess that's just an old house for you. It eats your life!

Dining Room: Texture and Primer

2007-12-31T00:58:00.000-06:00

I found a great new (to me) product that I'm so excited to share! I discovered these cans of aerosol orange-peel texture. The size of the texture is adjustable so you can make anywhere from small to medium to large splatters. There are two different kinds, one that shoots out white texture, or one that shoots out blue texture that turns white when it dries. I could see paying the extra fifty cents for the blue stuff if you have vision issues, but I really didn't see the need for it myself. I just thought I'd try it because it looked like a fun gimmick. It did work nicely for taking pictures. I don't know if you could have seen the white texture as well as the blue against the off white walls.

The only drawbacks were the price and the smell. They were a bit more expensive than sand texture would have been, costing about $13 a can, but so far I only had to use 2.5 cans of it. It's SO much easier than the sand texture, so I was happy to pay it. The smell was the other issue. I would have liked to be able to open up a window but I didn't want to let in the winter so I just tolerated the fumes.

Here's a photo of the giant crack I repaired on the North wall:I decided it would be a good idea take an action shot. I hope you like it; I over-textured that spot just for your benefit.
After I finished the texture, I primed the walls and ceiling. The ceiling hadn't been primed yet in that picture.
I just finished painting the ceiling, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I'm probably going to paint the walls now.

Painting Prep in the Dining Room: Motivation

2007-12-28T03:43:00.001-06:00

Now, this is what I call motivation!
My roommate, after hearing me complain about the perils of sanding and how much I didn't want to start it again tonight, placed a delicious Summit Extra Pale Ale under my sander in the dining room right across from where I was sitting and watching tv. Mmmm... of course to get to the goodness I had to put that sander in my hand. It worked! I hate sanding joint compound, but my little treat for subjecting myself to such mindless and torturous labor has been Summit EPA every time so far. Why would this be any different? (only a couple, Mom!) For those of you who aren't anywhere near the Minneapolis/St. Paul or surrounding areas, Summit is a brewery that was started in St. Paul MN by a guy who grew up in... where... Wahpeton, ND!!! That's my hometown of about 8500 people. I'd support his efforts even if the beverage was gross but luckily for me it's SOOOO good. It's actually my favorite, and you'll find me ordering it quite frequently. It stays pretty local, but if it makes it up to me I'm sure it has to have a pretty good radius out of the Twin Cities. I know my MPLS readers get it, but do you get it in Wisconsin Jeff? Kelly in IA? If so, try one for me!

Anyways, back to the dining room. I finished sanding the walls and ceilings tonight. I used some drywall sand paper which has a kind of grid shape. Much like a window screen. Using this works really well because the open squares allow the dust to fall out and not clog the sand paper. The disadvantage of using this kind of sandpaper is that it leaves some ridges in the joint compound. I'll have to go back with a wet sponge and smooth out the ridges tomorrow.

I finally bought some tape and hung up some tarps over the entrances to the dining room. Dust control, woah! Finally I'm able to do some sanding without everything that's ever come into the house being covered with three inches of dust. Here are a couple photos of the tarps up. Boo dust!
Finally, when I finished sanding I was so excited to be done, I made a dust-angel. I feel like it's in the holiday spirit. Enjoy!

Merry Mud-Mess!

2007-12-26T02:31:00.000-06:00

After a great Christmas with my family, I returned to the house of dust this evening and got back to work on the dining room. More mud was the call of the day. I re-mudded the patches on the ceilings and walls to prepare them for their second sanding tomorrow.

Ceiling:Walls:

I'm going to cry tears of joy when I get to priming. Paint? I'll just pee with excitement. I just want to get this room done.

I know the living room will be much easier than the dining room. The stairwell? The tears there will NOT be ones of joy, but I'll be so happy when that's done. It's really the ugliest part of the first floor right now. Like a giant zit on your senior picture!

Just a Little Late

2007-12-26T02:25:00.001-06:00

A couple hours late, but still my best wishes for your holiday season!

Just Call Me Dusty

2007-12-20T01:35:00.000-06:00

After work today I decided to sand down the dining room ceiling and walls.

As it turns out, the only thing more miserable than sanding walls is sanding ceilings. Yuck.

I need to go back and hit a couple areas again with mud, then do a second sanding. Texture, primer, paint, then done. I say done in very relative terms.

I need to go buy some tape ASAP because it seems there is none to be found in the whole house. I have tarps I wanted to tape over the openings to the room, but I couldn't find any tape. As a consequence there is dust all over the kitchen and living room now. Not nearly as much as the dining room though. Please see photo below (note the dust in the air floating through the house):I made the mistake of sitting down and leaning back on the couch without changing clothes first. Nice huh?
Tomorrow will be entertaining a trip to 'the Depot' as well as some Christmas shopping.

Basement Evils

2007-12-19T16:12:00.000-06:00

Today I ventured down to the basement to see if I could try to fix my dryer. About half way through disassembling it all to take out the faulty heating element I decided to give up and just hire someone to do the job. I'm sorry, I just don't have the patience for that right now!

But, while I was busy screwing parts back together, my roommate started taking a shower upstairs right above me. Not a problem you'd think, but subsequently I began taking a shower too. Yes, maybe I need one, but I'd prefer to take mine on my own schedule. What was once a small leak at the shower's drain seems to have lead to a bigger problem here. I took a little video so you can understand my situation. Sorry for the poor lighting conditions.

It looks like replacing that shower stall might just be moving up to a sooner project. I'll be caulking soon, if nothing else.

I'll also have to tell the roommates to not take showers while the dryer guy is downstairs! Gotta love the house...

Painting Prep: Living & Dining Rooms

2007-12-17T01:50:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally got around to starting the work that needs to be done in the dining room.

I, like most American 22 year old male college students, spent my Saturday night scraping loose paint off of a dining room ceiling. Oh, what an adventurous life I lead!
Look at that mess!
Check out how big that pile of paint chips is! (note feet for scale) (fyi, size 10) I also finished scraping off the residual joint compound from the walls and ceilings where I removed the extra walls. Here's a photo of the living room ceiling, ripe for sanding. The job got a lot easier once I started spraying water on the walls and ceilings before I started scraping. The joint compound became much softer and easier to scrape off.

Step 1: Spray water onto unwanted joint compound.Step 2: Scrape your heart out.Step 3: Repeat.

Woah, tangent! OK, back to the dining room. Today, after one of those five hour Sunday afternoon naps, I made a trip to 'the Depot' for some more joint compound. I patched up the holes in the ceiling left from the paint that chipped away. Now all I need to do is sand, re-mud where necessary, sand, texture, prime, then paint. Is this considered the home stretch yet? I filled all of the nail holes in the walls, but I still need to repair two big cracks. I just want to paint already! I've had the dang paint for months, gah!

I'm kind of up in the air about what to do with the trim in the dining room. The trim was all replaced (poorly) sometime before I got here. The wood is stained, but it is of an inferior quality. You can see stain on the oak flooring in all of the dining room pictures from when the p.o. stained the inferior wood. Yet another reason to thank the p.o.! The windows were painted at some point, but I can tell the wood was originally stained like the living room. So what do I do? Should I (a.) paint the inferior wood white like the rest of the house, or, (b.) use the inferior wood elsewhere in the house and replace it with better wood stained to match the living room. This option would require me to strip the windows.

Either way, the picture rail needs to be replaced. I've already removed it all from the walls. This piece shows the original stain color. There were a couple chunks of it missing from where walls went in during the duplex-ing process. I'm planning on using the old stuff I removed somewhere else in the house, but I'm not sure that I want to use the same picture rail back in the dining room. What if I was to switch it out for some crown molding? Would that be a bad idea? I just think that the crown molding might look more finished than the picture rail. The picture rail was about a quarter inch down from the ceiling which I didn't think looked very good. That little quarter inch gap lead my roommate to say that I should 'replace that crappy crown molding'. If I was to put the picture rail back up I think I'd pull it down a half inch so you can tell it isn't just 'crappy crown'.

Decisions, decisions. Let me know, loyal reader, if you have any opinions. I'll have plenty of time to think about it all while I'm mindlessly sanding ceilings and walls. Good times.

Christmas Tree Rookie

2007-12-13T22:33:00.000-06:00

I forgot to water the tree for almost two days! I'm a bad tree parent.

I got home from work, threw my coat over the arm of the couch, and looked over at the tree. The thought of how long it had been since it had been watered flashed into my mind and I freaked out. I actually ran over to the tree to check how much water was left. 'Cause two more seconds of time without water would be catastrophic. I couldn't really see how much water was left so I, like an idiot, shoved my hand into the tree stand. Yup, had full of sap. Apparently water goes in the tree, sap comes out. It created this nice film of clear sap on the top of the water which I inserted my hand into. Awesome. No, sap doesn't wash off your hands well.

My roomie had a small Christmas party last night and, apart from people setting their drinks on my piano... grr..., everything went pretty well. I'm thinking that I'll need to host some sort of get-together next semester when the walls and ceilings get redone. Basically when I'm not completely embarrassed by the house.

Pines & Paintings

2007-12-11T22:25:00.001-06:00

Today was a day sans work, sans class. Can't you already tell this is going to be a good post?

My main mission today was to get the house ready for my roommate's small Christmas party she's throwing tomorrow night. We still need to do a little cleaning and de-cluttering, but other than that things are about ready to go. I really wish this party was coming at the end of winter break so everyone had some nice, clean, painted walls to look at. Oh well.

First thing on my agenda today was to pick up a tree. A REAL Christmas tree!

