The Next Mid-Century

The Clean Up

So now we are waiting to embark upon the journey of rehab.  We met with the chosen contractor this week to fine tune the bids/contract and should be merrily on our way.  Of course we won’t be able to accomplish everything on our list and there are many things that will have be on hold until stage 2 – perhaps even stage 16 of our big project.

Meanwhile, I’ve found that a little elbow grease may be the only that makes any difference in this place.  One weekend we actually took off the storm windows in the basement and with the help of my father-in-laws shop vac sucked up all the old cobwebs and spider junk and it was AMAZING.  We could actually see out.  Another area that needs attention is our kitchen.  The current kitchen floor is this pocked vinyl linoleum stuff.  I think in the old days it was called Congoleum.  It is basically white (now mellowed to a light cream) with a pattern that might at one time have recalled courtyard stones.  Our kitchen also happens to double as the main traffic thoroughfare in the house.  You step from the driveway into the kitchen.  We have no “mud” room or even a foyer.  So it gets walked into and on, and through – a lot – with snowy, dirty, shoes and paws.  I know it’s dirty and everyone else knows it’s dirty because when our 10 month old crawls through, the evidence gets left behind on her little knees.  Trouble is, I have found it virtually impossible to get clean let alone leave it that way for long. 

Then I saw the H20 Mop informercial.  If there is an Emmy or a Golden Globe or an Oscar for most compelling informercial, this one should win it.  Maybe the category would be “I have to have that thing NOW!!!”  So it’s this simple concept of filling the mop with water, attaching a cloth pad to the bottom and plugging it in.  When you mop, the steam actually help to loosen up the dirt and it gets sucked up into the cloth pad, which can then be thrown into the washer for the next time.  There was a particularly impressive segment that included a demonstration of getting rid of candle wax!  And for 3 easy payments of $33.95, I could have it along with an assortment of other stuff – a mini version for other household cleaning tasks and extra cleaning pads.  I actually asked for it for Christmas, thinking my Christmas break would be the perfect time to try it out. 

When the H20 mop did not show up under the tree, I decided maybe I should take matters into my own hands and set off to find it or one like it.  Turns out there are several H2O like mops out there – the Shark and the Reliable T1Steamboy to name a few.  These models are available at Target and other retailers so I set out to try to track one down.  A co-worker had also suggested I try a Korean Supermarket called H Mart where she picked up a Korean version.  So I set out on one of the final days of my Holiday break from work to find one.  Bed Bath and Beyond was out, so I tried a Linens and Things.  Turns out, according to the manager, the Shark was such a hot item, they had sold out immediately and would I like to be put on a waiting list.  With the Korean Supermarket in my back pocket I declined the wait list and hopped back in the car.  I was positively convinced that the only way to get my kitchen floor clean was with this damn steam mop, and by God if I wasn’t going to keep driving around until I found one.  Unfortunately, the Korean Supermarket seemed to have no idea what I was talking about and thoroughly dejected I headed home.  Later that weekend, I actually tried to recreate the effect by cobbling together a make-shift steam mop using a Swiffer wet jet and wet towels made steamy by putting them in the microwave.  This resulted in a sopping wet, dirty floor and nowhere near the satisfaction I was banking on. 

So where are we now?  Living with a dirty floor that I look at daily and yell out to anyone who will listen, “We’ve got to do something about the state of this floor!!”  Maybe I’ll take Linens and Things up on their offer.

Reconstructive Surgery

There seem to be varying levels of skill and professionalism when it comes to renovation work.  There are those jobs that you certifiably can do yourself.  As my husband points out, we are capable of painting and can hang pictures and that’s about where our skill set ends.  Then there is the next level, which I call the handyman level.  This is the middle ground where you may be embarking on territory that isn’t necessarily difficult, but the cost is nominal and it wouldn’t be worth the time or energy or money required to purchase any necessary equipment to tackle it yourself.  Then there’s the real stuff – the tearing down walls and taking it to the studs kind of stuff – the contractor stuff. 

