Mouse in the House

April 9, 2008

Here’s a story I forgot to post about back in January when it happened…

It was right after New Years. Patrick walked in the kitchen and yelled that a mouse was on our kitchen counter! The next few minutes must have looked rather funny from the outside – us running around like idiots with a box, trying to catch the mouse. It ended up somewhere in the laundry room and we knew we wouldn’t be able to find it amongst our storage mess.

Since we had gone on a mini vacation after Christmas we just left a few of our Christmas presents under the tree. One of them being a food basket with maple syrup, pancake mix, a pound cake, etc. As we were taking out the items to put in the pantry we noticed someone had gotten to the pound cake before us! Part of the plastic wrapping was missing…instead there was a chunk gone from the cake. The little bastard!

Another night we were sitting on the couch watching TV. And who do you think comes running across the floor, right in front of our faces?! None other than “mouse in the house”! The nerve! And again we had a funny episode of a mouse chase. “Quick, get a box!”…”Pick up the chair!!”…”Where did it go??”…”Is it hanging on to the bottom of the chair??”…”No!”. The mouse had gotten away again.

That night we heard it running around the house as we were falling asleep. That’s it; we had to get a mouse trap. Since it wasn’t going to contribute in rent or pick up some groceries we had to give it the boot. So the next day we went to the big box store to find a mouse trap. We looked horrified at all the “Will Kill!” boxes. We didn’t want to kill the poor little mouse; we just wanted it out of our house! So we found a cheap seesaw mechanism that would entice the mouse to walk in towards the food, then snap the door shut when its weight would shift. A “No Kill” trap. So we went home, put some peanut butter on the trap’s end, placed it along a wall and went to bed hoping we would catch a mouse. Sure enough, we woke up in the morning and had a little friend in our trap. AHA! Take that you little mouse, you! We got out a box and let is slide out of the trap. Our plan was to release it in a park later on. In the meanwhile we put some peanut butter in with it. Just look at our cute, adorable little evil-doer…

Mouse in the house

Well, we didn’t quite get that far as releasing it in the park. Next thing we knew another mouse was running across the floor in front of us. Had our little mouse escaped the box? We checked…it was still there. Our next fear was – if this is mouse number two, how many other mice could there be?! Two mice can easily turn into a million! Mouse #1 would have to make do in the box for another night. The trap was set again. Excitedly we checked the box the next morning. Negative. No mouse was in it – bummer. Mouse #1 would have to wait yet another night. And the next morning – success! We caught mouse #2!

Mouse in the house

So we drove to release the mice. We turned over the box and mouse #2 (slightly larger than mouse #1) bolted out of the box, never to be seen again. Mouse #1 however wasn’t coming out. We turned the box entirely upside down…it wouldn’t come out. It was clinging onto the box with dear live. We started shaking the box until it finally fell out. It was just sitting there, shivering amidst the leaves and pine straw, not moving.

Mouse in the house

This is where we started getting a little “emotional”. How could we leave this poor little shivering mouse in the cold?? It could die out here! We’d been so busy trying to get the mouse out of our house and now we were pacing back and forth discussing taking it back to the house! So we determined we had to take the mouse back to the house and feed it back to health. Obviously leaving it in the box all those days with relatively little food (just the bit of peanut butter we had put in there) must have weakened it. After working so hard not to kill it we couldn’t very well leave it there to die. So we took it back, gave it some more pound cake (hey, it had already had some, we may as well give it the rest, right?), and hoped it would regain energy. The next day we drove it back to the park and turned over the box. Poof, it was gone. It had no trouble running this time.

Relieved that this episode was over we went back to the house. And that’s the story of our mouse in the house…

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Working on our built-in linen cabinet

April 3, 2008

Okay, we haven’t been posting a lot lately, but it’s because we have been busy working!!! Sometimes when you work until late in the evening there just isn’t time to write.

Our latest project has been stripping, sanding, and re-painting the linen cabinet in our bathroom. We loooove our built-ins, so we have spent way too much time taking all the paint off just to put paint right back on. It is a little painful when you work so hard to just cover it back up, but it looks really nice in the end. (So it is worth it!)

