M and C Build a House

Running to the (New, Improved) Bathroom

June 12, 2009 in Bathroom | 6 comments

Back on Memorial Day weekend, which was how long ago? Almost three weeks? Really? Sorry. Anyway, way back then Cherie and Annabel went to Vermont to watch Cherie’s sister Angela run the Vermont City Marathon. It’s become a bit of tradition to do so, as she runs it every year. It’s great fun to go cheer her on because she cuts an inspirational and striking figure on the course.

See? Here she is, ready to start:

vermont

Well, she’s in there somewhere. She did great and finished in just over 4 hours, despite inclement weather and generally not feeling her best. But that’s not really the point of this post.

Michael didn’t go along this year because he had quite a bit of work lined up for the weekend. For other people. Other people who were going to pay him in real money. We decided that would be a priority over a trip to Vermont. Since he would be on his own for four days, he thought it would be a good time to redo some of the drywall in the bathroom.

See, the bathroom was the very first room that we drywalled. And mudded. And taped. And sanded. And mudded. And sanded. And mudded. And sanded. And let’s not ever do drywall again, okay?

If you take any piece of advice from this houseblog, take this: do not make your first attempt at mudding and taping drywall in the dampest, steamiest room in the house. In the almost three years since the bathroom was done, the steam took quite a toll on our amateurish attempt at drywall mudding.

Here’s what it looked like in the shower:

showerbefore

And outside the shower:

mainbefore2

We had peeling tape, bubbling drywall, and cracks galore. Not a pretty sight.

So while Cherie and Annabel were gone, Michael took time out from his consumption of greasy Chinese food and bad action movies to retape and mud the seams. It was quite a sacrifice, since it meant he couldn’t shower until it was done. (That went with the whole theme of the weekend, really.)

Here’s the shower now:

shower finished

And outside the shower:

mainafter

We can all agree that the finished product is a great improvement, yes? We still need to repaint, but we are not quite as in love with this color as we were at the beginning, so we are taking some time to look at some other options.

Cherie is pleased to tell you that Michael was so lonely without his family that even after finishing the work in the upstairs bathroom he kept working away his sorrows by tiling the downstairs half-bath before sobbing himself to sleep in his empty, quiet house:

downstairsfinished

But the sobbing had nothing to do with this pinwheel tile, which looks fabulous.

Needless to say, Cherie is planning her next trip away as quickly as possible.

No Good Deed Goes Uncomplained About

May 27, 2009 in furniture, interior | 2 comments

A few weeks ago, Michael volunteered to help out a friend who was moving into a new work space, a space previously occupied by a builder. The former tenant had left some of his custom-built furniture behind and the owner of the building told her to use what she needed and get rid of the rest. So Michael helped her retrofit an old desk to suit her needs and when all was said and done, he left with this:

drawers

A custom-built mahogany two-drawer filing cabinet.

We’d always planned on having a built-in desk in the corner of the living room, tucked away in a little nook left for that purpose at the base of the stairs. This wasn’t to be a major workspace, but just a spot to keep the laptop, sort mail, and write checks. Our idea was to modify a classic Stickley desk for this purpose, maybe with a drop-front to help make the most of the space (and to hide our “important papers” in an emergency guest situation). Or maybe with lots of pigeon holes (for more of those “important papers” and possibly some “important rubber bands”). We hadn’t really worked out the details yet. But in any case, our plans didn’t involve a filing cabinet. But…custom-built. Mahogany. Shiny. Pretty. Who are we to argue?

completedesk

We also were given some mahogany plywood for a top. A quick trim and a few screws later… ta-da! A desk.

Clearly, this isn’t a permanent solution. The cabinet in that small space doesn’t leave enough legroom for a chair and it doesn’t have any of those all-important quick hiding places. But for now, it works pretty well.

So what’s the problem?

Well, having these pretty new filing cabinets around means that we need to fill them with the aforementioned important papers and rubber bands. And before we can do that, we need to sort through our current storage situation.

paperwork

Right. We’ll see you in a few months.

(Cat not included.)

(Or is she?)