I have NO idea how that fit in the trunk of a Pontiac Grand Prix. Since I have these amazing 9' ceilings I got an 8' fir of some kind. Sorry, I forgot what kind already. Whatever it is it makes the house smell amazing. Lets see your plastic tree do that!

And with ornaments please?

Aahhh, that's nice huh?

I also got a wreath for the door out front. It occurred to me that the white lights on white strings on my white house didn't really do much for the festive holiday spirit during the day.

Since all of the walls downstairs look like crap, I used those paintings my roommate made last year to disguise the imperfections (as much as possible) and turn this place from 'construction site' to 'warm, welcoming home'.

I still need to replace that light switch cover.

Fireplace and TV walls.

Good-bye mister stick-man smiley.

Dining Room. This room is pretty much dedicated to her paintings of a particular nude model who she chose to paint in green. She's somewhere in the ballpark of 80 years old. I think it's kinda funky, although I'm sure my mom wouldn't approve! I actually had to draw this same lady in one of my drawing classes for about a week. Mmm... I am feeling this HUGE urge to purchase some blinds since this room faces the neighbor to the west. Did I mention the neighbor to the west is a pastor? Yeah, I'm not sure how much he'd like this view.

I also put up this shelf quickly to put my glassware on before the party. The kitchen cabinet shelves are about an inch too short to fit the taller stemware on, so this was my best option. They had been on top of the fridge until now, but I think this is a little better.

We're going to do some checking around tomorrow for a cheap-o dining room set. Thrift store shopping anyone? We'll see what I can come up with.

Tis the Season

2007-12-10T23:01:00.000-06:00

...for freezing off all fingers and toes while displaying your pension for cursing in front of the neighbors. Ok, so it wasn't that bad. It was cold though. Isn't it nice? I can't decide if it's good enough the way it is or if I should add lights around the windows on the second floor. It seems like I decked out the porch, but disregarded the fact that there's a second floor at all. I would like to put lights up along the top roof line, but without a taller ladder (than 6 feet) I'm pretty much out of luck. I could pretty easily throw another string of lights to circle the upstairs windows to draw some more attention up. Yay? Nay? Why do I really care? I don't know.

I finished my studio project on Friday and had my critique. How did it go? Hmm... well I've had better. One critic in particular really laced into the project and repeated his problems with my project again, and again, and again. This was so frustrating because I knew that I screwed these things up, acknowledged this, and he still kept talking about it. The worst part about it was that I could have done much better. AND the project was about PRESERVATION!!! That's what I want to do with my career and I go and blow the project. My problem was that I was worried too much about preserving the original structure and didn't think enough about how it would function today. A learning experience I guess.

One final on Wednesday, then the winter break is mine to get some work done on this shanty! Goals for the break you ask? Here's the list:

* repair walls in living room, dining room, stairwell
* paint walls in living room, dining room, can you guess? yeah, stairwell.
* repair ceilings in living room, dining room
* pain ceilings in living room, dining room
* finish repairing, then install storm windows flanking chimney
* get dryer repaired
* install doorknob on NW bedroom door (sorry roomie! I'm sure he's been waiting)
* paint upstairs doors and trim
* buy snowblower

There are a couple of other things I'd like to do, but I don't think I'll have time. We'll see. I'm excited to get the walls done because my roommate's an art major and has a whole bunch of paintings to hang up. I'm planning on getting a tree tomorrow. My roommate's throwing a Christmas party on Wednesday, so I'm thinking a tree's in order. Oh, and some cleaning. Lots of cleaning!

STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!!!

2007-12-05T00:59:00.001-06:00

Doesn't mother nature know I'm stressed out right now? What's with this? We got another good 5 inches of snow today. Add this to the previous 6ish inches and you'll understand why I'm questioning why I'm not living about five states south.

My studio professor moved back the deadline for my design project until Friday (vs. Weds) so I had some time to go home and sleep. I parked my car in the back yard because my roommates had already driven back there and if they could get in and out without any problems I should be ok, right? Well, some SNOW happened. This much:After finally getting some sleep, I had to go to work tonight at 5. In the process of trying to get that car to the street I had some difficulties. Try an hour of difficulties. Gah! Usually it isn't too much of a problem to power that car through snow because it's got some pretty good power, and I'm a fairly good winter driver. When you take into account that your roommates have been driving on the driveway for a couple days and packing the snow down to ice, then add snow up past the bottom of your car doors, things become more interesting. If you try to punch the gas, the ice causes you to turn sideways, but if you don't go fast enough you can't get through the snow and you get stuck. At one point I could see the side of the house in my rear-view mirror... not good.

When I came home from work I found that my neighbor had brought his snow blower over and cleared out the driveway. How nice is that? I'll have to return the favor once I get a snow blower of my own. I'm really not going to have time to go snow blower shopping until after my project and finals are done. Lookin' at around Tuesday next week.

If it snows again before then, someone's getting hurt.

p.s. Am I not paying for getting the street cleared with my property taxes? I got stuck in the middle of my street again. This was at 9:30pm, when it stopped snowing around 3pm. What's up Fargo? Our taxes are almost twice those of Moorhead,MN just across the river and they can get their streets cleaned off. If I get stuck one more time more than five hours after snowing ceases, you bet I'm calling the city!

What's this Cold White Garbage?

2007-12-03T22:39:00.000-06:00

Saturday. 6am - 10pm. Snow.

Saturday. 7am-3pm, 5pm-10pm. Nate. Work.

I hadn't moved my car since 7am and when I left work at 10 I got stuck in several places in the parking lot and stuck IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET TWICE in front of my house. Apparently Fargo forgot how to plow streets and parking lots. I'm sitting in Studio right now working on my project so I can't take any good photos, but here's a photo of the parking lot outside from a 4th floor window.
You can't really see the damage, but we got about six inches of standing snow in one day. I have yet to shovel out my 100+ foot driveway. The next big purchase for this guy? Snowblower. I found a couple on craigslist for $200-$300, so you better believe one of those is coming over to play! Anybody know some minimum requirements I should be looking for? I really don't want to get one that sucks and is going to take me all day to clear out my snow.

I have yet to get the fireplace wall's storm windows back up or decorate the house for Christmas. I'm so glad I get to do this all in the snow now. Just another lesson on the evils of procrastination? I'd say so.

Say No to Crack(s)!

2007-11-28T11:41:00.000-06:00

It's about time that I post some pictures of progress in the living room. My plan is to repair all of the walls and ceilings in the living room, dining room, and upstairs hallway during winter break.

Problem #1: Living room duplex removal aftermath: walls and ceiling

During the de-duplexing process I removed a couple extra walls from the living room. The walls still show extra joint compound from the transition from original walls/ceiling to the walls I removed. I've been working on scraping off the extra clumps of joint compound and then using some new stuff to level out the surfaces that were marred by the duplex walls.

If you need a refresher, here's where the walls were:

This is about where the ceiling is at right now. It still needs to have some scraping on the far left part there, then a good smooth coat of joint compound, then some horrible overhead sanding that will undoubtedly leave me with a mouth full of dust. Lookin' forward to this one.

Then come the walls. I finished scraping off any excess joint compound from the walls, then I've laid on a new smooth coat to level off the walls. Just sanding needed here. My favorite.
Problem #2: Stairwell walls

When I removed the paneling on the staircase I was left with lotsa lotsa cracks and nail holes. I've started patching up the cracks already, but haven't gotten too far. Here's some of the work. Please notice the smiley face stick figure I painted for the roomies. I thought it was classy. It might need to be repainted onto the finished stairwell. Or not.

First thing I had to do was gauge out the cracks so they were wide enough for the joint compound to get into. Upon my Aunt Bec's suggestion I used a wood chisel and hammer to widen out the cracks. Here's a shot of some of the widened cracks.
Then she suggested that I use the mesh tape to cover the cracks. I haven't gotten a chance to apply a second coat of mud yet, but after that's done I should be able to sand it down to a smooth appearance. Then I'll just have to texture, prime, and paint.
Problem #3: Living room walls.

I also started repairing the fireplace wall. I'm going to cut a strip of drywall to fill that place where the plaster's missing, then I'll be ready to sand, texture, prime, paint, hang some art!

Since I was already messing with the tape and joint compound I decided to rip out the horrible PO tape job over some of the cracks in the other walls. When the cracks turned, this guy just turned the tape over the crack and didn't care about the kinks that were left in the tape. He also didn't mud under the tape so it was peeling up too. It was bothering me quite a bit so I figured I might as well repair them before I start painting. So that's where I am right now. I won't be doing ANYTHING on the house until after I'm done with finals, so don't plan to be seeing anything amazing for a while. But, when those tests are behind me, look out!

I'm a Trapper; Anyone Want a Small Pelt?

2007-11-25T07:02:00.000-06:00

When I got home last night at about 2:00am the first thing I did was scurry through the house checking the traps. Kabaam! The coffee cabinet trap caught my first victim! It must have worked pretty quickly judging from how rigor-mortis had already set in. It seems the winning combination for the trap was equal parts gum, peanut butter, and cheese. After disposing of the vermin I grabbed one of the traps from the basement and replaced the one that caught the mouse. If I learned one thing fishing with my Dad and Grandpa, where you're catching fish is where you keep fishing. We'll see if there are any friends for this little fella.