Up until now we’ve been dabbling with renovations – painting, patching and sanding some drywall, and swapping out lighting fixtures.  Most of this work has been closely aligned with a series of events like hosting bookclub and out of town guests.  These have been primarily amateurish attempts to put on appearances much like one might do before a high school reunion.  We have been, in affect, applying Crest Whitestrips – temporary measures, rather than make truly significant or permanent changes.  And when the light is just so, things don’t look half bad. 

The kids’ rooms have been painted as has the hallway and most recently the master bedroom, which my husband took on while my daughter and I were out of town visiting my parents.  He had our 3 year old to look after and so the job was done in what he described as 45-second increments.  In between fetching apple juice and helping launch Hot Wheels, he managed to get a few swaths of paint on the walls.  While painting does fall under that first level of renovation – work we can do ourselves, I might have opted to upgrade the spa package to include a handyman.  Even with that blue masking tape, we’ve managed to get more than our share of paint on the ceiling and trim and otherwise where it should not be.

Now that the holidays are behind us, we can really dig in on the big stuff the reconstructive surgery.  We have had four different contractors visit the house and provide bids for what we have identified as the priorities – two that are necessary, but highly boring (a new roof and HVAC system) and some fun stuff (a new kitchen, two new bathrooms, and an expanded master closet).  Interestingly, it wasn’t that difficult to pick which contractor we would go with.  Oh sure he had the pre requisite good grades on Angie’s List and his bid was comparable to everyone else’s, but what really sealed it, was that he was the only one guy didn’t say, “what?” when I mentioned the idea of putting in terrazzo throughout the main floor.  His exact comment was, as I recall, “Kick butt!” 

Now that the contractor has been decided on, we have to take on the task of reprioritizing our list as we won’t be able to tackle as much as we’d hoped with our budget.  But how do you decide?  The roof and HVAC are givens, but what about the fun stuff?  The bathrooms are in pretty sorry condition, so that seems like what we should address first, but the flooring upstairs and down is really bad too.  And we can’t really put flooring down on the main floor if we aren’t going to rehab the kitchen.  The truth of the matter is that the best way to do this would have been to do everything before we moved in.  Maybe there’s a fourth level – the contractor who rehabs your home before you move in, while you supervise remotely from an exotic vacation locale.  Maybe in our next life, we can opt for that. 

Life in Rehab

I’ve become addicted to the show Intervention on A&E.  It airs on Friday nights when the kids are in bed and the dishes are washed and I’m frankly too wiped out to do much of anything productive like, say paint some window trim. The show chronicles the story of an addict each week – the history (complete with baby pictures and family reflections on the super star their son/daughter/sibling/cousin could have been), how the addiction escalated, and the inevitably scary conditions the addict currently lives in. 

The program culminates in an intervention that typically takes place in a hotel conference room with family members reading from written letters where they profess the disappointment, regret, and (sometimes tough) love they feel towards the interventee.  Then each of the family members and intervention guide asks whether the addict will receive the help that is being offered them today.  I’ve seen roughly 8-9 of these episodes and pretty much all of the addicts respond positively to the invitation of being flown off to a Rehab facility expressly chosen just for them where they can focus on recovery and reclaiming their lives.  At the end of the show the newly recovered addict is shown looking significantly healthier and happier and positive about their future lives.

Now I will tread lightly here.  In making a parallel between rehabilitation from drug addiction and rehabbing a house, I do not in any way mean to make light of the excruciatingly difficult work involved in trying to live life sober. Often in the epilogue, there are mentions to the fact that a given addict may have slipped once or twice back into their old ways when being forced to face real life with real stressors (jobs, families, social triggers, etc). 

That said, I do think that the intensity and focus of drug rehabilitation allows the addict to get on their feet much more quickly than say trying to get a room painted, which we have been trying to do for 2 weekends running.  I put the blame on our real life stressors (2 small children and the start of the new football season).

I always wait in anticipation for the latest copy of Dwell magazine where they often feature stories of renovation.  I marvel at the before and after shots – how satisfying to see them side by side as though the rehabilitation happened with the snap of someone’s fingers.  I know this is not how it really works.  In a recent issue, the magazine reported on the story of D.J. Andreas Stevens and his painstaking renovation of a 1957 Edward Killingsworth home on Naples Island near Long Beach California.  In the story, Stevens talks about what it took in order to tackle the project.