A Picture Is Worth At Least 150 Words

April 28, 2009 in Exterior, Shingles | 6 comments

The weather was beautiful on the coast of Maine this weekend. Unseasonably high temperatures up in the mid-70s with bright beautiful sunshine meant that we had to get outdoors. And what could we do outside?

Hmmmm….

Well, there was a little bit of this:

flashing

That’s copper flashing (in case there are any Cheries out there).

Then there was some of these:

nails

Yes, we know that it is misspelled on the can. We know what we mean, so let’s all move on, eh?

And, of course, where you find those, you find this:

gun

Hello, old friend.

Because we are almost up to the second floor windows, we needed some of this:

trim2

Trimmy trim trim. (You try to find something witty to say about trim.)

And, of course, it almost goes without saying that we had plenty of these:

shingles

Cherie occasionally has nightmares about being attacked by shingles. We have no idea why.

And that was our weekend in a nut shell. A little of this, a little of that, and a whole lotta this:

shingling

You are impressed at our progress, right? Please tell us you are impressed.

Because this was an incredibly boring post and you deserve a reward for making it this far, we include a gratuitous Annabel shot for your enjoyment. You’re welcome.

ladder

Look at that wary expression. She knows what’s in store at the top of that ladder.

A Fate Worse Than Trim

April 20, 2009 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

We always have such big plans, don’t we? “Let’s build a house,” we say. “How about we start a blog?” we ponder. “Let’s save the wood from the trees that we had to cut down and use it as our trim,” we decide.

Mm-hmm.

And that’s how we end up living in a half-built house, with a website we never update, and a pile of logs sitting in our front yard for a year-and-a-half.

We had such high hopes for those logs. But, alas, our original plan fell through when our pulp truck connection didn’t work out. We always meant to find another way to get the logs to the sawmill, but it turned out to be one of those things that was really, really easy to put off. And thus they never went off to become real boards, but sat in our yard (and sat and sat and sat) until, finally, we noticed this:

mushrooms

Mushrooms.

Wood that has mushroomed isn’t really wood you want to use as trim.

We just let them sit too long. Typical.

Luckily, as always, we had an alternate plan.

It involved chunking the logs up into smaller bits,

sawed

hitting them repeatedly with a sharp, heavy instrument

splitting

and stacking them neatly in a row, where they will stay until they are needed to keep Cherie’s feet warm next winter.

woodpile

Not quite what we were hoping for, but in the battle of window trim versus warmth, warmth always, always wins.

The House That One Sheet of Plywood Built

February 10, 2009 in Kitchen | 6 comments

Every so often, someone who for some reason feels the need to stroke Cherie’s ego a bit will suggest that she should turn this blog into a book. After she finishes cackling, Cherie briefly considers that if she were to take on such a foolish venture, she should name it, “One Sheet at a Time.”

We’ve written before about what creative (and desperate) folks like ourselves can do with one sheet of plywood when properly motivated (and desperate).

Well, we’re at it again!

This was our entryway:

closetbefore1

It’s not the most organized closet in the world. Or perhaps that’s an understatement? The lack of shelving in the closet meant that all of the winter gear that we own (and given the living-in-Maine thing, that gear is considerable) lay strewn about hither and yon. That meant in order to find the bag we needed, we needed to dig through all the boots, hats, gloves, scarves, snowshoes, and dog toys that we didn’t need. Good times.

So Michael went ahead and addressed the issue using our old friend: the single sheet of plywood. A few cuts, a screw here and there, and a face frame, and tada! Done! A shelf. We organized everything, sorted it into boxes to go on the shelf, and, just that quick, rediscovered our floor.

[insert picture that we forgot to take here. Ahem. Sorry. But it looks much better!]

But, wait, you say. One closet shelf doesn’t use a whole sheet of plywood! What did they do with the rest of the wood?

Lest you leave here thinking that we are slackers…

We took this empty space:

before11

(Why, yes, we did consider cleaning off the kitchen countertop before taking a picture for the entire internet, but ultimately decided: nah. Why pretend?)