Death: Brought to You Today by Skippy Peanut Butter and Kraft Singles

2007-11-24T22:24:00.000-06:00

Before Thanksgiving my roommate called me into her room sometime around 1am and said she heard a 'chewing' noise coming from the corner of her room. I, like an idiot, assumed there was a mouse in her garbage can so I *picked it up and shook it*. Dumb. Out it came and ran across the room. Roommate does the cliche 'girl on chair screaming' routine and I spend the next hour checking every purse, shoe, and bag in her room for vermin.

Soooo... I purchased some traps! I'm really more excited than I should be about this, but this is probably the closest I'll ever come to hunting (In ND babies are born in blaze orange with shotguns in hand). I purposly purchased the traps I thought looked most 'splatterly' for the maximum gore factor.

I got eight of the old school 'snap off your fingertips' traps and loaded them up with a combination of peanut butter, cheese, coffee (I found that the mouse likes the butter pecan flavor the hard way... grrr...) and some mint gum. The coffee and gum are pretty fragrant so they should attract the mice well. Peanut butter was recommended by the manufacturer, and well, cheese is kinda required by tradition isn't it? Check out this buffet of death!

I placed one in my room, one in the cabinet where the coffee was mooched, (see photo with mouse-munched coffee)three in the basement, and two in the roomie's room where the mouse was originally found. Don't worry, she's out of town all weekend so she won't be grossed out by the savage brutality about to occur.

Setting the traps proved to make me feel less like a brave hunter and more like an eight year old girl. I flinched whenever one snapped on me and clenched my jaw every time I set a new one. My jaw actually hurt by the eigth trap. I'm not proud. At least I didn't scream when I had one snap on me!

So, anyways, about two hours after I set the traps I was watching TV in the living room and I thought I heard something. I yelled to my roomie in the kitchen to ask if he flicked on a light switch or if a mousetrap went off somewhere in the house. He said he didn't do anything and suddenly I became like a kid on Christmas morning. I came tearing down the basement stairs only to find that, not only did the trap not catch anything, but the dang mouse BROKE the mousetrap so I couldn't reset it. JERK! Oh... his day's coming...

No, I'm Not Dead.

2007-11-19T09:06:00.001-06:00

Well, for the last couple weeks my focus has been anywhere but on the house. At this time please feel free to check the date on the last post and frown at your computer screen.

The only real work I've done since that last post was to begin repairing the walls and ceiling in the living room where I removed the extra walls during the de-duplexing process. I also started repairing some of the cracks in the staircase wall where the paneling (eck) had been. I read on someone else's blog (I forget who *sorry*) that there's always a reason the paneling is there. It's hiding something! In my case? Cracks. Lotsa 'em.

I'll throw some photos up soon but I can't right now since I'm at Studio and the camera's at home.

I'm getting my 1975 oil-chuggin' heat machine it's annual check-up tomorrow so hopefully it'll last through the winter. If that thing goes out it'll be my roommates and I huddled around a fire in a garbage can in the living room. No, I don't trust the fireplace; It needs to be checked out/cleaned and, last I checked, I don't have a money tree anywhere.

Oh, yeah, and the dryer broke this week. I think it's the heating element because it still runs the same as before, just without all of the 'hot' needed to actually make clothes dry. Of course I figured out this little problem when I went to pick up my clothes from the dryer before work. Yup, there I was ten minutes late for work because I had to dry everything with the roomie's hair dryer.

We had our first flurries of snow this weekend. No I haven't finished the storm windows yet. Yes I'm a bad little homeowner.

I'm going back to my parents' house in Wahpeton (40 miles away) for Thanksgiving weekend and I really don't even want to think about the house.

With the holidays aproaching, I think that I need to pick up some Christmas lights. I finally have a house to decorate for the season, so I'm pretty excited. I'm trying to decide if I want to go simple and understated, or be the obnoxious neighbor with blinky lights of every color running every which way across the house. If I take the 'what was he thinking' approach I know my coworker who lives across the street will have words for me at work. He'd appreciate the humor in it though.

That's all for now, sorry to all who have been checking back to see the same thing over and over. I'll try to do better!

Look at My New Neighbors!

2007-11-06T13:15:00.000-06:00

Here they are! Cute huh?

There are three of them, and they've moved into the roof of the house to the South. It must be a pretty swanky apartment; There's a front door, back door, and upstairs balcony!

Front Door: Back Door: (little squirrel shaped hole where the gable meets the gutter)

Upstairs Balcony: (squirrel shaped hole at the top of the gable)
Sure, they look like nice enough neighbors, but they have some odd habbits I really don't enjoy. Their downstairs neighbors have in-home daycare, and lets just say that diapers from their trash keep ending up in my backyard... somehow I suspect these little guys.

When I sit on the couch in the living room, the front and back 'squirrel porches' (the little part of the eave that wraps around to the gable front) can be seen through the two windows flanking the fireplace. I'm finding it really entertaining to watch them run in and out, but I know I should tell my neighbor. Maybe he can charge rent. 30 acorns a week?

In other news:

This weekend I only made it to one salvage place which proved to be the WRONG place, since after this little visit I've heard from numerous people that I should have gone to Bauer Bros. Next time. I think I'll be back in Minneapolis in two weeks, so I'll try again.

I also had the privelage of going to a 'before party' for a fellow houseblogger. You can find their blog about the Healy House, an awesome Queen Anne Victorian, at http://thehealyhouse.blogspot.com/. I'm really excited to watch their progress as they restore it.

Bondo? Good Luck, Idiot.

2007-10-31T22:55:00.000-05:00

Wow, so I decided to fill in the rotten parts of the storm windows I took down and stripped the other day. Turned out to be a little harder than I'd imagined. I used Bondo's wood filler, which is an experience all its own.

First, I tried it on the salvaged door that was installed in the NorthWest bedroom. The door originally had the old mortise lock and the rest of the house has your conventional style doorknob, so the old holes needed to be filled. I grabbed a couple chunks of scrap wood to fill the majority of the hole, then smeared in the wood filler.
Let me explain the process of the wood filler.
Step 1: Mix stinky chemical A with nasty chemical B to form noxious fume putty.
Step 2: Don't puke from the smell
Step 3: Fill necessary areas of wood
Step 4: Sand down to flat and prepare for paining

Doesn't seem to hard? Well, first off, Step 1 should have been take everything outside so your house doesn't smell terrible all day. Step 3 is considerably harder than it sounds. This product sets in 3-5 minutes. Take note that these 3-5 minutes are not all totally functional. The first two minutes are a little runny, so anything you apply on a vertical surface will slide down. The third minute? Primo. The 4th and 5th minutes are when the putty turns from snot to boogers (sorry Mom) and begins to become impossible. It starts to stick to itself and pull up the stuff you aready laid down well. Enjoy.

I kind of got the hang of it once I got going on the window frame out in the front yard (yay ventilation) which turned out surprisingly well considering how much of the frame was rotten in the corner. (this is the best photo I have of the before showing rot)

I still need to sand down the results of my putty-day, but I'm feeling pretty confident about the whole project right now.

In other news,

I'll be going down to Minneapolis this weekend for an American Institute of Architecture Students conference. Between the seminars and architecture firm tours (cool!) I'm going to run out to an architectural salvage place or two. I have a pretty short list (and budget) so I hope to get 1. a floor grate for the dining room 2. heat registers for the second floor 3. 1920's medicine cabinet and 4. vintage mailbox. Anything else I should look into that I'm forgetting? Let me know. I'm going to compile some measurements tomorrow so I don't have to call home to my roommates and make them run all over the house with a tapemeasure. This weekend is going to rock. Very exciting!

Howdy, Neighbor!

2007-10-25T11:01:00.000-05:00

Last night I volunteered to help with the Good Neighbor Campaign at NDSU. Greek Life, along with a couple other organizations at NDSU, meet with the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association to put up doorhangers that list off some general resources for homeowners and renters in our community. The Roosevelt neighborhood is the part of Fargo that extends from downtown to the university, and is where a lot of college students rent apartments and houses. This event has been put on to help ease some of the problems that occur between the perminent residents and the, often rowdy, student rentors.

I had the opportunity to meet with some officials from the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association and discuss some topics that I have concerns about for our neighborhood. I'm pretty sure that I'll be becoming involved in some way with the RNA (not to be confused with the NRA) in the coming months. It was really just nice to meet some other homeowners in this community, since most of the people I know around here are just students renting.

After my last post I did end up making my way to the basement to strip those storm windows. I took the glass completely out because the glazing was so terrible so now I need to make a trip to 'the Depot' to pick up some more glazing compound. One of the windows has some pretty bad rot on it so I'll be playing with some wood filler too.
One last thought; With everybody moved into their bedrooms (for the most part) we were able to start arranging the living room to NOT function as bedrooms. Check it out, it's like we have a real living room now!

Today's Special: Quick Projects.

2007-10-22T23:18:00.000-05:00

Today was pretty productive considering how little time I had to be messing around with the house. After staying my first night in my bedroom (as opposed to the living room for the last 2 months) I went to my first class... a difficult feat for this sleeper-inner. Afterwards, I came home for a couple work hours before my second class.

During that two hour span I changed out the light fixture in my bedroom and replaced the lightswitch. The lightswitch was dirty and yellowed, so I replaced it with a nice new white one that looks ten times better with the crisp white trim and coverplates. The fixture that was hanging in the room was pretty small and generic; it looked like this:

I decided that I would prefer something more like this:The old one is still in usable condition so I'll donate it to the ReStore this week. I'm actually pretty excited about that because most of the things I've removed from the house are in such terrible condition that nobody could use them.
This little quick task also had one bonus; I know which breaker turns off the second floor now! It only took about four tries, but I got it! Is it weird that the whole second floor is on one breaker? I guess I don't know too much about electrical systems, but I think that's kind of unusual.