“I gave up my regular life for a couple of years,” Stevens admits. The project bordered on obsession. In addition to refurbishing the structure, he went to untold lengths to find original fixtures and match finished surfaces. He found the original outdoor lights on a nearby motel that was being torn down. After a year and a half of searching, he found the original electric stove, an in-wall push-button model, in a house that was being razed in Walla Walla, Washington. What he couldn’t find, such as 42 matching white Nelson pulls for the kitchen cabinets, he had made. A fragment of the original bathroom tile turned up in the backyard, and Stevens was then able to match the original color.

So Stevens spent the better part of 6 years (he originally purchased the home in 2001 and set to work on it in 2003) getting the house back to pristine condition.  And he was definitely starting from square one.  He mentions having to deal with termites and dry rot.  Now I knew getting into this things would not happen quickly.  But I'm not talking about combing the Chicagoland area for original fixtures or having drawer pulls remade, people.  I just want to get some paint on the walls. 

Sneaking Smokes

Yesterday I got one of those rare and wonderful things that you get when you work in education and your kids are too young to be in school yet – a day off.  It was Rosh Hoshana, so no school for me, but daycare and work for everyone else.  What luxury – being alone in the house.  And how did I spend my time – perhaps pampering myself with a long bath and a sneak at daytime TV?  No – better!  I ripped down 4 layers of wallpaper in the bathroom!  It started out as an innocent tug at a corner exposed by removing a switch plate and I discovered that the bottom layer – a linen backed fake grass cloth number could be pulled loose fairly easily.  So I pulled and sure enough I could peel all 4 layers at once.  This was an incredibly satisfying moment until I realized that along with the wallpaper I was also taking off portions of the drywall.  Oops.  I hadn’t intended for this to turn into a larger project than necessary, but once I started, I just couldn’t stop.  The layers on top of the fake grass cloth included a speckled blue and gold pattern, with a pink and yellow foil motif on top of that and finally the top layer – a thoroughly boring white on beige/vaguely opalescent, slightly textured fan design that made me wonder whether the previous owner had had some rip-roaring time at a Holiday Inn (possibly a Holidome) at some point in the 80’s and immediately rushed home to recreate the same bathroom look right in her own home. 

While this was going on, the air duct cleaners arrived and set to work removing air return covers and hooking up tubes and vacuums.  At one point during my wallpaper ripping frenzy, a collective “WHOA!!!” came through the air vent in the bathroom.  When I went downstairs to investigate, the crew leader explained they had seen a gigantic ball of hair and dust and crud come through the clear tube that was so big, he said it looked like a small dog. 

Later they came upstairs and showed me another discovery – an old, opened pack of Marlboros had been found lodged inside one of the registers in the dining room.  Close to the kitchen door, we could only speculate that someone may have stashed them there and when the coast was clear would steal away outside for an unsanctioned smoke.  But who?  We know some about the family that lived here previously.  A couple with an only son, the father died rather early – while the son was still in High School.  Could the father have been ill and told that he needed to quit smoking?  Could it have been the son?  Shortly after we moved in, we dismantled a built-in seating unit in the basement.  It was hinged so that you could lift the seat and store things inside.  We discovered the words “I hate you” scrawled in pencil on one of the interior panels, harking back that awful and vivid moment in Sybil when her Psychiatrist discovers the purple crayon scrawled on the inside of the potato bin and realizes that Sybil’s mother had been stuffing her inside for inappropriate behavior.  Maybe Jr. was a rebel.  Or perhaps Shirley herself?  Was it during the pink and yellow bathroom period or the fake grass cloth phase.  It is odd to think of these secrets that were hidden away and discovered so many years later by complete strangers who are in no way directly impacted by them.

Growing up, my family used to refer to rooms in our house by names linked to different periods in our lives.  There was a red rug room called as such long after the red rug had been replaced.  A guest room was forever called Maya’s room for years after our foreign exchange student had gone back to the Philippines.  Will we follow suit?  Will we go through a Lyndhurst Timber period (the paint color we are considering for our bedroom)?  Perhaps not, but I imagine that we will remember snapshots of our surroundings as we recall pivotal events. 

