Cinderella Has a Mortgage

Psst! Over Here!

2010-07-29T08:31:00.002-05:00

The blog has been moved and relaunched with a new focus. In addition to the trials and tribulations of home ownership, I'll also blog about lots of other things - running, my wonderful town, what I'm reading and learning, etc, etc, etc.

Check it out at www.elginista.com. And if you tweet, follow me on Twitter @Elginista.

See you there!

The Fence

2009-11-03T06:32:00.000-06:00

The fence has been a long-standing source of frustration, ever since the previous neighbors knocked out numerous slats. (Before that, a random teenager running through backyards also destroyed half a dozen slats.)

But we're on the move! New neighbors bought the previously condemned crack house and have spent the last couple months working around the clock on it. They essentially gutted the interior - save for the gorgeous hardwood floors and woodwork - and are replacing just about everything, including the plumbing, electrical and roof. Though they'll keep it a four-unit for now, they'll live in a couple of the units and thus have a vested interest in screening tenants when they're ready. I talked to them about the fence, and they assured me they value their cars too much to slam into our fence.

So I started watching for sales and tried to figure out the logistics. My sister called and asked what we planned to do with the old fence, then offered to haul it away to use in a bonfire. I took her up on the offer, and came home one day to find her with a crowbar, pulling down the old slats. The old stringers were so rotted that they crumbled into dust as soon as you pulled on them.

Since then, we've had an army of solitary posts left, which is just odd. Upon further inspection - and confirmation from our jack-of-all-trades neighbor, who witnessed the original installation - the posts are fine. They're still solid in the ground, no signs of rot or decay, and the concrete beneath is fully intact. So we decided to just replace the panels themselves.

Three weeks ago, Menards ran a sale, which I price matched at Home Depot (to get the extra 10% off). Originally my sister had thought we could fit the new panels in her pickup, but we quickly realized that while we might fit 3 or 4, hauling 17 required either multiple trips or renting a HD truck. We went with the rental.

Since then, we've been plagued by a ton of rain (October was one of the wettest in history!), illness and the logistics of trying to remove the evil mulberry tree. When we removed the old fence, we discovered metal stakes long the property line - and the tree proved to be 100% on our side. I signed the death order that day.

All 17 panels are still stacked up against the garage, ready to go. Our neighbor has said he's happy to loan us his nail gun to speed things along.

We'll get the new one installed very soon, especially given some crime in the house behind us last week.

Super Sunday

2009-11-02T12:19:00.002-06:00

I had a really good Sunday. For the first time in weeks it wasn't raining (nor was the ground freshly soaked) and after a week being stuck inside with a cold, I was craving some fresh air.

After experimenting and making apple cider pancakes for breakfast, I planted about 75 bulbs that I had bought on clearance at Meijer. They're a mix of purple tulips, striped tulips and stock generic multi-color surprise tulips, and a handful of crocuses. I basically put them in bags by their height, dug all the requisite holes, then plopped them in at random. Can't wait to see what sprouts - or doesn't. Though I've learned my lesson about proper coverage to avoid feeding the squirrels.

Next, I whipped up some hydraulic cement (eerily similar to whipping up pancakes, only the directions do call for a mask and eye protection) and fixed a couple of the small cracks where the AC slab meets the foundation. This is exactly where we've had the minor basement leaking problem (much better lately), so a bit of extra sealant can't hurt. And this time, I didn't give myself chemical burns!

Then, while gingerly carrying my cement materials back to the garage, I spied a small, hairline crack beginning elsewhere in the foundation. I was able to scrape enough cement out of my bucket (though it was hardening rapidly) to patch it thoroughly. Preventative maintenance!

I ended my day by spending approximately 3 hours raking, raking, raking all the leaves that fell on a very blustery Friday. I realized I wasn't going to get them all, so I settled for "good enough" as I raked after the 5 PM sunset.

It was a really productive day. I needed a day like this.

Meet Rex

2009-10-30T20:19:00.000-05:00

I've always wanted my very own gargoyle. My alma mater, the University of Chicago, was positively crawling with them. And besides, what yard couldn't use a good concrete grotesque?

After looking on and off for the right one (and the right price!) I got not just one, but two for my birthday!

My parents happened to drive past a place in Indiana that sells unfinished concrete yard art. In August, we road tripped there with high expectations. And came home with a pair of grotesques.

Since they're unfinished, the prices were much more reasonable. The work itself was pretty easy. I just needed to sand them down a bit, fill in the seams with a bit of concrete (the woman running the store? No, that's not the right word – yard? Truckstop? - even gave me a dixie cup full of the powder to mix up), sand again, and then apply a sealant. The biggest time suck was waiting for the sealant to dry.

And now I've got a gargoyle, at last.

The place also had an awesome fountain with a real (live?) gargoyle, perched on a little tower, spouting water. But really, where would I put it?

Maybe once I get around to rebuillding the garage and enlarging the backyard, I can create a little area in the backyard.

But yes, I am now one of those people with yard art.

Don named the smaller, sadder looking one "Pokey." He reminds me of Gollum.

Rain on My Parade

2009-08-10T21:30:00.001-05:00

I had my weekend timeline carefully planned to finally finish the door! After staining the backsides of all the trim, I planned to do a first coat of stain on the front side on Friday evening, a second coat Saturday morning, install it all Saturday afternoon, then paint the door and the back stairs Sunday.

Until it started raining Friday afternoon. When I got home from work, it was really coming down. "Meh, too humid to effectively stain," I thought, planning instead to stain Saturday morning and again mid-day.

But Saturday was so oppressively humid that the saturated air wouldn't absorb any more moisture. I waited until the overnight rain dried up (ha!), then applied my first coat late Saturday morning, around 11. I figured it should be dry by mid-afternoon, plenty of time to apply a second coat, and then install first thing Sunday morning.

Every time I checked on my little staining set up - a couple old sheets on the garage floor - things were still wet. The mid-afternoon shower didn't help, either. I kept the garage door open while I was home, hoping that some non-existent breeze would help the process. And since I was working on the outsides of the boards - the pieces I'll have to look at every time I come or go - I wanted to make sure things were good and dry before applying a second coat to guard against smudges.

The last time I checked on my litany of lumber, about 10:30 PM, nearly twelve hours post-application, everything was still tacky. Sunday morning, first thing, before I even read made coffee (too hot for it, anyway), I went out to apply a second coat. Things were even more humid than Saturday, so I wrote off any chance of weekend installation.

And when I went to bed about 11 PM, some of the boards were still damp.

It's been a year since I started this project; what's another week?

Now excuse me while I go move the boards out of the garage. There's more rain forecast tonight.

The Year Without a Garden

2009-08-06T20:29:00.000-05:00

I tried, I really did. This year I planned to be even more adventurous with the garden – I was going to grow everything from seed! No more “cheating” seedlings for me, no sir.

I started off okay. I planted dozens of seeds into seed trays. Some of them took right away – I'm looking at you, nasturtiums – but others, not so much. I got a couple marigolds to sprout, and the lettuce took off nicely. But few of my brave little seedlings survived the transplanting, nor the neglect. I tried to make a deal with Mother Nature to water my new plants, but she had other ideas.

The smaller bed has done pretty well – apparently nasturtiums thrive under neglect, and one random bachelor button reappeared from last year. (Not a fan, especially when it's one chalky green stem towering over the lily pad-style nasturtiums.) But the big bed looks pretty bare, and would look even worse if not for the lily that keeps multiplying. (The first summer in this house, it didn't exist. The next summer, it was a single shoot. By this summer, it's starting to take over. I have no clue where it came from. But I'll take it!) A couple brave marigolds survived the transplant, but for the first time, it's a year without zinnias. I've had luck with the zinnias before – my first summer, I planted seedlings and they thrived. Last year, I actually grew a bunch from seeds planted straight in the ground. But this year, after carefully selecting a wide variety and starting some in trays and others directly in the dirt, none of them took.

I think I'll blame the weather.

Crysta the Carpenter

2009-08-05T20:25:00.000-05:00

“We'll make a carpenter out of you yet,”my dad said as I knelt on our makeshift saw horse, carefully lining up the saw against the line I had just drawn with my new T-square.

Yes, folks, Saturday was finally Sawdust Day. Still trying to finish the trim for the new door we installed over a year ago, my dad arrived bright and early with his miter saw, wood and numerous other tools to put up the trim. He had come over last Saturday, too, and left when we realized it was far more complicated than we had anticipated.

But this past Saturday, everything went to plan with no real complications. I made all the miter cuts myself, and we set up a makeshift workbench (empty driveway asphalt barrels with a heavy board across the top) to make the necessary traditional saw cuts. After starting my day with a kettlebell workout, my arms were jelly by the time Dad left. My knee has a nice bruise, too, from pressing against the boards as I cut them.

We had to cut some trapezoids (seriously, my house is FAR from square!), and some of the more interesting cuts left the boards looking like skyscrapers, due to fitting around the concrete slab of the foundation, existing trim and tight angles. In fact, the right side looks like the Sears Tower and the left like the Hancock Center.

But everything fits. We put the puzzle together at least three or four times, finding the right sequence and angles, drawing arrows on the backs so we knew which side had been cut an 1/8 of an inch smaller than the other end to appease the house. And, dagnabit, it FIT.

So Dad left, leaving me with everything I need to finally finish the job. I did the first two coats of stain Sunday and will finish the staining process this week. I went to the Depot this evening and bought one more board – a 1x4 would fit above the door, but to mesh with the existing trim, a 1x6 is in order – and some fresh wood putty, but other than that, I am all set.

I'm almost excited about next weekend when I'll have the time to install it all. Of course, fingers crossed!

What's So Sweet About It?

2009-08-03T20:22:00.001-05:00

So when my neighborhood had all its, um, problems, one of the biggest sources stemmed from a “candy shop” across the street. When it first opened, it was truly a candy shop for kids – there were always tons of candy wrappers on my yard.

But then, things changed. The shop in question was bright pink, operated strange hours, covered up the windows with blackout curtains and shooed children away. The one time I ventured inside, the bare shelves boasted a few dusty cans of soup, a small fridge with cans of grape soda, and a few t-shirts and hoodies for sale. And lots of annoyed looks from the proprietress at my presence.

Plus, it was the only drive-up candy shop I've ever seen! Cars would pull up, and someone would race to the driver's window, and perform the transaction. They must have had call-ahead service!

Eventually things changed again, for the better. And the neighborhood quieted down. Kids started playing on the block again. It was great.

But now a new sweet shop has opened around the corner. And it reminds me of the old one. Which leads me to ask – why a candy shop as a ruse? Why take something so innocent and retro – heck, my small town never had a candy shop when I was a kid – and turn it into something so putrid? When I first bought my house – and closed on the same day as the pink shop's grand opening – I thought to myself, “How quaint. How suburban. How nice for kids, to have someplace in the neighborhood where they can spend their allowance money on candy.” Growing up in a cornfield subdivision that was miles from anything, I embraced the idea of an older neighborhood designed to allow residents to walk to their needs – and let kids do the same.

So why ruin that nostalgia with something so tawdry?

Hopefully I'm wrong. Maybe it really is just a candy shop, with its hand-made signs and shaded windows. Maybe they're trying to keep the sun out, not prying eyes.

The Door, Part 736

2009-07-31T20:12:00.000-05:00

I installed a new back door last summer (Independence Day, to be exact). My parents, Don and I spent an entire day making the perfectly-square, new door fit with the settled, off-kilter, old house. It took lots of shimming and adjusting, and Dad left me tasked with getting the wood for the trim, staining it, and calling him over to make the perfect miter cuts and install.

Busy schedules, multiple job changes, travel and winter got in our way. Finally, a full year after I bought and stained the wood, Dad came over with his miter saw. And we quickly discovered just how not-square the areas to be trimmed are. In some cases, there's a full half-inch difference between the top and bottom measurements! So some of the boards fit, but others don't. Dad and I took very careful, precise measurements, and he went home to make the final cuts.

He comes back this weekend. We'll dry fit everything (fingers crossed) and then (if all goes well), I'll stain all the pieces (provided the hosue god consents and blesses us with a proper fit) and install it on my own (fit-pending). Then, once the trim is done, AT LAST I can paint the door and the steps to the basement.

But I'm not getting my hopes up. Some projects never end. With an old house, there are always multiple fun surprises in store.

Our Lawn, Seattle Style

2009-07-30T22:33:00.000-05:00

What do you get when April and May weather continues through July?

Jungle lawn!

It's the close of the coolest July in decades - with not a single day at or above 90 degrees. We've had tons of rain, inconveniently spread on multiple days throughout the weeks.

Hence, the jungle lawn. It just keeps growing! And it seems to rain just frequently enough that it's hard to find a time to mow the lawn when it's actually dry enough to work with.

Perhaps we should get a goat. Or a couple rabbits. That should solve the problem.

Technical Difficulties

2009-07-30T21:26:00.002-05:00

I got a new netbook to maximize my two daily hours of train time. I can write! On the train! Every day!

So I started writing and had drafted six or seven blog posts. Of course, I hadn't yet synced up and actually published said blog posts. Then I installed a bunch of updates to the netbook, which set caused problems requiring me to recover everything. Which, of course, wiped out those six or seven posts.Grrr.

But now I should be back in business. Stay tuned!

Thank you, Circle of Life

2009-06-30T09:37:00.004-05:00

Around noon yesterday, I spied a squirrel lying on the garage roof. Later in the afternoon, he was still there, in the exact same strange, awkward position - sprawled out flat, not moving. Mid-day, I wondered if he was resting, but by evening, I assumed he was dead.

When Don got home, it was already dark, so I told him that the next time we were both home in daylight hours (umm.... Thursday? Maybe Friday?), we would have to go get the thing off the roof. This would involve the ladder (fun!) and shovel. That shovel - which came with the house - has done its fair share of animal removal duties, including Gus the Groundhog and the presumably rabid (or just plain batty) squirrel that spent an entire day twitching itself ten feet across the driveway, driving the cat nutty.

But this morning, in daylight, the squirrel is gone. I'll bet our friendly neighborhood raccoons took care of it for us. Thanks, guys! You're finally good for something besides scaring the bejeezus out of us when we deign to enter the backyard in the evenings.

Update: Don says that he actually heard the raccoons fighting it out over the squirrel carcass. Yum.

It's Time to Play.... Name! That! Plant!!!

2009-06-25T21:45:00.000-05:00

Every year about this time, I play a game I like to call Weed? or Sprout?. In the weeks (month?) since I planted dozens of new seeds in my front garden - dozens of things have begun to sprout. Add monsoon rains, a dash of sunshine, and some transplants are suffering, but other new seeds seem to be thriving.

I started with a freshly weeded bed, added a couple new bags of soil and topped everything with mulch.

But the fact that the rain has enabled them to grow makes me wonder. Like this one - is it an offshoot of an existing lily that somehow migrated 5 feet north? Or is it a really big weed?

Or this one? The spiky leaves either indicate marigolds (yay!) or unidentified weeds (boo!):
With all the rain - despite the beautiful weekend, everything was still soupy wet - I haven't had a chance to investigate further. But I'm sure when I do... I'm going to have a lot of weeding. Sigh.

Stadium Lights

2009-06-24T22:06:00.000-05:00

We're gradually making energy-saving adjustments to our old, old house. The new windows have helped our energy efficiency (and comfort!) tremendously. But for the most part, the changes we make have been, well, free. Or taxpayer-funded.

The city has been giving out those snazzy CFL bulbs at nearly every city-sponsored event I've been to in the past year, from picnics to lectures. And if you happen to be present towards the end of the event, organizers tend to hand them out in pairs or triples, rather than packing them back up. Which leads me to believe that the city knocked off a truckload of bulbs bound for Chicago. After all, every single individually packaged bulb (how's that for green?) is printed with the seal of the City of Chicago and the Richard M. Daley, Mayor insignia. Sometimes they have a "City of Elgin" sticker slapped over the top, but not always.

Anyway, like good citizens we've been installing the new CFLs as the old incandescent bulbs burn out. We were even proactive and bought (ie, overpaid for) bulbs for the front porch lights two years ago, since they're the longest running lights in the house. (Though it should be noted that the first ones last a mere six days - apparently brownouts burn the bulbs, literally browning them. But the second pair bought the next week is on its third summer, running every night from sunset until 2 AM.)

We haven't noticed a huge difference in the energy bills, but (mercury concerns aside) we've been pretty diligent. However, the quality of the light is very different than that from incandescent bulbs. This isn't an issue outside, where more light better illuminated the drug deals that used to happen across the way, and the security lights from HALF A MILE ACROSS THE RIVER blare into our bedroom at night.

But in the living room, with first one, then two and now four CFLs spotlighting the couch from the overhead fixture, we're just about to buy some more incandescent bulbs. They're so bright - Don has compared them to stadium lights - that they prevent relaxing (read: napping). I've found Don stretched out on the couch watching tv with his hand shading his eyes from the glare.

So we're not going green for the sake of being green. Rather, a little bit of common sense must prevail. Though we'll continue to collect the bulbs at city events - I wonder if there's an aftermarket.

Tomato!

2009-06-23T22:35:00.001-05:00

A quick happy thought:

Late last week, the monsoons (3.75" of rain in a single hour on Friday!) flooded most of my potted plants lining the driveway. Most of the pots lack drainage holes, so my fledgling cilantro, basil and oregano are gone. (The lettuce might still pull through.) However, my tomato plant gets the biggest, bestest pot that I borrowed from a fellow tenant many moons ago. This plant is thriving and today - in the hot sunshine - I even have the beginning of an actual tomato!

Luckily, I also started some basil indoors that is doing pretty well. I can't wait to make some fresh bruschetta. Really, the bruschetta makes the whole planting ordeal worth it.

Into the Void

2009-06-23T21:52:00.002-05:00

Another irrational fear is the gaping holes under my floor vents. One of the joys of an old house is the giant (one square foot or even larger!) vents on floors throughout the house. The cat loves them - especially in winter - and will puff herself up and stretch out to cover absorb as much of the air as possible.