After my second class, but before my dinner engagement at 5:30pm I removed the thick plastic covering the exterior of a couple windows. This was found on the north window in the dining room, the window on the stairway landing, and the little window to the right of the fireplace. I'm sure the reason it was on the windows was because the storm windows leak cold air like crazy in the winter, so I removed them so I can re-glaze and repaint them before it gets too cold out.

I'm gunna bust out the 'flame thrower' tomorrow and take 'em down to bare wood and pull out the old glazing compound so I can redo the glazing after work tomorrow night. That's of course if I can hold off on firing up that heat gun that I love! Here are the two from the fireplace wall. When finished they'll be the new trim color, so I couldn't just do the bad one, they wouldn't match and I'd freak out. Anyhoo, here they are (can you spot the rot?):
THEN, after I finished supper I came back and installed a storm window I salvaged off a demolished house onto the window on the landing. I finished that before my 7:00 meeting! Woo hoo! Now you can actually see out of the window, whereas before the plastic was so thick all you could see was a blur. You can kind of make out the stained glass landing window of the neighboring house/apartment conversion. (which should be restored... another story altogether)Upon further thought, I think I might just start stripping paint tonight. Is it weird that I love it so much? I'm such a loser!

I'm Back!

2007-10-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

Has it really been that long since my last post? Wow, sorry!

A lot has taken place since the last posting, so hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen!

First of all, I finished my project in studio (sorry, no pictures yet) and had a fairly good critique at my presentation. That was the largest hurdle; kinda took precedence over house projects.

My roommate and I took all of the tools in the house and placed them on shelves in the basement. It is so nice to not trip over tools right and left upstairs, and it's also nice to be able to see all of the tools in one place. Nice and (kinda) organized.

I finished paining the trim in the NE bedroom and I got the closet painted as well. Mom came up to Fargo on Friday with my twin sisters and painted the ceiling in that bedroom, the NW bedroom, and the first floor bathroom.

With the ceiling painted the NE bedroom is finally ready to be occupied. FINALLY! I just finished mopping the floor, and after I'm done with this post I'm going to begin moving in furniture. It'll be amazing. Here's another recap of the progression:

Do you like how I just painted out where the missing window trim is? You can barely even tell that the woodwork was notched out. I'll replace it sometime, but until then this works pretty well.

This weekend was amazing, although I was not in Fargo for most of it. I drove down to Minneapolis for the NDSU Bison/U of M Gopher football game. Wow. Of course, NDSU prevailed and we celebrated that night out on the town. We also stopped in at the U of M's Sigma Nu chapter to hang out with some of the members there. Their house was built in 1930 and has some really cool architecture. Very different from our big boring box Sigma Nu at NDSU! This morning before I drove back up to Fargo I drove down some streets with old historic houses and just admired how cool some of them are, and how cool it would be to fix up some of them. I'll have to get one after college when I move down there, if I haven't burned myself out on rehabbing!

Production Week = No Progress

2007-10-10T02:49:00.001-05:00

Sorry loyal readers, I've barely been home to sleep this week so there's nothing to report. In my Architecture studio class we are assigned 3 projects a semester, and the week before the project is due is when we have to do all of our drawings, 3D modeling, and presentation work. This usually means that Nate doesn't see his eyelids for more than a few hours over the seven day period and the rest of his life is placed on hold. The project was due on Thursday, but now has been pushed back to Monday, so expect to see changes at the beginning of next week. Until then, sorry for the boring!

100% Plumbing!

2007-10-05T08:46:00.001-05:00

This week is homecoming week at NDSU so I've been up to my ears in activities, but I did have a little time to manage to fix the sink in the upstairs bathroom. If you don't remember I started repairing a faulty valve somewhere around a month ago, and I guess I didn't know exactly what I was doing so it still hadn't worked until I fixed it two days ago. I replaced both valves and supply lines to the faucet I installed last month. Much to my amusement everything worked, no leaks, on the first try. Booyah! Now every place in the house where water should come out has water coming out the right way. To quote Martha Stuart, It's a good thing!

Me: 2, Dingy, Yellowed Off White: 0

2007-09-30T23:36:00.000-05:00

Friday was a very, very productive day.

Since I completed the sanding in my bedroom, as soon as I got back from class I set to work priming the walls and ceiling. While the primer dried, I did a quick paint job in the bathroom downstairs. (more to come in a bit!) By the time I was done with the first coat in the bathroom the bedroom was dry and ready for its paint. I used a slate blue by Behr which, except for a couple places, covered in one coat. Gotta love that! All I need to do now is get the baseboards back up (I primed them Friday too) and repaint the trim and ceiling white. Here's the progression:

So, it's not quite the color I planned on but it's still ok. It looked perfect on the little swatch, but on the walls it's about a shade and a half too dark. The room's not that big to begin with, so the last thing I need to do is make it too dark. I'm sure it will be close enough once I get my stuff in the room, and the new light fixture should make everything brighter.

Like I said before, the bathroom got a coat of paint too. I know I won't be able to do any significant changes to the bathroom anytime soon, so I figured that in the meantime I would try to make it look less ugly with some qick fixes. I bought some new $4 blinds, new towel bars/t.p. holder, and some cheap Walmart paint. I should have known better with the cheap-o paint! I had to use two coats, three in some areas, and I would honestly rather pay the extra ten bucks for one coat coverage. Seriously, I'm a busy guy and my time's worth the cost of the better paint. I haven't gotten to the trim or the ceiling yet, but here's the change so far:
Pretty good for one night's work. Once I get my trim and ceiling painted in my room I'll be able to move in and get organized there. Once all of my stuff is upstairs I can finally start pulling the first floor together. That will definatelly be a good deal!

So Much White Powder, It's Like Kate Moss Moved In

2007-09-28T01:22:00.000-05:00

Long title, large hurdle jumped.

I finished sanding the walls in my bedroom today! HOO-rah! Tomorrow I'll prime, then paint, and hopefully move in sometime at the beginning of next week! I'm so excited! You can't see it, but check out how smooth the walls are:In the process of making these walls look so good, I did this. I've got some cleaning up ahead.

I'd imagine Kate Moss's place to look about the same! I shouldn't say anything, I blew my nose after working on the walls tonight and out came white clumps... joint compound, not coke. Ha.

Check out this old guy working on the walls. Wait, that's me. That's my hair in 25 years, if I have any left!

I just can't wait to get the primer up tomorrow. It's all coming together!

Bust Out the Checkbook

2007-09-26T11:49:00.001-05:00

I made my first mortgage payment today. I feel like an adult! I'm sure that won't last long though, ha ha!

This Shouldn't Happen, Ever.

2007-09-25T01:03:00.000-05:00

My friend Sara came up from Minneapolis this weekend and used my bathroom to get ready before going out. The next day I noticed she had left a straightening iron in the bathroom. I happened to be able to call her before she left Fargo so she could come pick it up before she left. I thought I'd bring it out to the living room so it was nearby when she came.

I reached out to unplug it

and...

WHAT!?! That is NOT cool! It won't be too hard of a fix, but seriously, who just nails an outlet box to plaster? I did get a really good laugh out of it though. I'll just add this to my ever-growing list of things to do.

Get a 'Handle' on that Rain!

2007-09-21T14:47:00.000-05:00

Ok, sorry for the pun. This post is mainly about a doorknob, but first things first. Last night at about 3am there was a pretty big thundersorm and I caught some footage of my living room water feature. Enjoy.

Yeah, sucks huh?

I contacted the roofer who "repaired" the flashing around the chimney and he's coming out to take a look on Saturday.

Well back to the doorknob. I've been in my house for over a month now, so I figured it was about time to put a doorknob on the front door. Nope, didn't have one. All it had was a deadbolt and a couple of window sash pulls, one inside and one out. I'm really hoping that my roommates are surprised. Hooray for small accomplishments!

Here's what it looked like to start with:

Starting to cut the holes back in (they were filled in with plaster):

Holes completed:Doorknob! Success!

I also started sanding down the walls in my room so I can get them primed and painted. I'm really anxious to get that space done and my furniture moved in so I can have some sort of sanctuary from my own house!

My Other Homes

2007-09-21T11:35:00.001-05:00

Besides the house you're already acquainted with, I spend most of my hours in two amazing downtown buildings I feel compelled to share with you.

The first one is the NDSU Downtown building where my Architecture studio is.

The building was constructed in 1903 as a warehouse for the Robb-Lawerence company. Sometime in it's history it became the Northern School Supply which it was until the late 1990's when somehow the business closed and the building was condemned. It was purchased by local entrepeneur Doug Burgum who started Great Plains Software (now bought out by Microsoft) and donated to NDSU for $1. He actually purchased the building days before it was to be demolished! The focus of the renovation was to make efficient studio space for Art, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture students as well as offices and a few lecture rooms. The architect left the beams and original brickwork exposed throughout most of the building and the whole building is open and full of light. The ideal studio! The building is also LEED certified for it's environmental friendliness. I love this building.

Here's the exterior

The lobby

Just a cool hallway on the 4th floor where my studio is
Third year studio! My desk is the messy one out front. If you didn't know that I'm messy when I work, you need to check in on the blog more!

My other 'home' is the Hotel Donaldson, just 2 blocks from the NDSU downtown building.