 

Tree Wars

Finally, the cracked tree branch – a nagging reminder of the storm – has been sawed off and removed from the roof. After what seemed like a million calls to tree services and arborists, one company (Tree Company A) quoted us a fair (“pre-insurance jackup”) quote and indicated they would be out on Monday to do the job. When Monday came and went and the albatross of a tree branch was still with us, I began another round of calls. When I spoke to another service (Tree Company B), they were also fair in their quote and promised a crew out the same day. I told them great. Turns out when Tree Company B got to the house, Tree Company A was already there sawing off the branch. When we got home and saw that the branch was gone, we assumed that Tree Company B had done the job as quoted earlier in the day. It looked great, although we wondered why they hadn’t trimmed a second branch as promised during our conversation. I was in the midst of drafting a report for Angie’s List on how fair and considerate I thought their quote was and how pleased I was with the work when I checked cell phone messages and discovered what had actually happened. I initiated a call to Tree Company B and started going on about how sorry I was that things had gotten messed up and how fair and fabulous I thought they had been with their quote when they asked whether I would be willing to call up Tree Company A and ask them to cut off $100 so that I could compensate Tree Company B for the trouble of bringing their crew out. What??? So this is how all this works?? I managed to broker a deal that would not require me to ask people to cut their quote and I think all is well.

The Contractor Game

First off, apologies for shirking my blogging responsibilities.  The task of working through issues related packing/moving/job changing/child rearing/life living has proved to be a bit time consuming.  Last week, however, I was given a gentle nudge by my husband in the form of a formal re-invitation to author this blog and so here I am.  Part of the difficulty in getting back to this (after an admittedly feeble start) is that so much has happened, I feel overwhelmed at the thought of trying to backtrack through events to keep people up to date.  Although truthfully, I'm not sure that the details of the day to day are all that interesting even to us and so recounting all of that has gone on may be an unproductive task.  And believe me I am working hard to try to be as PROductive as possible these days. 

With all of this in mind, let me see if I can quickly summarize with the following list of events and descriptions:

The Move:  A 9 hour ordeal that included 1 moving crewmember walking off the job 2 hours into it (I guess he wasn't much of a reader and was resentful about having to haul boxes marked VERY HEAVY down 3 flights of stairs) and another being taken to the hospital by paramedics after tangling with a bed frame and receiving a gigantic gash to the head.  

The Initial Rehab Burst:  An exceedingly productive period of about a week wh en my parents swept into town and kept us moving for several hours a day in order to make critical changes necessary to sustain life in the house and to prepare for our son Ben's 3rd birthday party (admittedly insanity overcame us when we agreed to host this 1 week after moving in).  In addition to simply moving in and getting things put away, we also tackled other projects.  Examples of this included removing approximately 9 bags of yard waste, taking down the green bottle bottom shutters on the kitchen window and door, installing new overhead lights in the kitchen

and dining room, painting the kitchen, and much much more (see pictures).  There were numerous shopping trips to IKEA, Lowe's and Target involved as well as shifting adult supervision for the kids. There were also some happy discoveries such as hard wood stair treads!

The Birthday Party:  After an exhausting push to make the place presentable, I was reduced to tears when my 7 year old niece asked me why we had purchased the house and following the adult response that we liked the bones of the place, she matter of factly and rather insightfully informed me that the place smelled like a combination of old lady and dirty baby diapers. 

The Storm:  A once in a 50 year experience (according to our backyard neighbor Lou) that resulted in fallen limbs, a flooded basement and crawl space and a 3 day power outage.  The novelty of the candles wore off very quickly with the kids.  It also seemed to have been some sort of exercise to validate much of the information the inspector provided with respect to a history of water seepage and leakage.  At least we didn't get backed up raw sewage rushing into the house like many of our neighbors experienced.  For over a week, giant panda bears, sombreros, sofas, rugs and other remnants of people's basements and lives lined the street.

