Old Schoo[t]L

Yes, we're back on 2 wheels again - and just in time. It only takes one 70 degree day to remind you that you'd much rather be outside doing something fun, than inside doing something stupid. And in keeping with our theme at the house here... why buy something new and working when you can buy something old and leaky?

Enter (1) slightly tattered 1965 Vespa scooter. We'll post pictures just as soon as we smash someone's window and get us another digital camera- i figure that's kind of like paying it forward. Until then, this will have to suffice:


With imagery like that there's no wonder the vespa is still the king of cool. So who else has their feet squarely planted on the four square court of style?

Audry Hepburn

The Poor-man's Michael Cain

and, this guy that looks like Mathew McConaughy

So we're now in some pretty important company - and for at least the next couple of weeks, i anticipate getting very little accomplished.

Liberations, unwanted

Sorry kids, no shiny new pics of progress made. Local Youths saw fit to liberate my jacket and digital camera from the truck parked on the street at 5:30 in the afternoon. This was done via the "smash and grab" technique whereby three dudes watched as one dude smashed the window and grabbed the stuff. I know this because the event was witnessed by two seperate neighbors who reported to the police.

But the joke is on our young assailants as the digi-cam was 50% non-working (we'd long ago lost the feature to view our pictures) and my jacket had become a 21 century small pox blanket- what with all the carcinogens likely interwoven from our lead paint ridden lifestyle.

The cops haven't returned my phone calls... but i'm certain they've got their best men on the case. Well, at least they didn't get the Credence...



also here

this just in... the aussies are out

Pictured here left to right- Trina, Square1, Square2, Paulie (wheelchair), Kyp, and Ed.
The aussies have left the east coast for the west coast drastically reducing the per-capita cool in our neighborhood. shine on you crazy diamonds.

Thermae.

Those following along at home may have noticed that the impending completion of the new bathroom has us upping our lifestyle to the tune of a 2 bathroom house. I'd say that puts us slightly above "urban hipsters" but still tantalizingly close to yupee. It will all be kitchen some day but in the mean time we're going to make something of this unwanted downstairs bath/temporary glut of expendable space. Options include:

A work shop

It would be nice to get the tools out of the dining room, and work shops are great places to get away from actually working on the house but the room is seriously cramped and I'm just not ready [able]to grow a beard so this option looks doubtful.

A Laundry Room

Years of using a shared basement and a communal apartment laundry have taken their toll. it might be nice to spread out a little, get that Whirlpool duet all the cool kids are using or maybe even one of those 'green' laundry systems that uses no carbon footprint but instead cleans clothes with only the power of one's self worth... Seems rather a long shot, and let's not forget there is still a sewer pipe in the floor where we took out the toilet so nobody wants to hang out there too long.

A Turkish Bath

Since forever ago kings and countrymen have had entire rooms devoted to the steam bath. The Romans had their public Thermae, the Finn's have their Sauna's, hell even those old way-too-naked guys at the JCC have their Schvitz's. The water's already there... and the drains. the groundwork is in place, i think we're on to something.

he doesn't seem to mind

Mr. Belding

Spring has finally sprung here in DC and with this comes the expected arrival of cherry blossoms, In-Laws, and...Australians. We played short-notice hosts to a four Australian travelers that [claimed to] know Alli's cousin. I don't have a picture handy but this crew was equal parts:

and:

I can say confidently now that (Steve Irwin aside) Australians are some chill people. The aussie's visit coincided with an In-Laws visit as well, so, like a teenager with a self-image complex i locked myself in the bathroom for half the day in a hurried attempt to give the bathroom some proper dignity.








... that $50 pre-hung door at the home depot is looking pretty good right about now.

Lights, paint, and boot-leg building methods

The walls are green like this
the lights are cool like this

and the mirror is kinda bootleg like this:
yep, i've taken go gluing stuff together. I'm not proud, and while we do need a large mirror here my background has me wanting to frame this looking glass... expressing the hanging of a mirror on wall - not simply sticking something up... and isn't gluing something to the wall kind of like the architectural merkin of home ownership? perhaps... but until the load bearing tape comes off we'll have to hold our breath and wait - cause with a glue that has a curing cycle of 72 hours we're stuck with this for a few days.

next to godliness

The work soldiers on with this past weekend being all things toilet. Fiscal responsibility and stylistic belt-tightening has us re-using the existing toilet instead of finally finding that toilet that defines me as a person. Sour grapes indeed, but sour grapes yield sour wine, and where there's wine there's a need to micturate and finally we can do this without having to put on shoes and navigate the stairs in the middle of the night.

mysteries of the wax ring revealed...

a kingdom of 1

Casual observers may note that there is still yet no door on the bathroom. We as a couple are unwilling to accept a two party open door policy and as such have installed careful and complicated means to insure privacy and dignity- efforts arguably better spent towards actually installing a door in retrospect.