But I'm always afraid of the gaping canyon beneath the pretty, heavy iron grate coverings, especially in the upstairs bathroom. Last weekend, while vacuuming out the vents (a twice yearly chore), I had my usual qualms about what lies beneath. I'm assuming it goes straight down two stories to the furnace in the basement, with nothing to stop the freefall. I've dropped the occasional thing into the hole - an aspirin, a q-tip - but what if I dropped something important? Could I ever get it back? Has a previous resident ever dropped something?

With a deathgrip on my phone, I took a picture of the abyss. Do they make a wrist strap for cell phones?

Either way, I'm glad I cleaned out all the dust (and accumulated cat fur) - and I'm breathing easier.

Cutting Metal Past Midnight

2009-06-19T13:28:00.002-05:00

When the auto body shop opened across the street last year, I was wary. I was skeptical. But then I was delighted.

Sure, they sell car stereos, alarms and a more varieties of rims than I ever knew existed. They serve as a meeting point and hangout for a large group of men who spend their free time customizing and polishing their cars and preparing for car shows. But they cleaned up the long-vacant property, are relatively friendly, and usually close up shop by 8 PM. During the day, yeah, we'll hear outbreaks of car alarms as they're testing stereo installations, and occasionally they install so much bass that the pictures on our walls rattle, but for the most part, they're pretty good neighbors. And, they installed so many cameras to protect their investment that they drove the previous, crack-dealing neighbors out of business.

Occasionally, prior to car shows, the guys will pull some late evenings. We'll see lights on until 9 or 10 PM and hear a bit of music as they're finishing their work. Last night, though, was awful. It's been a long week, with activities every night. I haven't had a quiet, spend-time-vegging-on-the-couch night in over a week. I got home from the city last night about 10, did a bit of cleanup, made lunch for today, and fell into bed around midnight. As soon as it was quiet, we realized it wasn't so. Across the street, we could hear grinding metal. It was loud and one of those piercing sounds that penetrates your skull. Sure, living right by the train, we're used to the late night train horns and the rumbling of the house as the 1:30 and 4:00 AM freight trains tear through town. But they're relatively quick sounds that I usually sleep through. But this sound was insane. We called the police non-emergency number and logged a complaint around 1 AM and were told it was a busy night but they would try to send a squad out. I fell into an uneasy sleep, tossing and turning. Around 3 AM, when a huge thunderstorm rumbled in, I got up to make sure it wasn't raining in, and there were still lights on across the street. The thunder was drowning out the worst of the grinding metal, thankfully.

It was an awful night's sleep, and I'm paying for it today. Next time, I'm going over there myself. The guys are pretty friendly and I would think if I wandered over at 2 AM and asked them to please, for the love of god, stop cutting metal, they would listen? Maybe?

Seriously?

2009-06-17T22:10:00.000-05:00

Whoever invented cheap white laminate cabinets never actually cooked or used them for their intended purposes. Or he wore gloves at all times.

They show fingerprints so damn quickly, and get dirty around the corners just from daily use. We won't even realize we spilled something until a long, streaky, greasy stain appears and won't.go.away.

Plus, the cheap laminate chips away.

I've only been in this house three years and am pretty gentle with my cabinets - heck, we don't have kids - and they look worse for the wear. I can't IMAGINE what kids would do to them.

And don't get me started on the cheap handles. We've bought a least a dozen tubes of superglue just to replace the ugly ceramic "decorations."

Ants!

2009-06-16T21:46:00.000-05:00

For the second season in a row, a whole colony of ants has appeared. I first noticed a few scouts in the kitchen, and now I've got a half dozen parading along the back of the counter at any given time.

Once again, the source is likely the giant ant hill in the middle of the back yard, about 18" in diameter. We killed it last year with a shaker can of anthill-specific chemicals and a good drowning. But now it's back.

How are the ants making it to the house? Do they have an intricate subterranean interstate system spanning the 20 feet from the anthill onramp to my kitchen? (Don't answer that.) If so, does destroying the anthill leave those tunnels intact? Or are they quick to rebuild, with thousands - or millions - of workers at their disposal?

A coworker recommended gasoline and a blowtorch to take out the hill once and for all. But I think I'll stick with my non-inferno-causing chemicals for now.

Inside, I completely scrubbed the inside of the affected cabinets, housing the caramelized Coke-encrusted recycling bin and laid fresh ant traps (specifically for "little black ants") throughout the cabinets and underneath the fridge. I also put one on the counter where I keep seeing them - and watched in amazement as five ants did about-faces to trek towards their deaths. I also noticed a tiny gap in the caulk around the window above the sink that seems to serve as their portal. I'll be tackling that this weekend.

But for now... I'm going to go kill more ants along the Little Black Ant Death March trail.

Hissing

2009-06-16T11:46:00.002-05:00

I have a relatively active imagination, so I've spent every night for the past week wondering why there are now snakes living in my toilet tank. At least, that's what it sounds like. And what goes through my mind as I'm showering. Or trying to fall asleep.

The hissing started about a week ago, right after the city installed our new water meter. I've lifted the lid and there's no signs of leaking or continuously running water. Everything works fine.

It just hisses, constantly and quietly.

Should I be concerned, or only if it starts gurgling?

Maybe a Machete?

2009-06-15T21:35:00.000-05:00

Our string trimmer died last year after a whole season of service. Rather than buy another cheap one, I started using hedge clippers to trim the grass along our retaining wall, where the lawnmower can't cut.

It's easy enough, and since the retaining wall lifts the lawn about 3 feet above the sidewalk. And the distance involved is short enough that I can knock it out in about 10 minutes.

But I can't help but wonder if a machete would be more effective. And a conversation piece for the neighbors.

Crop Circles

2009-05-19T22:56:00.000-05:00

With the spring thaw this year, I discovered crop circles in the back yard!

But rather than blaming aliens or the paranormal, I blamed my own sloth.

Late last fall, we raked our mass of leaves into one mountain and one smaller molehill. It was dark by the time we finished, so we said we'd move it to the curb the next day for pickup. Then it rained, rained and rained some more. Weeks went by. Critters moved into the pile, which seemed to shrink under the accumulated weight of the rain. It snowed. And finally, one day in late November, we scraped the rotting mess up to the street to be sucked up by the giant leaf vacuum.

This spring, as the grass began to come back to life, the outline of the leaf pile still remained yellow and dead. In the past couple weeks, some life is returning, but it's mostly dandelions.

Next fall, I pledge to promptly remove all leaf piles, no matter how dark it is!

The Jungle Next Door

2009-05-18T21:36:00.000-05:00

I have found the advantage of the vacant house next door: it makes my own lawn look downright manicured.

But how long will the grass get before someone takes action?

With foreclosures growing, we're up to three on our block. In the winter, it wasn't such a big deal. The houses looked kind of peaceful with their undisturbed blanket of snow. I often shoveled the sidewalk next door because it was a quick job - what's another 10 minutes when I've been outside an hour? - and to help the numerous walkers around here. Nope, not being selfish at all with my walk to the train.

Now that spring has sprouted a jungle next door, though, there's a very clear line where my lawn - and my labor - ends and the property next door begins. Until Sunday, my dandelion population helped bridge the difference (the fallow land across the street sends a swarm of dandelion seeds my way), but especially since my second mow of the year, it's painfully obvious.

For now, I'll let live and be thankful that the one next door looks just overgrown and lush. But the second a tiger comes after me... I'm calling the city.

Wind

2009-05-10T19:35:00.002-05:00

Stupid wind destroyed my tulips less than two weeks after they bloomed.
Though there are still petals all over the place.

Luckily, the seedlings I planted last weekend are starting to take hold in the new soil and mulch.

Winter - Vanquished!

2009-04-23T23:27:00.003-05:00

After days and days of rain, I saw this in my front garden as I came home:

And now it's raining again.

I hope that Saturday will be dry enough to plant my egg carton-bound seedlings into solid ground!

A Geyser & A Burn

2009-04-16T19:28:00.000-05:00

One night last month, during a heavy storm, I unlocked the back door and hear an unusual sound.

The basement was gurgling.

Rather, the wall in the basement had sprung a leak and water was flowing all the way across the sloped basement floor to the drain, which was fighting to keep up, and failing.

I changed into grubby clothes and set off to plug the leak, which was the size of a pencil eraser, and was acting like a geyser or fountain. It looked a lot like a kid turning their mouth into a water fountain.

Unfortunately, everything I had onhand that might fix the problem was water soluble and couldn’t set up against running water – caulk, spackle, grout, liquid nails. It was too late to go out to a hardware store, so I tried the one thing I thought might actually work.

Duct tape.

I balled up some duct tape and shoved it into the leak, then created a patch over the top. The gushing slowed to a trickled, enough that I was able to squeegee out the basement and survive the storm.

The next weekend, after researching solutions, I bought Drylock Fast Plug as a first step to fix the problem. That entire wall has been seeping for awhile, and in addition to the one geyser, there are several smaller holes not so visible to the naked eye. My research and the shockingly helpful Orange Apron I talked to concurred that patching with Fast Plug, followed by a solid coat of Drylock Waterproofer, should do the trick.

I carefully followed the directions and made sure to ventilate the basement and don a mask, gloves and goggles. I mixed up a small amount to get the texture right, then applied the concrete to the main hole, then several other spots I had noticed and marked. It was kind of fun, almost like finger painting. Emboldened by my success, I mixed up more and patched the entire joint, where floor meets wall. I decided I had done enough for the evening and packed up and went off to take a shower.

An hour later, my face was a red, peeling mess that burned hot to the touch. When Don got home from work, he took one look and asked what had happened.

Despite all my precautions, I had brushed hair off my face with the back of my gloves, likely leaving some Drylock dust on my cheeks. When I hopped in the shower, the water must have activated the powder. A quick Google confirmed my self-diagnosis – I had minor chemical burns all over my cheeks and forehead.

After some burning, itching and a very uncomfortable night, they started to disappear about twenty-four hours later. But next time, I’ll use a hair tie.

Finally! A Fence!

2009-04-15T17:27:00.000-05:00

I had my new fence all planned out last summer. The money was set aside and I had a detailed blueprint with exact quantities for posts and sections. I was ready to rock and roll.

Then, one of the tenants next door got a new boyfriend who drove a giant conversion van. Every time he came over and parked in their driveway, he slammed into our fence. And not just a little tap, as other tenants had done over time – this was full fledged, fence-shuddering contact. He knocked multiple slats from their moorings. I cringed every time I heard the whine of the engine pull up, because I knew it would be followed by a loud thud.

He didn’t seem very approachable, so I never confronted him. Instead, we talked to the absentee landlord, who really didn’t give a damn but said he’d talk to the tenant.

We really didn’t want to invest the time and money to install a new fence if it was going to be abused so harshly.

But then, in a whirlwind of a few short weeks, the building was vacated and condemned, and the ground began its winter freeze.

We’re ready for the spring thaw to dig holes in the ground – below the frost line of 42”, mind you – and install this new fence. Though we still haven’t determined what to do with the old fence, which is in pretty sorry shape. Maybe stick it in the garage until next year’s Spring Cleanup?

Planting Again

2009-04-14T18:25:00.000-05:00

Growing up, we had intricate landscaping put in by a previous resident. With black lava rocks and evergreen bushes, it was very dark and retro-70s, like much of the house. My experience with gardening consisted of Mom handing us shoeboxes and telling us to pull weeds on hot summer afternoons. She would pay us a set price per box we filled – usually a dollar or two.

In my apartments during and after college, I started quite a colony of houseplants, sharing cuttings with friends. I abandoned most of them when I got my cat, since it turned out most were poisonous to her.

My last apartment had a great little balcony. I installed planter boxes on the railings and tried to grow a variety of flowers and vegetables. I got a bit of basil out of the experiment, but not much else.

But in the house, my latent green thumb has come to life! From my first stab at zinnia seedlings the first spring to a series of ceramic pots lining the driveway, each boasting a different herb or vegetable, I’m starting to get the hang of it. And this year, I realized that waiting we’re past the danger of frost to plant outside means no blooms until mid-June at the earliest.

In addition to my tulips (now in their third year!) which are starting to come up of their own volition, I started a bunch of seeds in egg cartons out on the front porch. There have been some cold mornings but I think it’s just warm enough to foster life.

And I’ve got my first attempt at lettuce, going gangbusters. The zinnias and nasturtiums are starting, too, as is the basil. I can’t wait to get it in the ground.

Happy Housiversary to Me!

2009-04-13T07:28:00.000-05:00

I've been very negligent lately. I don't really have an excuse, but let's get back to it.

Today is my third housiversary! I bought this wonderful piece of property three years ago today. That morning, I did my final walkthrough with my realtor to make sure all the issues arising from the inspection had been fixed. We ran through the checklist - toilet properly bolted down, ceiling fan balanced and, most importantly, asbestos wrapped - and headed off to the title company for the closing.

Less than two hours later, I returned, keys in hand, and let myself in. I slowly paced from room to room, marveling in the moment. It had rained earlier that morning, but the sun was breaking out through the clouds. For the first time in all my visits at the house - two looks, writing the offer, the inspection and walkthrough - I could see how sunshine flowed through the windows.

The sunlight illuminated the mess of cobwebs filling every corner and closet. Most of the light fixtures were just naked bulbs. A lightswitch had stopped working sometime between inspection and closing. I noticed that the tiny downstairs bathroom was horribly misaligned - the light fixture, mirror and sink were completely out of sync. And what about the piece of missing trim between the kitchen and bathroom?

All these little things hit me as I realized that I was stepping beyond the stressful-yet-exhilarating homebuying process, into the much more mundane and unknown world of home ownership. Suddenly, it was all my problem. And unlike leases measured in months, there was no time limit on the problems, nor anyone else holding my security deposit dollars to motivate me into action.

I immediately tackled the cobwebs and dust that had accumulated during the year the house sat vacant. The baseball wallpaper in the bedroom was next on the list. But three years later, some of these problems persist.The downstairs bathroom still bugs me every time I'm in there, but not enough to act when other projects are more pressing. The lightswitch was replaced right away, and I've only got one bare bulb left. But new projects always spring up with their own costs - in both time and money - and precedence. Obviously I'm going to take care of the geyser in the basement wall before I worry about a crooked mirror.

But in the past three years, I've realized that if I take them as them come, I can stay on top of everything, or at least ensure everything's still functioning and the house stays warm and dry. Rather than trying to do everything at once, slow and steady is indeed winning the race.

I hope the same can be true with this blog. Rather than trying to write for a book or The Great American Novel, if I stick to steady, shorter posts, maybe I'll make some progress.

It's worth a try.

Centralizing the Chaos

2009-02-17T01:06:00.000-06:00

One of the reasons I love my house is its vast amounts of storage space. Coming from a one bedroom apartment to an entire house, complete with walk-in closets, a garage, and a full basement meant I had plenty of room to spread out!

I've spent nearly three years storing things willy-nilly, incorporating Don's things with my own with no rhyme or reason. And now we're in quite a pickle.

As I've accumulated tools and household items, they've dispersed. Extra nails? In the garage. Leftover plastic sheeting? Back hall closet. Tubes of caulk? Two in the hall closet, one in the garage and one in the basement. Leftover paint? It's all centralized in the coal room in the basement, but the paintbrushes? Those would be in the garage. This means the simple search for, say, a flat-head screwdriver can pose maddening as I try to remember where I used it last. And in winter, the prospect of venturing into the cold, across the icy driveway and into the dark garage is never inviting.

So I've embarked on a mission to organize. For Christmas, my parents got me a huge, heavy duty utility cabinet for the basement. Getting the cabinet to my house in the first place was interesting, as I had to wait until my sister (and her truck) was available to bring it over. Then, we struggled to even get the monster in the house in the first place, so it sat on the back stairs for two weeks until a friend of Don's came over and helped out. I started building the cabinet (comprised of approximately 792 pieces) on Super Bowl Sunday and made pretty good headway, overcoming the non-verbal, pictorial directions and identical-looking parts labeled W and BB and GF. But then, I got to the point where I needed a second set of hands, and the Super Bowl was about to start, so I put the project on hold. And it sat for another week and a half, during which I was worried the snow melt would flood into the basement.

But it didn't, and Don and I finished assembling the cabinet one evening. We had a bit of a problem when we discovered that the cabinet - at 75 inches tall - is too tall for much of the basement. We found one place where it would fit, but it took some wrangling to get it around the ductwork. And now as I roam the house and find random home repair/maintenance/improvement materials, they're beginning to migrate to a single point. No longer will my medicine cabinet boast a putty knife all its own, and the pliers in the kitchen drawer have given notice.

Heck, we may even put a pegboard in the basement to further organize things!

Digging Trenches

2009-02-08T00:15:00.003-06:00

I spent this beautiful 55-degree day outside with just a light jacket. It was so refreshing to stay outside without scurrying back to shelter!

But I had a mission. This was the first thaw we've had since around Christmas, so the snow had built up pretty high. In fact, with the last couple snows, we had run out of room to pile it up along the driveway, especially at the foot of the driveway where the plows only made things worse. The entrance to the driveway had gotten progressively more narrow and took a precise turn to get in just right without getting stuck. Plus, the most recent snows hit when it was bitterly cold, so we had done the bare minimum clearing, which had created a nice, icy layer underneath.

So today, I set out to widen the entrance to the driveway. When I got home from my mid-day errands, my neighbor was out doing exactly that. He brought over one of his roof shingle shovels - with a spiked end - that proved very effective at chopping through the ice.

I spent a solid two hours on the end of the driveway alone. The snowpack was at least three feet tall, so I climbed up and hacked at it. Living near the top of a hill, the street often serves as a bit of a waterfall on rainy days and thaw days, so a trickle was already beginning to flow. Even so, since my neighbor - just a tiny bit higher up the hill, whose peak is the house on his other side - had already made good progress, I had a lake of dirty, cold water forming at the end of my driveway where it ran into the still-strong snowpack. So the hacking took on a more strategic approach. I felt like I was part of the Army Corps of Engineers, strategically opening up trenches every time water started pooling somewhere.

