Becky and Andy Gaines

Tile and Halloween

2007-10-30T13:57:00.000-07:00

We are making progress on the bathroom. Three weeks left until Thanksgiving. Andy finished the trim on the walls and all the tile is laid. But we figured out yesterday that we put the hole for the tub drain in the wrong place. We tried really, really hard not to do that but we were foiled in the end. So now Andy has to chip up that tile and replace it, and make a hole in another one. This has put us back a day or so. But worse things could have happened. I am happy with how the tile looks. We took the leftover pieces and made coasters out of them. Once the tile is done, the baseboards are next, and then the tub! The tub is the most exciting part for me.

Tonight is the neighborhood chili cook-off. I am making white bean chicken chili and cornbread. Should be fun. I have never used the chili recipe before, so I have my fingers crossed. We'll see.

Then tomorrow is Halloween. We usually get close to 300 trick-or-treaters, so I went out and bought a bunch of candy today. Then after the candy is gone, we will head down to the pub crawl at 5 Points.

Now for the photos...

Here's Andy working on the trim. We may add a chair rail to this, or we may not, depending on how things end up when the sink, mirror, and wall-mounted accessories are in place.

Andy working to put down the layer of thinset that goes under the backerboard:

Me screwing down the backerboard on top of the wet thinset. Note the Waycross tie-die being put to good use.

Andy laying the first tile on top of the backerboard. He only smiles like that when he's annoyed because I'm taking pictures. Notice the manic tinge to it. :)

Making progress...

Inside part is done... starting on the border.

Tile is done, including the border:

Here I am, pretending that the tub is installed and I'm soaking in it...

More to come when we get the fixtures in.

Good News!

2007-10-09T20:03:00.000-07:00

We just found out that the historic commission will be approving our plans without even going to committee. That is much better than we expected and means that we basically got everything we wanted without having to change a thing.

Our only disappointment is that the addition cannot be brick like the rest of the house. This has nothing to do with the historic commission but is because we are building on top of an existing addition that is concrete block with stucco over it. If we used brick it would stick out 3 inches from the rest of the house, unless we wanted to rip off our whole kitchen and rebuild that too, which we don't want to do and couldn't afford even if we wanted. So we have to go with siding. We will use James Hardie concrete fiberboard siding that looks as good as wood, lasts much longer, and resists the elements much better.

Andy added the casing to the bathroom window and he did a great job. He shopped around to find all the trim pieces that would most closely match our existing casings. When we do the addition upstairs we will have the millwork custom made to match and then we'll be able to replace this with the absolutely correct casing. But for now I think he did a great job. I took this picture with my phone so the quality's not so good.

Bathrooms, bathrooms, bathrooms...

2007-10-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

So we are back to work on our own house, finally, and trying to get ready for the influx of family coming at Thanksgiving. The biggest project is to remodel the downstairs bathroom and get it in good working order (it had no sink and only a tub without a shower). When we bought the house you could not even tell this was a bathroom. The junk and trash was piled up so high that it completely covered the tub and the toilet. They could not be seen at all. Thanks to my sister Jenni for cleaning out this room.

So here is what we started with. Note the chocolate brown fixtures (could you miss them?) and the mexican restaurant floor tile.

Little Mama is sniffing through the last bits of trash that we found inside the pedestal of the sink when we tore it out:

Note there is a disposable camera and what appears to be a $2 bill, among other things. This is some of the last of the genuine original garbage.

First step after removing the fixtures was to tear out the floor. This was not easy because the tile was laid on a layer of concrete poured over a metal mesh. Would have been much easier if it were just installed on backerboard. Andy had to pound on it hard enough that we broke some tiles on the kitchen floor. But if that is what it takes, so be it... it had to go.

Next step was to tear out the walls and try to level them both vertically and horizontally for the new drywall. You can see the new shims Andy build on top of the existing studs and the string he is using to make sure the studs are even. If you look closely you can also see that there used to be a door to the left and there was another to the right as well. This bathroom currently sits between our dining room and tv room. The tv room used to be the kitchen and this bathroom was the butler's pantry, with doors connecting to both the kitchen and the dining room.

We almost didn't tear out the back wall because it was pretty level and in pretty good condition. At the last minute, Andy decided to go ahead and do that one too, and we found a nice surprise:

There is a window back there! This is the original back wall of the house but now separates this bathroom from the kitchen, which was added on probably around the 50s. The window is in really good condition and just needs to have a casing added.

