Shut the Front Door

Exterior paint colors are my nemesis. My kryptonite if you will.

You need anything selected beyond your front door and I'm in, but if what you need falls on the exterior of your walls, I'm always at a loss.

Plants, colors, etc. I just don't see an exterior vision like I can an interior.

Don't get me wrong. I know what looks good and what looks bad. I just struggle on the process to get mine into the good category.

The front door was in pretty rough shape when we bought the house. For one it was painted red. A red door on a red brick house. Blah. Two, whoever painted it last did it with their eyes shut with no prep.

We changed out the lock set and hardware and by the time we did all of that the door was looking pretty rough.

But I needed to get a paint color selected and kind of in a hurry. I wanted to get the door cleaned up and painted before the weather turned too cool. But picking the front door color was going to be a lot of pressure.

I went through my paint box and picked out the first 12 colors that stood out to me. Knowing that I'd be narrowing it down to 3 by the time I got to the house and held them against the brick.

Before we took them out to the house, I Photoshopped some of the colors onto a photo we had of the front entry. The decision wasn't any easier.

Paul categorized four of them in the "no-way" category. Four of them in the "that could work category" and the last four into a "I could totally go for that category".

One morning before work, while Paul was breaking into our own garage (because we're totally classy like that), I taped some of the paint swatches up on the door thinking I'd immediately get it down to a smaller number.

I knocked one out of the running immediately but was still left with 11 options.

We went to work for the day, and when we came back by at 5:00 to check the mail, we did actually whittle it down. To 6 options. So, not really any closer to a decision. 

We sat on it for the evening, then narrowed it down to 4 options and bought some testers. We knocked out the top purple and the bottom blue. We were left with a deep purple, a blue green, a dark gray/blue/black and a light gray.

All of the colors were a little "safer" than I wanted to go with. I like a really well thought out colored front door. But most houses I see with a great color door have painted lapboard, or painted brick. Our Oklahoma red brick really forced our door color direction.

By the glow of a construction light we painted our swatches on the door. At night. I was so impatient.

Turns out, you can't pick a paint color in the dark. After standing in the cold Oklahoma wind wearing a dress, in my yard, on my sidewalk, in the street and in the neighbors driveway we were no closer to picking a color. 

The next day, we looked it over and decided the sweatshirt my mother-in-law was wearing was going to be the color instead. The next morning we bought a gallon of paint to match her sweatshirt, without testing it first. This is how this family rolls.

We decided on a back up color (a safe color) just in case after we painted the door we hated it, we could cough up another $40 and repaint it. The backup is the top right color, Sherwin Williams' Peppercorn.

After removing the solid wood door (cough, heavy, cough) and trying to strip off the existing paint, we realized we'd be at it for hours. Maybe even multiple days. So we stripped all of the cracked and peeling paint then sanded it down with a very coarse grit sandpaper with our hand sander. Putting the door back on was quite the show. Five adults and one door with a toddler watching very impatiently. 

 

After it was back up and we determined we were leaving it up for the rest of it's life, Paul took a tub of wood putty and applied it, liberally, all over the door to fill in all of the 1/8" divots and missing paint. After allowing it to dry for 24 hours, he took the sander and smoothed out the entire door so we'd have a flush even surface to paint. We also removed the existing dinky little doorbell in preparation for a legit one that we'll be able to hear past the first 18" of the house. Please excuse the crooked iPhone photos. I seem to be snapping these in the mornings before work so I'm always rushed.

 

 

Then it rained. Could there be anything more irritating than rain when you are ready to paint!?

 

After it dried out, it was time. Cue the color by Glidden called Totally Teal. 

 

 

Whoa, right? We are actually fans of Behr's 2-in-1 Ultra Exterior Semi-Gloss paint. We have never had to prime while using it even when painting over scotch tape yellow and deep dining room red so we had the Glidden color matched for the Behr paint. This door however did need a second coat. The grain of the wood on the front door had enough red paint in it to require a solid second coat. And the back of the door which was white took the paint completely differently than the front (almost worse). But, it wasn't difficult to get it on and the coverage went quickly.

We decided to paint both the exterior and interior side of the door the same color. It is one of the colors in the fabric I am using in the dining room that is tying this whole puppy together so we wanted to be able to see it's happiness from inside the house.