(Also, did you not see the entryway closet? Didn’t that give you a good enough sense of our housekeeping skills?)

(Where were we?)

Oh yes. We took that empty space and turned it into:

kitchenafter1

Open shelves that will serve as the new home for various bowls and other more attractive kitchenware.

Not bad, eh?

And the moral is: one sheet of plywood is your friend. If you are, like us, good thinkers. (Also, desperate.)

Welcome To the New Casa, Kids

December 28, 2008 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

If you are reading this, you’ve found your way to our new home. Please ignore the boxes and dust while we rearrange. Things will likely be changing here for a while.

If you read this blog through a reader, you may need to change your settings. See the “Subscribe to this feed” link at the top. And let us know if you are having any problems with the site. We likely will not be able to fix your problem, but we will nod sympathetically at you while you complain. And, really, did you expect more?

Welcome!

New for 2008: M and C Build a Tree

December 22, 2008 in Uncategorized | 10 comments

This year marks our third Christmas in Chez M and C. Our first year we scavenged a tree from our land, with predictably depressing results. The second year, suitably distracted by a new baby and a flurry of snowstorms, we just bought one and remembered what a Christmas tree was supposed to look like.

This year…well… you know our motto:

“Why pay for something decent when you can throw a baby on your back and tromp through the snow in search of a completely imperfect, but free, tree?”

(That’s one of our mottos, anyway.)

We divided duties in the usual fashion. Cherie carried Annabel and gave helpful suggestions while Michael did the actual work. It didn’t take us long before we found a tree we thought might work.

(He is actually sawing the tree down in this picture, though it doesn’t much look like it.)

We brought the tree in, shook off all the snow, trimmed off the bottom branches, set it up in the stand, and took a good hard look. And…hmmm.

Seems a bit sparse, doesn’t it?

It’s not that bad, of course, and it’s certainly light years ahead of that first sad, little tree. But it could be better.

Luckily, we are very (veeeery) used to making do and thinking creatively. And we had all those extra branches that were trimmed off the bottom. Why don’t we just drill some holes…

Whittle down those spare branches…

And use them to, you know, fill things out a bit?

That is better, don’t you think? Now it just needs some lights and decorations…

And we’re ready to go.

Oh, wait, one more thing. How could we forget? The star! That most valuable star that we made last year when we desperately needed something to top off our otherwise wonderful tree.

That’s what we are looking for. Now that is a proper DIY tree.

Happy holidays! May all your trees be jerryrigged and your ornaments homemade!

Outing Ourselves As Terrible Parents. Also: Terrible Bathroom Owners.

December 14, 2008 in Uncategorized | 5 comments

In our last post, we talked about our new woodstove. Actually, the woodstove was a hand-me-down from Cherie's mother who in turn inherited it from Cherie's grandfather. So the woodstove itself is quite old. The chimney was new. At any rate, the post was all about how when Michael's parents came to visit they helped us finish up the woodstove. We were so excited about that part that we neglected to mention the reason they visited. Hint: it had nothing to do with a woodstove. It had to with this:

Um. Yes. We forgot to mention Annabel's first birthday. Let's just all pretend that didn't happen and that we aren't posting this almost a month late, shall we?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNABEL! Thanks for putting up with all the sawdust.

Also, weeks ago (or was it months ago? Yes, it was probably months) we finished the bathroom vanity but never showed you a picture of it. In our defense, we didn't have a camera at the time. We considered doing a charcoal sketch of the vanity, or perhaps a nice watercolor, but ultimately decided that such an artistic display would raise the classiness of this blog to a level that we can't support. So, to maintain the present low-expectations of our readers, we decided instead to just hold off until we had a camera again. Which we now do!

Here's the finished vanity:

HAPPY FINISHING, VANITY! Thanks for holding our toothbrushes!

The doors and drawfronts are made of Douglas Fir plywood with mahogany trim. Instead of the usual non-working applied drawfront below the sink, we installed two sink front tip-out organizers, which make a handy place to stash toothpaste. The mismatched hardware is on purpose, because we are just craaazy that way. And the doors usually have a white plastic child lock to keep curious fingers out of the cleaning products, but we took that off for the picture because we are vain about our vanity. (Get it? Vain? Vanity? *sigh*)

We think that clears up all past obligations. For the moment. Likely a short moment.