The building was built in 1894 after most of the downtown burned in 1893. The building was originally the meeting place of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization. In the 1920's it was purchased and renovated into the Donaldson Hotel. It fell into disrepair in a big way, and became an 'extended residency hotel' as they like me to phrase it at work. It was a disgusting slum full of unsavory peoples. This building was also viewing a wrecking ball in it's not so distant future. Our owner, Karen Burgum was in on Great Plains Software the whole way, and wanted to give back to the community that had made her a success, so she decided to create a place that would celebrate our community's visual, performing, culinary and literary arts. Thus, the Hotel Donaldson was born!

The hotel has 17 guest suites, each one featuring a different local artist's work. Frette linens, down bedding, Bose radio, robes & slippers, heated tile floors, rainfall showers, aveda bath products, turndown service, etc. etc. These rooms are amazing and I dare you to find better anywhere!

The lounge has an extensive martini list, which is kind of what we're known for, but we also have at least 175 wines on our wine list at any point. Take note of the curvature of the bar, that's the shape of the Red River as it goes through downtown!
The HoDo Restaraunt, where I host on weekdays (I'm at the desk in the hotel on weekends) features locally grown and organically grown foods whenever possible. The food is some of the best I've ever had, and I wish I was more of a foodie so I could rave about how amazing it is. We feature live music quite frequently in the lounge and restaurant with jazz nights every Friday.

I couldn't find a picture anywhere online, but the rooftop features a garden lanscaped with plants indiginous to our part of the state. There is a bar there with tables and umbrellas for evening drinks on the rooftop, and even a stainless steel hot tub sunk into the patio. I've been in the tub on a chilly December evening. Believe me, sitting in a hot tub on the roof of a 3 storey building looking out onto downtown Fargo all lit up while little snowflakes fly around is the coolest thing ever.

The best part about this place though is the amazing staff/friends I get to work with. It's by far the best job I've ever had... probably why I've been there for 3 years and am still having fun. Where else do you get that? If you'd like to learn more, check out http://www.hoteldonaldson.com/ for more info. You can stay there when you come to Fargo and help me with my house! Good plan?

...And I Didn't Even Zap Myself Once!

2007-09-18T13:31:00.000-05:00

Today between my first and second class (a span of about five hours - great schudule, huh?) I wired in the outlets in my bedroom. It wasn't really too difficult, but I'm still a beginner here so I'm pretty pumped about it. Yes, they even work. I tested 'em out.

This was after Dad left on Saturday:

and this is after I finished today:

I realized I didn't add any pictures of the new washer and dryer, so here they are.

First, The old pair - anybody want 'em? I wouldn't set my clothes basket on top of them, let alone put clothes in those rust-buckets.

The new pair! Thanks Dad & Mom!Here's a quick photo of the door to my room I finally got up on it's hinges. So it doesn't close all the way yet... baby steps here, baby steps.

And, finally, I took some video of a quick walk-through of the first floor. I really should have taken video during my final walk-through before closing. What was I thinking? Just dumb.

I hope you enjoyed the video clip. I havn't been able to keep the house clean this week, and as you can probably see the dining room is completely used for storage now. I just thought the video might help you visualize in your own mind what the house looks like. I'll have to do the upstairs too sometime.

Wires and Laundry

2007-09-15T19:33:00.000-05:00

Today Dad came up to Fargo to bring up and install a washer and dryer. I'm super excited to get all of my clothes cleaned and organized. Installation went better than I thought it would, and we were done really quickly. Dad took one of the fridges from the porch back to Wahpeton with him, so I'm down to one extra appliance.

The ovens were taken away this week, and it's a pretty good story. So, the PO was working on the building nextdoor he owns this week. He had evicted a tenant and had a dumpster dropped off to throw out all of his furniture and stuff he left behind. As it turned out he had more stuff than fit in the dumpster, so some was sitting out in the lawn. Because my driveway is so close to the other house people sometimes think it is that house's driveway. Luckily for me the city garbage people made that same mistake when they dumped the dumpster next door. They must have assumed that my dumpster was part of that project because they dumped mine too! Better yet, they took away the two old ovens! That was a freebie!

Anyhow, back to today.

After the appliance business was taken care of Dad and I made a Depot run and wired up three outlets in my bedroom. By we, I mainly mean Dad. I'm pretty good at fishing into walls because I have skinny fingers, so I had my place in this project! We picked up new outlet boxes and some electrical cable and set to work bustin' up plaster. We cut holes for the three boxes and knocked out some of the plaster from down under the baseboard so we could fish the cable through. I haven't installed the outlets yet, but the wiring and boxes were the hard part anyways. I have to do a little patching too, but I'm nowhere near done with the wall texture. I don't think I'll be able to prime and paint by the end of the weekend, but next weekend I should be all done and moved in.

Oh, and I hung the door to my room today too. It needs to be planed down a little bit in a couple spots so it closes... but at least it's up now.

We're pushing forward, one Depot run at a time!

Sand and Water: no, not the Beach.

2007-09-09T09:01:00.000-05:00

Mom and my twin sisters came to Fargo Friday to help get the NW bedroom ready to be occupied. Mom primed the new walls and painted the ceiling. We mixed texture sand into the primer to replicate the look of the plaster walls in the room.

I tried with the textured primer just long enough to realize that it wasn't easy to work with, then left for work. Mom did a great job working with it and when I came home from work the walls were done and ready for paint. I know I'm not going to get off the hook that easy for all of my texturing. Thanks Mom!

So there was the sand... but where's the water?

Coming in from the living room ceiling. Thats where.

It rained pretty steadily Saturday and water was coming into the house from the bad flashing around the chimney. I woke up that morning to the sound of water dripping from the ceiling about a foot in front of the fireplace. Perfect way to start off your day. I threw a bucket under the drip and took a look at the wall above the fireplace. Water had collected into pockets behind the pain and had started leaking down onto the mantle.

I grabbed a 3in. scraper from the coffee table (one's always within reach at my place) and used it to drain the water from these pockets behind the paint. That lead to pulling out a piece of drenched drywall tape, then to just scraping off all of the wet joint compound and crumbling plaster. This photo just about illustrates how easily it all fell off; that's the 3in scraper under there!

This is what I'm left with:

Just about turns your stomach, huh? I wish you could smell it. Imagine old, deteriorating plaster and joint compound soaked again and again with rainwater. It smells similar to a very damp basement. But in this case the basement smell is coming from the living room where I sleep. I'll be calling the roofing company tomorrow.

It's funny this never came up in the house inspection. Maybe I'll give him a call too.

Trashmobile, Take Thy Leave.

2007-09-08T03:49:00.000-05:00

Today I was walking out to my vehicle when outside my front door I spied a beautiful moment in need of photographic documentation. The trashmobile was being towed away! Yes! YESS!!!

Enjoy this photo for a moment, will you. Imagine this was in front of your home for a week and a half. Feel the freedom of open parking in front of your house and views past your own lawn. Feel how amazing it is to not see poopy-brown and orange stripes in your dreams.

Goodbye Trashmobile, I hope to never see you again!

Go Away Trashmobile!

2007-09-04T16:21:00.001-05:00

We've had this terrible RV parked in front of the house for about a week, and my roommate had enough! He called this morning and reported it to the city so it could be ticketed/towed/whatever they do with these things. I recognized it as the same RV that was parked in front of the house to the East the week of closing and I could recall seeing an orange tow notice on the windshield. It seems it went away for a couple weeks and now its back. Great. It wouldn't be so bad if the thing didn't look like this:

And now that it's parked in front of my house it's blocking the view of oncoming traffic when we try to back our vehicles out of the driveway. I'm kind of disappointed that you can't tell that the stripes are bright orange and poopy brown in the photo.

So, much to my amusement, I glanced out the front door's window and noticed a police van parked behind the aweful thing! I whipped out my camera and snagged a couple shots as they slapped the good 'ole orange tow notice on the front. Yes! Hopefully whoever owns that junker will get the message this time that nobody wants it on our street.

I did joke that it was my guest house, but I'll sacrifice it for the cause. My guests can sleep in the living room with my roommate and me!

Puttin' the Labor in Labor Day

2007-09-03T23:14:00.001-05:00

Thanks for the title Jayne!

Today I hit a huge paint sale at Home Depot and picked up a 5 gallon pail of ceiling paint, three gallons of beige for the living/dining/stairwell, and a gallon of slate blue for my bedroom. Of course, these walls aren't getting painted until I fix the texture problems from walls taken out.

Speaking of texture problems, I continued scraping the loose paint from the NE bedroom. I started leveling out the difference between where the paint remains and where it was chipped out. If I just painted it as is you would see every height difference and the walls would look terrible. Here's a photo of how it looks once the filler matches the paint:

I also worked a little bit on the joint compound in the other bedroom. I was kinda hoping that I'd be able to get the rooms primed and textured (texture sand in the primer) by the end of this weekend so I could paint this week, but I guess I'll just have to push that back a couple days. I'm still counting on getting my roommate moved into his room by next weekend. We'll see how driven I am this week!

I ran the cable from the little nub in the basement into the living room today. Yes, a real estate show from HGTV's on right now! I bought a long drill bit and drilled up into the wall from the basement, and into the wall from the living room. My roommate Alex and I did a little fishing in the wall to run the cord through. I nailed up the cord to the beams under the floor, even the 6+ feet of extra cable (oops!). I guess I'm not a good judge of how much cable to buy.

All in all, a fairly productive day. We should have 3 day weekends all the time!