Of course it is drywalled in on the other side as well. We plan to frost it or hang stained glass panels on it and then backlight it from behind. We have even wired up a dimmer switch for it. It should be an interesting architectural element.

In the meantime, we sent the tub off to be reglazed and it is now back to a perfect pristine white instead of that horrible chocolate brown. We actually found someone who wanted the chocolate brown toilet and we even gave away the sink pedestal and the damaged tub faucet. Here is the tub, currently sitting in our entry.

The new drywall has now been hung and finished in the bathroom and Andy and I spent part of our weekend putting on two coats of primer and a quart of paint for color testing.

I like this color and I think we will keep it. It is basically the "butter" color from Restoration Hardware. We ordered the tile on Friday and it will be here a week from this Thursday. It is a honey onyx and I think it's beautiful. So in the meantime Andy is going to trim out the window, putting back the casing that is missing. We are also going to have trim work about halfway up the walls and I think he's going to start working on that too. We bought the new toilet and sink this weekend and they are sitting in the entry along with the tub. Things are really moving along.

Outside of bathroom news there is not too much going on. We are in the process of buying another house that we will use as a rental. It has absolutely no curb appeal but has everything else going for it. I think it will be a good long term investment for us and I think when we decide to remodel it and give it some curb appeal it will not be difficult to do. It is close to the Chicamauga house for those of you who know where that was.

We also have the schematic plans for the teardown and rebuild of the second story addition, which contains the upstairs bathrooms. It is currently pending review by the historic commission, but I don't think we'll have any big issues. Once that's done we have to do another set of plans that are actually blueprints and then start talking to builders. No telling when
that will really get going.

Andy has gotten his bartender's license and is working at the Edgefield Grill part time with a view to learning the bar business. He plans to open a bar sometime in the next few years, so this is kind of an exploratory phase for him.

Other than that, life goes on. Dogs are fine, we are fine, everybody is happy. I am REALLY looking forward to having my whole family here to visit for Thanksgiving. I think a good time will be had by all. I have confirmed with the community center that we can borrow a ping pong table for the holiday weekend, so there will be plenty of competition going on on the back deck during Thanksgiving. My sister Susan will be the head chef, so I know the food will be good. Mostly I'll just be glad to have everyone together. My nephews will be greatly missed but I'm sure they will be able to come next time.

That's all for now. More bathroom photos to come.

Whew!

2007-06-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

We closed yesterday and I paid off $190,000 in debt in a single day. What a weight off our shoulders. This is huge for us because it means that our first project was profitable, albeit only slightly so. But for a first try I think we survived well.

We had some issues with open permits and were afraid we weren't going to be able to close, but we worked it out with the buyers. We've had $5000 held back until we can get the permits closed, which we have until the end of the month to do. That shouldn't be a problem.

So we are breathing a big sigh of relief. Now that we are back in the money, we've paid off all our debt aside from our mortgage and we funded our Roth IRAs for the year, and now we can get back to working on our own house a little bit.

We are going to finish the TV room, including new TV, new home theater, new TV stand, new carpet, and new light fixtures. We are also going to redo the downstairs bathroom - get rid of the chocolate brown fixtures and get back to white. Also new tile, paneling, light fixtures, and paint. We have to get that bathroom into usable condition so that we can rip off all of the upstairs bathrooms and start over up there.

Which finally leads us to the plans for the addition. We are meeting with the designer today to get started on the plans to replace our addition which holds all of our upstairs bathrooms. I've posted my initial plan for the addition below. Both of the tubs will be clawfoot tubs. One is original to the house. The guest room will get a little bit bigger, which will allow us to put a queen bed in there instead of just a full. We'll move the laundry room upstairs. All of this is just the initial plan, though, and will probably change. And then of course we have to figure out how we're going to pay for it. But any of you who have actually seen my bathroom the way it is now (leaking roof, plywood floors, shower out of a horror movie) will understand why we will find a way to do this.

Other notable recent events: My friend Stephanie gave birth to a beautiful baby boy last week, on the 30th. I went to visit on the 30th and the 31st and mother and baby are both doing very well.

Also Andy and I made the annual trip to family camp. Those nieces and nephews of mine have really grown up. They are much more interested in hanging out with each other than with the adults. I guess they have to stop being kids some time. We did have a lot of fun playing ping pong and euchre, and since I lucked into getting Dave Murray (my stepfather) for a partner, we ruled the euchre tournament. It was not as hard to be there without dad this year as I thought it would be. I sure would have liked to have been able to call him yesterday and tell him that we actually closed on the house, though.

