New Video: Tales from Rejuvenation – Choosing a Light

Perfect on the inside, challenging on the outside

Greetings from the frozen mid-Atlantic!

I originally agreed to post something every week. My love for our house, however, doesn’t protect me from the demands of work and parenthood and shoveling us out of one snowstorm after the next.

But all the recreational baking I’m doing with our youngest is a lot more fun in the new kitchen, and collapsing exhausted in the master bedroom is very pleasant for the fifteen seconds I’m able to keep my eyes open.

And, as the post indicates, we haven’t lost power.

New Paint and Lights

Living room is in a light yellow color. "Jicama" from Benjamin Moore. Don't the columns look great?

Guest bedroom/t.v. room. Light fixture from Rejuvenation. Paint color is "Veranda Green" from Benjamin Moore. Turned out to be more of a blue color than green but we really like it.

My favorite light fixture in the house. Hanging above the top of the stairs, "The Euclid" from Rejuvenation. It gives off this great warm, golden glow when turned on. Love it!

Dining room is a kind of beige color. New light fixture from Rejuvenation. Color is called “Shelburne Buff” by Benjamin Moore. One of the best colors ever! Could have painted most rooms with it. The allusive colors are the best. Sometimes it looked more on the brown side and other times it looks like a darkened gold color.

Pendant light over what will be the breakfast nook with benches and a trestle table.

School house lights with green accent stripes that match the green paint on the walls.

Green paint in the kitchen-”Caper Tree” by Benjamin Moore

All Done!

This is one of the most satisfying entries to write. This is where I get to report that the project is complete. The finishes are in, the house is all cleaned up, and the staging furniture is in. We have already held one open house to let people through to take a look, and the feedback was very positive. We will continue to have the house open for viewing every Sunday afternoon until it’s sold. More pictures and information about the house and the times it is available for viewing are are available here. Here are a few pictures to show off the finished product:

Exterior

Living Room

Kitchen

Family Room

Clawfoot Tub on Hextile Floor (Master Bath)

Log finish, hydronic heat, electrical wiring, and the “lost” linoleum

Last year in January (and in fact, all winter) little got done at Blizzard Gulch. The logs had not yet been chinked and there was no way to keep any heat at all in the house. This year things are different. Exterior chinking was completed late last summer and most of the other small gaps are caulked. We have two vintage woodstoves, one in the basement workshop and one in the living room, and an electric heater in the basement that keeps the house above freezing when we aren’t there to feed the woodstoves.

All woodstoves require a woodpile.

An early-1970s Fisher Baby Bear stove heats the basement woodshop. Although it’s the smallest of three sizes that were once available (Papa and Mama Bear were the other sizes), the little fellow will swallow 24-inch long logs. This stove has been in our stash for many years. Its original hearth was made of quarry tiles much like the ones in the current hearth. It was mortared into place with mason’s mix and grouted with the same thing. Someday we’ll get around to rimming the edge with wood strips but for now we just have to be careful not to break off the corners.

Fisher Baby Bear Stove

Upstairs in the living room the Buck’s stove is installed and working. Its hearth is made of red flagstones left over from the patio of the original house on the property (the vinyl double-wide). To give the grout more texture we mixed in some coarse sand from a gully in Pueblo. Hopefully we didn’t add too much.

Buck's stove.

I am done with the interior log finishing on the main floor. That is one coat of Perma-Chink Prelude and one coat of Perma-Chink Acrylic (in satin). If I remember right, it took 6 gallon jugs of Prelude and 5 of the acrylic to do all the main floor rooms. The second floor will be both simpler and harder as there is less of it but the purlins (logs that span the length of the house and hold up the roof panels) are higher. When the finish is all done it will be easier to run wiring between the logs and do interior log chinking.

