Fully Functional Day

New card reader up and running! Reeeeee-joice.

The house. 

The m-effin’ house.   

I’d love to say we’ve been going gangbusters, but, much of the reason we hadn’t been blogging is the same reason we hadn’t been renovating. Life gets in the way.

Job did have an epic project of combating Bubbs’ (the catface) peeing in the basement. 

Job’s winning. 

For now. 

I swear that cat is smart. Like creepy smart. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but she’ll give you dirty looks. Actual stink eye. And after we put the window AC units in – cuz we’re fancy here in Philly – she kept trying to look out the AC unit window. Finally I said – like said - out loud -  speaking to the cat – “Bubbs, just go the other window”. 

And. She. Did.

Other than that, he’s been hard at work on the downstairs half bath. If you’ll recall, it used to be this:

 

Ok, not quite that bad, but a terrifying funk of a room. A BATHroom in every sense of the word. B/C why not have a bathtub/shower and commode. 

Off the dining room. 

Without a sink. 

Job always tried to offer that you could wash your hands in the tub. Stink eye to him.

 

 But here’s some of the half-bath progress shots. 

(I heart progress.)

It’s lovely. Black & white and lovely all over. 

Shout out to the D.A.D. for kick starting the project and getting a huge amount of work done.

Please though, direct your attention to the super interesting heating feature...

The room has no radiator of its’ own. It’s small. (Too small for a friggin’ bathtub.) So, it makes sense to not have a radiator. But it does have radiant heat pipes that run through it in one of the first breaks from the boiler. 

These things get seriously hot. Soooo, I had the brilliant idea of allowing the heat to radiate into the room with the fancy grate idea pictured above. 

Job may have executed it in such a neat fashion, but, really, it’s the idea generator that receives all the glory. 

Especially when the idea generator is also the blog writer. 

And especially, especially when the idea generator is me.  After all, I’m known the world over for my brilliant ideas, not my humility.

H. O. T. Day

The good news is I bought a new card reader yesterday.

The bad news is it's too hot to use it. Seriously. It's soooooo hot new purchases don't even work.

And I'm an old purchase. I def don't work.

Soon tho. Stay cool blogosphere.

Failure Day

Well, I would absolutely loooovvve to post today but I cannot find the cord thing-y to download pics from my camera. So...

I'm gonna work on either recreating the pictures thru drawings or just describing them really, really well.

But big news. We now have 1 and 1/2 baths. And the half is intentional. Not just 1/2 way done but fully done w. a commode and sink! Well, not "fully" done but all the main bathroom-y bits are working. It's glorious.

And contractors start tomorrow. Hired persons to give us a kitchen. Money is awe$ome.

I can leave you with the "model" for our kitchen design.

Wedding day

 A bit more background on the reasons for us being gone and now back.  

Mere weeks after starting a new job (weeks!) the Notorious and I pulled off a wedding.

On March 12th, 2011, I married my number one in a perfectly quirky ceremony that was perfectly us. Our numbers were small but we lived large.

We arranged a private trolley tour of Philadelphia for our limited gathering of family and friends. 

Which was a rip roaring success. So successful, my 2-year old niece shouted to me from several rows up, “E! E! I like Philly E. I like Philly.” Trolleys are a hit with the tiny people set.

We popped on and off at a couple of Philly sights and had “planned” to get hitched at one of them. Well, we never picked one and the tour was coming to a close. So, we headed to the 2nd Bank of the United States on a whim. 

 

That whim being – it has pretty steps. There we exchanged our vows and toasted with champagne in a can before heading to a private dinner nearby.
A tip for anyone marrying in a Quaker Ceremony. First and foremost, when there is no officiant...

...make sure you know which hand to put the ring on. Or just switch it when your sister tells you your error.

No less of a success despite it's beautiful bumps. It was without fanfare. And we accomplished the mission of getting married. I’m pretty sure that’s what weddings are still about. 

 

Excused for the Day

Guess who’s back? Oh, come on. Don’t be mad.

But, but, but, I’ve got good reasons. Lots of them.

