Saturday, February 27, 2010

New Front Door!

So yeah, the back doors are cool and all, buuuut...

We also replaced the front door...

Yep, another wooden door. Painted too many times. Didn't seal.

Ripping out a 70-year-old door frame is a little like ripping out carpet. If you've ever done it, you'd consider wearing gloves next time.


New door new door new door!! I loooooove it!!

It's sooo fancy...
:)
And a brass cipher on the front to match the caming between the glass panels. Mostly I just wanted to use cipher and caming in the same sentence. I learned this knob trick from my mom: you don't need a free hand to open the door, an elbow works. So smart! All three doors got one!
And it does THIS!! I LOVE IT!!
The old boxed-in windows and doors...
New windows! New doors!! Soooo lucky!

New Doors!

With new windows, ya oughta upgrade the doors too, lest all those new insulative powers be for naught.

And plus, probably time to upgrade the rather primitive locks...
Tho I did save the sought-after jeweled doorknob. It would have looked silly on the new doors. I'll find something to do with it tho. There's another on the bathroom door.
The old back door was wooden. It swelled in the winter and was too small in the summer.
And the "basement" door was just plain wacky. Lavender on the outside, green on the inside. And hillbilly all over. ;)





The new back doors are a matching putty color. And of course Miss G got her own door cut into our new door.
The basement door has a shade between the glass! And we put cipher locks on all the doors. I LOVE cipher locks. If you need a new lock, I implore you to get these. They rock. :)

Monday, February 15, 2010

Tah-dah!!!

And so, after they used all these tools to install all our windows...



We have fancy new muntins....

And locking mechanisms that actually work...

And screens in every window.....

And generally, fancy new windows that are warmer, probably cooler, quieter, safer, and wonderfuller. :)

The Installation of Windows

And so, for two-plus days, I was lucky enough to work from home while new windows were installed. Dining room before!
Dining room after!
Bedroom before!
Bedroom after!
This is the window that my Dad warned me about. Hee hee! It wasn't quite square, and required extry work.
The stairwell before...
The stairwell after!! We went with traditional full muntins (the white dividers betwixt the panes) in the "front" of the house," and the more modern-feeling top-only muntins in the "back" part of the house. Such an improvement!!

Our Kitchen Window

First on the docket: the kitchen window. I can hear many of you green-thumbers scorning me already, so I'll go ahead and take my lashes early.

I hated this 1970s terrarium window. It was aluminum, the worst of all windows ever. And it stuck out of the house like an RV slide-out. And I could never reach the knob to open it without getting a chair. I hated it, and barely knew it.
The window guys had to tape it off and saw it out of place.
It took a lot to get it out...
Including having our funny little window man up on the counter.
But putting a traditional window back in its place feels better. And with the $500 clams we saved not putting in a new terrarium window, I can buy a LOT of herbs. Hooray for new kitchen windows!! And you knew I wasn't going to grow anything in there anyway... ;)

Out with the Old

OK. So under the "do the major dust-creating projects once and for all" category, next up: New windows throughout the house.

Because while the original 1939 ones had character, they weren't very efficient. The locking mechanics were a little outdated.
And had been painted so many times, sometimes they no longer worked as designed.
And sometimes you could actually see daylight between them.
And sometimes they weren't very pretty. [That's not an errant yeti in the background, just my husband, heading out to the garage.]
And they certainly weren't insulated. So we decided to go ahead and do it, we'd replace the old windows with new! Bear with me, I took a few pix. :)

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Scourge!

OK, boy, we must convince the scourge of squirrels that we are simply basking in the sun. Hmm hmm hmm. La-tee-dah...not paying attention to the squirrels...
Quick! Look to the left! Ha ha ha! Excellent work, my boy! The scourge of squirrels will know we mean business...
Excellent work everyone!! Again, pretend we are sleeping in this gorgeous afternoon sun...zzz...
Now, everyone look to the right!! Damn it man! I said right! Right!! RIIIIIIGHT!!! Oh great. Now the scourge of squirrels will surely overtake us...
Aw geez...now I feel bad for yellin' at him...he's just a simple creature...he don't know no better...

Friday, February 5, 2010

Guest Photographer: Mister N!

It smelled like spring for about 10 minutes today. Today! In the depths of winter!

Remember the bright colors of summer? Sigh... These are pictures of Montana, taken by today's guest photographer -- my husband -- last August.

He was there on bid'ness... that was three or four jobs ago, of course... ;)
Montana... A river runs through it... of course...
Here's a pic of this fish, in Montana.
Here's a pic of this deer, in Montana.
Here's a pic of this dear, in Montana.
Turns out the whole family is keen on panoramas. Click for the whole shebang. Forty-three days until Spring!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Floor Work: Sunday

So after like 10 hours on Saturday, we had most of the tile up, but our work was far from done... Screws...
LOTS of screws.

Despite a stern warning from the project manager, I accidentally punched a hole in the sheetrock when trying to crowbar the molding off. Dang. Now we're gonna have to mud that spot too.
I think a man working [in]doors feels more like a man if he can have a bottle of suds. That's only my opinion...
And that's how it came to pass, that on the last day of the job, the crew that tore up the tile floor in the winter of '10...wound up sitting on the floor at 6 o'clock in the evening, drinking icy cold MGD 64, courtesy of the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison. ;)
The view from the living room...
...and the view from the stairs.
Au revoir, horrid tile!
We ran out of sanding belts, so the floor needs more sanding. But its there!!