Through all of this, we've had a steady stream of emails, phone calls, and visits from contractors in an attempt to get some picture of how on earth we are going to get beyond initial rehab burst and get the place into some kind of shape.  So far we've met with an HVAC contractor, roofing company, window replacement rep, waterproofing expert, crawl space finisher, duct cleaner, and talked to countless tree services.  Mostly what we've learned is that NOTHING is cheap and when people hear the word insurance, the ballgame changes dramatically.  Who knew that to remove a branch off a roof could range in cost from $500 to $2,400!  I mean, I'm no arborist, but it seems to me there is probably not a signficant amount of variance in how this task is executed.  Start the chainsaw, cut, yell timber, and start feeding pieces into the chipper.  Maybe the more expensive ones have a better treeside manner.

Handyman

George (no known last name), the guy Sarah contacted to be our general contractor based on glowing recommendations from Angie's List, never showed up last night. Later in the evening he sent a sheepish email in which he told us that he wasn't really a general contractor and he has no ambitions to be one. He recommended an excellent GC named Linda or something like that. She also got good reviews in Angie's List. We're going to contact her. We're not sure yet if we're going to mention George's no show to Angie's List, but it seems relevant.

We were really looking forward to our meeting with George. We were feeling overwhelmed by the list of repairs and remodeling projects, and the recent storms have only compounded the problem. We were hoping to present a GC with our list of things to do and, we figured, he (now she, I guess) would know exactly how to proceed. We really need somebody to tell us what to do instead of arguing about it between ourselves.

But George is merely a handyman, which could come in handy, since between the two of us we have exactly two home repair skills: Painting and drilling holes in the wall. We have a number of tasks that don't easily fit into a master project list. First and foremost is the hole in the soffit, which began as a bit of rot from moisture dripping down from the drain spout and, while Shirley was watching television, eventually developed into a nice little gateway into our attic for wintering squirrels. Sarah suggested I could fix the hole by dangling from the roof. That didn't sound like fun, so maybe we'll call George the handyman for these little one-offs.

Packing

We are 2 days into packing and the boxes are all but lining the perimeter of our condo.  3 and 4 boxes high, we may very soon have to begin a second interior wall.  (I had planned to include a picture of this, but the camera’s battery charger seems to have gone missing.)  We emptied 5 bookcases, a linen closet and about 1/2 of the kitchen so far and have a ways to go.  I ventured into the storage locker yesterday and after dutifully locating some boxes and taking a brief inventory, ran back out rationalizing that I would deal with it “after later,” a phrase our son Ben has recently invented.

We are not “savers” and do not tend to hold on to stuff (except books) and yet we seem to have gone through what seemed to be a never-ending stack of boxes – a set from our last move and a second set that I picked up from a post on Craig’s List.  Tomorrow we will go seeking more.  We figured out that between us, we’ve logged 15 moves in the last 20 years.  Many of mine were conducted with the support of friends and the promise of pizza at the end of a long day hefting futons and crates of cd’s.  Over time, it seemed like a luxury to hire movers.  Now I’m beginning to wonder if we haven’t earned the right for packers.  Ahh.  The luxury of not having to make a decision with each and every item that gets picked up.  Should I pack it/donate it/throw it away?  And then each of those decisions requires additional thought and energy.  Organizing items for Brown Elephant (our local resale organization) or the often ensuing guilt that follows a decision to toss something.  Undoubtedly the process would have been far easier had we not purchased the items to begin with.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about a NYTimes article from a few weeks back (Buying into the Green Movement) by Alex Williams that discussed the notion of consumerism as being the ultimate nemesis of our environmental problems.

Consumers have embraced living green, and for the most part the mainstream green movement has embraced green consumerism. But even at this moment of high visibility and impact for environmental activists, a splinter wing of the movement has begun to critique what it sometimes calls ''light greens.''

Critics question the notion that we can avert global warming by buying so-called earth-friendly products, from clothing and cars to homes and vacations, when the cumulative effect of our consumption remains enormous and hazardous.

''There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we're going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions,'' said Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues.