Adios Kitchen, Hola Plumbing

2007-09-01T23:04:00.000-05:00

Labor Day weekend day 1, and so much to report. First of all, Dad and Nolan came over bright an early (earlier than I was ready for) and got right to work. Today's focus was the Northeast bedroom/kitchen. After cutting power to the room we removed the outlets that were at counter-top level and the giant plug for the oven. They had to be removed first because their electric cords were intertwined with the cabinetry. Genius, I know. Also, when the PO put in the counter, he just notched out the trim. Thanks, jerk.

Once the cabinets were all out they met the dumpster and a trip to 'the Depot' was in order.

The pipes that run hot and cold water up to the sink had to be capped off in the basement, but nobody was comfortable with the idea of weilding a torch next to exposed insulation. We found these great caps that kind of snap on and create such a good seal that no soldering was needed. Score! The extra pipes were capped off and the extra length of copper was cut up and is awaiting a trip to be recycled. Dad says about $3/lb, so I'll have to run over and see what I can get for 'em. The PVC pipe that vents out the air from the (real) kitchen sink pops up through the floor of the bedroom and, until today, didn't enter the wall until about two to three feet up. Dad and Nolan cut some new PVC to reroute the pipe into the wall as soon as it comes through the floor. Yeah, not really the ideal end result, but it's the best we could think of. I had to go to work, but while I was gone they patched up the holes in the wall from the outlets that were removed and the big hole from the PVC fiasco. It's so great to have so much help!

The electrical wires were traced down to the breaker and removed. Grandpa, who has much more experience, came and made sure we didn't zap ourselves. One of the power lines was left to place some outlets around the room, but that'll have to wait a little bit.

So here's what the room looks like now. Disregard the walls; I've been pulling off loose chunks of paint for a while. If you look into the cabinet you can get an idea of what the plumbing looked like before we ripped it out.

While Dad and Nolan were taking out the extra copper pipes, I decided to replace the faulty valves on the upstairs bathroom sink. The faucet was in need of a trip to meet its maker too. Because I plan to replace the sink at some point I just picked up a clearance $30 faucet that looks good enough. Big mistake. The faucet didn't work when I installed it, needed to be pulled apart, poked at for a while, and reassembled. Next I notice that the valves are leaking, and I thought to myself, 'I just can't catch a break with this sink!' The sink stands, incomplete, until I can make another trip to 'the Depot' to get some supplies. I'll have to run out after work tomorrow morning. I hate the sink. I have little cuts all over my hand from something, then I got the dirt and muck from the sink in them. The worst part about doing stuff like this is when the water's off to the whole house, you can't wash your hands midway through the project.

Thats all for today.

Oh, and now the 1st floor shower leaks into the basement. This house is trying to kill me.

Mud & Microwaves

2007-08-30T13:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday marked continued work with the mud and tape upstairs. Dad and Nolan came up for the evening and we got the remainder of the tape up on the walls and some of the tape up on corner joining the walls and ceiling. Dad and Nolan got the microwave hung above the oven and the kitchen is pretty much done... except for the aesthetics. Lotsa work needed there.

I'm gearing up for this weekend to get more of this work finished and off of my mind. Next week should be a lot less busy for me so I'll be able to get even more done. Hopefully I can get that dumpster out of my driveway next week. I'm really starting to hate that thing plugging up the driveway to those parking spots in the back that would be awesome to be able to use!

Mother Nature is a Mean Lady

2007-08-28T01:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it rained today and, of course, the puddle returned on the mantle. I need to call the PO and make him fix that roof.

In other water issues, I was in the basement today and I noticed some water on the ground. I assumed that it must have come from the foundation, but nope. I looked up above my head and I saw the drain from the first floor shower. Yup, the shower drain leaks. Amazing.

With unwanted water spending so much time in the house I should be charging it rent.

When I got home tonight I stepped in some water on the kitchen floor and, without looking at the floor, shot my glare directly at the ceiling. Somebody just spilled some water on the floor, but I'm so paranoid about water leaks now.

This week is SUPER busy for me with Rush Week at the Fraternity, work, Student Government, and starting a new project in studio. I'm not going to be getting too much done in the next couple days, but this weekend is another story. Can you say 3-day weekend? My goal is to get the NW bedroom finished and the cabinet frames out of the NE bedroom... meaning I can finally get that construction dumpster out of my driveway. My roommates and I have been parking on the street and blocking eachother into the driveway so far, so having access to the parking area in the back will be such a nice change.

Weekends Are Good For Progress

2007-08-26T01:09:00.000-05:00

I've been loving weekends even more than usual lately. Today Dad, Grandpa, and Nolan (my brother) helped work on the house again. I actually didn't know anything was going on until I got home from work around 3:30 and saw my dad's vehicle parked in the driveway. When I came inside I saw that 1. Granpda took down the old hood vent and put in an outlet for my new microwave, 2. Dad and Nolan had finished drywalling upstairs, and 3. they got around to filling in the screw holes in the drywall. Sweet!

After a quick trip to Menards to make use of a sale (anything you can fit into a paper bag was 15% off) we got one of my salvaged doors hung in the entrance to the Northeast bedroom. This also required a trip to 'the Depot' to get some more supplies.

Take a look at the door hanging in it's new place. It only needs a little bit of work and a coat of paint and it'll be ready to go. I wish I could leave the natural wood of the door, but everything else is painted upstairs and I'm not about to start refinishing woodwork up there!

While shoving little odds and ends into my sale bag at Menards I grabbed a new faucet for the kitchen sink. The old one was not only dated, but also featured the ever-spinning knobs. It took some strategy to get the water to turn off once it was turned on; the faucet just had varying degrees of on. Just spin those knobs until the water quits! The new faucet is a Moen one complete with a spray nozzle. In case I ever feel like doing dishes. We'll see if this happens. The new faucet looks so nice it almost feels out of place with the grungy 70's kitchen!

For another little snazzy purchase I picked myself up some new toilet seats. Why didn't I just do that the first day instead of using the gross-gross-gross ones that came with the house? The upstairs one was of the vinyl padded variety that I've always likened to relieving yourself on a vinyl padded folding chair. Exhibit A:

And after:

The second toilet (first floor) was your average hard white toilet seat. I'm not quite sure what they're made of but you can see some of what's below the white enamel because its surface is bubbling up and coming off. Classy. Exhibit B:
And after:
You may have heard somebody screaming in disgust this evening, wherever you live. That was me when I was removing the old toilet seat. As I was taking it off the bolt and nut that hold the seat on stuck to my fingers. Eeeyaachh! I don't even want to think about what produced that stickyness!

All in all, a very productive day. Even though most of the productivity came from my family it still feels great to see progress. Thanks again guys! Tomorrow after work I will have to get a start on some of the taping upstairs so that bedroom becomes habitable. I'm not sure how much I'll get done because I'm going to clean out the rest of my storage locker and move my architecture supplies to my desk in studio downtown. I'll have to post some info about our studio building; it's a really cool reuse of a warehouse... I feel photos coming on!

Porch Swing Aftermath

2007-08-24T11:23:00.000-05:00

As long as I have this spiffy new internet, I might as well add in the photo I took of the damaged porch ceiling after My buddy Greg and I took our little ride to the porch floor.

As funny as it was at the time I have some beadboard to replace now. I guess I should say MORE beadboard to replace (you should see the soffits) but that'll be sometime down the line. I think I should first make the house a little more habitable. Walls come first then, down the line a ways, beadboard. I'll fix the porch ceiling first I think; it's just that little chunk. But definatelly walls first!

Complications With Cable

2007-08-24T11:02:00.001-05:00

I, like an idiot, also assumed that the cable installation would go smoothly. Strike 2.

About ten minutes before the cable guy got here I realized that there is no cable jack in the living room. Or first floor for that matter. I ran outside to look at the box on the side of the house and, sure enough, there was a cable going into the foundation. I figured that it must run through the basement and pop up somewhere in the first floor. Wrong. This is what I found on the other side of the basement wall:

Beautiful. It was about that time that the cable guy arrived. The first thing he did was open up the box on the side of the house to see what's going on. He had the most confused look on his face until I remembered a little detail, "oh, did I not mention this used to be a duplex?" Aparantly there were setups for two different units. Luckily he knew how to get everything back in order.

When I showed him the little nubbin of a cable cord in the basement he said he could just drill a hole in the floor and run it up to the living room. Not my hardwood floors! Eek! I said I could do some fishing around in the walls and install a wall jack myself and just connect to the stub in the basement. He said that is what he would reccommend and I keep my floors hole-free. Everyone wins.

The bedroom jack upstairs was another little issue. It looks like this:

Why? Because it just takes too much effort to NOT paint over it. Who does this? Honestly! Fortunatelly for me (and my roommate who lives in the room) it still works, so crisis avoided there.

Bright side? Well, there were no complications with the wireless installation, so I can now blog from anywhere in my house. Piece of cake!

(Where did the phrase 'piece of cake' come from? It seems normal to say it, but looking at it typed seems really weird. Probably some historical back-story I've never heard)

Well, Jeff, I'll agree with you. 2.5 times as long as I'd thought seems about correct on this little adventure too. Those numbers make me nervous about my bigger projects up ahead!

Let There Be Light!

2007-08-22T22:57:00.000-05:00

I continued my streak of unproductivity yesterday and most of today, but finally broke it with what should have been a 20 minute fix. Why do I always assume that anything I do will take just as long in this house as it would in new construction? You'd think I would have learned by now.

As it turns out, it took about twice as long as I thought it would. After expanding the living room out I decided that I needed to upgrade the light fixture to one with more bulbs. I bought a three bulb, brushed nickel fixture some time last week and finally got around to hanging it up. I know that it isn't a 'historically correct' light fixture, but I think that buyers will like the brushed nickel look when I go to sell in a couple years. I also like the cleaner look it gives vs. brass.