The color seems to be out of place right now. But once we get the landscaping taken care of it'll be perfect. Now if only we can decide whether or not to paint all of the exterior doors this color we'll be set.

Still up for the door: Paint the brackets a fresh coat of black with some Rustoleum to look as fresh as the railing, re-attach the weather stripping and get the sticker off of the lead glass window.

Exterior Updates

Our parents have seriously been helping us out over the past week.

My parents came into town and helped us clear about 20 yards of debris out of the house and into a dumpster. Dumping plaster from a second story window can be quite fun.

Shortly after they headed back to Texas, Paul's parents came down from Michigan for the week. While we were at work, they worked on tasks around the house, we'd have dinner and then depending on the evening we'd go and do a couple more tasks.

They dug up plants and over grown shrubs. They mowed our yard. They took steel brushes and steel wool to our railing in preparation for a new coat of paint. We stripped and sanded down the front door. I painted 2/3rds of the front porch railing.

We couldn't believe how much of a difference removing the shrubs and painting the railing made. Paul said having the exterior cleaned up is a moral boost for him. I agree. It's starting to become a totally different house while not changing at all.

We cannot thank our friends and family enough for helping us over the last few months. All of the labor and babysitting has been incredibly helpful and encouraging. But...keep it coming (hah!). Just a few more months and we promise we'll only invite you over to cook for your family or to watch your children instead!

26/328 = 13%

We have windows.

40 of them. Four zero. That is a whole lot of windows.

That translates to 328+ panes of glass including doors and all of our 6/1 and 4/4 windows.

26 of those panes were cracked, broken, chipped, or missing entirely. Which seems like a lot until you compare it to the number of total panes on the house. That's only 13% of all the window panes that needed to be replaced.

That's plywood in the left window. One of the small panes around the corner was missing and had the same plywood treatment.

That will make you feel good about the property you bought, right? I mean, nothing says home like some boarded up windows.

Well thanks to the Oklahoma weather (hail), glazing contractors have been IMPOSSIBLE to find. We had multiple recommendations but no one would take our job. Not only would they not take our job, they wouldn't even consider our job. Not because of anything that had to do with the house, but because their backlogs of work were so outrageously long, they knew it wasn't even worth taking down our number because of the time it would take to just get around to us.

"But we would pay cash. This was not an insurance job. You wouldn't have to file paperwork, or wait for a check. We could pay you at the time of service. What is wrong with you contractors?!"

Didn't seem to matter.

We did get the name of a guy who specialized in historic preservation. He came out took a look, and didn't have the desire to replace just the glazing. He wanted to restore the windows. To their former glory. Make them operational (using the old weights) and beautiful again. Wow. Wouldn't that be awesome? For more than $30,000, it wasn't all that awesome. Needless to say we told him to find himself another job.

So, we finally got someone worked out. They were still quite a few weeks out from being able to do the work, but they were willing to take our job. They are a general residential and commercial small contractor from Tulsa, so they are still quite busy, but not as slammed as the local Oklahoma City glazing crews.

So after waiting for them to have some availability, they came out last week and promptly started replacing the broken and missing glass.

Compared to the existing glass in the windows, the new glass is so clean you can barely tell there is a window there at all. I'll be spending the next three months doing nothing but cleaning paint and crap off the rest of the windows to make them even look half as clean as the new panes.

Last Friday, I cut their final check and I was a happy camper. I had windows that were no longer broken and the plywood was a thing of the past! Happy, happy.

The installers are coming back today to take care of a few things that accidentally got missed. I'm thankful for honest subcontractors that are willing to come back and fix things when an accidental oversight might have been made. It is rare to find these types of subs (unfortunately) so its good to keep the ones you do find.

Little Surprises

A few days ago, after work, we swung by the house to make sure that our front yard and back yard had been edged and mowed.

We pulled up in the driveway, did a quick survey and started to back out when I caught a glimpse of something on the front porch. I don't know how I saw it from the car but I made Paul stop, I hopped out and went to investigate.

What I found when I got to the porch was this:

Someone had anonymously left us this book, propped open to our house. What a thoughtful and sweet surprise.