First, there was the new job in February. Which is A. W. E. S. O. M. E.  Except for the commute. The commute makes me want to murder people.

Maybe that’s why it’s called the Schuylkill Expressway?!?! Ba-dump-bump. That's a for real pic of what I drive. With a very for real representation of the traffic I sit in. Everyday.

Then, in March, there was the Job. (And yes, we'll no longer be anonymous. You can't be married and anonymous. It's a major milestone and stuff. It's like the 6th rule of adult-ery. Wait, adult-iness.) 

 And then there was a Honeymoon with my honey in April.


Nope. Not that fancy pants Costa Rica. We honeymooned in Nicaragua.


And then there’s always the house. 

And then… 

And then… 

No more and then. I’m spent for now. But I am so committed to commitments nowadays I commit to the blog for at least the next month. So, commit to following, K?


I Do. Do you?


xoxo
emily

Back to Blog Day

Hiya. Wow, it’s been a long time. But I have a good reason. And I’ll tell you all about it soon.

Ok, I can’t wait. I’ve been super busy with this workshop I'm taking in building suspense in your writing.

Damn it. Guess I should have finished the course.

Nah. I’ve really been taking a class in misdirection. This, my friends, is what we call a classic misdirect.

I will be back soon. And I promise to have lots of good reasons for going MIA. Lots.

Ok. Here's a hint.

Wow. Maybe I should take a class in suspense building.

Talk at you soon… 

e.

Hey day

Allow me to introduce a new player to the house game….meet Apple. Apple is a super awesome friend of ours who has come to stay for a bit and help out with the house.

The Notorious has a full-time job. I have a full-time job (and no house renovation skills). Life lately has left little time to get much done.  

Enter Apple.

First a quick review...

We did recently get new windows. Which is kinda like being robbed of all your money. But less fun.  

 

We also had the roof re-sealed and silver coated. Now it constantly looks as if it has snowed. Which is pleasant.

And we had the roof done b/c “we” “finished” the bathroom. And days later Philly got a 100-years rain and the new ceiling leaked. Notorious had to strike it with a knife to allow the water to pour out into the tub. Yes. Pity us. 

 

We still need a new bathroom door. The old one is…well,

Oh, and we upgraded the electrical system from a 100-amp service to a 200-amp service. Plus, a new service line. We now have more breakers available than we have electrical items.

Onward and upward tho. Peep game on the kitchen.

Kill shot to HoPiKi.

Of course the demo has had it’s hiccups.

The ceiling(s) once torn out comprised something like 3000 lbs of trash. I promise we don’t hate the earth, but our house really, really does.  

Hiccup.  

The wall we want to take out to open up the first floor was (1) questionably load bearing and (2) housing both water pipes and hydronic heat pipes. The water ones are no big deal. The heat ones cannot be moved easily until we turn off the boiler and drain it for the season.

Hiccup.  

An amazing surprise awaited the guys in the ceiling corner. Apparently, and I regret to say I was not around to witness this, when they tore out this particular ceiling area the room FILLED with black ash and smoke/dust.  

The kitchen is an add-on. Most rowhomes in Philly were built with “kitchens” in the basement. Sometime in the last 100-years, kitchens were added on to the backs of homes. Ours is no exception. But along the way some questionable design choices were made. Like to hide an old, upstairs fireplace in a wall w/o ever terminating it well or cleaning it out.

 

Apple retells the story with affection. Says he hadn’t laughed that hard in years. Said it was a wall-slapper, take-a-knee kind of laugh. Says it was made all the more funny by the Notorious’ reaction which was not laughter. Said he looked like he was either going to cry or go punch out a car window. He laughs about it now.

Hiccup.

The catfaces are black. (Typing this just had me wrapped up in a revelation that animals have no race. Well, that’s just beautiful.) We’ve had to construct a plastic wall to keep them out of the construction zone. Man, they are jerks. They time the door opening and bolt from all angles – pretty sure even from above – to make it into the wreckage.

 

 So, that’s that. Dining room tear down today. I’m going to help but as cats w/o boundaries as my witness, I will NOT go to the dump again. 

xoxo,
e.