The linen cabinet in our bathroom was still 100% in tact when we bought the house, and it was carefully preserved under 90 years of paint. With a little help from the trusty heat gun and the old paint-stripper we were able get most of the paint off. Then a lot of sanding (by hand) made the surface flat. The sanding really is the most important part since it is what really makes the final finish look good. Make sure to use a fine grain sandpaper to really get it smooth. If you don’t sand enough you might as well have just painted over the existing paint. We like to think of our built-ins as pieces of furniture that are attached to the floor.

The linen cabinet originally had plastered walls, but we decided to line it with the beadboard to tie it back in with the room. Our contractor also built us new shelves.

So here are the photos:

In the beginning… It doesn’t look so bad in the picture, but it was covered with so many layers of paint. The last layer was a flat white latex paint. It was obviously the cheapest paint they could find. It needed some TLC, but you’ll just have to take our word on it.

Linen closet before

This is what it looked like when we took it all apart! It looked quite bare in this state. I still can’t believe our bathroom looked like that at one point.

Linen closet construction

And the bottom portion at the same time…

Linen closet paint stripping

Aren’t those colors lovely?! These are a few of the many layers of paint we had to remove.

Linen closet historic colors

Working with the heatgun. Yes, we were too lazy to take everything out of the cabinet.

Linen closet paint stripping

Doing the final sanding. This is one of the most important parts.

Linen closet sanding

Ready for paint!

Linen closet sanding

Have you ever seen anybody so excited to paint? Didn’t think so…

Linen closet painting

I like this view! :) We added this little storage space over the linen cabinet, and we painted it blue to match the walls.

Linen closet painting

The finished product! This is really when all the hard work pays off.

Linen closet painted

We still need to do the doors, and we have started working on the drawer. Of course with the tempature warming up we might be spending more time in the yard over the next few months.

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Attic Insulation

March 18, 2008

I think insulation, or the lack thereof, is always a big issue with these old homes. Our home, like so many others, has none. When we redid the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room we were able to put insulation into the walls at that point. All other rooms as well as the attic and crawl space remained open territory – the perfect openings for all of our heat to wander off through.

It doesn’t help that I like warm temperatures. In the summer I’ll always carry a jacket with me because I know any place I go – the grocery store, a restaurant, someone’s house – I’ll end up freezing. That also means I like to crank up the heat in the winter time to feel nice and snuggly warm. As the temperatures started dropping in the fall we generously turned on the heater. As it got colder the bills got higher and we adjusted the thermostat to more conservative measures. Then we got another higher bill. We adjusted even more conservatively. And the bill came in higher again. I know as the months went on and the temperatures kept dropping that the bills would go up, but it was weird nonetheless that the more we tried to be thermostat conscious, the higher the bill ended up getting.

A few weeks ago, after having received a second bill that was creeping towards the $400 mark (!!!) we said it was time to cough up the money for some insulation. Throughout the winter we had talked to various neighbors discussing their attic insulations and we knew we needed it too. Now we just knew we really had to get it done. (Of course…just in time for spring and temperatures going up – aren’t we so smart!)

Today we got it done! I had to dig through some old pics to find some of the attic pre-insulation. Here’s Patrick trying to make use of the 3 left over pieces of insulation last March…

Attic insulation

And here’s the attic after today. A winter wonderland! Not sure how much the bills will change this year, but next winter I better be seeing some savings on those gas bills!!

Attic insulation

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Westview Bungalow Survives the Tornado

March 17, 2008

So technically this isn’t entirely house renovation related, but considering we can be thankful that our house is still standing I guess you could consider it “house related!”

I’m sure most people heard about the tornado sweeping through downtown Atlanta, and since someone expressed concern I thought I would write about it and show that we should be pretty thankful that we made it through unharmed. It’s actually kind of crazy because we didn’t have a branch down or a flower pot turned over or anything! I guess that’s the one good thing about tornados – they stay pretty isolated to the area they hit. So even though we were pretty close we didn’t notice anything.