Anyway, that's mostly what's going on with us. The Edgefield home tour is this weekend, so we will be volunteering for the entire weekend. There's also a roller derby bout on Saturday night that we're very much looking forward to going to (www.nashvillerollergirls.com). Nashville vs. Athens, GA. I guess we might go shopping for a new TV, too :).

Let's Make a Deal

2007-05-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

Someone made an offer on the house a day and a half after we listed it. They had a contingency on the sale of their house. We countered but said we wanted to wait to hear from them until Monday so we could see what else came in over the weekend and they turned right around and accepted our counteroffer and even removed the contingency on the sale of their house.

So we are sitting pretty and are accepting an offer on the house just three days after listing it. That is great for us, because the most important thing to us was to sell it quickly so we can move on with our lives.

Thanks for everyone's support during this long, difficult project.

I Know, It's Been a Long Time

2007-05-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

But here's the thing. We've been busting our butts on this house for the last 16 months, and we really haven't had a lot of time. Plus at some point it just got too disheartening to talk about. But now we are finally wrapping it up and we are pretty happy with the finished product.

Hopefully it will sell quickly and we will get our savings back plus a little teeny tiny profit. And I mean that. Teeny tiny. Not big. In any case it will just feel good to have it done and move on to something new.

It is officially listed on the MLS and can be seen at http://listings.realtracs.com/Reports/EmailPublicReports.aspx?EmailID=11807750&reportid=3

People seem to like the open floorplan and Andy really did a quality job on everything and it shows. In any case it's gratifying to take something that looked like my last posting and make it look like this posting. Next time I think we will take on a smaller project. We didn't quite realize what we were getting into. But all's well that ends well.

Actually now I am re-reading my earlier post about being $30,000 over budget and not being worried about it and laughing in a sick kind of way. Plenty of wiggle room, my ass. We ended up being $100,000 over budget and I was very worried at times. Live and learn, I guess.

2007-05-01T19:40:00.000-07:00

Some more photos of the interior:

We've been busy...

2006-03-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

I finally have a night to post an update and I don't have any up-to-date pictures of the new house! Everything I have is a month old. I guess I will post some anyway, but these are really not current. Right now the house is stripped down to the studs. There is no plaster and no lathe left. The floors that needed to be replaced have been removed, joists repaired, and new subfloor installed. Most of the framing is done - new walls and doorways where they should be, and old walls and doorways removed. A lot of work has been done to level ceilings and level floors.

Andy started stripping vinyl from the outside of the house this week, and stripping paint as well. It's good weather for outside work right now. We were happy to see that our front porch columns were intact under the vinyl siding. They will need some trim at the top and bottom, but that's all.

Things are a little slow at the moment because our carpenter has gone off to another job, and we can't begin electrical and plumbing until the interior framing is completely done. We are going to give someone else we know a call this week and see if he's available to help. If not, there's plenty that can be done while we wait for the carpenter to come back.

We are now budgeting about $30k more than we had originally planned for this house. Between missing foundations, rotten joists, unexpected contractors fees, and gigantic rotten trees, we have run into some unexpected expenses. Our original budget was a best case scenario, though, and I am not too worried about the extra money. Home prices in the neighborhood are doing very well, and we have plenty of wiggle room.

I posted some floor plans below. Basically we are going back to what the original floor plan would have been, with the addition of bathrooms and closets, of course. Also knocking down a lot of walls to give it a more open feel. Houses this old always had every room closed off so that a fire could be lit only in those rooms that needed them.

So that's what's going on with the house. Everything else is fine. School is fine, my job is fine, the dogs are fine. Not much going on with our house - we spent most of the day today stripping our new old front door. As in new to us but old in general. It still needs a lot of work. No photos of that, sorry.

I will try to post another update when I can. It will be easier when I don't have to do homework on Sunday nights anymore (that should be over in a couple of weeks).

Becky

2006-03-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

This is in the hall looking toward the back of the house. On the right you can see that some of the wall is gone between the hall and the living room. This is an old photo - all the doors have been taken down now as well.

2006-03-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

This is in the hall looking towards the front door. On the right is where the bedrooms will be.

2006-03-12T18:38:00.000-08:00

This is in what used to be a bathroom and will be the pantry going forward. We tore up the floors and found that there was no foundation underneath. We had new footers poured.

2006-03-12T18:36:00.001-08:00

Dirt floor...