Fit for a king

bathroom just needs the throne

Booyah

Only Stuart Scott knows how to express it - the feeling of crossing a finish line. and that's what i've almost got with this never-ending bathroom.

file photo

The weekend began with a re-visit from Matt Melody down from his ivory tower in Brooklyn. and with this a reminder that we haven't really finished anything that he saw us starting - 14 months ago. So, armed with renewed self criticism and a toolbox full of hope (and some tools) we forged ahead with the final trimming on the new bathroom. But i forgot my camera so please accept this web-based panta-mime instead:

step 1: sanding the drywall

step 2: lightly sanding the floors

step 3: staining the floors

step 4: ruining the stain







Step 5 grinding out the wrong stain

steps 6-9: sanding, sanding, sanding

Step 10: painting





and finally installing the finished plumbing.

So booyah Stuart Scott I've got me a bathroom.

Let there be [sky] light

Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Velux corporation we now have 3 skylights sitting in the living room. i ordered these in august to be installed before the weather turned. Their clairvoyance must have told them to hold off on the delivery for 7 months to give us time to really get ready. I shouldn't complain - it's not like i am prepared to put more holes in the roof.

one for the shower, and two for over the stairs.

Shower IV

Thanks to the efforts of Jeff and Neal on the grout work the shower is officially working. - not finished but functional. water comes out where it should, and drains where it ought. the lights even work.

please enjoy these artistic photos of our handiwork



The bathroom vanity arrived months ago and sits in a cardboard shroud in the living room.

I'm kinda like Gandhi

Way better than my high school 'stash

I may not be protesting British rule, but I know a little something about sacrifice these days. And though Mohandas may have sacrificed his meals to make his point - i've given up the daily luxury of hot water to make mine. A wife will only last 10 days without hot water - that means you've got a decent grace period of 9 days to get your shit together when the heater breaks, after which, you really do see the ugly side of your spouse. And this is entirely deserved. Without this doomsday clock a guy can get pretty used to showering in the sink, fa-breeze cleaning his dockers, and growing a high school mustache.

so I present my day 11 solution:
another hole in the walls and a $50 used hot water heater sourced from the "anything goes" section of Craigslist DC. Conveniently this also gave me the chance to get the installation also via craigslist support. Another $50 and this rusting beauty was sitting in my kitchen/ boiler room. and he installed it on a sunday!

9 days and counting

The occasional set backs of 'old house' ownership are often not worth mentioning, it's become assumed if not expected that occasional luxuries will break down and require a repair, re-patch, or re-abandonment... but we're now nine days into a life without hot water.

Indeed we'd become expert at re-lighting the pilot light in our ever malfunctioning hot water heater. We've broken the refrigerator, boiler and washing machine (twice), but these weekly outages were the only [almost constant] warning we would ever get. the bottom end of our tank caved in faster than a Giuliani Presidential bid. I was determined not to be held hostage by the first repair man that showed up - but when that repair man missed 3 consecutive days of appointments and then came back with a $5100 estimate, my cleverness was undone.

we're going to go with the guy on craigslist with a used water heater for 50 bucks - and he'll install it. tough to pass on that one.

Part III

The stone for all the tricky bits has arrived. We're using a the same stone for all of the thresholds, counter tops and odds and ends where tile becomes a nuisance.
bench in the shower. cutting these tiles is giving me grey hairs.

The bathroom cabinetry has shown up. In the perpetual attempt towards life-beyond-our-means we had the cabinets built by a professional cabinetmaker in Baltimore - cause seriously, I can't do this kind of thing.

ETA has the Tile-work train pulling into done-station sometime during March-madness at this rate.

eternal damnation

St. Wolfgang I am not, but the temptation to turn away and leave this mess behind are all to frequent in the months of Janu-feb.

Tile setting continues... we're at about 50% i think. at this rate we'll have a shower by mid march.

The harsh light of morn falls on another weekends short-comings.








i'm trying to embed a video, let's see if it works