Here's the main bedroom with its low pitched ceiling, like a cabin we rented at Grand Teton National Park. It is more of a storage room at this point, with ladders, the paint cart, a table that has nowhere else to go, a new stone grinding wheel still in the box, and, out of view here, an old Roper gas stove given to us by a neighbor. The stove very handily sits on a wheeled dolly which lets me move it out of the way. All the log finish work is done in this room and the rest of the main floor.

Sean from Con-Way Trucking brought the linoleum tiles at long last. The time between ordering them and receiving them was weeks, long enough that I began to doubt that I’d ever see them, or that the colors I wanted would still be available if I had to place the order a second time. There was some confusion because it didn’t all come from one warehouse. Thanks to Cedar Rose at Building for Health for hanging in there until it all got sorted out.The boxes of tiles are now safely stored away, ready when the time comes to install them, and … I got the colors I wanted! Also, thanks to Sean for getting his overly-big truck maneuvered near the house and then hand-carrying the boxes to the porch.

Boxes of Marmoleum brand real linoleum tile.

Troy (the plumber) hasn’t had much experience yet with hot-water (hydronic) heating systems but we decided he’d be a good hand to enlist in this next big project. He’s able to obtain the materials at a better price than we could and knows other sources.

John and Troy speculate on what's needed to run the hot water tubing.

There’s not a lot of information about these hot-water heat systems for the do-it-yourselfer. Is that on purpose? If so, what the heck … if you dig around in Google long enough and ask questions you can eventually work it out. Had we chosen to just leave it all up to a heating contractor who knows what we would have gotten.  Those contractors, as well as their suppliers, seem to be full of opinions on things such as which brand of boiler to choose but they offer little factual evidence.

One supplier said he’d had a hot water heat system in a log house and it hadn’t worked out at all! He said the boiler ran all the time What exactly the problem was we never could find out but it unnerved us for a while

Along with Troy we visited a hydronic-heated log home built and owned by the in-laws of Trent (our designer). The Moncks couldn’t be happier with their system. We got to see all the components, asked lots of questions, enjoyed the gentle warmth, and concluded that the supplier guy didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe he’d had a poorly-built, leaky log house, or maybe the boiler was improperly sized.

In the Moncks' basement

Internet forums are full of posts by people who are disgruntled with their boiler (and all the well-known brands are represented among the culprits) while people who are satisfied apparently don’t bother to post.  We asked around with people we know who have hydronic heating and, based on the good experience reported by Paul Huber, a local builder and solar guy, settled on Triple Tube, a commercial-grade boiler. John noticed that there are few if any negative Internet forum reports about Triple Tube.

Triple Tube direct vent boiler.

The boiler will heat the main floor of the house directly through aluminum-lined heat PEX tubing stapled to the underside of the floor.

Watts RadiantPEX-AL is an aluminum hydronic tubing coating with plastic inside and out.

Special stapler for installing Watts Radiant heat PEX. It has a bottom plate that controls the depth of the staples so they don't squish the tubing. You can get these staplers at rental shops or you can buy one yourself if you're getting really serious. Troy bought this stapler and is renting it to us, which benefits all of us. He knows we aren't going to beat it up.

John staples up heat PEX. Tom stages the ladders so John doesn't have to climb down until he finishes this loop and starts in the next bay between joists. These ladders are climbable on both sides.

Like rassling an octopus! Having orange flagging tape (to mark the places where the PEX got stapled through by mistake), orange extensions cords, orange ladders, and orange air hoses doesn't make this any easier to sort out.

John is running basement wiring concurrently with the heat PEX. There is so much stuff stored in the basement that it  has to be shifted around to make room for work. Why do it more than once if you can help it? (Well, okay, I know better than that. It will be moved again when we insulate, and when we install light fixtures, and quite likely even that won’t be the end of it.)

Where the PEX bends seems to be the hardest place to avoid stapling the tubing. Flagging tape indicates a staple puncture that Troy will repair later. Normally we aren't running PEX in walls, but there was an excess of tubing that had to be used somewhere. No, you can't just cut it off. All loops of tubing in a zone have to be similar in length. Recommended maximum variation is 10 to 20%, depending on whose advice you're reading.