Here are the before and after shots of the light.

...and this is the reason it took longer than I'd imagined. At some time in the house's past, somebody drywalled over the plaster ceiling in the living room. They didn't bother to cut the hole for the light fixture big enough, so there's problem one. Problem 2? Well, there are a lot of old wires going on in that box! It was hard to be able to push them around so I could hang the new fixture. Try sending screws up into that mess and still holding onto some form of confidence in what you're doing!

As I started connecting the wires I glanced down at the entry table at the copy of my insurance policy I had received earlier in the day. Covered for fire? Check. Let's hope it works. Flipped the breaker back on, said a short prayer, and BAM! We have light! 3 bulbs! As I sit here at 11pm typing it is still bright enough in the room, unlike the light from the old, single-bulb fixture.

The only problem with it is that there is a small dent on the fixture above where the glass is. That would be from when it, as well as all of the tools and hardware, fell from the top of the ladder. Whoops! Luckily I didn't have the glass with me at that point!

It's only small progress, but I'm happy about it. It sounds like Dad's coming up again this weekend to finish drywalling upstairs so I can get the taping done and my roommate can move into his room. That's going to be such a great feeling for me. I really don't care if I sleep in the living room for a month, just as long as my roommates are comfortable.

Maybe There Wasn't a Stud There!

2007-08-20T17:25:00.000-05:00

My friend and I tried to sit on the porch swing at the same time and BAM we hit the floor. Laughing all the way. We just sat on the floor and laughed for about five minutes. The $30 swing proved to be a poor investment even before it fell because the wood was so thin and flimsy. If anything, I would have thought the slats on the bench would have broken. I guess I just missed the stud when I hung the swing. I have a nice chunk of beadboard that took the plunge with us, so I'll have to add it to the list. I was surprised how good it felt to just laugh at my misfortune for a few minutes. I need to stop taking this house so seriously and just enjoy the journey!

I had a building inspector out today to check my framing, and I got the pass to close up the walls! Now I can finish the drywall, tape and mud, hang a door, and get my roommate moved into that room. Then I can sleep in the living room all by myself. Aah, the joys of homeownership!

Momentum Slams to a Stop

2007-08-20T11:06:00.001-05:00

Between preparing for the first day of school (tomorrow, yikes!), meeting with potential new members for the Fraternity and developing the PR for rush week I haven't really found time to make any progress on the house. Sorry! Hopefully I can get a city inspector out soon to approve the framing so I can finish drywalling the upstairs and get that all taken care of. Basically with the arrival of classes I'm afraid the whole rennovation process will be moving at a much slower pace. Why couldn't I have bought this place earlier in the summer?

Such a Busy Day! So Much to Report

2007-08-18T22:47:00.001-05:00

Today was jam-packed with action at the house. It all started off this morning with Dad finishing off the framing upstairs, then up a 24' rental truck to move all of my stuff from the Fraternity house. Despite living in a 12'x12' room for two and a half years I have acquired a lot of stuff.

Once the moving was done we drug out the old refridgerators and stoves from the house and installed the new ones in the kitchen. My room is now devoid of any appliances, YES! There are currently two ovens in the yard, two full sized fridges on the porch and one mini-fridge (from my room at Sigma Nu) just to top it off. I hope this is the only time in my life that I am the owner of three stoves and four fridges. That's a little much. I look like I'm running an appliance bazaar in my yard.

The drywall was the next project. With the help of a couple friends, my brother, and my Dad a lot of the drywall was hung. Actually, we hung as much as we could leaving one side of each wall exposed for the building inspector who will be coming Monday. Judging by how fast we were able to do half of the work, I figure it shouldn't be too hard to get it finished by Tuesday.

My Mom and sisters came over again today and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. Mom made my floors shine (to the best of their ability) and it is so nice to not have them covered in dust.

Here are a couple photos of all of the stuff my roommates and I have brought over to the house. Most of it is stored in the dining room, but a few things ended up in the living room. Dad, my brother, and two friends helped me carry my piano from my old place up onto the truck and then from the truck into my new place. Thank-you so much guys; that's no small feat! Luckily for us, when I called to reserve a truck to use the only one available was the 24' one which was rediculously larger than we needed, but fortunately had a hydraulic lift on the back. It was awesome to be able to just set the piano down on the lift and push a button to get it into the truck... so much better than breaking your back! Take a look at how well the wood color matches the house's woodwork! The fake flowers on the table were a gag-gift from a coworker, so I put them front and center on the entry table (a garage sale table, $40! What a find!)

Tomorrow I hope to hang the doors upstairs and bust out the cabinets upstairs. I know I've been planning on taking out the cabinets for days, but with the appliances gone it should be much easier. I need to sleep now, I'm so tired!

My Neighbor is a Cyclops

2007-08-18T02:59:00.000-05:00

Just look at what my neighbor did. Ugh! I understand that it's a rental unit, but c'mon you could at least let it look good! He removed two double hung windows and replaced them with a tiny, disproportionate, vinyl one. You can see the 'before' on the left side of the first picture. What a dumb window. Something about the incorrect proportion and having the teeny little thing in the center of the gable reminded me of a cyclops. My neighbor is a cyclops!

In slightly more fun news, I disguised the do-it-yourself access point to the bathtub plumbing today with cabinet doors. The doors were taken from the kitchen-bedroom upstairs. I figure, I shouldn't close off the wall until I get the plumbing functioning a little better. (The finish on the doors is better than it looks in the picture; the doors were just dusty at the time.) I thought it was a good short-term solution. Yes I'll be repairing it correctly someday down the road!

Staples & Wires

2007-08-17T15:28:00.000-05:00

Grandpa came back today and finished up the wiring for me, and I pulled up all of the tack strips and staples in the upstairs hallway. I also started cutting up carpet to take to the dumpster (which was finally emptied). I took a little trip to 'the Depot' to buy some light fixtures. I chose some brushed nickel ones that had a cleaner look to them, but followed more traditional lines that will look good in the house. Baby steps, ladies and gentlemen. Tomorrow is going to be a huge work day so there'll be more significant progress then. For now, I have staples and wiring off the list.

Lets Build Walls!

2007-08-16T11:57:00.001-05:00

First of all, let me just say that this post is extremely difficult to write. I'm sitting in the backyard with an extension cord running to an outlet on the side of the house! I'm mooching a wireless signal off of one of my neighbors because I don't have wireless yet in the house, and I can't stray far from the house because my battery is just about dead! I'm sure I look like a huge dork!

My dad, grandpa, and brother came over yesterday to work on the house for me, which was a huge load off of my mind. Grandpa tackled the wiring from the living room wall that I busted out while Dad and my brother worked on framing in the closets and bedroom wall upstairs.

Photos of the progress:

The walls upstairs are just about done being framed in and Dad's coming up to Fargo after work to finish them off for me. Grandpa's coming back Friday to finish up the wiring and I have the weekend off to get everything in liveable order before school starts Tuesday.

I'm heading out to Menards in a few minutes to exchange the mis-matched locks, then jetting off to the ReStore to pick up some doorframes for the bedroom and closets. I'll pick up some of the old hinges they have there that match mine. They're the pretty standard old house hinges, ball on top of the pin and on the bottom of the hinge. I figure as long as I can get the old ones, I might as well do it up right!

BTW, I've developed some sinus issues due to all of the dust (I should have known better) so I've been blowing my nose a lot lately. Because I'm stuck in the backyard I just attempted to blow my nose in an elm leaf. Don't try it, it doesn't feel good.

Feeling Better Now

2007-08-15T02:23:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm feeling better now that I'm all moved into the living room. Seems weird that that would make me feel better, but it does. I called Dad today and vented for a bit, and he said that he would take the afternoon off of work and drive up to help with the house. Sweet. He knows more about framing than I do (not hard) so he can help with the whole awkward wall situation upstairs. Oh, and he's bringing tools! Sweetness!

I think I'm going to sledge-out the cabinets up in the kitchen/bedroom tomorrow morning and fill up that dumpster outside so I can get a new one.

I need to make a trip to menards tomorrow to pick up another set of doorknobs, since the ones I purchased for the front and side doors don't have the same key. Wow, I'm smart! I hope I can find the receipt. I think I'll buy a skinny pry-bar to pull up tack strips from the carpet and a needle-nose pliers to get the staples. I'll head over to the ReStore too, since I haven't been there for a couple weeks. Maybe they'll have some tile for the bathroom. I'm always keeping my fingers crossed for that!

I went to the hotel after work today and hit the treadmill in the fitness room. It was good to run out some of the stress I had been building up. I guess I just need an outlet for it... cause smashing things with hammers wasn't enough? I'm getting up in six hours to start working on the house again, so thats all for now.

Headaches

2007-08-14T16:39:00.000-05:00

So I'm super stressed out right now. I got most of my stuff out of the room today before work but I still need to remove some of the larger furniture. The guy who is moving in is really laid back so he didn't mind too much. Still, it was such a stressful day. Lets make a list.

1. Vacate room, pack life's posessions into grocery and liquor store boxes. Place in Living room.
2. Live in Fraternity house living room for a week.
3. Roommates want to move in, rooms are missing walls. Everything is still gross.
4. During the rain yesterday I noticed water coming into the house from where the roof meets the chimney. Yup, the flashing the PO was supposed to have fixed before closing. He got it 'fixed' three days later, but as soon as it started raining, I had bubbles of water forming under the paint... in the LIVING ROOM! WTF! Now I have to call the listing agent and bla bla bla headache.
5. Training for Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon... occuring October 7th, weeks behind in training.
6. Architecture school starts again on Tuesday. Because I love stress.

