seventeen hours? really?

In an email from the neighborhood association today:

Leaving your porch light on:

A dark neighborhood is like a magnet to criminals. Leaving your porch light on will not only deter them, but will also help make the neighborhood safer.

If you're concerned about energy costs, keeping the porch light on 24/7 is actually better in a way because the most energy is used turning the light on (this is why they usually blow out when you turn them on). With your average 60 watt bulb, you can leave it on all day using less energy than you would if you turned it on twice in the day. I think it was 17 hours worth of energy that it uses to turn it on.

Being a librarian, I couldn't let this "fact" just slide by. Of course I responded (I thought nicely, Brandon thought not) with four sources--including a .gov site, a .edu, a .org, and it was even on Mythbusters on tv! Info from them below...

Based on the amount of energy consumed turning on the bulb, they were able to calculate how long the bulb would have to be turned off in order to make it worth the energy savings, i.e. "It's best to turn off the bulb if you are leaving the room for":

Incandescent: 0.36 seconds
CFL: 0.015 seconds
Halogen: .51 seconds
LED: 1.28 seconds
Fluorescent: 23.3 seconds

In other words, its almost always best to turn the bulb off. Even the 23 seconds for the fluorescent lights isn't very long, and the rest of the times are pretty much blinks of an eye.

"hey! i wonder what's behind there?"

If there is such a thing as famous last words for renovators, it's got to be those.

You might note that on the bungalow to-do list at the bottom right of the page mentions that we hope to paint the bathroom trim soon. Although now...we first have to install some new trim before we can paint it.

We had set aside this past holiday weekend for painting the bathroom. We'd decided to go ahead and pick out a nice pale yellow/gold for the walls, and just paint over the plastic wallboard stuff that's on the walls. The tile is a minty green, and we kinda like it, so we wanted to leave it (besides, that's an entire remodel for the room) but wanted to get rid of the twisty, spiral tile that someone installed at some point.

You can see the "before" bathroom in this photo. It looks cute in photos but is really a weird mish-mash of styles and decades of home "improvements."

So...we started by removing the twisty tile trim. It came off easily enough--turns out it was glued on! Of course I cut myself about two minutes into this job, but I've already had my tetanus shot, right?

Then, at some point, one or both of us wondered, "What do you think is behind this plastic pebbly wallboard stuff that someone has painted a noxious pale green?" We wondered this because as we pulled the twisty tile off, bits (and by bits, I mean a lot) of old paint and plaster started falling out from behind the wallboard, which had not been secured by any other means than the glued-on tile. We debated, and then finally, riiiiiiiipppppp! off came the wallboard, literally ripped in two. It was then that we discovered that the wallboard was also nailed into place at the top only, by little tiny nails that were under the moulding (which was also glued into place!). So off comes the moulding. And part of the drywall ceiling edges. Oops.

The wall behind the plastic stuff was solid, but a little mildewy. We haven't seen any signs of a serious or recent leak anywhere, and there are no pipes in that wall (that we know of), so we think it's just years of moisture build up, or possibly an old leak. We found a few minor cracks, and in many, many places the top layer of plaster had disintegrated. Possibly some wallpaper was up at one time as well, since a yellowish glue substance seemed to still exist on the walls.

We could have chosen to hire a plaster guy at this point, or tried to learn to plaster (I read the top layer is called "skim" and it's possible to do yourself, with some practice), but no. Instead we decide the wall has "character" and decide to smooth out the worst bits with drywall joint compound. You know, the kind in the little tubs.

Two largish tubs of compound later, the wall looked...better. We haven't primed the walls yet, and plan to do that one night this week. Then we need to cut new trim (the old stuff was in fact, not old, and was made of foam/plastic) and put it up, then prime it, and caulk, and then paint the walls a nice yellow/gold.

So this is why I haven't posted anything for a few days! We picked a great weekend, though, since everything outside was covered in ice, although it did make for some interesting trips down the back stairs. They are scary even in nice weather...

More coming soon...and photos!

let it snow...

Taken by our neighbor Cynthia yesterday :)

gecko "the fearless" vs. the thing that lives in the walls

The cat and I look at each other from across the room, and then we both turn to stare at the dining room wall...from which we hear...scrabbling noises.