2006-03-12T18:36:00.000-08:00

more pictures of torn up floor

2006-03-12T18:34:00.001-08:00

Andy, very dirty again, with a pack of "Blackblack" chewing gum, which seemed appropriate. At least his teeth are still white.

2006-03-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

This is the original floorplan, sort of. When we bought it, it was split into a duplex, with the top half of this plan as one apartment and the bottom half as another. The hall was closed off and split up into closets.

2006-03-12T18:32:00.000-08:00

Here is the new floor plan. You can see most of the wall between the hall, living room, dining room, and kitchen has disappeared. The bay window is only shown in this plan, but that's just because I didn't draw it in the first one. It already exists. We are adding two baths, one at the back of the house and one in the hall. What used to be the bathrooms in the duplex are now pantry and closet space. You can see the back bedroom is very small and it is the only one directly connected to a bath and has the big closet. This presents a problem, because no one wants a 9 x 12 master bedroom. So we decided to add a connecting door between that bedroom and the one next to it. That way if someone wants they can use the middle bedroom as the master and use the back bedroom as sitting room / office / dressing room / nursery if they want. The whole thing can be closed off as one large master suite. Or if they don't care about the size of the bedroom, they can just use that one. You can see that it will hold a queen size bed, dresser, and nightstand. This plan is not totally accurate - there are some windows missing and the actual square footage is closer to 1800. I am not exactly an expert at drawing these. The line between the living room and the dining room is supposed to represent the fireplace, which is of course about three feet deep. It will be freestanding between the two rooms and open to both.

Eventful Times

2006-01-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. Andy turned 41. He quit his job. Our dog Lily died. And of course Christmas.

Happy birthday to Andy on the 22nd! We didn't do much - just had a couple of friends over. The 21st was his last day of work - what a birthday present! He will have to go back on the 3rd to turn in his badge and debrief, etc. But basically he's finished.

On the 20th, I came home from work and went to let the dogs in as usual, and Buddy came running but there was no sign of Lily. I went out into the yard to investigate and found her in the dog house. She was alive and awake, but couldn't / wouldn't get up or leave the dog house, not even when coaxed with food. I had to drag her out of the dog house and carry her inside. We took her to the emergency clinic and her temperature was 10 degrees below normal. The vet listened to her breathing and couldn't hear her left lung. It turns out she had a diaphragmatic hernia. This means her diaphragm was torn, probably as a result of being hit by a car several years ago before we took her in. Her organs that should have been in her stomach cavity had moved into her chest cavity.

Anyway, they said they would keep her overnight and get her warmed up, and in the morning, we would probably need to drive her to Knoxville for surgery at the UT veterinary school. We left her there and went home, and they called in the middle of the night and said that she had died. I don't really know what triggered it suddenly that day. Maybe the cold.

I am just glad that we found her before she died, and that she wasn't alone. If we hadn't taken her in she would have died on the street a long time ago, so that's some consolation. We will miss her.

We went to Indianapolis for Christmas and got to see everyone but Susan. An uneventful trip this time - no bad roads and no dogs to deal with. We came back late Christmas day. On the 26th Andy and I had our Christmas here. I got a cappucino machine which I have really been wanting and have gone through most of a gallon of milk already.

I had this whole week off and of course Andy did too. We spent the entire week tiling the kitchen floor. We are not quite done yet but almost there. See photos below. I am very pleased with it. It doesn't have grout yet, and I think that will make it look even better.

I will be back to work on Tuesday. I am not looking forward to it much, but it will be good to see everyone there again after such a long break.

I guess that's all. Hope everyone is doing well.

Becky

2006-01-01T20:06:00.001-08:00

our little baby Lily

2006-01-01T20:06:00.000-08:00

we will miss her

2006-01-01T20:04:00.001-08:00

you can see the original floor here - it was linoleum made to look like brick

2006-01-01T20:04:00.000-08:00

this is what the floor looked like when we bought the house

2006-01-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

this is what the floor looked like after the linoleum had been removed but before we cleaned it

2006-01-01T15:12:00.000-08:00

My friends Stephanie and Heather helping me clean the floor after the linoleum had been removed.

2006-01-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

This is the plywood floor that was under the awful linoleum. It took a lot of work to get it just to this point. We painted this beige and that is what we have had for 6 or 7 months now.