With the warm weather, neighbors were out walking their dogs and getting groceries. I chatted with a couple of them as they strolled by, and as I was just about ready to call it good-enough and go back inside, one of those neighbors reappeared in his pickup truck, equipped with a plow blade. He waved me out of the way and shoved what was left of the snow pack back, widening my path even more. I smiled and thanked him with a neighborly wave. As soon as he left, water started pooling again, so my neighbor and I quickly reopened a main trench and were rewarded with a babbling brook.

I'm sure my arms and back will be sore tomorrow, but it was a great day.

Fabulous New Windows

2009-01-19T17:15:00.000-06:00

Last Monday, with an arctic cold front encroaching on the Midwest, my new windows were finally installed. They're fabulous. The timing couldn't have been more perfect. Monday was a seasonable day in the upper 20s, and the installers worked carefully so there was never more than one hole in the side of the house at any given time. By the time they left, we had five new windows - three in the living room, and two in the office.

The next day, the bottom dropped out and we had a series of days where we never broke 0 degrees, with overnight windchills hovering around -40 degrees. And the windows met their first test with fortitude and grace. No drafts. I noticed the biggest difference touching the glass itself. The new windows felt cooler than the room temperature, of course, but not bad at all. The old windows still elsewhere in the house were caked in sheets of ice and were barely touchable.

Definitely worth it. I just hope the heat bills reflect it.

Starting the Year Right

2009-01-18T17:09:00.000-06:00

New Year's Day, Don came home from running errands, bearing a beautiful bouquet of roses. "I just wanted to start the year off right," he said. Then he dropped to one knee and proposed. I did the excited-girl-flapping-hands thing and accepted, of course.

It really is the very best way to start the new year.

We haven't set a date yet but are figuring it out. Regardless, it's an exciting time in the old house.

Breaking My Broken Windows

2009-01-17T16:04:00.003-06:00

I've had two cracked window panes on my front porch since I moved in. They've both grown a bit, likely due to freeze/thaw cycles. I always thought replacing a pane of glass would be expensive, so I put off repairs. Plus, since both affected windows are on the porch, there was no direct effect on the interior of the house itself, though certainly a colder porch does lead to a colder house.

But they've always bugged me. So when I was in Lowe's in early October and saw that you could buy sheets of glass cut to size, I jumped on it. Sure, it was only single pane glass, but for the porch, that suffices. Lowe's didn't cary glazing putty, but Ace did.

I brought my measurements into Lowe's and after a search for an employee who actually knew how to use the glass-cutting machine, I had my sheet of glass. Well, actually, the first one he cut broke while he was wrapping it up, but the second one made it home unscathed. I spent an hour carefully prying the window frame apart - several coats of paint served as glue. Finally, I release the lower pane and laid it out on the floor.

That's when I realized I had mis-measured the glass. So I re-measured - thrice, this time - and trotted back to Lowe's.

This time, we went through two broken sheets before coming up with a third one cut to my new and improved measurements. We wrapped it carefully and I brought it home.

This time, I carefully taped an X across the old glass and gingerly tapped with a mallet until it broke. I scraped out the decades-old, dried-out putty and started putting new glazing compound into the groove. When it came to lay the new glass in place, it didn't fit. I flipped it around, and it still didn't fit. Annoyed, I couldn't understand how my new measurements - taken three times - could be wrong again! So I measured the glass and compared it to the scrap of paper still in my pocket. The measurements in my pocket didn't match the glass. I had been very careful to throw away the old, incorrect measurements to make sure I gave the right ones to Lowe's. But the guy had cut it wrong.

By this point, it was about 6:30 on a Sunday night. I called Lowe's and learned that they closed at 7:00, so I hopped in the car and ran back to the store. At first, the bored high school student working at Customer Service didn't want to allow an exchange, saying that custom-cut pieces can't be returned. I was welcome to buy another sheet, though. Luckily, the employee who had cut the piece wrong happened to walk by, saw me with the glass, and intervened, shrugging when he realized his mistake. After two failed attempts (there's got to be a better method that doesn't cause breakage 2/3 of the time!), I got my piece cut - and verified its dimensions myself - and left the store.

By the time I got home, it was good and dark. I massaged the glazing compound a bit to soften it up and lined the window up - it was ready to go. I started to slide it into place and then asked for Don's help. It fit perfectly. But then, in the process of filling the groove with more glazing putty, it cracked. We laughed. It was 8:30 on a Sunday night. All the hardware stores were closed. I was booked on a flight to DC at 6 AM the next morning and hadn't started packing. So we used packing tape to seal it up.

So, eight panes of glass later, my window still has a packing tape bandaid. I'm very hesitant to try again. At this point, I could have just paid someone to do it for the amount of time I've spent.

And that's the thing about home ownership. You have to figure out the value of your time. Sure, on paper, replacing a broken window pane would take $20 and an hour. But inexperience and working with fragile materials may mean that it's worth hiring a professional.

Next step: I'll investigate the cost of bringing the whole sash into a glass place and leaving it to the pros. And hopefully I can get rid of the packing tape once and for all. Heck, I might even fix the second window, too.

2008 Plans Recap

2009-01-17T08:51:00.000-06:00

A little over a year ago, I started this blog and listed my home improvement/repair plans for 2008. Let's check in and see how those turned out, shall we?

Replace the back door. - Complete! Well, kind of. I did indeed replace the door in July with the help of my parents and boyfriend. However, we're not yet quite done... I have the trim stained but it needs to be cut to the right size and installed, and, lacking the right saw to do so, it hasn't happened yet. And I really should put a fresh coat of paint on the door itself - I bought the paint in August but now it's too cold. I can't wait until I finish and can actually enjoy the completed result - though I've already noticed the far superior insulation compared to previous winters!

Install a utility sink in the basement. Not yet, but now that it's winter, the need is even more pressing.

Fix the two broken panes of glass on the porch. I kind of replaced one but have to redo it. The story merits its own post.

Remove the wall AC unit in the living room - a remnant of the days before central air - and replace it with a window. COMPLETE as of Monday! And it looks so much better and brighter!

Replace some windows. COMPLETE as far as my budget currently allows. Monday, I replaced three windows in the living room and both in the office, just in time for the cold snap. And yegads, what a difference.

Now to prioritize for 2009... and complete the delinquencies for 2008.

The River Steams

2009-01-16T17:44:00.000-06:00

We've been in the midst of the coldest weather in 15 years this week. This morning, I woke up to a temperature of -23F, with a windchill in the -40s.

It rarely gets this cold, so when it does, you get to see strange things. Like the Fox River, frozen solid, with what appears to be steam rising in big sheets at sunrise.

I wanted to take a picture as I walked to the train this morning but I was running late and also a bit terrified of removing my glove to dig my phone out of my pocket. Luckily, someone downstream apparently had the same thought and sent it in to Tom Skilling's blog.

Bottles reborn!

2009-01-16T06:35:00.001-06:00

Last winter, some of our less savory neighbors kept tossing empty beer bottles over the fence and into our back yard. Eventually, the troublesome tenants moved out, and now the building is actually vacant, condemned and awaiting a sheriff's sale next month. (Let me know if you're interested in buying an 1860s 4-unit oversized single family house!)

A couple weeks ago, during a thaw, though, I noticed something in our front yard, among the melting snow.

I see the neighborhood is getting classier by the day!

So very cold

2008-12-22T15:07:00.001-06:00

The heat is blasting, and so are the humidifiers. We've got a sheet of ice caked onto the downstairs bathroom and office windows - but finally, the temperature has broken zero!

Times like this I miss my old radiator-heated apartments where I didn't have to pay for heat and it was nearly too warm.

One down, 10ish to go!

2008-11-23T18:13:00.004-06:00

I shrink wrapped my first window this afternoon before realizing I needed to use the fleeting daylight to clean out the last of my planters.

I tackled the living room window, since a stiff breeze has been weasling its way into my living room. I planned not to spend too much time striving for the wrinkle-free perfection, since it's only a temporary solution until early January, but it's hard to do a half-assed job on something like this.

I've learned over the years that it's not worth the effort to lay everything out on the floor and measure perfectly. (Plus, Collette tended to attack my perfectly-measured sheets, occasionally puncturing them with her over-zealous claws.) Rather, I put the double-sided tape all around, peel back the sticky side on the top border, and gently place it until I get it about right. Then, I make the major cut, separating the designated piece from the giant sheet. I leave plenty to work with, though. It's not worth the headache to try to line it up just right with no wiggle room, especially since so many of my windows are taller than I am and thus my perspective gets thrown off.

Next, I press gently all the way around - saving the bottom for last - until it's pretty well distributed and even. Before I start shrink wrapping, I punch my holes for the blinds (which I spent AN HOUR scrubbing this afternoon. They were gross!), so we can adjust the height and open/close them.

Then, the shrinky-dink part begins. I wield my hair dryer with the same gusto I would a drill, starting in an upper corner and, on high heat, constantly moving from side to side, targeting the visible wrinkles. I never rest too long - rumor has it that doing so can actually melt or burn the plastic, not that I would know that from experience.

Finally, with things pretty well wrapped - I could bounce a quarter off my window film! - and no visible wrinkles, I try to carefully trim off the excess. This part can be the downfall of the entire endeavor, as today. The scissors I was using weren't nearly sharp enough, so they struggled to cleanly cut the plastic. In one place, I accidentally tore my newly-perfected plastic, leaving a gouge that needed immediate repair. It's such a delicate balance - how much do I try to trim without risking ruining my work?

The real test was when Don got home and couldn't tell the window had been wrapped, except for the blind adjuster thing (wand? stick?) that sticks out at a slightly cock-eyed angle.

Victory!

Now lather, rinse and repeat several more times. If I do one a weekend, I'll be done by Valentine's Day, so I'd better step it up.

Basement Gaps

2008-11-21T21:04:00.000-06:00

Collette LOVES the gaps in my basement walls. I'm always afraid she's going to get trapped some day! I've sealed up some of the worst offenders, but every now and then, when coming downstairs, I'll suddenly see eyes peering at me from the ceiling.

Book Review

2008-11-20T21:27:00.002-06:00

I've often felt a bit like a pioneer, staking my claim in a transitioning neighborhood, crossing my fingers, and hoping for the best. Sure, I do as much as I can, but some situations - like the foreclosure next door - are beyond my control.

I was naive when I bought. No, scratch that. I was blinded by the thrill of the whole experience. I just assumed that suburban neighborhood equaled safe, especially after my time living on the South Side. Of course the neighborhood was fine. I did cursory due diligence, driving by at different times of day, and took a quick walk around the block on the blustery March day of my inspection. But I didn't talk to the neighbors, ignored the wildcard factor of the rental next door, and just assumed that the vacant pink building across the street would continue to be innocuously vacant. Or perhaps it would hold a tea shop that hosted a knitting circle of blue haired grannies who snacked on pastries.

That's why the emergence of the drug dealers next door was such a shock to the system. Where had I moved? And how was I supposed to get rid of them? Fuming under my breath didn't work, and nor did the hairy eyeball. I couldn't exactly go up to them and say, "Hello, Mr. Crack Dealer. On behalf of the Welcome Wagon, we ask that you please stop dealing. Thanks. Now, would you like to attend our neighborhood barbeque?"

Now, however, things have improved greatly (fingers crossed). Which is why I could read Judith Matloff's Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block and sympathize, laugh and realize it could have been much much worse.

I saw a review for this book and found the premise very interesting. Judith Matloff and her husband - seasoned journlists with stints in Rwanda, Chechnya and South Africa - bought an old brownstone in dire need of a lot of work in West Harlem. It was essentially an impulse buy, so they failed to do their homework on the neighborhood - and the neighbors - and soon discovered that they had bought a crack den whose occupants were reluctant to move out. Oh, and it was caving in and structurally unsound.

My neighborhood is small potatoes compared to Judith's, and this excellent book made me feel better in many respects. I loved this book and read it in a single Saturday. It was witty, enthralling, funny and very well-written. I hope she continues to chronicle her transitioning neighborhood.

Dim Expectations?

2008-11-20T18:52:00.000-06:00

A coworker recently redid his bathroom. Of all the things they replaced, he said the very best investment was a dimmer switch for the lights.

I had never really thought about it, but I can see the value. My bathroom has a Hollywood Barbie strip of lights which could probably land a plane. They're far too bright early in the morning and late at night. I keep a small nightlight plugged in to ease the transition in the morning.

A previous owner must have had the same thought. When I first looked at the house, there was a very odd dimmer switch in the bathroom. At some point between the inspection and move-in, it stopped working, so I replaced it with a standard switch.

I'm tucking this away for when the bathroom project becomes reality.

My Nose is Cold

2008-11-19T20:38:00.003-06:00

I'm sitting on my couch by the oldest window. My nose is cold. So are my toes. There's quite a breeze.

I can't wait to get rid of this window.

However, the question is, how much insulation should I do for the windows that will be replaced in 6-8 weeks? I'll definitely put in the storm windows. They're already lined up in the garage, ready to go the next time I'm home during daylight hours (Saturday).

But should I bother with the shrink wrap for the five windows in question?

Given how cold my nose is -and it's a relatively balmy 38 degrees compared to a month from now, with a brisk wind - I think it's worth the $15 and the time.

We have river!

2008-11-17T12:43:00.003-06:00

I noticed last night that the trees across the street have lost enough of their leaves to afford us the river view I love. Sure, all year you can see the gap in the trees where you know the river is. But from now until April or May, we can actually see the water itself, flowing southwards.

It's especially neat when it freezes over solid. When it's really cold, steam rises, making night and early morning extra ethereal.

I shall try to get pictures this year, but the phenomenon is rather fleeting and tough to capture.

In other news, we had our first sticking snow yesterday evening, a whirlwind of flakes that stuck to the grass and rooftops. It was very pretty - but it reaffirms the need to pull out the storm windows, shrink wrap the windows, and batten down the hatches for the rapidly-approaching winter.

Sluggish Posting

2008-11-12T03:06:00.002-06:00

I've been very very bad at posting lately, but I have excuses!

First and foremost, it's National Novel Writing Month, that glorious, caffeine-fueled time when, to rail against the increasing darkness, you set out to write 50,000 words towards a novel in just 30 days. I participated - and made the goal - in 2006. Last year, I couldn't get an idea developed well enough to do anything with, but this year, I'm on top of things. I'm about 16,000 words in, so just a hair behind goal (1,667 words a day keeps you on goal, so I should be at about 18,000, but who's counting?

Second, I'm traveling, in London this week for work. I had visions of writing the whole way over, but after about three hours of work-work, I cranked out about 2000 words before I couldn't bear to be hunched over anymore. Last night, when jet lag wouldn't let me fall asleep until 2 AM, I managed about another 800 words.

Hopefully on tomorrow's flight home, I'll be able to tackle at least another 2000 words.

It's all at the expense of posting... but I'll be back to my semi-regular routine in December.

Frustration

2008-10-31T18:17:00.002-05:00

When I took my second look at my house – prior to making an offer – I noticed that the extra-large house next door had a large parking area, with space for four cars. Upon further inspection, I noticed a sign designating that parking was for tenants only, and multiple entrances. I thought for a moment that maybe living next to an apartment building – four single bedroom units – may not be ideal, but decided it was fine.

I was wrong.

That apartment building has caused misery and frustration during my time in my home. Since it’s old and in poor repair, the units are cheap – and the landlord hasn’t been very selective among his tenants. About four months after I moved in, it went on the market. I hoped someone would buy it, clean it up, maybe deconvert a couple units. The City of Elgin offers a very generous grant to people willing to buy these old homes that have been carved into apartments and restore them to single family homes. I even mentioned the program to the listing agent, encouraging her to pass along the information to interested parties. (If I read the information correctly, a buyer could get up to $90,000 - $30,000 per unit removed – if they converted the four unit property into a single family home. Heck, if they wanted to make it a duplex, they would still get $60,000.)

No such luck. The new owner continued managing from afar, renting to crack dealers who brought with them a parade of traffic, creepy crackheads and, one summer night, gunshots. One morning I even found a drunk/high/impaired man passed out on my front lawn! In conjunction with a small candy shop across the street, things got very bad for awhile, with large crowds loitering on my block, passing the time as they waited for their customers. I was afraid to walk home late at night, though they did seem like friendly crack dealers, calling hello and commenting on the weather.

Winter came, and things improved. It was far too cold to conduct business outside, and though traffic continued, it was much sparser and quicker.

With the spring, though, the crowd reappeared on the first nice day, as did many of the customers. One of the main dealers spent his time sitting on a milk crate out front, waiting for cars to pull up, then exchanging product for cash. Litter abounded, and one of my neighbors put a trash can in her front yard, hoping to alleviate the problems. Things got worse than the previous summer, with a more serious tone about the sheer volume of the problem. Until one day – my birthday – when I came home to a drug raid in progress. Five people were arrested, and my neighbor’s young son asked innocently why the police were interested in the large bag of flour.

After that, things got better for a couple weeks. But then, one by one, the crowd returned, minus the former tenants. The milk crate throne was restored, and business returned nearly to its previous level. The landlord, anxious to keep his rental income, rented one of the newly vacated apartments to the buddy of the dealer now sitting in jail. And another vacant unit to one of their friends. Despite neighborhood involvement, the landlord of the apartment building and the candy shop decided they preferred rental income to neighborhood quality and safety – an easy decision to make for an absentee landlord.

Fall came, and one of the new tenants next door was arrested for assaulting his pregnant girlfriend, vacating an apartment. A family moved in, with three small children in a one bedroom apartment. The winter again stopped the crowds, though the dealing continued, quietly, from one of the apartments.

The spring thaw brought the most blatantly open dealing I’d seen. I’d be out mowing the lawn on a Sunday morning and would watch three transactions, right in front of me. Helped by easy access to major roads and a hungry customer base, business even picked up, with new, younger faces doing the brunt of the work.

Then it stopped. The candy store closed, and the crowds disappeared into the summer night. It was quiet. Kids started playing in the street, biking and playing soccer until their parents called them in. It became a stereotypical 1950s Midwest suburban block, plus a bit of diversity. We spent more time outside, chatting with our neighbors. One of the kids threw a ball and hit one of our screens, prompting a stern talking-to from his dad in a very Dennis the Menace moment. The other kids chalked hopscotch grids on our sidewalks. We held a barbecue and invited our neighbors and their kids.