Here’s a manual that was helpful in figuring out how to install the heat PEX: Watts Radiant Installation Manual. We are using the aluminum-lined tubing, RadiantPEX-AL.

We gave up on trying to carry the hot water to the second floor; there’s no good place to run the tubing since there is no insulation space in the ceiling/second floor. Just boards. We could have used baseboards but they don’t look period (or very nice, either) and we could have gotten radiators (very expensive and we couldn’t get consistent estimates on how many were really needed).

From heating passing through the floorboards, the second floor heats itself pretty much without assistance. In case that’s not enough we are going to put an electric wall heater in the second floor bathroom and gas heaters in the other two rooms. There may also be a gas heater in the dining room on the main floor. We will end up with four heat systems: the hydronic (hot water), wood, electric and gas. If we are picky about the gas heaters and buy only models that don’t involve electrical wiring, we will have two systems (wood and gas) that will work when the power is out.

Index to all my Rejuvenation blog posts

Weeks 7 & 8: Egress Window Wells & New Stair Footing

Next up was the egress window wells, which meant it was time to move some existing plants that were in the way.  We spent an evening transplanting the azaleas, irises and roses.  We could not have done it without the ample help of friends. Thanks guys!

We saw a lot of Daniel and Nick of Premier Plus Construction Inc. the last couple of weeks.  They dug out the area for the new egress window wells, placed the rebar and framed up the walls.  They even framed the foundation stem wall for the new stairs.  After the inspector stopped by to approve the work, Daniel and Nick poured the concrete provided by Miller’s Mini Mix Concrete.  After twenty-four hours, they removed the forms, finished framing the laundry room and stair walls and added the positive bracing at the existing stair connections.

new egress wells: dug out

new egress wells: concrete forms

new egress wells: concrete pour

new egress wells: smoothing concrete

new egress wells: done!

new stair footing

existing stairs: new positive bracing

existing stairs: new positive bracing

Randy of Brothers Concrete Cutting, Inc. spent the morning sawing the existing foundation walls for the new egress windows.  Now we’re all ready for the new windows.

egress windows: cutting concrete foundation

egress windows: cutting concrete foundation

Tune in next time for window framing and knob & tube removal!

Before and after: The master bathroom

The other night, on Bang for Your Buck, the hosts evaluated a bathroom that looked a lot like ours. It’s a good thing we like ours so much, because evidently we Did It Wrong.  

Whatever, HGTV. I think ours is beautiful, and not just because the original was such a dump.  

Approach, gasp, run away?

Umpqua, Streamline, Chenowith. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

Outside the tub

Half a wall = more daylight

 The tub and the toilet swapped places, which had repercussions for the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom, but we shall say no more about that.

Ick.

If one is willing to live with ick, does that make one icky?

Aaaah.

Because I love Heather Safferstone (our interior designer) so much, I feel the need to say that neither the clear shower liner nor the tissue paper taped over the window was her idea, and they are not permanent solutions. She is doing her best to class us up. Godspeed, young Heather.

One of the important considerations as we remodeled was being consistent with the original character of the house (shout out to the midcentury modern remodel on this site and the owners’ pursuit of an appropriate bathroom). In our house, the second floor bathroom has a milk glass knob on the bathroom side of the door and glass outside. With the help of Historic Houseparts, the master bathroom does, too:

The knob is from Historic Houseparts; the plate is from our old bathroom, which wasn't all bad. Chrome amid the rot!

New Video: Tales from Rejuvenation – Made in Portland

1957 Mid-century modern house project intro

It all started innocently enough. We had been married about a year and were living in a nice enough house in a vinyl village, complete with a single solitary tree in the yard. The plan was to find a slightly bigger house with a basement, and maybe a bigger yard with trees, plural. A shorter commute to work was in the plans too. Then, on the first day of looking at houses, we saw “Space House.” Check it out at our local master of MCM cermonies’ site, Atomic Indy, for some photos.