You Get Three Guesses for Where Cherie is Going to Spend the Rest of the Winter

November 23, 2008 in interior | 4 comments

Something is different here… There's something that seems warmer about our house. What could it be? What oh what…

Hey! We have a functioning woodstove!

Michael's parents, Greg and Annie, were just up here for a visit and if there is one thing they love, it's trying to move our house projects along with something resembling speed. So while Cherie was busy working (or should that be "working"?), Michael and Greg were doing this:

That right there is a completed metalbestos chimney. No, it's not very Arts and Crafts-y, or even very pretty, but it provides a means for the smoke from a warm fire to safely exit our house. And that's good enough. Besides, it's on the back side of the house, so who cares?

We didn't have to cut into the roof to mount the chimney, as we thought we might have to do. Instead, it goes neatly around the roofline. Here's a closer look for those of you interested in that sort of thing.

Cherie is not interested in that sort of thing. She's interested in this sort of thing:

Can you blame her?

(You'll notice that we have, for the moment, abandoned the debate concerning the granite up the back of the surround. You know us. Why make a decision that will require work when stalling is possible? The cement board behind the stove is fire resistant and acceptable to our code enforcement office and that's good enough for us.)

Oh. Right. Winter.

November 1, 2008 in Uncategorized | 3 comments

It's not that we've been purposely neglecting the blog. It's not that we haven't been working. It's just that what we've been doing is so mindnumbingly boring that not only do we not want to do it, we don't even want to talk about doing it. And heaven knows that is unusual for us.

Here, this is what you've missed out on the last month or so:

Take shingle. Dip in stain. Prop in drying rack. Take shingle. Dip in stain. Prop in drying rack. Take shingle. Dip in stain. Prop in drying rack. Etc.

OR:

Take shingle. Line up on wall. Nail. Take shingle. Line up on wall. Nail. Take shingle. Line up on wall. Nail. Etc.

Do you see the problem here? Just those few sentences were enough to make us want to poke our eyes out with sticks and we are the ones who should be the most fascinated by the process. So, really, the silence was for your own protection.

But we have been busy shingling, trying to get the south wall finished before winter hits. Like the Aesop's famous grasshopper, we apparently spent all summer fiddling (we did?) and have now been caught unawares by the rapidly chilling air. So we've been trying to to batten down, insulate up, and otherwise brace ourselves for what is to come.

Other exciting, winter-related developments that we can attribute to this drive:

Our woodstove is in place and has a chimney piece that runs through the interior wall, under the stairs, and through the exterior wall where it goes straight up…for four feet. Which makes it almost, but not quite, usable. The rest of the chimney will be installed…sometime.
We finally finished insulating the attic, including new insulation in the perpetually leaking dormer. Michael pulled down all of the wood in the ceiling, installed reflexive insulation on both the interior and exterior sides with R30 fiberglass insulation sandwiched in between, in yet another attempt to prevent cold air and warm air from making acquaintance and resulting in that ugliest of offspring: condensation. Will it work? Who knows. We've given up predicting what will happen with that dormer. We hope it works, because our next step involves a flamethrower and a big can of gasoline.
We put up more hooks in the entryway so we could hang winter coats, hats, and scarves, especially Annabel's coats and hats which keep getting lost in the chaos of our coat closet.
Michael finished the bathroom vanity. Okay, that has absolutely nothing to do with winter, but it did get done and it looks great so we had to mention it. Of course, our camera is still broken so you are just going to imagine the prettiest vanity you've ever seen and multiply that prettiness by two. No, prettier. There you go. That's how pretty it is. (Note to selves: figure out what vanity we can show instead of ours once we get a new camera.)

So we say: bring it on Winter. We're (almost, as soon as that chimney gets done) ready for you!

Of course, feel free to send your friend Summer instead, if you're busy. That would be fine, too.