Sure, we had minor annoyances. The boyfriend of one of the tenants kept slamming his oversize van into our fence as he tried to park in the tight space, knocking loose several slats and completely destroying two of them. We put our fence plans on hold, hating to invest the time and money. Occasionally, loud, thumping music rattled our windows and the pictures on the wall.

Still, the building next door was crumbling. Built in the 1860s, the foundation was uneven, the paint was peeling, and some gutters had come unhinged. You could see damage on the roof. Apparently the inside wasn’t much better, and neighbors reported major plumbing problems and an unresponsive landlord. They stopped paying rent. He went into foreclosure. One of the tenants began holding moving sales every weekend, sitting on the front lawn selling anything and everything, leaving things that didn’t sell on the curb. Don and I talked about trying to raise the capital – and leverage city grants – to buy it out of foreclosure and rehab it, a difficult proposition given the credit crisis.

Finally, the city came to respond to tenant complaints about a lack of heat and plumbing. And then they condemned the building, slapping red tags on all three entrances. Monday, the sheriff came by and made sure it was vacant. Tuesday, the owner – no longer a landlord – piled everything left on the front lawn. The garbage crew only picked up things in cans, leaving piles of clothes and assorted junk outside. Rain lessened the probability that scavengers would be interested in the ancient TV, coffee table, baby furniture and other detritus of four families’ lives.
Wednesday night, I saw a shadow, peering into the windows next door. By the time I looked again and grabbed the phone to call the police, he was gone. Or maybe it was just my imagination.

That makes three vacant houses on our block. One, gutted by fire, has been mired in insurance investigations and a divorce settlement for nearly two years. Another, a rental home, is between tenants, but at least the owner stops by periodically to trim the grass and collect the political mailers off the front step. I only hope that the one next door is tended to and not allowed to dilapidate further, and that any resolution is quick. I’d rather it be torn down and cleared for a new home – that matches the neighborhood’s character, of course – than sit for years, vacant, potentially drawing the former crackheads. I plan to be vigilant and stay on the city for answers and action.

But it’s just so damn frustrating Every time the neighborhood starts improving – and we’ve come so far – something happens.

Window Shopping

2008-10-31T16:32:00.001-05:00

I’ve made my decision for the biggest house project to date: replacement windows. Hooray!

As is my method, I started small. I wanted to replace the living room window – ancient, drafty and in serious need of repair. It’s a relatively narrow window but behind the couch, so the draft impacts my comfort. I spend the majority of my conscious at-home time in that room. Last winter, the glass began separating from the wood frame, so I caulked it back together, but that was only a temporary solution. Even with an ill-fitting storm window, copious caulk and a sheet of air-supposedly air-tight window plastic, there was definitely a breeze.

While I was at it, I decided I might as well replace the wall air conditioning unit with a picture window. The previous owner installed central air, but left the wall unit as a huge, hulking shrine to the 70s. It’s ugly. And in a room with relatively little natural light, it surely doesn’t help. So I’ll replace it with a picture window – it’s too high on the wall to merit an opening window, but the light will be great. (Anyone need a giant wall unit in working order? Let me know!) The squirrels will be sad to lose their perch, though – and the cat will miss hearing them scratch around on the outside of the unit.

I priced out those two windows at Home Depot and Menards and looked closely at the current situation. Then I decided that this is one job worth hiring a professional. Windows need to be done right. You can fudge a bit on a paint job – it’s easy to redo or touchup. Yardwork has a huge margin of error. But windows? Screw those up and you’ll pay in energy loss, discomfort and possibly even security. Plus, the one living room window appears to have some rot around it. I was afraid what it will look like when the old window comes out – and with a hole in the side of the house, you’re under pressure to act quickly – no time for additional research.

So I asked around, did lots of research on R and U values and energy efficiency, types of vinyl, and other insomnia-worthy topics. I spent a fair amount of time at the National Fenestration Rating Council website, research brands and their ratings. And after having several conversations with companies and two in-home estimates, I made my decision. Plus, by ordering now - they’re all custom sizes, of course – they’ll be ready in early January, so I’ll get a winter installation discount! I decided if I was having someone do it, I might as well do more than the two I originally planned. If I was already doing two in the living room, I should probably do the third one – which is a giant 4x6 feet! – between the living room and porch. And while I’m at it, the office windows are pretty decrepit. Since I’m working at home more, that will become a more pressing issue in a few weeks when winter really sets in. The previous two winters, I’ve been able to avoid that room, but not so this winter! So I’m doing all five.

I learned a lot. For example, the living room windows are original, circa 1890, according to both estimators. The original pulleys and weights are still intact – and one estimator told me to ask the installers for them, to ensure they insulate the gap they’ll leave behind. The ones in the office are a bit newer – they guessed 1930s or 40s.

So that’s my window shopping story. Admittedly, it’s not as interesting – or cheap – as window shopping in a mall or Michigan Avenue. But come January, when my living room is much cozier, it will be well worth it.

Botany & Lumber-Jilling

2008-10-30T23:28:00.000-05:00

For a yard with no trees, we sure do have a lot of leaves. Every year, the city starts their leaf pickup in early October, when everything is still lush and green and firmly attached. By the third week of October, though, it’s actually raining leaves. I worked at home one brisk day a couple weeks ago and actually got up to look outside at a couple points to see if it had started raining. It sure sounded like rain, but in reality, it was just the sound of thousands of leaves falling – in unison – to the ground.

Our neighbors behind us have the annoying mulberry tree that will drop all its leaves in one fell swoop in the next couple weeks. The neighbors next door have two giant, ancient oaks that drop bushels of big, broad, crunchy leaves, and plenty of acorns Our yard is torn up from the increased squirrel activity, as they frantically try to bury as many acorns before the ground freezes. One brilliant squirrel even buried an acorn in my tomato planter. I’ll bet he goes hungry this winter. Apparently a previous owner paid neighborhood children a quarter per bucket they filled with acorns, then stored the nuts in the garage and parceled them out to the varmints all winter. I’m dealing with generations that may remember that elderly woman – and expect the entitlement to continue. Liberals.

Despite having no trees, we do have one overgrown bush – maybe it’s a mini tree?- that blocks the main living room window. It scrapes up against the house, making pinging noises against the aluminum. A couple times each year, I go out and trim it way back, stopping the scraping and allowing a bit more light through the narrow window. When I first moved in, I thought it may be a lilac, as there were a couple small blooms that have never since reappeared. The leaves on this tree are small and annoying, as the rake doesn’t really pick them up. As long as they don’t get wet, they tend to just blow away and disperse.

I did my fall trimming a couple weeks ago, first taking off everything I could with mere hedge trimmers. Then, for the taller branches, I had to jump up, pull them down and hold in place while cutting. Some of the skinny ones – the newer growth – were easy to snap off, while others required the saw. It was great fun and satisfying to pull down branches bigger than me.

That entire bush/tree will likely come down early next spring, to be replaced with something smaller that doesn’t block the window. I think it’s too late in the season now for a new plant to take root and survive the winter. Of course, I said the same thing at this time last year. Inertia's a bitch to overcome, no?

Weekend project

2008-10-13T13:58:00.004-05:00

This weekend, I tore a hole in my porch ceiling to replace a couple broken beadboard planks. After searching for beadboard of the right size and pattern, I finally found some pressboard planks at Home Depot a few weeks back. I had brought the package inside and left it wrapped in plastic to protect it from dust and the cat.

After demolishing the bad planks (which Don did happily with his Cubs hammer and a grin of destruction on his face), I unwrapped the new boards to read the installation instructions - and discovered they're supposed to cure for 72 hours in the "climate of the room" before hanging. I wondered if it really mattered, since the porch isn't really insulated and goes through a variety of temperatures and humidities in a year, but decided to be safe rather than sorry, so now I've got a hole in the ceiling for the next couple days. Next time, I'll read the related information well before I plan to start the project.

Coming home

2008-10-10T22:59:00.003-05:00

I've been traveling a lot lately for work, and it's always good to get home. I love flying into O'Hare at night, especially coming from the east coast, since the typical flight path follows the Lake Michigan shoreline. I can pick out the landmarks starting around the Museum of Science and Industry and follow them all the way up to Wrigley Field before we bank towards O'Hare itself.

I always watch for Elgin - you would think with the river and casino it would be easy-ish to spot - but no luck so far. I've got a couple more trips planned for the next month, so I'll keep my eyes peeled.

I've also been heavily window shopping. More details on that soon.

Upcoming Projects

2008-09-21T22:56:00.003-05:00

I spent part of Saturday planning out my projects for the next six months, along with budget and a bit of Dad guidance. Here's my tentative plan for the next few months:

1) Fence. Must do this soon, before the ground hardens. I've done quite a bit of research (including the need for a permit!), taken tons of measurements, and am just about ready to go. Except, of course, for a few nagging questions. Like, what do I do with the old fence? And what happens to all the junk my neighbor has propped up against my back fence? Those will be answered soon.

2) Windows. I've been window shopping lately, learning as much as I can about replacement windows. I spent a couple good hours at Home Depot learning from their window expert and have read countless websites. In the interest of time, sanity and proper insulation, I will be hiring a company to do this project - their estimates will determine how many I replace now versus next year. I've got three contractors identified for bids; I hope to have them all out within the next few days.

3) Replace cracked window panes. Related to replacing windows, I've got two cracked panes on my porch. Replacing them will take a bit of research, but I should be able to handle it myself.

4) Finish caulking the porch roof. I started this with half a tube of leftover caulk, so I might as well finish it. A little extra insulation never hurt anyone.

5) Light-a-palooza. I have a couple u-g-l-y light fixtures that continue to annoy me. The next time that Home Depot/Lowe's/Menards has a great lighting sale, I'm going to bite the bullet and replace a couple of the most egregious - like the Hollywood Barbie light bar in the downstairs bathroom and the naked bulb in the stairwell.

6) Dining room floor. My floor has been uneven since I first looked at the house - the joys of 110 years of history - but the dining room has always been the most noticable and disconcerting. My home inspector said it stemmed from a cracked floor joist that must have occured when a previous owner installed ductwork in the basement. The inspector and another contractor concurred that the floor isn't sinking - it's moved as far as it will - but it's always been a bit unsettling. Regardless, I plan on ripping up the otherwise nice hardwood floor and pouring a leveling compound, then laying a new subfloor and some sort of flooring. I may also replace the support beams in the basement to make them all uniform and get rid of the potentially-scary shims.

I thought I was done with tar...

2008-09-21T22:47:00.005-05:00

I spent nearly three hours this afternoon sitting on the driveway by the back door, trying to remove the tar that had splattered up onto the new storm door during our paving project. We had realized - too late, obviously - that we should drape a tarp over the door to ensure the splatter didn't mar the pretty new door.

Since then, I've repainted the foundation to cover the splatters along the driveway. We tried a couple different products to remove the tar from the siding and back door, gingerly testing inconspicuous areas. One removed the finish from the aluminum siding entirely, exposing shiny metal!

Today, I finally decided to give it some real elbow grease. I grabbed the one that didn't hurt the siding - a Turtle Wax bug and tar remover - and doused a couple square inches of the bottom of the door, then waited 10 minutes instead of the suggested one. Sponge in hand and fingers crossed, I rubbed until the tar bubbles began to give way. Hooray! It was a slow and tedious process, but I've done all that I believe is possible. A couple places now sport small yellow spots, but the paint will camouflage that. (We were planning to paint as part of the door project - once EVERYTHING was done - but didn't want to just paint over the tar bumps.)

I also discovered late in the game that a toothbrush was much more effective than a sponge, which could have saved some thumb strain. But the effort was well worth it.

Summer

2008-09-17T21:40:00.008-05:00

Now that there's a noticeable chill in the air, I finally found the cord that connects my camera to my laptop!

A random lily of sorts, which I never planted. Last summer, a plant sprouted up, but nothing ever bloomed. This August, I had three beautiful blossoms.

The peppermint stick zinnias turned out kind of interesting, though I'm still on the bubble about them. They almost look diseased!

The small front flower bed, overflowing with nasturtiums, which I had never planted until this year. They remind me of water lillies. Supposedly they're quite tasty, though I haven't sampled them. You can also see a couple rogue bachelor's buttons that came back after last year.

Midwestern Luck

2008-09-16T19:28:00.000-05:00

I spent part of Saturday with squeegee in hand, pushing basement water into the floor drain. It had been quite awhile since we'd had to do that - sealing the tiny, seemingly insignificant hairline foundation crack appears to have helped. Plus, we haven't had a heavy rain in several weeks.

Friday afternoon on through Sunday, our lovely town got between 8 and 12 inches of rain, depending on which weather report you believe. One broadcaster said that if our deluge had been snow, it could have been up to six feet! That sounds a bit sensationalist, but regardless, we had a ton of rain, and the ground couldn't absorb it as quickly as it was falling. We awoke to standing water in the yard, and dared each other to check out the basement

But you know what? We're pretty lucky. Even though we had a bit of basement flooding to clean up, it was nothing compared to other areas downhill, closer to the river, where people had to evacuate and lost possessions or entire rooms or homes. On the northwest side of Chicago, the Chicago River overflowed its banks, sending entire blocks of people scrambling in boats, like Venice or Amsterdam.

And even worse, this same weekend, thousands of Houston and Galveston residents lost everything. Not just some flecks of floor paint or a couple empty cardboard boxes - these people lost their homes, their things, and their peace of mind.

The coastal areas have hurricanes, which, though with some warning, can be absolutely devastating and annihilate entire cities. California has earthquakes, which come with no warning but accomplish the same end. The Midwest really has no equivalent. Sure, in theory an earthquake could strike - and we've had a couple very minor ones, centered far enough away as to not cause much shaking. Tornadoes hit with very little warning, but their path is relatively limited, capable of flattening small towns, but never on the scale of New Orleans or Galveston. We get snow storms, but they don't typically cause much damage, either, and you can stay home for a day or two while the roads are cleared.

Our cleanup only took ab0ut 20 minutes, plus hanging the rug out to dry once the rain finally stopped and opening the window to air things out. I consider myself pretty lucky to live where I do.

Commuter Shoes Revisited

2008-09-09T22:34:00.000-05:00

I was at the suburban job for about two months before returning to my old company downtown in a new role. The experience taught me a lot about what makes a good job and a good company. Meanwhile, I expanded my commuter shoes theory.

My current (new-old) job is at an urban office full of a very diverse workforce who live all over Chicagoland and commute via public transit. At lunch, there are dozens of nearby places - all within walking distance - and the area is very amenable to head-clearing lunchtime strolls.

Other Company was in a suburban office park. There was an attached parking garage, and (nearly?) everyone drives. (One of the IT interns often had a bike helmet on his desk, but that could have been a red herring.) Schaumburg has a seemingly great network of bike routes, but they don't connect with Elgin's nor those of the towns in between, and sometimes end mid-block, answering the question of where the sidewalk ends. My window cube overlooked the forest preserve, and I could watch hawks soaring around, looking for lunch.

However, working at Other Company added a new dynamic to my Commuter Shoes theory. For the uninitiated, my theory of commuter shoes holds that the easier the commute, the more likely you are to wear practical shoes.

When I lived in the city, I took the El to work, which was usually standing room only. Not only were the cars overflowing, but you were pressed up against strangers, and the lightweight cars would sway and jerk violently from side to side, throwing you into your fellow commuters. Yet, despite the difficulty in staying upright and holding your balance (which, with time, became a skill), the majority of the women commuted in impossible shoes - stilettos, tall boots, heels of all flavors, etc. Even in the summer, with a nod to "comfort," you would see a flotilla of flip-flops, which offer no support for walking any real distance. Yet, women who commute via the El likely walk the most and spend the greater part of their commute standing on their feet than those who commute with other modes.

While making the suburbs to city trek, I commute on Metra. I bought my house in part because it was an easy walk to the Metra station, so I knew I wouldn’t need to drive at all. In fact, nearly half of my 7-minute walk was through the Metra parking lot itself. Probably 95% of my fellow Metra commuters drive to the train. In the morning, everyone gets a seat – though in the evenings, as gas prices have risen, it has become more difficult and strategic to guarantee a seat – and then we walk to our downtown offices. In my case, it's about 7 minutes on the Chicago end, too. Even so, despite the much more comfortable, seated commute and the reduced walking, most Metra women wear what I termed “commuter shoes” – comfortable sneakers or, increasingly, the new athleisure shoes to carry them through the commute before changing into “work shoes” at the office. (I periodically purge the accumulated shoe collection from under my desk - at one point this spring, I had eleven pairs lined up.)

In an office where everyone drives to and from work and to and from lunch (as there’s very little in walking distance – and I got crazy looks when I walked the 15 minutes to the nearby strip mall for coffee), many women wear comfortable shoes all day. Many never have to step foot outside at all during their commute, yet Nikes seem to be the footwear of choice.

While at Other Company, I usually wore my work shoes (sandals with heels) to and from work. I did discover one important caveat – the grocery stop. Where I don't pass anything on my Metra commute, while working in the suburban office park, I passed nine, count ‘em, nine grocery stores on my normal route home – more if I deviated from the path. It was great to run in and grab a couple things or heck, even do my full shopping trip for the week – the stores are much less crowded on a Tuesday evening than on a Saturday afternoon. But high heels are not designed for grocery store power-shopping and can be dangerous in the slippery produce aisles. So I threw a pair of old flip-flops in the car to slip on when I need to snag strawberries.

When I made the decision to return to the city - albeit with more opportunities to work at home, or WAH - I happily dusted off my commuter shoes. It's great to be back, though I'm not looking foward to the icy days ahead.

Odes to Commuter Shoes

2008-09-09T06:59:00.001-05:00

Bad job close to home
Better job, commuter shoes
I'm back on Metra

****

Suburbs nice to live
City better for working
Back to commuting

****

Morning drive to work
Quick, easy come, easy go
Job sucked - had to leave

Painting

2008-09-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy few weeks!

I've been painting a ton. It started with the paint around the back door. But then, since I had the brushes, tarp and other fun tools out, I took on other painting projects.