Our Realtor™ probably had no idea how prophetic it was for her to tell us that the house ruined the search process for us. I didn’t know what mid-century modern was at the time, but I knew I wanted it. And so, the hunt was on. Over 50 houses later and halfway through another tour, my wife asked if I was ready to put in an offer on this house. We did, and are now the proud owners of a house that has smaller bedrooms, no basement, and is farther from work. We did get the yard, quite a few trees, some wildlife, and a couple cats at no extra charge. I’d like to think we got a bit of style as well.

So, what does the house look like? Here’s a shot of it the first time we came to see it:

Approach

My favorite part of the house is probably the back yard. It’s pretty secluded by way of the house itself and the trees all around. The covered patio was great as it allowed us to spend some time outside even during cool or rainy weather.

Lofely wife with realtor in lovely yard

I feel pretty comfortable saying that I like blue more than the average person. I have a couple “bass boat blue” (think the giant metal flake paint jobs you see on bass boats) Schwinn Homegrown mountain bikes to prove it. That said, this bathroom may be a bit much even for me.

This is what some might call a blue bathroom.

You only get a hint of the toilet in this shot, and miss out on the blue tile around the shower as well as the sink, but you get the idea. The yellow tile wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it stays for now. The toilet was a subject of lively debate as it is a one-piece design which I discovered was not appropriate for a vintage 50s house, courtesy of Retro Rennovation. I appreciate a toilet that’s built for speed, but figured this thing was awfully low and fat to be of the fifties. My wife and I debated this point, with her contending that it was still possible that it was the original toilet, until I discovered that the nice people at Eljer date their toilet tank lids. Our toilet features a “born on” date of August 26, 1977. Who knew you could get so excited about a toilet?

Here’s the more questionable bathroom. Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly nice, and I have no doubt that the person that did it thought it was absolutely killer. It’s just that it’s like walking into a completely different house when you turn the corner from the master bedroom into the master bathroom.

The offending bathroom

Check out the sweet sponge paint on the wall. I think it really makes it all come together, and applaud their dedication in carrying it through the HVAC vent covers as well as the speaker grates for the intercom.

So, now to the more interesting stuff. The house was in great condition though some of the paint, wallpaper, and lighting left quite a bit to be desired, at least for our tastes. Our initial project required removal of some wallpaper in the kitchen and replacement of the chandelier therein, closely followed by replacement of the light on the front porch. The other big hitters are a pretty heinous ceiling fan, some lighting over the dining table/pool table, and some sort of alternative to the 70s acoustical tile on the ceiling of the great room. That all leads to the big project, fixing the bathroom. We’ve been in the house just over four months and are definitely a bit behind schedule, but we’re hoping to have most of this resolved sometime later this spring. We’ll see how far off I am on that guess later on…

So, soon enough I’ll have a post or two dedicated to the work done thus far, hopefully with less words and more photos.

Dressing It Up

Sorry you haven’t heard from me for a while. It’s been a busy time. The house has been slowly progressing toward completion. We are just dressing things up a bit. One of the things I’m most excited about is that the sanding and finishing on the floors is getting done. It’s turning out wonderfully. Believe it or not, this used to be the gym floor at a school in Hilsboro. Now it’s a beautiful floor in a home in NE Portland:

Reclaimed & Refinished Floors

Reclaimed & Refinished Floors2

We also have the tilework done for the kitchen backsplash:

Backsplash Over Stove

Plumbing fixtures are all in, including the awesome clawfoot tub in the master bathroom:

Sweet Clawfoot Tub on Hextile Floor

Paired Sinks In Master Bath

And, last but not least, the carpet is in:

Carpet In Upstairs Bedroom

As you can see, it is nearly done. We have a few touch ups to do, and then we’ll be putting the furniture in. The whole look and feel of the house is coming together nicely. I think we are succeeding in adding lots of touches to the house that make it seem as though it is old, but in fact it is new. More information is available on the builder’s web site.