Patrick and I were just spending a quiet Friday night at home. We have been very involved in preparing for Westview’s booth at the Atlanta Home Show at the World Congress Center and had just worked the Thursday shift, so we thought we’d keep it calm on Friday after a busy setup and prep week. Other neighbors had worked the Friday shift and we were due back to work a Saturday shift, so it was just another reason to keep it calm. It started thundering and lightning so we got off the computer and decided to watch a movie instead. Around 9:30pm it got a bit crazy, but I wouldn’t have thought it was more serious than a typical heavy summer thunderstorm (not that it’s summer, but I’m just saying we’re used to them a lot from the summer). There was one thing that threw us off a little bit, and that was how the downpour and wind came in waves. It would come down like crazy and the wind would blow really hard and rattle the windows, then it would be dead quiet. Then it would start the process over again. It wasn’t until our neighbor, who had just come back from her Home Show shift at the World Trade Center an hour and a half earlier, called to say she was just told a hole had been torn in the Dome and wanted to know if everything was okay in our neighborhood. We turned on the TV and realized all the craziness going on right down the street from us. As we went to bed after hours of watching the news we knew we were probably not going to work our Saturday shift at the Home Show – after all, photos and video footage were showing water pouring down the escalator of the building we had our booth set up in! Sure enough, the rest of the exhibit ended up being canceled. So what do curious photographers do on the morning after a disaster? They do what they’re told not to do, and that’s to photograph the damage.

And just to show how truly lucky we were to escape I drew out a quick map:

Atlanta Tornado 2008

See where Westview is? We’re about 2 – 2.5 miles away from the Downtown area where everything was damaged! You can also see the Vine City neighborhood to the north of us. Unlike Cabbagetown (to the right of the city), Vine City didn’t get as much exposure, but still experienced some serious damage as well. Again, considering how close we are to the disaster area I can say with relief that not a flower pot was knocked over! My heart just cried seeing all those historic homes being damaged beyond repair; those beautiful large old trees being knocked down. Knowing how much work we’ve put into our house, worrying about every little detail and getting that last bit of paint out with a toothpick…imagine all that destroyed in a matter of seconds. It really is sad.

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Butler's Pantry Doors

March 7, 2008

We’ve been working on small projects here and there. Some more pleasant than others. One exciting one was installing the second butler’s pantry door on the bottom. It’s been kind of funny having one attached door and the other one missing. The first one was such a pain that I think we’ve been procrastinating on the second one. To our surprise the second one was soooo much easier! I guess Patrick has become a better chiseler. Additionally he tried out a sanding drill bit to cut out the area more evenly. We still have some adjusting to do, but here are the attached bottom doors. Voila!

Kitchen butler's pantry

In the meanwhile I was running back and forth between the kitchen helping Patrick and working on removing paint in the bathroom. Nothing too exciting to report from the bathroom yet. We’ve just been removing a bit more paint from the built-in and from the door and molding.

Then we’ve done a few more things like hanging up artwork. I know, it’s been like what – a year, year and a half since we’ve moved in? And we’re only now hanging up art? I suppose this is the part where I don’t mention that we have about 10 more pieces stacked in our hallway collecting dust. I don’t know how we do it…every time that hallway is free of crap more stuff seems to appear in its place.

The more unwelcoming house work was a roof leak in the dining room. We had it when we first moved in and we thought it got fixed. Of course after that Atlanta’s been suffering a drought, so if there was a leak it was a bit hard to tell! In any case, the leak came back. It was sometime before Christmas when we actually found it. I guess it’s a bit hard to miss when you suddenly find a huge puddle of water on your floor! Initially I thought I spilled water after watering a plant, but it was too much and of course we soon noticed it dripping from the ceiling. We finally got it repaired and have had a few downpours since. So far so good. *Fingers crossed*

Oh, and in other unwelcoming news – our gas bill! I think some people pay as much for rent as we have for our gas bills. So we started getting attic insulation quotes. One of those boring projects that costs money and doesn’t do anything for us aesthetically!

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