Why do I do all of this to myself? Why can't I just rent an apartment and go out every night like normal college students? I can't wait until October 8th when I just lay on my couch, in a partially finished yet habitable house, and relax. Sometimes I wish life had a fast-forward button!

Moving Out But Not In?

2007-08-13T22:33:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I will be between homes! I need to have all of my things out of my room at Sigma Nu so that another guy can move into it, and the house isn't near to being ready to move into. That leaves me living in a pile of boxes in the Fraternity's living room. Lucky me! It beats the street I guess! Tonight I need to box up everything I own and get it moved. That would present enough of a problem if my room was spotless and well organized. Check out these photos; it's not! I'm the kind of person who is very well organized with time management and most other areas of life, but just has to let one thing go unorganized. That's my room. Wish me luck as I box up my life and clean up tonight!

Not Much Work Done While Bandaged...

2007-08-12T21:19:00.000-05:00

No I didn't hurt myself, I just got some tattoo work done. I know it was horrible timing, but I made the appointment before I even made an offer on the house. I've been going to Trent at Addictions, who is probably the best in Fargo, so you have to make an appointment far in advance. If you're curious, I had a barn swallow on my right side which I decided to add another bird to. I'm probably going to add some kind of background eventually, but today hurt enough for a while! As you can most likely see (despite the glare from the flash) the new tattoo looks better than the one I had before (from a different artist), so Trent is going to touch up the old one to make them match. Again, in a while when I have had enough time to make some more money and forget about how much it hurts!

Unfortunatelly my mobility was somewhat comprimised after it was finished, so all I did today was clean up the paint scrapings from the stairwell.

I got my porch swing up last night! It's so great to open the windows on the porch and watch traffic/pedestrians as I attempt to forget the disaster of a house behind me. My roommates are starting to move their things into the house tomorrow and Tuesday. They aren't moving in quite yet, but I need to get moving on these renovations! I'm getting stressed out by this time crunch!

Day 3, Can Be I Done Yet?

2007-08-11T17:54:00.000-05:00

Today went pretty well. I still need to drive down to my storage compartment and pick up my stereo and porch swing, but maybe I'll do that after supper. The dumpster's almost full already. Eek! I haven't even gotten the cabinets out yet! Then there's the washer and dryer in the basement and some disgusting old appliances in the kitchens too. Better go with the 18 yard dumpster next! I hate the thought of how much I'm sending to the landfil, but I guess I have to look at the situation as if I didn't do the renovations; the whole house would be on its way soon.

My Mom and twin sisters came up today to clean some of the grossness off the house. They cleaned one of the bedrooms, the kitchen, and the downstairs bathroom from top to bottom. A tall order, considering the condition of the house! They also brought me a TON of cleaning supplies. Thanks guys! Mom lent me her digital camera, so I can keep the pictures coming now.

I finished removing the framing from the dining room closet, and removed all but four studs from the living room partition wall. I'm not looking forward to taking down the wall with the wiring, so i'm letting that one simmer a while. The jumble of studs would be from the intersection of the two closet walls and the wall where the 1st floor unit's front door was. For some reason the PO nailed together this horrible cluster of 8 studs. No, it wasn't load bearing, don't worry! In fact, once I pulled a neighboring stud down, the 'column' started falling over. It took a lot of strength to carry that thing out to the dumpster.

I ripped up the carpet in the upstairs hallway and NW bedroom. The backing made it out to the dumpster already, but I need to cut the carpet into sections so I can bring it out the front door. That's the big wad of carpet in the middle of the bedroom. In the photo it kind of resembles a dead body lying on the floor. I wish it was whoever removed that wall! The newly revealed hardwood floor shows exactly where the walls should be... just a little off from where I thought. The walls were load bearing, so when they were removed somebody threw in a huge joist that cuts across at an angle. I'm not looking forward to framing that out again. Did I mention I've never done any framing before? I'll be calling Dad...

In other upstairs news, I started taking apart the cabinets upstairs. They'll be on their way out as soon as I smash 'em up a bit. P.S. Look at my amazing new drill on the kitchen counter!

In the stairwell I ripped out the last of the wood paneling and scraped the loose paint from the ceiling. Look at that exposed plaster just begging for some paint. (and some kilz!)

Mom took a photo of me while I carried out the LAST piece of fake wood in the house. Success!

Notice how in the photo I am wearing flip flops. Just add that to the list of lessons learned the hard way. Yeah, I stepped on a nail. It went all the way through my shoe, but just poked my foot; no skin broken. I was wearing my gloves though, so I am learning!

Day 2, Photos Included

2007-08-10T13:21:00.000-05:00

Well, it's day 2 and I just returned from the house. I'm taking an 8 hour break, aka going to work, so I need to clean up a little bit. I borrowed a friend's camera (thanks Dustin!) to take some pictures to show my progress so far. By progress of course I mean smashing things.

First let me include a photo from my little party-of-1 celebration I had for myself after closing. I added the wrecking bar because I thought it was appropriate for my closing day. I mixed equal parts champagne and demo. A good day all around.

First off, I busted down most of the wall separating the stairwell from the Living Room. I included a photo that I took sitting on the stairs showing the full view of the fireplace wall. I'm really excited about this change, but not excited to try to make the texture on the walls hide any evidence that the closet and wall existed. That's a ways down the road though, I have more distruction still to come.

Next come photos of the stairwell, sans paneling. The woodwork really stands out better without having to compete with laminated woodgrain atrocities. You can see in one of the photos that some of the ceiling remains with some paneling, largely because I need to get a ladder over to the house to reach that far up. The light fixture under the drop ceiling is original, but will be replaced because I prefer a bulb covered by a globe of some sort. Anybody want a vintage light fixture? Lemme know! You can see a picture there of the access points to the tub plumbing, and some unexplained fur lining the stud in the wall. Yuck.

Finally, we have the dining room closet. It's not quite out yet, but down to the studs. The picture of my hand shows how I drug a nail across it, cutting a line dividing my hand in half. Maybe I didn't learn that lesson about my work gloves well enough. Inside one of the walls my friend Chelsey (who enjoys the wrecking bar very much) and I found a 1950's romance novel. I thought it was weird because the wall is from the 80's, but whatever! Basically the plot of the book is that a bunch of young harlots get shipped out to the wild west to become brides. No I'm not going to read it. Chelsey and I ripped up the carpet in the dining room too, even though you really can't see it well under all of the dust. It's in decent condition, but will need to be refinished too. Better than the carpet!

Oh, and that's me. The happy homeowner. With his wrecking bar. Yeah, I took the picture myself; there was nobody else in the house. Taking your own pictures of youself: not cool, I know!

I'll be back to work after I finish... working...

p.s. I've aready had 4 serous 'Oh my GOD what have I gotten myself into!' moments.

Rubble, Rubble, Toil & Trouble

2007-08-09T21:40:00.000-05:00

The trouble lies with my camera. It is non-functioning, so I appologize for the lack of photo documentation. I'll have to see if I can borrow one from a friend tomorrow to document some of the work thus far.

As for the toiling; I've been toiling away making rubble. Lots of rubble.

It all started this morning when I picked up my building permit I should have had last night, then I headed over to the house. If you can imagine the reaction of a 4yr old girl when she gets a pony for her birthday, you can imagine the reaction when I saw the construction dumpster had already been placed in my driveway.

I ripped down all of the drywall for the extra walls in the living room and proceeded to knock out some of the studs. I now have an open staircase! I also removed all of the stairwell's drop ceiling and 70's paneling I could reach without a ladder. At 6' 1", there's not much left! So I understood why the PO's decided to go with the drop ceiling as soon as I pulled down the tiles and received a shower of paint chips. Most likely lead. Just love the stuff. The paneling was used to cover two make-shift access points to the tub plumbing and quite a few cracks. Just add it to the list...

Just so you know what I've learned so far,

DAY 1 LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY:
1. Wear safety goggles. There's a reason for them. I found out that it is quite uncomfortable removing a 1/4" chunk of drywall that is stuck onto the pupil of your eye. Yep, that was an ouch moment. Well, other words came too...
2. Wear a dust mask when removing drywall. Try blowing your nose and finding the remains grey. That's just not natural.
3. Overestimate the size of your dumpster. I thought 6 yards would be plenty, but it's over half full already. Wow.
4. Wear your work gloves, even if it's 90 degrees in your house. I can't tell you how great blisters & calloused hands feel in the hot shower as you scrub chunks of drywall out of your hair.
5. Don't break your camera. Houseblog readers will become bored by your post without pictures. Sorry guys.

On the bright side, I met my neighbor to the West last night, and he was very nice. I got the thumbs-up right away when I said I was restoring the house back from a rental. He has stopped in a couple of times to offer to lend me tools if needed, and I gave him a little tour of the place.

The roofers came today and repaired the flashing around my chimney, so no more leakage. Yes! Best part: cost to me: $0, cost to the seller: $I don't care. I'm so glad thats done so I can repair the water damaged wall in the SW bedroom closet.

Also, a friend from work is coming over tonight after her shift to help pull up carpet with me. I'm going to see if she wants to help take out the cabinets in the extra kitchen too. Hopefully she'll be up for it, I don't want to have to take them down myself. Help is always good, lets just hope there's enough room in my little baby dumpster!