I must say I am lucky to have ended up where I have landed. I bought in a neighborhood that is relatively non-descript by Portland standards. I have to say though that it's a little gem of a neighborhood. I don't say this because the houses are pristine and everyone has a green lawn and perfect rock paths. I say this because I know my neighbors and they know me. We all know names and kids and projects we're all working on. I get neighborhood history from the elders around me and know that we are making our own history while we're doing our projects. We help each other and offer assistance when we can.
How about you? Are you more of a community or are you insular within your neighborhood?
Posted by Posted by
The Chez
at
8:28 PM
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community,
homeowner,
house,
Montavilla,
neighborhood,
Portland
So, this house(I'm convinced) never had a washing machine. There's a clothesline in the backyard, but there is no evidence of a washing machine or a dryer. That led me to believe that Opal(the better half of the duo before me) washed all the clothes by hand. Seriously? Who does that still? It's not like my house is from the 1800's, it was built in 1951!
So, that said, I had to figure out how to get this washer and dryer set up because I sure as hell wasn't washing clothes by hand and I'm not doing the laundromat thing. I'm a responsible adult now, right? So, I called concrete cutting companies to get estimates and they both came in at the same amount to cut an L in the floor from the utility room to the garage and remove the concrete - $1500!!!!! WHAT? NO! So, I decided to go the makeshift route and do some ghetto plumbing and make something work. PVC, a box and some PEX and voila! Ghetto washer! The dryer made it into the garage. New Mexico taught me plenty.
(This is how I wanted it to look)
This is how it turned out.
Posted by Posted by
The Chez
at
10:09 PM
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dryer,
homeowner,
house,
plumbing,
Portland,
washer
As neat as the tile looks on the walls and all, it sure is a challenge to line things up geometrically. I certainly didn't do well at geometry in high school and this project really tested my patience and fortitude several times. I had to walk away a couple times and just clear the mind. Luckily, Ben calmed me down and got me focused again. I love the results that came of it though.
I ordered a medicine cabinet, four weeks later it came, with a cracked mirror. Ridiculous. Fixed that, put in a hotel shower rod, painted and added an exhaust fan. Now I have the bathroom of which I am decidedly proud. I really love taking a bath or shower and just looking around in amazement that a ton of hard effort and very little planning achieved. I maintained the era of house with decidedly modern materials and am very happy with the results.
Posted by Posted by
The Chez
at
7:09 PM
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bathroom,
Ben Mastico,
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Portland,
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tiling,
vanity
After finishing the first room of wallpaper stripping shortly after moving in, I realized I just couldn't live with the 80's sink that they put in the bathroom. Well, as a homeowner, you learn things fast: like plumbing, drywall, electrical connections, etc....
I wanted to just gut the bathroom, but all good things come in time. For now, it was just the sink that had to go in this nasty room.
Posted by Posted by
The Chez
at
6:40 PM
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bathroom,
homeowner,
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Portland,
renovation,
sink
Has anyone ever peeled wallpaper? I don't care what method you use. It sucks.
Posted by Posted by
The Chez
at
7:57 PM
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house,
Portland,
renovation,
stripping,
wallpaper
In 2009, the market crashed, the housing boom ended and a recession started. All in all a great time to invest. Invest I did that year. I felt like a plastic soldier sized Warren Buffett. Buy low, buy low! All was good until I was relegated to FHA because of a certain cable monopoly who refuses....I'm not gonna waste the space. Anyhoo, I was forced to an FHA loan and the underwriter came back with an initial list and then a secondary list a week before closing. Thanks, all you homeowners who lied about your funding for the last 10 years. I got to bear the brunt for that. That said, I had to go in with my realtor and take care of the second list if I wanted a loan. Great. Here's the results:
Living room with the world's most disgustingly dirty carpet removed. Hello oak floors!
Insert removed from the fireplace. It couldn't be proved that it was up to code.
New floor tiles(stickers, basically) over the scary asbestos floor.
This is the room where the leaking happened by the window and the wallpaper was peeling.
Posted by Posted by
The Chez
at
10:08 PM
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house,
Portland,
renovation
Posted by Posted by
The Chez
at
10:05 AM
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house,
outside,
Portland
I decided to build a blog as to have others who don't have FB to be able to follow my boring ramblings about my house. That item that has enveloped my life for the last six months. I will work from the beginning of the house, before the projects and work out from there. So much has been done on this thing that it's hard to comprehend. The sickening part? It doesn't look all that different. A lot of it has just been updating a house that really didn't have much done to it since 1951. One set of owners. About the only things I think they did to the house was finish half of the upstairs and get a new water heater. Otherwise, I don't even know that they ever had the carpet cleaned. Yes, it was that bad. I had to do a lot of work prior to getting the loan approved. My realtor had to help me tear up carpet, paint, remove things just to get the underwriter to approve the place. Welcome to 2009.
My goal for this house is to keep it as true to the 50's as I can(no, no pink bathroom) yet update it to modern standards. Does that make any sense? I want to retain the charm but update things like wiring, insulation, efficiency, etc.. There's lots of neat little parts to this house and it packs a lot of space for how little space the abode takes up on the corner lot. Built ins, nooks, hidden storage, etc.. All in all, it is all going to make for a fun project.
Posted by Posted by
The Chez
at
9:40 AM
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homeowner,
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Portland