The genuine solution, he and other critics say, is to significantly reduce one's consumption of goods and resources. It's not enough to build a vacation home of recycled lumber; the real way to reduce one's carbon footprint is to only own one home.

Williams goes on to the describe the phenomenon as a "Snackwells moment" wherein people having found an alternative to full fat cookies, binge guiltlessly and end up consuming a far greater number of calories than they intended.  One group called Compact dedicated to the notion of minimal consumption vowed to make only necessary purchases (food and medicine) for one year.  While I do think that we try to be conscious and limited in the purchases we make (often for financial reasons), I am intrigued by this concept.  I can only speculate that in our minds, the notion of “necessary” could be easily rationalized, particularly as we are looking at make some fairly hefty purchases in the near future to get our home up to snuff.  Maybe next year...

The Next Mid-Century

We are about to take the long-awaited plunge into home ownership.  Not just any home ownership.  For the past three years, we have owned and occupied a rehabbed vintage condo where we were able to choose the finishing touches from a limited palate (uba tuba granite countertops, bubble light fixture in the kitchen, penny tile in the bathroom, stainless steel appliances) prior to closing.  But we have spent much of that time dreaming about the chance to make a place (and an attached yard) our own.

Not that we didn't try to change our situation during this time.  Last year, we went so far as to put our condo on the market, panicked at the first hint of an offer and put a bid on a beautifully rehabbed bungalow.  We were crestfallen when both the inspection revealed the need to replace the big three (roof, plumbing, electrical system) and the people making the offer on our place could only afford $1,000 more than we originally paid for it.  After we "returned the house," we apologized profusely to our real estate agent, lawyer and everyone else involved and vowed we would stay away from the ordeal for at least a year.

A series of events including a new job that would require an emotionally damaging commute, a new addition to our threesome family, and the growing difficulty of managing two children, one large German Shepard, and other daily needs made inconvenient by living on the third floor of a three story walkup put us back into the fray.   Peapod or no Peapod, it was time to go.

We put our place up for sale, but the market being what it was and after two showings in the space of two months, we began to look at other options.  What if we could rent our place (thereby waiting out the market and getting ourselves closer to my job) and buy a place up north?  Under the advisement of an agent knowledgeable about properties along the North Shore, we began looking in earnest.  For our first outing Rick took the express train (a 90 minute trip) and met us in the downtown area.  We looked at several depressing places and I cried the entire way home.  I had known that things would be expensive, but wow.  We promptly left on vacation and on the beach continued to talk about one particular house that we'd seen.  Maybe we could make this work after all.

Upon our return, we made 3 subsequent trips to "the house" - a 1957 mid-century modern number being sold "as is" by the original owner.  The place definitely had its drawbacks, chief among them its proximity to the expressway (a key mid-century accessory according to Rick).  An inspection would reveal many more problems (decades old mechanical systems, significantly depreciated roof, animal traffic in the attic, water damage, an overgrown box elder with an overly sophisticated root system).  Shirley, the owner, had done little maintenance over the years due to health reasons, but as she put it, the house contained many happy memories for her and did you know that the school district is fantastic?  Other bright spots included the basement clock (which we asked for in the contract) and a fabulous vintage sofa that we are now trying to purchase. Despite all of the negatives, the place was what we'd been looking for - good modern architectural bones with the opportunity to make design and materials changes in keeping with the spirit of those who pioneered the mid-century movement.  We decided to make an offer - a very low offer.

A frenzied week involving counter offers, locking in renters, several calls to the mortgage broker, signing contracts, securing money, and a four hour home inspection ensued, and here we sit hopeful that somehow this will all come together in the next few weeks.  As for me, I am hopeful for a full night's sleep that does not include wondering what comes first - regrading the yard, installing a new roof, ridding the attic of animal traffic, putting in a new HVAC system, cleaning and sealing up the crawl space, replacing the flooring, kitchen and baths, or removing the shedding, rotting, 50 year-old Box Elder in the back yard.  I am hopeful that we can navigate the overwhelming world of contractors, products, and options that lay before us.  I am hopeful that we can watch a new tree grow in the back yard over the course of our next mid-century.