Then, flipping through the pile of paint cans in the garage I tackled other projects. I also discovered that freeze/thaw cycles are not kind to paint. The previous owner had left a dozen or so paint cans in the garage, all labeled with the room they coated. Great, I thought when I found then can labeled, "Back hall." By its weight, it felt about a quarter full - more than enough to touch up around the new back door where we had removed the trim. I patched everything, sanded it down, changed into painting clothes, set up my tarp and ladder, pried off the lid - and discovered jell-o. The paint had congealed into a layer of gelatinous goo, topped by clear liquid. Interesting stuff.

Luckily, since the Ace Hardware label was still intact with the color name and pigment ratios, I took the can over to my local store. First, I asked them if they could shake it up and see if it was salvageable. It wasn't. Next, I asked for a quart, assuming I have enough unused paint hanging around the house, and wondering how many of the other cans were worthless. However, in the five years since the paint had been originally mixed, they had discontinued selling the base in quart-sized containers, so I was stuck with a gallon if I wanted the color. That was fine until I discovered that my gallon of premium paint was a whopping $43! Eegads! I've never paid more than $22 or $23 for a gallon of paint, and often buy it when it's on sale. The cashier saw the look of shock on my face and threw in a couple extra stir sticks, but sheesh. Had I know, I would have found a "close enough" color or just resolved to repaint the entire back hallway, complete with 16 foot ceilings where the basement opens up to the rest of the house. Instead, since it's a nice neutral color, I'll be repainting some other room - maybe the dining room or office? Either way, since I had plenty, I ended up painting two nice coats around the door and also freshening a lot of the space.

Moving along, I finally (after two years!) painted the second coat in the downstairs bathroom, bringing out the true color I had imagined - a subtle lilac that contrasts nicely against bright white trim and the light green kitchen. I also applied a second coat to the trim and touched up a couple places that had chipped on the kitchen trim.

Next, I did a bit of concrete patching on the front steps before applying a fresh coat of paint. The front steps were tough only because of our continuing brown bug problem. After washing off all the bug carcasses before I started, they kept landing in the wet paint! I kept having to retouch the slightly tacky paint, trying to remove the bodies before they dried, like mosquitoes in amber. There are a couple that I didn't manage to extract, but they'll remain entombed as a memorial to their brothers - I've killed hundreds this summer.

Meanwhile, our driveway project taught us some valuable lessons - namely, that asphalt is nasty stuff that does NOT come off of concrete or aluminum side. We had been careful applying it, but some had inevitably splattered in the process. So I repainted the foundation facing the driveway (and think I'll do the rest of the house soon, just to keep it even). However, despite trying two different products suggested by the Home Depot and Ace experts, we cannot figure out how to get the splatters of (black) tar off the (white) aluminum siding without also removing the coating (is it paint?). Especially since I redid the foundation, it looks especially bad. One product yellowed the siding, the other removed the paint-like coating, exposing bare metal. I think for now, our best bet is going to be touching up with white metal paint?

In the midst of asphalt cleanup, I also decided it was high time to repaint our white gate that closes across the driveway. It had a rough winter and a couple bare patches. Luckily, there was another paint can in the garage labeled "gate." I opened it up and discovered more goo! Sigh. Then I opened an indoor/outdoor paint in another shade of white and discovered pure jelly. My last option - without buying more paint - was to use the same white paint I've used for the bathroom and kitchen trim. It's labeled for interior, so I only did half the gate for now. I'll let it get through a couple rain storms (it's rained all day) to see how it holds up before doing the other half. Fence painting sucks - the slats take forever to coat evenly.

I think that's all the painting for now. I rather enjoy it for the first couple hours, but it gets tedious - and leaves me with a clawed right hand for a day or so afterwards. But it's one of the easiest and most cost-effective improvements - and you see the results right away.

RIP, Gus

2008-09-08T19:09:00.003-05:00

Saturday afternoon, I was out in the front yard weeding the flowerbeds, and I saw all the neighborhood kids congregating across the street, in the vacant lot where the hill drops down. "It's a beaver! A beaver!" they kept shouting excitedly. I knew it had to be my old quasi-nemisis, Gus the Groundhog.

I first met Gus shortly after I moved in. This big, furry brown thing was hanging out in the side yard, attracting Collette's glare. Since then, I've seen him several times, always puttering around. I've almost hit him a few times at night, turning into the dark driveway.

I never had any real reason to dislike Gus, but I worried about him digging into the garage. My neighbor said the groundhogs must have a den in the side of the hill.

But Saturday, Gus met his fate on the side of the road. Don shooed away the kids and shoveled the roadkill into the woods.

Or maybe it wasn't Gus. We'll never know.

Driveway Lessons

2008-08-21T23:57:00.005-05:00

Tuesday morning, common sense prevailed and I went out and bought more crack filler to do the job right. I could definitely see the difference between the cracks I filled properly and the ones that only got the liquid/spoiled sealant treatment. My dad's voice echoed in my head: "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing it right." Or, the adult version that he starting preaching when I hit college: "Don't do a half-assed job."

So I sealed the remaining cracks thoroughly and made sure that everything was nice and solid before leaving it to set overnight. (And then we took a road trip to Aurora for dessert at the new Sonic - and discovered a TWO HOUR WAIT that filled several nearby parking lots. It's fast food, people! Needless to say, we didn't wait.)

Originally, I had naively planned to do the whole driveway process myself, including the sealcoating. After all, my dad has always done the family driveway by himself, and it's twice as big as mine. But since Don had Wednesday off, we decided to knock it out together and (theoretically) get done twice as quickly.

Ha! Needless to say, it took much longer than we anticipated, and it took awhile to really understand the tips Dad had given us. For example, he recommended misting the section of driveway first to make it easier to spread the goop. However, working mid-day on a hot, sunny day, we were breaking off bigger sections than we could handle, and the sun was evaporating our thin coating of water before we finished the area.

Other lessons we learned:

1) Sweeping is really really important. In the future, we'll do a heavy-duty driveway cleaning the day before rather than the sweep-as-we-go the day of. We did a pretty good job scooping up all the stray leaves and twigs, but I didn't realize just how much dust and general dirt had gathered along the edges. Heck, powerwashing may be in order.

2) Edging with an old paintbrush was pretty effective and important, especially up along the house. I discovered that previous owners hadn't edged all the way up to the grass line in the yard.

3) After struggling all morning with the crappy old broom we had designated for the assignment, I discovered an older, crappier broom in the closet and brought it out to help after I finished sweeping and edging. This "midget broom" (so dubbed since half the handle was missing, hence its banishment) had much softer bristles and proved infinitely easier to work with and spread evenly. The softer bristles didn't hold the sealant as well, so they were more effective for spreading. The sealant really stuck to the coarser bristles, making it tough to spread.

4) The squeegee was useless. My dad had recommended a broom, and the pail said either a broom or a squeegee would do the trick. We figured we could reuse the squeegee for any future basement-water issues, but it really didn't do much for the driveway.

5) Rather than hoisting (and pouring from) the big 5-gallon pail, we used an old cool-whip container to scoop out a smaller, more manageable amount.

6) The water helped greatly, once we figured out to work with sections about 8 ft by 8 ft at a time (using the fenceposts as a guide). But we had to be careful not to overwater, especially in some of the lower areas of the driveway prone to standing water - actually, this was the one area we found the squeegee useful!

7) Make sure you leave an open entry path back to the house. Fortunately, as we were closing in on the back door, we realized this could be an issue, so we unlocked the front door.

8) Barricading the end of the driveway is not enough, at least on our block! Not ten minutes after "finishing" for the day and roping off the end of the driveway with garbage cans, the kids next door came tearing across the driveway at top speed. (They live on one side; their grandparents live on the other side of us. Both parents and grandparents constantly admonish them to use the sidewalk rather than our yard, but kids will be kids. Ack, the inner curmudgeon awakens!)

The end of the driveway looks better than the first sections we did, as we figured out the better way to do things. We may go back and touch up some of those areas since we still have some sealant. Either way, it looks infinitely better and about 8 shades blacker than before.

Now I just need to touch up the foundation where I splattered a bit... luckily, since the fence project is looming, I can ignore the flecks there!

Did you know...

2008-08-21T11:50:00.000-05:00

...that spackle molds?

I sure didn't, until I opened up a half-empty tub of spackle to do a tiny bit of patchwork and discovered three different types of mold! I had an assortment of gray fuzz, orange splotches and black dots. I suppose since there's some water in spackle, and it's been humid, the little plastic tub provided the perfect breeding grounds for mold.

Fortunately, I had some wood putty (without fungus!) handy that did the trick, and the trimwork around the new back door is one step closer to completion.

Project week!

2008-08-18T23:03:00.003-05:00

I'm taking a week off before I pull my commuter shoes back out of the closet (long story to be detailed soon). Taking advantage of the time off in the waning days of summer, I developed quite a list of projects I want to tackle. Some of them are ambitious - like sealing the driveway and "figuring out" (and hopefully ordering) my new fence and a pair of living room windows. I've also got some softballs padding the list to fuel a sense of accomplishment, like getting my oil changed and updating my IPASS account information.

This morning, I set off on my first big task: filling the driveway cracks so I can seal it tomorrow. Luckily, this week is blessed by good weather, so I can knock this one out early. But first, I realized I needed to do something about the pretty, wild grasses (read: weeds) along the edge of the driveway where it meets the fence. While I try to quash the dandelions as they rear their ugly heads, I've been more lax about the grasses, as they actually don't look bad and add a bit of color. However, they do some damage to the driveway edge, where their roots try to break through the surface, so they had to go so I could seal the cracks. In the blazing sunshine (pretty! I thought as I headed outside), I donned my gardening gloves, grabbed a yardwaste bag, and set to it.

Ninety minutes later, sweaty, itchy and covered by burrs, I had to call it quits for awhile to run some errands and escape the growing heat. I discovered that the nice, tranquil grasses were actually topped by prickly burrs that clung to my gloves, clothes and hair. And apparently I was allergic to one of the plants, as red and pink bumps erupted along my arms, though cold water stopped the itching and calmed the bumps.

A couple hours later - when the sun had dipped behind the house - I returned and dug out a couple remaining dandelion roots and swept out the cracks due to be filled. I had bought a jug of crack filler last summer but never actually got around to using it (witness the frost heave). LESSON LEARNED: crack filler does not keep through numerous Chicago freeze-thaw cycles. I shook the jug for several minutes (great workout!), it was still completely separated into liquid and solid. I tried pouring it into the cracks, but only the liquid actually left the jug, but I figured it was better than nothing, so I kept pouring as much as I could. Eventually, however, I realized it wasn't worth doing a half-assed job, so I went back in the house and pulled out some nasty asphalt-in-a-tube I had leftover from the door project. It definitely did the goopy, stinky trick.

LESSON LEARNED: on a driveway that slopes (hey, that's mine!), there are more cracks at the bottom of the slope. Start there when filling cracks to ensure you don't run out of goop on the big, long, deep cracks. The smaller hairline cracks should be fine with the liquid leftovers.

I also discovered that even though I missed my bike ride today, weeding and driveway work are quite effective workouts.

Tomorrow, to seal! And replace the broken beadboard in the porch. And, and, and...

Invasions

2008-07-29T00:05:00.004-05:00

We've got swarms of some strange, tan flying bug hanging out by the front door. They're clearly drawn by the (timer-fueled) porchlights, but they've multiplied exponentially and are now a verifiable swarm. Every night they appear in droves so thick that the door and the windows on either side look like something out of a movie. Collette is enthralled, watching them flit around silently, trying to avoid the spiderwebs. She has caught and eaten several - I suppose the extra protein won't hurt her.

We sprayed the front door area with bug spray (of the general "flying bug" variety), leaving piles of tiny bodies on the front steps. The next night, though, the horde returned, barely fazed. For the most part, they stay outside, but occasionally they seem to slip in, and there's a cobweb between the front door and its storm door that I clear out every morning.

Meanwhile, the wasp infestation continues. After knocking down three or four small nests, we kept noticing wasps buzzing around the driveway and yard, so we knew there had to be another nest somewhere. Indeed, I stumbled across a giant one on Sunday while washing windows. I got to the outside of the office window - the one that lacks a screen and hence hasn't been open this year - and was about to spray with the Windex when I stopped dead in my tracks. There was a huge, baseball-sized nest, teeming with white eggs ready to hatch and swarming with at least a dozen wasps. I quickly decided to wait until dusk and spray with wasp killer rather than Windex. Monday, there were several wasp corpses on the window sill but some were still buzzing around, and Don watched (from inside) larva crawling from one of the egg pods. I sprayed again Monday evening, and may do so again Tuesday before knocking it down with a broom and running like hell.

Ah, the joys of critters who can hurt you!

The Sistine Porch

2008-07-28T22:11:00.002-05:00

I had about two thirds of a tube of caulk left after I finished the last of the door sealing yesterday. It was the first time I had used this particular brand, which meant that after I snipped the top and loaded it into the gun, I struggled and tried to get the goop flowing, to no avail. Instead, I ended up rupturing the bottom of it, not realizing that this brand also has an internal foil seal to break. Oops. Regardless, the result was that I couldn't just plug the top and save the rest for a rainy day. Rather, I had to use it or lose it.

Since I've had a couple minor (and one major) leaks in the porch ceiling this summer, I've been meaning to replace a couple rotten boards and seal the gaps in the whole ceiling. I took the leftover caulk as the perfect opportunity to start sealing some of the gaps between the beadboard. Up on my ladder, I could reach things just fine, but I found myself realizing that Michelangelo was on to something when he lay on his back to paint the Sistine Chapel. In the hour or so that I was working, I did maybe a fifth of the porch ceiling, since I had to keep moving the ladder. At moments I would reach too far directly behind my head and momentarily feel a bit dizzy. Eek.

But I didn't realize the true extent of my work until this morning, when I woke up with aching triceps. Who knew that caulking the ceiling would be such a great workout? I've got least four or five more workouts ahead of me before winter sets in.

More fun than a frost heave

2008-07-24T23:29:00.002-05:00

I had a frost heave appear on/in/under my driveway last March. It mostly settled itself - the driveway shrunk back down nearly to its normal height once spring settled in. And I swear I'll actually seal the crack(s) once and for all during the upcoming (now weather-pending) Crack Weekend.

One of my favorite bloggers, National Review's John Derbyshire, apparently has a similar problem, though the timing suggests something other than a frost heave. His inquiry for ideas lead to a bevy of possibilities, including subterranean mushrooms, an old well, dandelions (a problem I've had - they do push through asphalt!), a volcano, a baby driveway (i.e., sidewalk) and more. Possible solutions range from fungicide to shotguns. All of which are far more interesting than my problem and (lack of) solution.

They're Ba-ack!

2008-07-22T23:15:00.005-05:00

Perhaps they were never really gone. After a couple months of relative quiet, the crack dealers across the street have returned. During the half hour it took me to mow my front lawn Sunday afternoon, I witnessed four drug deals. As is often the case, within about 2 minutes of calling the police, the dealers cut and run, scattering like cockroaches.

In honor of their return, I am declaring next weekend "Crack Weekend." I will fill in all the cracks in the driveway, sidewalk and the foundation. Maybe I'll even paint the front steps while I'm at it - and wave at the crack dealers across the way. Weather permitting, of course.

Meanwhile, the local smoke shop - really, more paraphernalia than tobacco - has acquiesced in their fight against our neighborhood association and is leaving town. The shop was just around the corner and lacked parking, so I often had patrons parking in front of my house. Good riddance!

Sweden?!? Really?

2008-07-16T21:29:00.002-05:00

Before sanding and staining the pine I bought for the new trim around the door, I peeled of the barcode stickers. I noticed something interesting. The pine was all imported from Sweden. Really? With the cost of energy, how much of the (relatively low) cost of the wood is absorbed by the cost of transporting the lumber across 4000+ miles of ocean and land?

Just asking.

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

2008-07-14T21:23:00.002-05:00

Common sense would have dictated that I mow the lawn tonight. I've got more clovers than a Lucky Charms box and the edges are looking pretty shaggy. It didn't quite need to be mowed over the beautiful, perfect weekend, and besides, it was busy. By this morning, though, I knew my days were numbered before Code Enforcement comes a-knocking.

But did I get home, change into my grubby yard clothes and mow the lawn in the 75 degree sunshine? No... instead, I whined about my super-sore legs (who knew staining and gardening could be such a lethal combination?) and lounged in the backyard with a book. And now I learn that the rest of the week will be hot and humid. Serves me right, I suppose.

Foiled by Gravity

2008-07-13T22:29:00.003-05:00

I had a very productive weekend! I spent yesterday doing all kinds of door-related work. I applied the first coat of stain to the trim, finished caulking all the way around the outside and inside of the door, and played with the nastiest stuff I've ever worked with - asphalt/tar caulk, filling the gap between the driveway and the doorframe. (The driveway is, of course, unlevel.)

I did all this while eying the clouds as they built and waned. I did all my staining out in the driveway - avoiding the fumes that would build in the basement and the darkness of the garage -
but had everything on a sheet, ready to drag into the garage at the first raindrops. I got lucky, and the sun even came out.

Then I came inside and set off to fill the big, hollow void that I discovered last week. On Dad's advice, I had bought some Great Stuff, and had happily picked the "Big Gap" variety. I donned my goggles and my one remaining rubber glove (the other having fallen victim to the gross tar gunk), climbed my step stool, and poised to start at the top and work my way down. I quickly realized that gravity had other ideas, as everything I filled plopped its way down the shaft to the bottom. Working quickly, I climbed down and started working from the bottom up, purposely only filling about half the gap, per the instructions.

My big can of Big Gap Great Stuff only filled about half the void, so resigned, I pushed the stuff into place and packed up for the afternoon.

Two hours later, I passed through the back hallway and stopped cold. The Great Stuff had settled down from where I had originally put it. Gravity had intervened, pulling the whole mass downwards into a big blob. I tried to push it back up, but it was still sticky and malleable and I was afraid of making it worse, so I left it to solidify, hoping I could carve it up and reuse the misplaced foam. (I had used Great Stuff before to fill in some (horizontal) gaps in the basement and found it easy to work with - and once it hardens, easy to carve off the excess with a knife. Gravity hadn't been a factor when working horizontally.)