2006-01-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

floor in progress - no border yet

2006-01-01T15:01:00.000-08:00

floor in progress - border is partially done

2006-01-01T14:59:00.000-08:00

more floor in progress - border has been started - another layer of the dark tile to go

2006-01-01T14:53:00.000-08:00

another floor photo - border is finished

2006-01-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

another floor photo

2006-01-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

detail view of the border

Big Weekend - Work, Work, and More Work

2005-12-18T18:31:00.000-08:00

Well, we had a busy weekend.

Saturday Andy and I put down tile on the kitchen floor. I can't describe how happy this makes me. We have been living with dirty painted plywood for almost a year now and the thought of a clean, nice floor is almost too good to be true.

It looks very nice and we are doing a good job. The floor slopes a little bit and we can tell, but probably no one but us will notice. We have just done the middle of the big open part of the kitchen. We still have to put a border around it and tile the cooking part of the kitchen. But I am so happy just to be making progress.

Today (Sunday) we started demolition on the new house on Chicamauga. What a job!! I will be incredibly painfully sore tomorrow. But we got a lot done. The right side had horrible paneling everywhere, so we took that out and found unsalvageable plaster underneath it. We removed the plaster too, a dirty, dusty job, and left the lathe. We will drywall over this.

We removed the ceiling in the front room, and then in addition to plaster dust, we were covered with coal dust coming from the attic. We were VERY dirty. See photos below.

We also knocked out a couple of walls in the central hallway. This house was originally built in 1899 as a single family bungalow with a large central hallway and rooms off either side. At some point it was converted to a duplex, left and right, and they used the central hallway for closets. Now we are getting back to the original floor plan.

But the best part was the fireplaces!! We uncovered two of the four and found the most beautiful tiles. The front room has green tiles with a man and a woman on the sides, and the dining room has a blue tiles with a lion on top and peacocks on the sides. They are very fancy, much nicer than the ones you usually find.

We were glad to see a house for sale today about a block down from the one we are fixing up, listed for $238,900. We were thinking we could get around $150,000 for our renovation when it's done. But if the house down the street sells even as low as $200,000, it will be very good news for us. Looks promising. Andy's last day at work will be this coming Wednesday, and then he will be full time in the house-flipping business. Wish us luck.

Love to all,
Becky

2005-12-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

me by the fire writing Christmas cards

2005-12-18T18:26:00.001-08:00

andy working on the floor

2005-12-18T18:26:00.000-08:00

after the first day's work on the floor

2005-12-18T18:25:00.001-08:00

our floor in its current state - good progress but lots more to do

2005-12-18T18:25:00.000-08:00

here i am first thing in the morning at the new house - shiny clean and brimming with enthusiasm

2005-12-18T18:24:00.001-08:00

perhaps not my MOST attractive moment - it got much worse after this

2005-12-18T18:24:00.000-08:00

apparently these people liked to break into newspaper kiosks and steal the change

2005-12-18T18:23:00.002-08:00

andy removing paneling

2005-12-18T18:23:00.001-08:00

some lovely moldy food for us to clean up

2005-12-18T18:23:00.000-08:00

this is the original state of the rooms on the right side - the spots are dust

2005-12-18T18:22:00.002-08:00

this is the icky plaster we found under the paneling

2005-12-18T18:22:00.001-08:00

after removing the plaster - we will put drywall over this lathe

2005-12-18T18:22:00.000-08:00

all the plaster has been removed in this room - big mess

2005-12-18T18:21:00.002-08:00

living room fireplace - they had this covered with that cheap paneling

2005-12-18T18:21:00.001-08:00

lion - center tile over the dining room fireplace

2005-12-18T18:21:00.000-08:00

peacocks on the side of the dining room fireplace

2005-12-18T18:20:00.001-08:00

now we can see down the central hallway

2005-12-18T18:20:00.000-08:00

a few hours ago the hall was blocked

2005-12-18T18:19:00.001-08:00

another lovely photo

2005-12-18T18:19:00.000-08:00

Andy looks pretty scary too

2005-12-18T18:18:00.000-08:00

andy's friend bobby on the left got the worst of it

Thanksgiving and More House Buying

2005-11-30T17:44:00.000-08:00

Well, I missed a couple of weeks because I was out of town and then had family here. But I'm back now!

We had some bad news the week before Christmas. Andy has been having dizzy spells and other miscellaneous issues and went to the doctor to find out what the problem is. Turns out he has a bad valve, just like Sara, and will have to have open heart surgery. The good news is he doesn't have to have it right now. At the moment we are on a "come back once a year" plan. I think Andy actually feels better knowing that he is not just being a hypochondriac. It will not be a fun thing to go through and I am not looking forward to it, but I am sure he will be ok in the end.