I flipped through it on our way back to the apartment and loved seeing all of the old photos of the homes. I especially loved seeing ours. We determined the photo had to have been taken in the 60's since a window air-conditioning unit is front and center. But look at that baby maple in the front yard.

That's one of the two that we just had to cut down. We plan to plant some new trees and I have a good feeling we can get some big ole trees grown in no time now.

Once we got to the apartment, Paul changed, grabbed some water and headed back to the house to do some work. When he got back to the house there was another book. The same one, laying on the same doors. Either I was so focused on the one propped open that I didn't notice the 2nd copy or someone left us another copy. Either way, we now have two.

So, to the person or persons who left us these books, thank you. After the stress of the previous thoughts, it's nice to see that other people are excited about what we are doing.

Lessons Learned

At work we have this phrase we throw around constantly...

"Lessons Learned."

Every project something happens (a.k.a. mistakes), we learn our lesson and implement different directions on future projects.

We even have full meetings devoted to Lessons Learned topics. Everyone has at least one. Some have hundreds (slowly raises her hand in the air).

Well now, Six Twelve has one (or maybe twenty) and there will probably be plenty more by the time we are done.

Lessons Learned #1: Dumpsters

We ordered our 3rd dumpster this week. We had budgeted for construction dumpsters but not three of them. When we determined we needed another dumpster we decided this one was coming out of our pocket. We had already used our alloted money from our house budget and we didn't want to take away from other important items. Our family budget would be the one that would take the third dumpster's financial hit.

So, I became a price junky. I wanted to make sure that we got the biggest dumpster available at the cheapest price and for the longest time. This was eating into my furniture/decorating funds here. We were going to get a better deal.

Previously we used what we would consider the most well known dumpster company, Waste Management. They have the best marketing out of all the companies in town and it was the easy, order-online choice.

I (of course) created an Excel sheet to compare prices, terms, fees, etc., this time.

We found a cheaper company than the one we had used the first two times. By about $60. So we called them up, placed the order and scheduled delivery for today.

We met the plumber at the house this morning that is taking care of our gas lines and there was our third dumpster. From the same company the first two dumpsters were from.

SUCK.

We could have saved another $120 if we had just gone through this other "middle-man" company first. Same dumpster as before, same pick up as before, but we get it longer without extra fees and the base price was even cheaper.

So, if you're in the market for a temporary construction dumpster, tell us and we'll give you the steps for a cheaper but identical product.

Lesson learned.

It happened...

The inevitable finally occurred.

The freak out.

The "what-in-the-world-are-we-doing" freak out. I'll give you two guesses as to which one of us had the panic attack.

If you said "Christa" for both answers you'd be correct. Your prize? The satisfaction of being right of course.

Stress has been slowly ebbing and flowing around our family. Everything seems to be feast or famine. Work. Church. Friends. Parenting. Tests. The House. Some days, everything is great but on others, everything has gone to hell in a hand basket. That's part of life and we know that. And we knew the freak out was an inevitable event, it was just a matter of time.

But so far, when we've been asked how things are going (especially with the house) we've been pretty positive. A few of our friends hear the "eh, its a mess" comments but we've tried to stay positive. The whole, put on a happy face thing.

Well, Saturday morning, I lost it.

Addison was at a friend's house (weird that I can already say that) and so we both went to the house to get some work done. And within 3 minutes of being in the house, I was having a full fledged panic attack. My chest was pounding, tears were streaming, I couldn't focus and I couldn't stop pacing the house. I couldn't calm down enough to pick anything up and make any progress. I just kept thinking about how much of a mess it was and how far we had to go.

Paul has been working basically two full time jobs. 40 hours at our day job and then another 30+ at the house. When I have these moments about the house he takes it very personal. And I don't blame him. But it's not personal. It has nothing to do with Paul or what he's accomplished. In fact, if it wasn't for him we'd be up a creek, not only without a paddle but probably without a boat.

I finally calmed down, picked up a trash bag and a broom and started cleaning. Paul repaired the front door latch and deadbolt and we took some deep breaths. Sunday night, I tossed and turned, got out of bed and kept busy (painting my toenails, washing my hair). I so desperately wanted to feel like we had made a mistake. I was scared, I was on the verge of another panic attack in the middle of our little bathroom apartment floor.