By morning, an entire digestive system of foam adorned my wall. After a busy day (laundry, weeding, more staining, and Elgin's Greekfest), I decided to tackle the stomach-shaped mass. I set off with a razor blade, but found a screwdriver more useful. I hacked into the stomach, chiseling off small chunks - like packing peanuts, but without the candy colors. In a way, they worked out better than the original foam, since I could easily stuff them back around in the corners of the void, whereas working with aerosol, you just point and hope. I filled a pretty good portion of the hole with the leftovers, taking off a couple chunks of paint in the process. (Fortunately, in my garage diggings yesterday, I found a third of a gallon of paint labeled "Back Entry." It perfectly matches the paint already on the walls, which we feared we would have to repaint entirely to compensate for the slightly-smaller trim and a bit of damage (i.e. the hole we made while prying off the old trim).

One small can of Great Stuff should fill the rest of the void - and no, I won't be getting the "Big Gap" variety again! Plus, I've learned that when working in vertical spaces, it may help to prop up the fresh foam while it solidifies - I'm thinking a piece of cardboard may do the trick.

Regardless, I'm closer to finishing the door project once and for all! Then I move onto the fence...

My house is hollow!

2008-07-07T21:54:00.002-05:00

Don and I made a trip to pick up all the remaining pieces for the door: more caulk, more asphalt/tar/goop for the seal between the door and the driveway, lumber to rebuild the trim, paint for the door and other miscellaneous stuff.

The old trim was in really bad shape. Bits of it had obviously been replaced over time, leading to an inconsistent and ugly mismash of wood types and stain shades. We measured the pieces we would need, then started to rip out the old stuff. The first bit came off easily - after we got through the four nails at the top, the rest was glued to the wall with liquid nails. Lazy. Then, strangely, we discovered two inches between the end of the drywall and the new door frame that had been filled in with wood. Apparently, the original door had been the standard 32" width, and some previous owner had built up the frame to suit a 30" door. It makes no sense whatsoever - why replace a standard door with an extra narrow one? Maybe he had an old 30" one lying around? Regardless, even if I had known about the gap before ordering the door, I would have strongly hesitated going with a 32" door, since it would have entailed cutting into the aluminum siding on the other side.

Dimensions and list in hand, we asked for help in the lumber aisle at Home Depot. While Don picked through the 2x4s to find the straightest ones possible, the HD guy and I sought a sufficiently wide - and sturdy - piece to level out the new threshold with the existing cement steps. I said I was looking for a nice, thick piece of pressure-treated wood, but the HD guy kept trying to sell me some fancy, decorative piece. Finally, we found the millwork "expert" who suggested - what else - a thick piece of pressure-treated wood. They didn't stock the width I needed, but they did have some a half inch wider. Sold. The HD guy proceeded to explain to me how I should measure the piece to the right width and - using a straight edge, dontcha know - mark the width, then sand it down. I agree that sanding is the way to go, and thanked him for his help. Then, upon returning to Don's pile of 2x4s, the HD guy proceeded to repeat the recommendations for measuring, marking and sanding. Nevermind that he had just explained the exact same thing, 10 feet down the aisle, to me. Don was astounded by the guy's demeanor - as if I was just the clueless helper on the project, and not the instigator! I told him that this happens ALL THE TIME with HD and Lowes associates. But alas.

This afternoon, Don beat me home and started ripping out the rest of the trim. He made an interesting discovery - in the small, narrow space between the door frame and the corner of the house, the house is HOLLOW. No drywall, no insulation, nada. Just empty space, the framing of the house and a whole bunch of ants. So now we need to figure out what to do there. Is it worth drywalling a space that's only 2" wide? Either way, we're going to seal the heck out of it and insulate it in some way, shape or form. Upon closer inspection, we discovered a small gap between the foundation and the siding - that's gotta be the entry point for the ants.

Much more to do, but progress is being made. And already, I feel so much more secure with a door that closes and locks firmly.

Door day!

2008-07-05T23:10:00.003-05:00

At last, the doors went in yesterday. Dad and Mom showed up bright and early (too early for my Friday-national holiday taste, but I understood their rationale for a 9 AM arrival), bearing tools and birthday cake. After we had our breakfast cake, we settled into work.

Demolition went pretty quickly. The old door popped out easily, though we discovered that much of the jamb was held in place with approximately 27 coast of paint. Dad commented how heavy the old wood door, especially compared to its steel replacement. We also discovered quite the nest of ants, burrowed into the door frame, so we sprayed heavily. We parked the old doors in the garage, since my sister may want to repurpose them for a house she's fixing up. As she said, an old crappy door is better than no door at all. And the price is right.

Then the fun began. Dad and Don kept setting the new door into place to see where it fit and where it was too tight. After lots of back and forth (literally), we were close, but it still wasn't fitting quite level. So Mom, Dad and I took off for Home Depot while Don stayed behind to guard the house (since there was a gaping hole in the side of it) and sand through the 27 layers of paint that were impeding the fit process.

While we were at the Depot, Don called with a realization - the door wasn't fitting because the hinge screws in the pre-hung door weren't screwed down. Since they were protruding, of course the door wasn't fitting quite right. We got the rest of the supplies we needed - caulk, screws, tar paper, and other stuff - and headed home.

The rest of the installation was slow and steady, but other than a quick trip to Ace to pick up a hacksaw (new tool acquired! Who knew that storm doors are sold with stock size bars that have to be cut to fit the opening?), we made good progress. Late in the process, we were all tired and hungry and hot in the sun, so we pulled out the patio chairs, but the end result is divine.

We ran out of caulk - the gaps between the house and the door frame are pretty significant - and the trim still has to be ripped out and replaced, but the door opens perfectly level, closes firmly but easily and the storm door actually fits the gap. Perfection. With just a bit more work , I'll have a door that will last for years - and hopefully prove much more energy efficient than the old one.

Busy, and Thwarted by the Weather

2008-07-02T19:35:00.002-05:00

Since starting the new job, I've been a tad busy learning everything I can about the new industry and adjusting to the new lifestyle. Plus, since I'm getting home earlier, I've been going on as many evening bike rides as possible. (The bike path itself has been fascinating with the ongoing heavy rains - there are places the path is closed entirely due to flooding, and many others where the river water laps up along the edges.)

My fancy new back doors came in a few weeks ago, and after frantic scheduling, my sister came down with her truck and helped me bring them to the house. (It's cheaper to bribe her with lunch than pay the Depot $59 for delivery!) The doors have been parked in the garage ever since, forcing a very cautious maneuver every time I pull the car in - which is daily now. Every time my dad and I have aligned schedules (thrice, so far), it has rained on our parade. And not gentle-we-can-work-in-this rain. No, we're talking monsoons. The kind that you can't even consider working outside in, especially since there will be a gaping hole in the house for a couple (few?) hours. But cross your fingers for Friday...

Meanwhile, all the rain has been great for the living things in my yard! My tomato plant boasts the first few green tomatoes beginning to ripen, and some of the herbs are doing well. In the front flower beds, I did indeed wait too long to plant the zinnia bounty, but they're starting to grow. Note to self: start them much, much earlier next year - like early May, or even inside in April. The nasturtiums are growing, but no blooms yet.

And in the back yard, the mulberries have taken over. Everything is purple and goopy and gross, and there's a nice, rancid odor of ranting berries. The poor garage roof is purple, and the squirrels and birds are in heaven. We cut that tree back so far last fall, but it grows like a weed!

The rain has also once again meant a bit of very minor flooding in the basement, reminding me of the urgency of fixing it once and for all. Perhaps that's a good rainy day project.

Onwards and upwards. Plenty more to do.

Commuter Shoes: The End of an Era

2008-06-14T15:18:00.002-05:00

Friday was my last day as a Metra commuter. When I bought my house, I drew a one mile radius from the three Elgin train stations. My goal was to live within a mile - easy walking distance - of a train to ease my commute downtown as much as possible.

After living in Chicago for seven years, moving to the farthest reach of the suburbs was a shock to the system. My commute grew to an average of about 80 minutes - ten minute walk from the house to the train, 60 minutes on the express train, and about a ten minute walk to the office downtown. Another 25 minutes could easily be tacked on if I deigned to work late or go out after work, stranding me on a non-express train, watching the freight trains breeze past.

I learned a lot from my train commuter days, though. The train becomes almost like family, in a way, with the same characters sitting in the same seats five days a week. You learn the rhythms of the train, the cadence of the conductors and what it means when you slow down through Franklin Park. In November, you pass the Ringling Brothers' circus train, nearly a mile long, parked just west of the city. In the dead of dark winter evenings, the strategically set fires light the night like fireworks, keeping the switches from freezing. Passing just south of O'Hare, there's a steady stream of planes landing and taking off - you can see them queued up for miles off toward the horizon.

You learn that if you typically finish the main news section of the Chicago Tribune around Itasca, though on Mondays and Tuesday, it may be as soon as Schaumburg. By Friday, when the paper is larger, the Elgin Courier may not get read until the train ride home. Occasionally there would be entire weeks where nothing sounded appealing, so I'd do the crossword puzzle and Sudoku from the morning papers. If I had work to do - especially editing - I'd tackle it on the way home, since working on an express train was preferable to staying late at the office and then taking a slower milk train home.

At first, entertaining yourself for the commute is almost fun. Finally, a chance to read, uninterrupted, every single weekday! I got into the very comfortable routine of bringing coffee and reading both newspapers in the morning. In the evenings, I would usually read for pleasure, either a novel or magazine (National Review or Verbatim). Over time, though, I would grow antsy with the sheer length of the commute, especially when nice weather beckoned. In winter, it didn't seem to bother me as much, since regardless of when I got home, it was cold, dark and miserable. In summer, though, with beautiful sunshine rapidly diminishing, I couldn't wait to get home, and the train would seem to creep through suburb after suburb.

Overall, I like Metra. It's clean, safe, relatively quiet and usually on time. Since I live out in the boondocks, I always got a seat in the morning, often on the upper deck where I could sit in a single seat and spread out with my newspapers. Coming home, especially lately since gas prices have been rocketing up, it's been increasingly difficult to get a seat, but leaving work five minutes earlier helped.

Plus, my years commuting fueled my first (and thus far only) novel, Commuter Shoes. It was written for National Novel Writing Month in 2006 and comprises a series of vignettes about fictionalized characters I saw on my daily commute. The title comes from my observation that suburban women who commute to the city often have a pair or two of commuter shoes that they reserve for the trip, carrying dress shoes with them or having a stockpile at the office to change into. Commuter shoes are often tennis shoes or the newish athliesure shoes, allowing comfortable walking and the occasional sprint to the train. I recently had a whopping eleven pairs of shoes under my desk at work.

But over time, I was nagged by a voice in my head, whining, "Are we there yet?" I never really slept on the train, always afraid I'd sleep past my stop. But I'd stare out the window in bored exhaustion from my day, anxious to just be home.

As I hunted for a new job, I pondered whether I wanted to stay downtown and remain a Metra girl, or if I wanted to be driving distance. I ended up finding one in Schaumburg, about a 35 minute drive from home. I accepted the offer, hoping that the drive wouldn't hurt. There appear to be a different possibilities for routing myself that I'll have to explore and time. Even though it will likely be relatively heavy traffic - as it was the morning I interviewed and clocked the drive at 35 minutes - I'll still be home sooner in the evening and leave later in the morning. And that's appealing to me. I envision going to more City Council meetings, finally joining the book club at the library I've eyed for the last year and doing more with my evenings without having to dash out of work early or plan ahead and work from home.

I would commute on Metra again, but maybe not from the far reaches of a line. If I could afford to live closer to Chicago and could buy a place near one of the closer stations - say no farther than zone D (vs H, as Elgin is), that might be okay. But for now, I hope I've made the right choice.

We shall see. The driving era begins Monday.

Mower Wars: The Finale

2008-06-10T20:57:00.003-05:00

After months and months of frustration with my reel mower, I finally caved and bought a real mower. Mind you, I didn't go the full-fledged gas guzzling route. Rather, I went with my alterna-yuppie tendencies and bought an electric mower. My yard is small enough that even the far edges are reachable with a 100 foot extension cord. Plus, an electric engine is far more environmentally friendly and doesn't entail the sparkplugs, flooding threat and other hassles of a more traditional gas mower.

I started my research a couple weeks ago with a stop at Lowes. I had nearly made up my mind that I wanted to go the electric route, but I wanted to actually see an example. While there, I snagged a brochure, jotted my notes and weighed the relative merits of each. The kindly Lowes employee - an older gentleman - came by to offer his sage advice: "Women usually prefer the self-propelled. They're less work." Now, there would have been plenty of other ways to suggest that upsell without inserting the gender aspect. He could have mentioned a number of features that may merit the higher cost. Instead, when I explained that I was interested in an electric and asked for the difference between the two models on display, he tried again: "You know, electric means you have to mess with a cord. You should really consider a self-propelled." I smiled, thanked him and walked out.

Later that week, I again mowed with my reel mower. Even after cross-cutting the lawn, it was still uneven and looked ragged. Over the next ten days, it grew and grew and grew as unrelenting rain prevented me from cutting. So Saturday morning, I set off to (a different) Lowes and its neighboring Home Depot, notepad in hand, and compared the scarce few models available at each. I came home and discovered that my leading front runner was $30 cheaper on Amazon, with no sales tax and free shipping! Nearly ready to Add to Cart, I stopped by Menards while I was out running other errands. Success! They had a very comparable model on sale for even less money. I snagged it and brought it home.

Sunday morning, I donned my grubby yard clothes, did the small amount of necessary assembly and sat down to unravel the extension cord. With it sufficiently untangled, I ran into the screened porch to plug it in. Suddenly, for the eleventh day in a row, the skies opened. Within the next two minutes, as I frantically pulled everything back to the garage, thunder rumbled and lightning brought torrents of hail. I sighed and went about my day. By the time I got home from a Cougars game, the sun had been out long enough to make things nice and steamy, while drying out the lawn. I mowed my lawn with the words of reviewers in my head. It did look like I was vacuuming my lawn! But in a relatively quick span, the lawn was nice and even and looked better than it has since I've lived in this house.

I'm sad to give up my defiant reel mower. But the resulting lush suburban grass makes it worth it.

And besides, I can keep using the reel mower on the slower-growing, shaded backyard - just to keep it real.

Easy Electric

2008-06-07T16:25:00.002-05:00

I bought my timer switch last weekend, read the directions, and realized that it may be a better daylight project since it entailed cutting power to the circuit with the hall light.

Finally, I got around to it today. I cut power - thanks to some previous owners for meticulously labeling the breaker box with "Living room - South Wall" type detail - and tested my switch to make sure it was good and dead.

I pulled off the faceplate - there are three switches right there - and evaluated the situation. The switch had obviously been there since the Carter administration (at least), as it took some prying to expose the poof balls of black schmutz and insulation. The switch wasn't grounded at all. After a minute of gentle tugging, I realized wire snips were the easiest way to cut the old wire from the switch - after I triple-checked that the power was indeed off.

One of the joys of an old house is the old wiring. While the breaker box has been updated, some of the internal wiring is, well, old (and I have some old, retired outlets to prove it!). The wires in the wall are wrapped in black cloth. I used my wire snips again to gently peel back about half an inch of insulation so I could fit the wire into the caps with the new switch wires. I lined up the wires, made my connections, grounded the thing (an improvement already!) and then struggled to get all the new wires back into the hole. I kept at it until the (much whiter) new timer switch was nearly flush with its old, almond neighbors. Then it dawned on me that before I finished the arduous tightening, I should probably turn the power on and make sure that everything was connected right. Success!

In many ways, the hardest part of the whole project was getting the faceplate back in place and lined up. It's still not quite perfectly flush, since the new switch is a tad larger than the old ones, but it gets the job done. I set the program - lights on at sunset, off at 2 AM - and we're good to go.

It was my very first solo electric project - hooray!

More windows

2008-05-31T14:13:00.000-05:00

One week into summer (going by the Memorial Day standard), I've got nearly all of my windows at least quasi-operational. Yesterday, Don helped me with the living room window which, while pretty (its wood is stained to exactly match the rest of the living room), is a trainwreck as far as operation is concerned. The sashes are so old that it doesn't reliably stay up without the aid of a stick - a concern due to the cat.* This is also one of the worst as far as wind and cold leakage, compounded by its location directly behind the couch. Opening it in the summer requires a delicate ballet of sliding the storm window up to balance on top of the new screen - all while holding the window itself up so it doesn't come crashing down. Plus, to reach it, I have to balance on the back of the couch. Having a second set of hands is immensely helpful.

The only windows still not operational are the upstairs bathroom which is still sealed shut (and also sashcordless), one of the paired back hall windows (which has a horribly rusted and broken screen), and the larger of the office windows (which has no fitting screen). Oh, and there's one more in the back hall that I can't reach, since it's perched above the stairs, so it's a moot point anyway.

I plan to scrape the last of the removable caulk from the upstairs bathroom, though I hope to soon have the money to completely replace the whole bathroom. The way the window's frame is bisected by the wall with the shower plumbing, replacing that window requires a ton more work - one that a new bathroom can fix.

Overall, by my count, I have four new windows in the house (two each in my bedroom and the kitchen), six old ones in the main living area, two in the basement, and a whopping eleven geriatrics on the porch. The living room window is first on the list for replacement, and I'll also replace the two cracked window panes on the porch. From there, it's up to budget.

*Right after I moved in two years ago, the cat was hanging out in one of the porch windows that we knew was sashless but "seemed to stay in place just fine," in the words of my ex. One morning, we heard the most blood-curdling yowls. The window had fallen and trapped Collette. In her haste to escape, Collette's back paw had gotten stuck in the window, and she was hanging, dangling, flaying her other three paws against the wall, trying to get traction. Once we freed her, she slinked off to drip blood all over the new carpet and didn't walk normally for a couple weeks. To this day, she occasionally stops and shakes out the affected paw - I think it was likely a broken toe. Since then, if a window lacks operational sashes, it either remains shut or is firmly propped into place.