In happier news, Dad, Shannie, and Melea came down the weekend before Thanksgiving for a visit. We had a good time. Went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Opry. Made a trip to the Pancake Pantry, of course. Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, and Vince Gill were all at the Opry, so we picked a good night. This was the first time Dad had seen the house since before we bought it, and the first time that Shannie and Melea had seen it at all. Dad walked into the kitchen and said, "Now this gives you an idea of what it was like." Add that to Jenni imagining that there were bugs in the sugar and I am now newly resolved to make some progress in the kitchen. The kitchen floor is next. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Dad and Shannie left on Sunday and I spent the first part of my Thanksgiving week off working on the guest room. We bought new curtains, bed linens, and a rug. Andy installed a toilet and I painted the room blue and did lots of cleaning. After Dad and Shannie's visit we concluded that the bathroom needed a door, so that was installed Thanksgiving Day. See below for before and after photos. The trim is not painted and none of the drywall issues were resolved, but at least, as Dave said, you don't shudder when you walk in now.

Andy and I had Thanksgiving dinner at Cracker Barrel after getting the door installed on Thursday.

Friday Jenni and Dave and the girls showed up around 1:00 and we headed to the Opryland Hotel. Spent a while admiring the Christmas decorations and then went through the ICE exhibit. 1.5 million pounds of ice carved into all kinds of amazing things. We even went down a slide made of ice. The temperature was 15 degrees and they gave everyone parkas to wear. Pretty cool (get it - ha!).

Saturday Dave and Andy took down the beam that has been hanging loose in the kitchen - finally! Now no one has to be afraid of anything but spiders falling on them. Jenni and I got down to the serious business of cooking and the only thing we managed to ruin (we being me) was the iced tea, so that wasn't too bad. We cheated on the turkey and bought it from Honeybaked Ham, but we made everything else. Mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, Jenni's noodles from the Feast of the Hunter's Moon, corn pudding, sweet potatoes that we didn't actually eat, biscuits, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie. And of course a can of cranberry sauce (? - I don't know if the blob kind is really sauce) for Dave.

We napped after dinner and went to the Station Inn on Saturday night. I think that was the first time the girls have seen bluegrass and I think they had fun. Sunday morning they were up and gone early, and I enjoyed my last day of vacation.

Last item: we decided not to buy the house at 945 Silverdene. What with it being next to the power station and all, we weren't sure how much we could get for it or if we would be able to make any money from it at all. We have decided to buy another house at 1024 Chicamauga (photos below) and are at this point absolutely committed to closing. So this is a sure thing. It is a bigger house and on a better street, so I have high hopes of it turning out to be profitable. It will be a big project for sure. We haven't decided yet when Andy will quit, but probably around the end of the year.

Last item for real: for those of you who don't already know . . . . my brother and Kelly got married!!! They sprung it on us in an email. But I think we were all prepared ahead of time. Kelly reports that the baby is up to over 3 lbs and is doing well. She will be a girl named Adria Rayne Van Ostrand. Very exciting news.

Love to all,
Becky

2005-11-30T17:38:00.000-08:00

Dad, Shannie, Melea, and me

2005-11-30T17:37:00.002-08:00

Andy, Melea, and me

2005-11-30T17:37:00.001-08:00

andy and me in front of the house

2005-11-30T17:37:00.000-08:00

guest room before

2005-11-30T17:36:00.000-08:00

guest room in progress

2005-11-30T17:35:00.002-08:00

Cozy guest room bed

2005-11-30T17:35:00.001-08:00

Finished (sort of) guest room

2005-11-30T17:35:00.000-08:00

guest room in progress

2005-11-30T17:29:00.000-08:00

Dave and Andy getting rid of that darn beam

2005-11-30T17:28:00.001-08:00

Kitchen ceiling with the beam removed

2005-11-30T17:28:00.000-08:00

Lots of cooking going on

2005-11-30T17:27:00.001-08:00

The girls trying to get the yolks out of eggs without breaking the shells

2005-11-30T17:27:00.000-08:00

Everyone sitting down to dinner

2005-11-30T17:26:00.001-08:00

1024 Chicamauga - the new project. Everything is covered with paneling - even the fireplaces

2005-11-30T17:26:00.000-08:00

1024 Chicamauga - our first for-profit project. Maybe just a little overkill on the vinyl siding.

2005-11-30T17:25:00.000-08:00

You can see they already did some work in the kitchen

Halloween, House Buying, and Paintballs

2005-11-06T16:24:00.000-08:00

Well, Halloween was successful, for the most part. We had 275 trick-or-treaters and then ran out of candy. I think we got it just about right. We had to turn a few people away, but it was towards the end. Andy wore a wrestling mask and scared some of the little kids so badly they didn't want any candy. I manned the candy bowl sans costume.