His tail gets puffy, as it does when he gets upset, and after a few seconds of listening, he takes off to under-the-bed land. Thanks, buddy.

I walk quietly towards the dining room. Finally, I am facing the front corner behind the chest of drawers and wine rack. Furious scrabbling noises are coming from what seems to be inside the wall. I peek cautiously under the chest. Whew, nothing in the room with me. I look back at the wall, where something is either trying to get in or out, or possibly build something. Sounds like twigs scraping wood or metal. The gutters? Could it be in the gutters?

Outside, I hear nothing. After a while, I figure the neighbors will think I'm weird if I continue to stand in the yard and stare at my house.

We've heard this once before. Not sure if it's living in the roof, the gutters, or--gulp--the wall. Either way, I'm not looking foward to evicting it, whatever it is.

nice email from a previous resident

We got a really nice email recently from Marsha, who used to live in the neighborhood (and who teaches AND used to work in a library!). I haven't had a chance to email her back, but below is an excerpt from her email. Marsha, I will reply soon! Thanks for writing!

...I have been keeping up with your blog because my husband, children and I lived on Dauphine St. from 75-80. I can't remember the address, but it was 3rd from the corner and was the original farmhouse before the neighborhood was built. It was a casualty of Marta. It had a lot of quirks! Our next door neighborwas Mrs. G-- and she had lived there all her life. She died right before we moved at 90 something with no children (she had outlived 3 husbands--the first one made furniture and we still have a kitchen table and chairs we bought from her). She worked at the Methodist Church on Main St. as a secretary for years and years. I thought that might be a good source for tracking down pictures and info on people who lived there. I know all the churches had directories. ... Good luck with the renovating. I really enjoy reading your blog--I found it from the Westview Bungalow site--I grew up there.

random blog thoughts late at night

so i was reading the blog of my favorite rockstar today, and it hit me how it's probably a little weird to some people that we have an entire blog devoted to our house. i mean, a baby is one thing, because you've got friends and grandparents and everyone who wants to keep up with the latest news, but a house? i mean, it is our baby right now ;) and it does change fairly often, although it has yet to get any bigger, unfortunately.

before we bought the house, i discovered houseblogs.net and fell in love with the idea of a houseblog. i love the fact that we have a record of all the work we've put into the house and in a way it's a record of lives as well. but i dunno...it's still just a thing, you know?

barrage of photo posts...

Sorry for the barrage of photos that I slapped up there. I wanted to get them up, and will add captions or explanations ASAP!

If you click on them, some of them are quite huge...sorry about that as well. Will edit when I get time!

new lamp

This lamp was a Christmas gift from Brandon's parents. It is made by this company, whose name I refuse to type here for fear of the spam we might get in error. And it makes us giggle, because we are in 4th grade. :)

It's a pretty cool lamp because you can turn on the bottom as a nightlight, or turn on just the top, or both as shown in the photo.

Looks like the style is: 87-1354-F2 The Mission Frontier Table Lamp and can be found on their website under "Lighting." Most of their stuff is more woodsy (they use antlers in all of their decorating...) or just sort of weird.

camelia blooms

Unfortunately, most of the blooms froze in the very cold weather we had last week. There are still a lot of buds left, but I'm not sure if they will pull through.

one of my favorite things about this house

I love the sunlight in this house! I was watching tv the other day and a commercial came on with a kid running around this nice old house with lots of sunlight. I was envious for a second, and then looked up and realized that's what we have. Well, minus the running kid. At least for now.

Gecko does hang out in the dining room. Usually when the sun is right under that chair you see in the photo--that's his favorite spot!

dining room at christmas

This is just a photo of the dining room with greenery everywhere. The window straight ahead has an old Lane cedar chest underneath it, and serves as Gecko's guardpost.

a few more house photos

Photo of hallway, showing Brandon's artwork and front door at end of hall.

Click HERE to see what it looked like when we first bought the house!

B's artwork...

a bit of rearranging

No rearranging in here, really. But this is the view from the couch in its new location.
The sideboard with its new knobs! The original knobs were long gone and had been replaced with lion heads with pull rings. I ordered some wooden knobs from online...will post link when I find it...for a dollar or so each. Then stained then (finally) and voila!
Here's the living room in its new arrangement. We basically just swapped left and right, but found room to add in the bookcase under the window on the right side.

christmas in the living room!