Next Up: A Timer

2008-05-28T23:39:00.002-05:00

I like having my front porch lights on when I come home in the dark, especially in winter. Plus, studies show that a block whose homes are lit up have less crime. In my neighborhood, it sure can't hurt. And since I switched to the snazzy new CFL bulbs, the electricity impact is relatively negligible - though I did discover, less than two weeks after installing the first pair, that they are susceptible to brownouts.

In winter in northern Illinois, it gets dark by 4:30, long before I get home from work. Around Christmas, I string up Christmas lights on the inside of my porch windows and use a plug-in timer so they come on at sunset and go off about bedtime. I flip on the porch light when I get home. In summer, I flip on the light when it gets dark - lately around 8:30. But in summer, I wake up to blazing sunshine at 6 AM - and the porchlights are still on.

This weekend, my friend Sarah was showing off all the great updates her dad helped her with recently, one of which was a neat automatic timer for the front lights. Rather than plugging into an outlet, it's designed to fit in the existing switch slot. The model she got can be programmed for your timezone, whether or not you adjust for Daylight Savings, and your local area. From there, she was able to set it to have her lights on from dusk to dawn - exactly what I'm looking for.

I think I'll stop by Home Depot and pick one up.

Failure

2008-05-26T16:43:00.003-05:00

The great sharpening experiment has failed. Saturday, I excitedly mowed my lawn. Yep, the blades are sharper, but the cut is still horribly uneven. My lawn looks like (shorter) crap. I'm weighing my options for next steps.

In happier news, I planted a tomato plant in one of my big clay pots that line the driveway, as well as numerous herbs - basil, oregano, cilantro and dill. I plan to add a bell pepper plant in the next few days, once I find a worthy candidate.

It's been another beautiful day that triggers my allergies, but that didn't stop me from my inaugural 5 mile bike ride through the my and neighboring neighborhoods.

Springtime Wandering

2008-05-25T23:12:00.000-05:00

On this beautiful sunny day, I strolled through the neighborhood, buoyed by Claritin. This was the first such destinationless stroll this year, and it was divine. The air was clean and crisp - a nice 65 degrees with a slightly nipping wind in the shade, but beautiful sun permeated the trees.

I had nowhere to go or be, so I meandered through streets I don't usually wander through. I deviated from the main streets and drank in the neighborhood in springtime. It was all very suburban - kids galore, out on bikes and kicking soccer balls around. There were even a couple moments reminiscent of driver's ed videos, with kids darting into the street after a wiffleball without checking for traffic. But you can get away with that through much of the neighborhood.

There were blocks of old houses like mine, and a few blocks of identical ranches houses with only slight variations on shutter color and front door placement. There were a couple blocks of all brick homes, built in the 20s to replace the blocks destroyed by Elgin's infamous 1920 Palm Sunday tornado.

I walked past tiny local businesses I never realized were there in my car-fueled haste. I stopped into Herb's Bakery, which I've heard so much about, only to find their selection picked over and sparse. I never realized just how many tiny auto repair shops are in the neighborhood. I suppose it comes with being a less affluent area. I also passed dozens of homes for sale, and a couple with the tell-tale signs of foreclosure - including one on my corner.

But that's what I love about Elgin and my neighborhood. There's so much diversity in the houses and the people who live in them. When I was house-hunting, I was adamant about not wanting to live in a cookie-cutter subdivision where an overzealous homeowners' association dictates house colors and suitable flowers for planting. Sure, the lack of such covenants does open the door for the occasional teal house or the pink bodega, and you get your fair share of tall, unkempt lawns - but it always provides conversation. For example, in my neighborhood, there's a parakeet house, where the screened in front porch is filled with at least a dozen cages packed with the birds. You can hear it a block away!

I'm looking forward to many more such walks in the warming weather. I bike a lot, too, but even at 10 mph, you miss a lot of the details.

Who names these things? How do we stop them?

2008-05-23T15:59:00.001-05:00

My lawnmower sharpening kit came with a great set of instructions that made the job pretty simple. Heck, each step was spelled out in three languages, and the diagrams actually made sense and mirrored my mower!

I also learned a couple new words. Anyone know what this sentence means?

"Carefully remove the pinion gear, being extremely careful not to allow the pawl to fall out of the slot in the reel shaft."

Huh?

Fortunately, the diagrams helped clarify the goal. But what is a pinion gear, and how does it relate to a pawl? Who named these parts? And where do the names come from?

Wiki comes to the rescue with a couple helpful definitions.

A pinion is usually the smallest gear in a gear drive train. In many cases, such as remote controlled toys, the pinion is also the drive gear.

A pawl is even less descriptive:

Pawl may refer to:

A common component of a ratchet
A part of the adjustable height locking mechanism of an extension ladder
Pawl (constructor), a former racing car constructor
A part of a table saw splitter, a safety mechanism designed to prevent kickback

But still - how to stop the madness of naming little bitty parts?

Sharpening My Skills - and Mower

2008-05-22T23:34:00.000-05:00

My lawn looks like crap. There, I've said it. Spring is always tough, with frequent rain and ideal growing conditions that make the grass grow quickly, while keeping it too wet to actually mow with my old friend the reel mower.

This spring, it has been especially brutal. I nearly reached my limit with the reel mower and considered investing part of my "stimulus check" in what some (Don) call a "real" mower, complete with engine! But sanity prevailed as I realized that I had never sharpened the blades on my reel mower, and I'm now in my third grass-cutting season.

Last summer, I had idly realized that sharpening might be a good idea. I made a couple calls, and learned that there's only one place locally that does it, and even Ace farms out the work to them. Hence, the wait would be about three weeks! If I had planned ahead and sharpened in winter, three weeks would be no problem. However, in the height of summer, the neighbors - and city - might complain if I didn't mow my lawn for three weeks. I meant to send it off last winter, but alas - sloth prevailed.

Instead, I decided to investigate the sharpening kits that can be used spruce up the blades at home. Today, I stopped by my local Ace (I had checked Lowe's and Home Depot for the kit while I was on my door sojourn) and picked one up for $20. I brought it home and eagerly set up living room space for my project, spreading out a grubby old towel. I followed the directions and the whole process was pretty simple. From start to finish, it took maybe 30 minutes, 45 if you count the time to run to the Citgo for WD-40. (I can't believe I've been a homeowner for two years and didn't have WD-40!)

Basically, you take apart the wheel assembly, which is remarkably simple, and then paint goo onto the blades. The goo spreads on a deep blue with flecks of sparkle, reminiscent of the bad blue-glitter nail polish high school girls wear. Then, you insert a crank into the wheel and turn it counter-clockwise at a relatively high rate of speed for ten minutes. In the process, there's a horrific grinding noise, and the goo turns dark midnight blue. When you're done, wipe off the blades, reassemble the wheels, and WD-40 the whole thing. I did a test drive on a small strip of front lawn and cut it in a single pass, rather than the three cross-cuts that still left maddening uneven spots throughout the yard. Dandelions are still somewhat resilient, but they're the cockroaches of lawn care.

A huge sense of accomplishment and money saved - a very good project. Now I can keep my nice, quiet lawnmowing tradition and get some great exercise, too.

Home Depot Employees = Talent?

2008-05-21T18:00:00.003-05:00

Wow.

Home Depot employees Walk Like Electricians. Via Make the Logo Bigger, a marketing blog I frequent.

And for the record, Great Stuff really is great, especially for a drafty old house!

Fleeting Flowers

2008-05-18T17:08:00.003-05:00

I had a whole herd of gorgeous tulips this spring. They were late to bloom, but when they did, last fall's frenzied planting made sense. I had about 30 red tulips which looked great against the white house. Then, about a week later, the pink and white swirled blooms I had completely forgotten about appeared one sunny morning. Heck, I had even forgotten about the daffodils!

I kept waiting for the perfect morning to take the perfect spring picture. I wanted the morning light to be just right - which seems to happen about the time I leave for work - and a light breeze to add some loft to the flag. The morning I had an extra minute, my camera's batteries were uncooperative. Manana, manana, I thought.

Then one morning, they were gone. Strong winds and heavy rains ripped most of the petals from their moorings. Over the next couple days, the remaining petals dropped to the ground and started rotting on the lawn.

Oh, well. The petunias are doing pretty well, and the snapdragons are holding on for the moment. Today, I hit Lowe's and got tons of seeds (zinnias, nasturtiums and aubrietas) and a few cheater marigolds. I went ahead and planted all but some of the zinnias. Once the stems and leaves of the tulips die, I'll plant the rest.

But for now, here's a drooping daffodil next to a growing petunia.

Doors ordered!

2008-05-18T16:43:00.004-05:00

After comparison shopping, Home Depot matched - and beat - the best price I had found, so my doors are on order. I should have them in 10-14 days, so I'm just a couple weeks from a shiny new door! And it will indeed be shiny steel. I found I could order a fiberglass door in my super-special size, but it would have been more than double the cost. I'll spend that money elsewhere, I'm sure.

Darn Doors

2008-05-12T19:32:00.000-05:00

File this under "who would have thought..."

It's past time to replace my back door. The existing one is very, very old wood that has warped with age, and the glass leaks cold air and wind like a sieve. Plus, the existing storm/screen door doesn't quite fit the opening. When I first moved in, there was a sizable - probably 4-5 inches - gap at the bottom through which Collette escaped one day. After that, I rehung the door so there were two inch gaps at the top and bottom. I never leave just the storm door open for any amount of time, since I don't want to let bugs or critters in, but if I'm bringing in several trips - groceries, namely - and I don't bother to close the actual door, I'll see Collette's face peeking out from the gap.

I wanted to replace the doors last summer, but before I knew it, it was the height of mosquito season. I didn't want to be doorless for an entire day with bugs streaming into the house. A couple weeks ago, I priced things out and called my dad, since he's offered to use his know-how to install the new doors while teaching me how to do it.

Saturday, he came over to take detailed measurements. My initial measurements had indicated that the door wasn't a standard size, but I obviously wanted verification before I actually bought one - especially if it ended up being a special order. Dad confirmed my fears - the door I need is a 30" by 80" door to fit my 32.25" by 82" opening. We talked about enlarging the opening, but the framing around the opening is in really good shape, and we shouldn't disturb it if we don't really have to. Plus, with aluminum siding, we don't want to create an opening that would then entail needing replacement siding. Ugh. Occam - keep it simple.

So we went off to Menard's, Mom and sister in tow. After finding the doors I had previously picked out, we looked at the specs. Yep, the size I needed would have to be special ordered. The Menard's guy spent some time with his online catalog, adjusting options (kickplate? mail slot? what kind of hinges?) to come up with a quote. The door will likely run about $230 for a steel door with a half-light window with grills - essentially replacing the style already there. The corresponding storm/screen - with the retracting screen - will likely be more, closer to $270.

The narrow size really limits my option. It appears - at Menard's, at least, I'm limited to steel. While steel is definitely better than the ancient wood I currently have, it is prone to dings and dents, which worries me. This door is pretty high traffic, and though I may start off being careful, six months from now when I'm struggling in out of the cold with eight bags of groceries, I may end up doing some damage. It appears fiberglass is a bit more durable - and expensive - but I don't even have that option. I'm going to further investigate my options at Lowe's and Home Depot to see what else I can do.

It just goes to show how home design has evolved. The back hallway part of my house isn't original - it was added on at some point - but I'm sure 30" was pretty standard for a door width then. Now, the standards seem to be 32" or 36". It's like subway seats - as Americans have gotten larger, so have doors and seats - though airline seats have only shrunk.

I have one even smaller door in the house. The door to my downstairs half bath - which I think used to be a pantry - is a paltry 24" inches wide. It's pretty claustrophobic in there.

"Deferred Maintenance" Bites Me

2008-05-11T23:40:00.000-05:00

Two years ago, the home inspector listed several small, relatively simple repairs. I took care of most of them – things like tightening toilet bolts, replacing a faulty light switch and adjusting ceiling fans.

Others, I’ve neglected. In the ceiling of my screened in porch, there has always been a loose board. For two years, I’ve often thought to pull out the stepladder, climb up there, and nail it back into place once and for all. In the last few weeks, the board appeared to drop down a bit farther and come more detached from the ceiling. Saturday, when my dad was over to help measure for the back door, we talked about other pending projects, he noticed the board and said if I handed him a hammer, he’d take care of it right then. But dinner was going on the table, so I put it off again.

It started pouring Saturday night, and by Sunday morning, there was a nice puddle in the porch, directly below my detached board. It was leaking at a pretty steady rate, though it never filled the bucket I put beneath it. I mopped a bit and found a second spot with a smaller leak.

Once it stopped raining, Don reached up with the rubber mallet and hammered the board back into place for the moment, but it looks like it and the boards on either side should be replaced. It’s bead board – one of many such instances in the house – and I have grand plans for the porch as a whole, so this just shuffles it to the top of the list. I’ll replace the three affected boards, caulk the heck out of the whole thing, and then paint. I have two cracked windows out there to replace, too. But essentially, I want to really make that space livable. It’s screened in, which is perfect for summer, especially since it’s ringed in hanging baskets of dianthus. Late last summer, I picked up a wicker rocker and ottoman on eBay, which are out there with another lounge chair. With some fresh paint (I’m thinking a cheery Mediterranean blue), a real light fixture to replace the naked bulb and a bit more furniture, it’s going to be a great room.

But first, I think I need to climb up on the roof and figure out the source of the leaks. This could be my first roofing project!

Cinderella has a Roommate

2008-05-09T17:43:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make. Despite all my crowing about making it as a single girl homeowner (choose the appropriate hyphenation), I'm not so single anymore.

For the last 15+ months, I've been dating the wonderful Don ("The Don," as friends call him), and two weeks ago, he moved in. It's been fantastic sharing my home - our home - with such a caring, loving guy who constantly challenges me to be a better version of myself and do more. In fact, the Cinderella concept stems in part from him. One night several months ago, I was talking about all the things I've learned as a novice homeowner and the advice I give to friends. He encouraged me to keep at it, write it down and do something with the concept. That idea, coupled with Colete Dowling's Cinderella Complex, gave rise to this blog and numerous other scattered writings.

The truth is, it's great having a roommate who not only helps with the mortgage (thus freeing up funds to do more projects and - gasp - go back to school) but also serves as a sanity check on some of my more harebrained ideas. Climbing up on the roof alone? No way, not with Don around. He acknowledges that I certainly can do many things alone, he's there, ready to help out while also injecting some reason and rationality into the process.

Heck, last fall he climbed the roof to help me clean gutters, despite his fear of heights! If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Though he hates - HATES - my rotary lawnmower, so that job happily remains mine.

Overall, I'm so lucky to have found such a great guy to share my life and home with. I just hope he realizes what he's in for on the DIY front!

Fresh cut grass

2008-05-04T21:50:00.003-05:00

I woke up to a beautiful day. A bit chilly, but finally - it was sunny and clear enough for my inaugural lawn mow!

The grass had mostly dried out by the time I got to it, but it was so long that my manual mower (no engine or emissions for me!) definitely struggled. I had forgotten what great exercise lawnmowing is - I felt it in my legs and shoulders.

Once I finished the mowing part, I realized just how long the grass had gotten when I saw how much longer the remaining edges appeared! We're talking code-violation length - six inches, easy.

I pulled out my evil weedwhacker/trimmer and crossed my fingers. Last spring, the ten-year-old model I had stolen from my dad died, so I went to Lowe's and bought the cheapest model I could get - an electric powered string trimmer similar to the one I had killed. It worked well for a couple months, but by August, it had evolved into a petulant brat - constantly ripping through string, randomly unspooling, and essentially being a pain in the ass. Today was awful - I'd get no more than ten feet before it needed to be respooled. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if it would have been worth it to pay a bit more. Or maybe it just needs a new spool?

Either way, the yard looks pretty darn good, if I do say so myself - much neater and cleaner than when I woke up this morning. With the rows of tulips, daffodils, and petunias, the flag, and the green-green grass, all set against the white house, it looks like summer.

Then I moved to the backyard to visit my anthills. I sprinkled my death powder liberally, then watered them down as instructed. A couple hours later, I inspected them again - no movement could be perceived. I will keep a cautiously optimistic eye on the hills this week. Hopefully the nuclear option will be successful.

I also spent a couple hours washing windows and continuing the screen-storm window swap. I have learned the very hard way that my infatuation with removable caulk was slightly misplaced. While it worked well as far as insulating against wind, it has proved very, very difficult to remove without damaging the windows. The living room window, already in poor shape, took some real abuse while trying to remove it following at least two solid hours of work. The other wooden windows - back hallway and upstairs hall - were slow-going. I did find that the guest room - with its relatively freshly (semi-glass) paint was a tad easier, where as the older, matte paint on other windows was more stubborn. Mostly down, just one to go - the bathroom. And that window has no remaining sash cords or pulleys anyway, so it's pretty much moot.

Uncle!

2008-05-03T16:35:00.000-05:00

I have more ants. Last weekend's attempted destruction of the giant ant hill and its satellite barely slowed them down - they've rebuilt in full, and I daresay they're even bigger. Last night, I spied a handful of ants in the dining room, along the baseboards, carrying a crumb of food. I discovered my can of ant spray was empty, so I Windexed them to death.

This morning, while brushing my teeth, I looked down into the backyard from the guest room and could plainly see the larger ant hill from my window.

This means war.

I went to Home Depot and bought weapons for a triple-pronged approach: good old-fashioned spray ("kills on contact!"), bait traps and some powdered poison that supposedly will take out the hills once and for all. Hopefully tomorrow will be rain-free so I can bait the hills.

*********
Update Sunday afternoon: While getting ready to head upstairs for the night, I noticed a moving black crumb on the kitchen floor. It was a mass of ants - easily 20 of the little buggers - who had united to hoist a piece of catfood and carry it back to their lair. Now, Collette's not always the tidiest eater - she often drops a piece or two of food to the floor right outside her bowl - but this was a good 3-4 feet away. Such power!