When trick-or-treating was over, Andy's friend Bobby, Andy, and I headed to 5 Points for the Pub Crawl. We are getting to be old fogies and only made it to 2 bars. We saw some good costumes and played some pool.

Back in the real world, we were approved for an equity line of credit this week that we will be using to start the house-fixing-up business. And in fact, we have a contract on our first house already. We are supposed to close around the 22nd. I am not sure if we will flip it or keep it as a rental. I think we are going to do the fixup work and then see what it's worth at that time. It is a 2 BR, 1 BA brick bungalow built around 1930. The exterior is in remarkably good shape, but the interior will need some reconditioning. Horrible paneling everywhere. But a couple of really nice fireplace mantels. It is on the same block as Andy's house, at the other end, on the opposite side of the street.

So we are off. It must be real now. Pretty soon we'll be real-life entrepreneurs. Not sure when Andy is going to quit his job at the base. Maybe the end of the year, maybe shortly after we close on the house. We'll see. End of the year might be better as it's easier to sell and rent in the spring.

I went outside yesterday morning to find that someone had fired two pink paintballs at our newly painted house. They were still wet and not hard to clean up. I posted a message on the neighborhood listserv to see if anyone else had been paintballed. A couple of cars about a mile away were hit, but that seems to be it. I assumed it was kids from the projects, but my neighbor 3 doors down is convinced that it was a fanatical neighbor who doesn't like our paint color because it's not historically accurate. She posted a blistering message on the listserv because she thinks she knows who did it. She won't tell me who, though. I think the whole thing is kind of ridiculous.

I started work on the interior of the front door sidelights this weekend, and Andy is working hard to get a toilet installed in the guest half bath before family start arriving at Thanksgiving. He thinks he can have it done this week, which is good, because we also need to replace the faucet, and if we're going to replace the faucet, we might as well replace the sink and the countertop too. T minus 12 days and counting . . .

Becky

2005-11-06T15:49:00.000-08:00

soon-to-be house at 945 Silverdene

2005-11-06T15:46:00.000-08:00

Andy in his scary "wrassler's" mask

2005-11-06T15:45:00.001-08:00

Becky perched on the porch with a big bowl of candy

2005-11-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

Andy and Bobby trying to look intellectual

2005-11-06T15:44:00.001-08:00

this man is actually wearing a diaper - he was the bartender at the Alley Cat

2005-11-06T15:44:00.000-08:00

pharaoh costume

2005-11-06T15:43:00.002-08:00

me playing pool at Beyond the Edge

2005-11-06T15:43:00.001-08:00

andy playing pool; people in costumes

2005-11-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

sidelight after scraping and sanding

2005-11-06T15:42:00.001-08:00

bottom of sidelight

2005-11-06T15:42:00.000-08:00

work in progress on the right hand sidelight

Halloween in East Nashville

2005-10-30T19:13:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a rough week for us. The dogs got into a fight. Little Mama attacked Lily for no apparent reason and Andy spent 10 minutes doing everything he could to try to separate them with no success. He was finally able to get them apart when they got tired and stopped for a breather. Both dogs had to be taken to the vet. This happened about an hour before my finance final was supposed to start. I was late, bloody, hungry, and had no calculator.

But the final went fine, considering, and the dogs are OK. Andy's hand was bitten when trying to separate the dogs, but it seems to be healing. The vet said to turn the hose on them if it happens again. I don't know why we have never thought of this. I have also been told that ammonia is very effective - kind of like tear gas for dogs.

So we got through it, and things improved over the weekend. Halloween is a big deal in East Nashville. All kinds of events for 4 days or so. See my "HallowEast!" link on the right for everything you ever wanted to know about what's going on in East Nashville for Halloween.