We sprung into action, first locking the curious cat upstairs, away from the pending poison, along with her food and water bowls. We sprayed all the kitchen and dining room baseboards with the new ant spray, laid down bait traps under the fridge and stove, and called it a night.

Snow?

2008-04-28T19:20:00.002-05:00

Supposedly there's snow lurking in the area. I haven't seen it. Regardless, it's cold and drizzly. My heat had been off for a week - but when I got home tonight, the house was a pitiful 54 degrees! Collette whined until I turned the heat on and made a beeline for her favorite floor vent in the dining room.

I felt guilty for not playing storm window-screen swap over the weekend, since May begins in just a couple days, but now it seems perfectly prudent.

I just hope the frost doesn't kill my growing herd of tulips.

Weed'n and Feed'n with the Whirlybird

2008-04-26T16:34:00.002-05:00

The front of my house is awash with color! The red tulips and yellow daffodils are starting to bloom, and the purple and pink petunias from last weekend are taking hold. The grass is greening with all the rain, and the brown, dead leaves have been raked away.

There's a bit of unwanted color, though, too. Dandelions.

Two years ago, when I moved in, half the front yard (the section between front walk and driveway) was a mess of crabgrass, dandelions and these strange purple vines that choked everything else. Mid-way through the summer, I took the nuclear option, liberally applying herbicide that killed everything in just a few days. Following the scorched earth, I put down about 200 lbs of new soil and reseeded the whole thing. The rest of the lawn got a liberal dose of weed and feed.

So in an effort to nip things in the bud, I pulled out the Whirlybird spreader and methodically meandered through the front yard. It's a tad windy, but hopefully enough of it will stay put to have an effect.

While in the backyard, I found a giant ant colony - heck, nearly an ant continent - that wasn't there last weekend. It was huge, and had a satellite colony about 15 feet away. Don drowned it, and we were both shocked at how much water it took before the thing collapsed, revealing a deep, deep network of tunnels. Nearby, there were several relatively large stones, each 3-4 inches in size. We conjecture that while building the tunnels, the ants moved these rocks! So I've got another thing to monitor over the next couple weeks. If it comes back, we'll try the chemical route.

The Outdoors Beckons

2008-04-20T21:58:00.002-05:00

Wednesday, it got nice out. I was working from home, and by the time I went out to retrieve the garbage cans just before noon, the sun was shining and it was nearly 70 degrees. I stripped the removeable caulk from the porch windows and opened them wide. The stale winter air started to seep out and though cool, it felt great. I opened all the windows I could (bedroom, kitchen), and Collette went to town investigating the fresh air and singing birds.

The rest of the week, I cracked those same windows and watched the green tulip leaves grow taller and taller. I even slept with the windows cracked and was shocked awake by the birds at 4 AM. We went to a Cubs game one night, and grilled another night. It's really spring!

I was hosting Bunco Friday night, so all week I was in full spring cleaning mode. Airing everything out helped a bunch, though Friday evening wasn't warm enough to use the porch as I had optimistically hoped when I offered to host months ago. So things were a bit cozy, but went off without a h itch.

Saturday loomed rainy and the day alternated between sun and showers. I went to Kohl's and bought a springy new welcome mat and kitchen towels. Then, during a sunny period, I took advantage of hooking the hose up for the season to scrub the cat's box (note to self: must install utility sink before winter!), then vacuumed out the car and found 93 cents. I even opened up the basement windows to air that out and vacuumed up cobwebs and dust. In full spring mode, I stripped my bed and switched out the fuzzy winter blanket for the lighter summer blanket. Then we invited friends over and grilled again.

I spend most of today outside, potting dianthus (red flowers) for my hanging baskets on the porch, cleaning up more leaves and detritus around the yard, and planting snapdragons and petunias in the front flower beds. The latter may come back to bite me, as it's still a bit early in the season - a last frost could be looming. But it was good to be outside in the sunshine, and the beds look great - still no tulip flowers, but they're getting close.

This evening, I decided to de-caulk the rest of the windows and play the great screen-window matching game while putting away the storm windows.

Most of the windows went pretty quickly. At first, I used a flat-head screwdriver to pull up the removeable caulk I couldn't get with my fingers, but quickly realized I was nicking up the windows. So I switched to a putty knife (genius!) and knocked out the rest of the porch, the office and the back hallway.

The living room window proved far, far more difficult though. It's very old and leaky, and doesn't even stay in place when it's not locked - the top window slips an inch when the bottom is open. But since it's a nice wood window - with beautiful finish that matches all the downstairs woodwork - I know it will be a more expensive replacement. Since it's so craptastic, I used a ton of caulk that has proved a bit excessive, as I can't get it up. The gap was sizable, so I really slathered on the goop which has now taken up permanent residence. I was getting closer after a solid two hours of careful, gentle scraping, but my hand is numb, so I'm taking a break. This is further motivation to replace that window - and if I do it at the same time as ripping out the air conditioner and replacing it with a window, they'll match.

Overall, it was a very productive weekend.

Happy Housiversary!

2008-04-13T23:21:00.002-05:00

It's my second housiversary today! After last week's vacation, I had lots to do around the house today. I did some spackling and framed and hung some pictures. Then I moved out the couch and cleaned behind it. Still in full-cleaning mode, I lifted up the heavy (iron?) heat intake grate in the dining room and vacuumed out the gross cobwebs. I found cat toys and crayons in the vent, so it's obviously been quite awhile since it was cleaned out! I had to fend off Collette, who was circling curiously. I was afraid she would dart down into the vent, which would have been bad news. I dusted, I vacuumed, I laundered.

I also finally did my first outdoor work of the season! I went out with my rake and yard waste bag and started picking up all the leaves and sticks that have accumulated over the long, long winter. It proved too windy to rake, and after all the rain, yesterday's snow and this morning's hail, the flower beds were too soft to spend any real time in. But I filled half a bag with detritus and preened over my growing tulips - no buds yet, but soon enough!

This evening, I ran to Menard's to price out some of my upcoming projects. I am definitely replacing the back door and screen door in the very near future. I priced out fencing, since mine is looking sorrier and sadder now that I'm home before dark. I have a lot of decisions to make on the fence. I want the same basic structure - a 6 foot tall privacy fence - especially since my back yard abuts the neighboring apartment building's parking lot. I could replaced the rotting, faded, cracked, splintered wood with new wood - involving painting or staining and periodic maintenance. The new composite fencing looks intriguing, though, especially with the lack of maintenance. But I'm not sure how a white fence would look against my white house. Plus, if I stay in this house another five years, how much maintenance would I really need to do?

I also wandered through the bathroom section to look at the looming big project that I'll tackle just as soon as I get the cash.

But for now, it's been a happy housiversary.

Where ladybugs go to die

2008-04-03T23:07:00.002-05:00

Last night, in a fit of spring energy mixed with winter disgust, I mopped the floors and pulled down some of the window plastic. Everything seems much brighter. The tile is a much cheerier sandy orange. Though I've gotten pretty good at shrinkwrapping my windows so you can't really tell, the film is indeed a film. Now that it's gone, the whole room seems brighter.

I was as careful as I could be removing the plastic. Even, so, I accidentally peeled up a couple chunks of windowsill paint in my bedroom. Fortunately, they're windowsills I painted when I moved in (and removed the baseball wallpaper), so I have plenty of spare paint. It should be a relatively quick touchup some dreary day.

However, I was amazed - shocked, nearly - at the volume of dead ladybugs trapped between the window glass and the film! Most windows had at least three or four beetle bodies, but some - namely the upstairs hallway and bathroom - had a dozen, easy. In the fall, when they start coming in to the house, Collette has a field day chasing them, trapping them under her paws, and crunching them as they try to fly away. She didn't seem too interested in the long-dead carcases, though.

I wonder how they got there, though. My seals were pretty tight, so they must have wriggled in through both the storm window and the glass. The storm windows wouldn't surprise me, since they're old and don't really fit snugly. The glass itself is a bit concerning, though. Both those windows are on my list to replace sooner rather than later, and they're exactly the same size and age - big and old.

I can just imagine a whole line of them seeking shelter from the cold October nights, crawling towards the house, hurtling the storm window, and glass before getting trapped by the film.

Unless, of course, I've disproved Redi and Pasteur. Maybe there really is spontaneous generation and my house should be a research site!

Is cleaning women's work?

2008-04-02T08:10:00.001-05:00

No matter the size of my home, I've always been the cleaner. Living alone, if I don't do it, it doesn't get done. I try to keep things pretty tidy and straighten up periodically, trying to actually clean weekly. I've found with the bigger house, though, comes a lot more cleaning! Back in my apartment days, 10 minutes on a Saturday morning was enough to clean the bathroom, and another 10 allowed for a quick Swiffering of the entire apartment. But now, I have to choose - upstairs bathroom or downstairs? Do I really need to do both every weekend? And vacuuming - really, how often do I have to do it? Can I forgo pulling out the couch? After all, I'll just have to start over again in a week or two, anyway.

As a result, I've fallen into laziness. No bones about it, there's been some sheer, unadulterated sloth lately. Part of it is the futility of winter. I can't remember the last time I mopped the tile in the back hallway, since the nearly-constant snow, slush and muck have kept it nice and filthy, with gray splotches and splatters galore. Since the windows have been closed since early October, there have been no cleansing breezes to dislodge the ceiling cobwebs, and the air in general is stale with a hint of Febreeze.

But really, whose problem is it? Growing up, my mom spent much of her free time cleaning the house, delegating some of the chores to my sister and me. When company was coming, though, Dad would take the reins and do a good chunk of the vacuuming and dusting.

I wonder, if I were to live with a guy who was willing to clean, would I let him? How committed am I to my role as cleaner? And is it because I'm a girl or because I'm the de facto housekeeper?

Sprouts

2008-04-01T22:34:00.002-05:00

On my way home this evening, the air was brisk for the first of April, but warm compared to lately. As I came up the driveway, I slowed to glance at the flower beds, as I have for the last several days. To my surprise, there was not one, not two, but at least half a dozen tulip sprouts! They're not green, but rather a deep burgundy, so they don't really stand out against the reddish mulch. I can't recall what I planted. Last year, I had only red tulips, so I'm assuming (hoping?) they'll come back, but I think I bought a bag of mixed bulbs in October.

I was so excited, I came inside and stripped down the plastic over the glass of the front door and in the bathroom. I'll wait for the living room and bedroom until the overnight temperatures are above freezing.

Pictures tomorrow...

April 1 is just around the corner!

2008-03-29T14:32:00.002-05:00

For some people, spring starts with the appearance of the first tulips (hasn't happened yet). Others consider Opening Day (which is Monday). More scientific types say spring starts with the spring equinox, which was March 20.

But for me, spring really starts when I can tear the plastic from my windows and let out the stale winter air. Most years, we'll have a random 60 degree day in mid-March that makes me start picking at the double-sided tape until common sense prevails and I know we're past the last snow. I usually tell myself April 1.

This year, we haven't had any of those really warm days yet, and it snowed on Thursday. Tuesday's forecast is for "Windy and much cooler with partly sunny skies. Northwest winds 16-32 m.p.h. and gusty." The high will be 48, with a below-freezing low of 29. Next Friday is forecast to be "Blustery, chilly and raw." Sigh.

Maybe I'll wait until after I get back from Florida on the 8th.

The Fallacy of Rope Caulk

2008-03-24T12:52:00.003-05:00

Every year, I spend a lot of time trying to weatherproof my leaky windows. This stretches back to the apartment days, when my ancient bedroom windows would rattle back and forth with the slightest breeze.

When I can find it, I like removable caulk. It goes on like normal caulk, but dries to the consistency of rubber cement. Come spring, it's pretty simple to just peel it off, as long as you have enough patience to take your time and not accidentally remove the varnish or paint around the windows. Even so, it's relatively pricey - especially when you consider how many old, drafty windows I have! - and can be hard to find. I found some very early in the season at Wal-Mart, but despite hunting, I didn't find another tube until nearly Christmas at an Ace.

For the best possible weatherproofing, I use removable caulk, let it set, and then shrink wrap the windows. This combination works really well, and I use it in areas that it makes a huge difference - namely the living room and my office. In the very few rooms with new windows, I either don't bother (kitchen, since the time I spend in there is often over a hot stove), or I only shrink wrap (my bedroom).

However, one of the biggest energy losers in the house is my lovely porch, or three-season room. With eleven windows, all of them old and drafty (and one cracked - on my spring project list), it leaks like a sieve. And the giant window between the porch and the living room allows a ton of this frigid air through, despite sealing that window. But it's not worth the immense time and effort it would take to shrink wrap the whole room. So this year, I tried rope caulk. I'd used it before to middling success in my old apartment, so I bought a roll and spent a November morning wrangling it into place. It presses into place pretty easily- I used my fingers and a putty knife. But I've found it doesn't stay put. Every time I go onto the porch to get my mail, there seems to be another piece of rope caulk on the ground, having fallen from its home. At first, I'd diligently search for its origin and lovingly replace it. But now, I don't bother - and it seems fully half of what I originally installed has fallen. The cat is delighted - she sees the pieces, usually at least 6-8 inches long, as toys for her stealthy forays onto the porch.

It may be user error on the part of the installer - was it too cold that morning? - or maybe it's just an inferior product. Ideally, I'd replace all eleven windows, but my limited window funds will be spent on rooms I spend more time in - namely the living room. But either way, I doubt I'll use rope caulk again.

New fun term: Frost Heave

2008-03-20T12:06:00.003-05:00

After a winter of record-nearing (and maybe breaking, if tonight's forecast of 5-7 inches of "snizzle" comes true) snow, I finally closed the gates across my driveway yesterday. The gates have been ensconced in snow banks since November. Last year, I learned the hard way that keeping them closed during a snow storm made shoveling much more arduous.

So there was much rejoicing when I came up the driveway last night and saw the (almost) clear driveway. Before I even unlocked the back door, I swung the right gate closed, then the left one. But in the center, the latch wouldn't meet. Puzzled, I looked at the hinges, thinking maybe one had slipped - maybe some oil was in order. Then I noticed that the fence itself was sitting on the driveway, despite the wheels that enable easy swinging.

Apparently, I have discovered (developed?) a frost heave. Essentially, during the numerous freeze/thaw cycles, water permeated a crack, froze (expanded), and pushed the pavement up. I knew I should have patched those asphalt cracks last fall. I bought the goo to do it, but never actually got around to it.

Lesson learned. Now I need to get taller wheels to enable proper gate closing, which probably also means raising the hinges. Fun times.

Mysterious critters

2008-03-19T10:08:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I come into the kitchen and find Collette sitting on the floor, staring up at the exhaust fan/vent with rapt fascination.

The old-fashioned Air King seems to elicit the same response among my friends: "My grandma has that same fan in her kitchen!"

I've never used it all that much, since I've never previously had an exhaust fan. Really, I only flip it on when the smoke detector (the one too close to the stove) goes off.

But increasingly over the past couple weeks, Collette's interest has been piqued by rustling and rattling coming from within the fan. My guess is that some critter is trying to build a nest in the vent part that protrudes outside. I went out to investigate it a couple weekends ago, but learned just how high up it is - I didn't think about my house effectively sitting half a story above ground level. At the time, the ground was much too icy to consider safely using my ladder to climb up and have a look. Now, the ground's too soft and muddy - I don't think I could stabilize the ladder sufficiently to be safe.

Too bad I can't just send Collette up there. I'm sure she'd take care of the uninvited guest, lickity-split.

History

2008-03-18T21:06:00.002-05:00

I live in an old neighborhood. I was drawn to the area because the houses are all different and there are some families who have been here for decades. My next door neighbor (the good one) grew up in his house and bought it from his father about ten years ago. He has told me stories about the elderly couple that lived in my house when he was growing up. Apparently, the lady paid neighborhood kids a quarter per bucket of acorns they collected in the fall, then parceled them out to squirrels over the winter. (Personally, I think she created an unnecessary middleman, since modern squirrels seem to have no problem digging nut holes all over my yard and flowerbeds.)

In the history of Elgin, my neighborhood was the home for many of the workers at the Elgin Watch Company. At the time, it was called Dutch Flats since it was originally settled by Germans who fell into the common mistake of being called "Dutch" rather than "Deutsch." From where I sit at this very moment, I can see across the river to the site of the former factory and tower - though now it's a somewhat seedy strip mall. In the summer, the grove of trees block much of this view.

When I was buying, I knew I wanted an older house, since they often have far more character than the newer cookie cutter houses, plus they're more often situated in the older, urban neighborhoods that are walking distance to (in my case, anyway) the train depot, supermarket, library and the historic downtown. True, new houses can have the manufactured charm of built-ins and woodwork, but that usually comes at a steep price. Plus, I could afford far more old house. I gave an emphatic no to the new cornfield subdivisions that require a car to get milk. I didn't want to live in a place where visitors had to know the exact house number to differentiate mine from its identical neighbors. I like being able to say, "It's the white house with the big porch."

When I found my house, the realtor guesstimated it had been built in the early 1900s. The inspector guessed about 1920. The township said 1900, which seems to be its default date for the neighborhood. I went with the inspector's guess and imagined my house being built during the Roaring 20s, with Prohibition and a booming economy.

Then, last night, at my neighborhood meeting, someone brought a copy of an architectural survey the city did a few years ago. Excitedly, I flipped through it. Each house in our neighborhood was listed, along with date, style and any special significance. My house is listed as a Gabled Ell style built circa 1890. Apparently the Gabled Ell features a floorplan with the entrance in the corner (check), a steeply pitched roof (check), a second floor gable of nearly equal height to the main roof (check) and tall second floor windows (check). They were built using a simple design, but allowing for more light and cross-ventilation than traditional. That last bit was one of the big draws of my house - it felt very open and sunny upon first look, and that remains true. In summer, with windows open, I get a great breeze, especially since I'm perched on top of a hill next to a river.

But now that I've discovered my house is older than I originally thought, I'm anxious to research my home's pedigree. Apparently the city has a trove of resources. Some rainy Saturday, I'll head down to the library and see if I can trace its history. Depending on the number of owners over the years, I might be able to put together a pretty comprehensive history!