Andy was asked to be a judge for the Halloween decoration contest. Last night he drove around and looked at all the decorations. I didn't go, but went out later to meet him and we went back to visit the best one. Here's a photo (from the tax records - doesn't show his decorations):

The guy must have spent at least $1000 on yard decorations - really elaborate. He also had a fantastic house and had what I guess was once Liberace's bedroom suite. Just an unbelievable house. I don't even know how to describe it. Built in 1876, 4300 square feet. His mantels were like something out of a gothic novel, and his pocket doors had to be 11 feet tall. 13 foot ceilings.

At 10:00 they had the "Drag Race" at 14th and Woodland, being a footrace which requires all entrants to be in drag to participate. One heat for the men dressed as women, and one heat for the women dressed as men. There were probably around 300 people there but only about 10 runners. It was fun. Makes me remember why I like East Nashville despite the vandalism.

Today we walked down to Bongo Java for the prize distribution for the Halloween contest. Also fun. Tomorrow night, of course, is Halloween. I am skipping class so as to be home for the trick-or-treaters. We are told that we should expect around 300. Apparently we get busloads from some of the local churches. We will close up shop around 8:00 and head down to 5 Points, where all the local bars are sponsoring a pub crawl. Drink specials and live music everywhere.

It should be fun. I'll give everyone an update. Maybe take pictures of the really good costumes.

Becky

Most Recent House Photos & Trip to LBL

2005-10-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

Just posted the most recent photos of the house for whoever is interested. One from when we bought the house, also, for comparison purposes.

Andy and I spent Saturday at Land Between the Lakes with Jenni (sister) and Dave and the girls. We had fun. They have an Elk and Bison Prairie, which we visited, and I got a little closer to the bison that I would have liked. I was afraid for my car. We didn't get many pictures because the camera battery died. When Jenni and Dave get theirs posted, I'll put some more up.

We did a little hiking and then Andy left to come back to Nashville around dinner time. I stayed, had dinner at Jenni and Dave's campsite, and then we all headed back to the lodge where I was staying. The lodge had an indoor pool and hot tub, sauna and steam room, and we spent some time there before I turned in for the night and Jenni and family went back to the campsite (suckers!). Had breakfast this morning and then headed home.

I spent the rest of the day studying for my finance final on Wednesday and cleaning the house. Andy and I finally found the dead mouse that has been smelling up the kitchen. It had gotten into a box of cereal in an unused cabinet. From now on all food products go in airtight containers as soon as they're opened. I'm just glad we found it. Pretty soon I would have been having bad dreams about it.

Becky

2005-10-23T18:42:00.000-07:00

Elena (niece) in front of a herd of bison

2005-10-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

Bison at Land Between the Lakes

2005-10-23T18:06:00.002-07:00

old photo for comparison purposes

2005-10-23T18:06:00.001-07:00

fairly new photo - walk wasn't finished yet in this one

2005-10-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

fairly new photo

2005-10-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

most recent photo - we managed to give the rest of the gravel to our neighbors Ben and Julie, so it's gone now

The Front Walk is Finished!

2005-10-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

We have finished the front walk. I think it turned out very well. Andy worked very hard to get everything straight and level. It is nice to have something to walk on that doesn't result in us tracking dirt or mud in the house. When we bought the house it had a concrete walk that had cracked and sunk, and every time it rained, it was covered with mud.

Also - Little Mama, the worst dog in the world, managed to find and rip up a 10 lb bag of flour in our computer room. See the picture below. She is the spawn of the devil. For the life of me I can't figure out where that flour came from. It wasn't ours.

Last, but not least, I posted pictures of our new front porch lights. The others were rejected by the historic commission and we had to exchange them for these. I don't like these as well, but they are older and are more historically accurate.

Becky

2005-10-18T15:50:00.002-07:00

side view of new lights

2005-10-18T15:50:00.001-07:00

front view of new exterior lights - we will add the globes we had on the other ones

2005-10-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

evil dog . . . grrr

2005-10-18T15:38:00.000-07:00

All the bricks have been laid, including the ones that had to be cut at the edges. Mortar / sand mix filled in on about half.

2005-10-18T15:37:00.001-07:00

Finished adding sand / mortar mix - starting to water it down.

2005-10-18T15:37:00.000-07:00

Close up of the bricks with the wet mortar on them - ugly brown color

2005-10-18T15:36:00.002-07:00

Halfway done watering

2005-10-18T15:36:00.001-07:00

Andy watering ...

2005-10-18T15:36:00.000-07:00

All the sand / mortar has been added and watered. Just waiting for it to dry.

2005-10-18T15:35:00.001-07:00

My shoes got a little dusty in the process.