I wanted to have an internal conversation where I would determine that we had made the biggest mistake of our lives. That this was a disaster and that we needed to find a way to get out of it.

And while my mind was racing and I was upset and worried, I couldn't convince myself that this was a mistake at all.

While we are behind and money is getting tighter and tighter, this is the house that I want to live in. This is the house that I want to throw parties in and have slumber parties at. It's where, one day I want to host Christmas or Thanksgiving for my whole family. This is our house.

And it wasn't a mistake.

Even if we can't do it. If we fail, if we run out of money, or run out of time we'll just have to figure it out.

It's ours and it is going to be done one day. And when that one day is here, we'll be thankful we saw it through. 

Insulation Part 1

Who knew there could be more than one part to the story of insulation.

"Not I," said the duck.

Anyone? Anyone?

OK. Insulation. Our house is 82 years old. Built right at the beginning of the Great Depression. Turns out conduit was already a thing, but insulating your home was not.

So we own a very large, very drafty 82 year old home.

We used to throw away money during the hot, hot summers and ridiculously cold Oklahoma winters in our first house, the little bungalow. We never undertook this size of a renovation while on 20th Street so we sucked it up and paid our outrageous heating and cooling bills practically year round. Well, not this time. This time, we'd take the right steps and distribute the money in order to insulate those bills into submission.

Our realtor, Gary, mentioned that he had a friend who specialized in energy conservation in homes and would have some tips about the insulation portion of the job. So before the house was even ours, we had Trey come out and take a look. He gave us some quick thoughts and then recommended we call a company he uses quite often.

So, we met with that company, Oklahoma Foam. They're actually doing our whole heating and cooling system, insulation included. Trey ran calculations and did blow tests, they came out and surveyed the house and determined an entire insulation/HVAC system that would give us incredibly low energy bills. And for not much more than our originally planned budget amount.

 

To put it briefly, Insulation Part 1 involved all of our spray foam insulation. We were advised (by multiple people) to have a non-vented attic and to treat it as conditioned space. Not the same temps we would do in our living room, but a somewhat climate controlled space nonetheless. So as soon as the roof was done, and our HVAC installer had the new ducts in place, he called them in to spray the underside of the roof deck. See the third photo. This means when our attic would have been 135 degrees in the summer, now it'll be 90. This allows for us to use this space for storage without worry and maybe, one day, transition it into another space. It's also going to save us a ton of cash. Funny how that works, paying to condition the attic will actually save us money.  

 

They also sprayed the entry vestibule walls (see last photo), the underside of our sitting room (see second photo), the underside of the first floor (the basement ceiling), and the rim joist around the perimeter of the house between the 1st and 2nd floor. They spray and then come back with a thin wire and slice through it to even it out for gyp board wall installation. They had everything done in less than a day and a half and once everything is covered up you'll never even know its there. But our bank account will know. 

Framing

Things are progressing at the house. This past weekend, I had to spend two days in Tulsa taking my licensing exams so Addison spent the weekend in Texas with her grandparents. That way Paul (with the help of family, friends and myself when I returned) could accomplish this:

 

That is our entry. No walls, no floor, no entry door frame. We are about to start the insulation process, electrical work and then we'll be ready to put this room back together.

 

Paul and some of the guys framed the opening between our bonus room and the kitchen. Previously it was full of studs and now its a clear opening. They also removed the studs between what used to be the breakfast room and kitchen and added a new beam. We still need to frame up the ceiling in here. The existing beam (the one above the back door) is a foot lower than the rest of the ceiling in the kitchen. Since we added the second beam, we decided to drop the ceiling all the way across. It still leaves us with an 8'-6" ceiling in the kitchen and allows for us to add recessed down lights.

 

Paul and I framed in our closet. Turns out, the "bonus space" that was in Addison's new room that we would be converting to our closet was originally the master closet anyways. Someone along the way closed off the opening and created the larger space in the other bedroom. When we busted the plaster out we found the original door opening (SCORE!) so we just had to put the wall back where it was originally on Addison's side. Now I don't feel so guilty for changing up the floor plan.

 

We also framed in 2 of the 3 doors that lead into our master bathroom. Previously, this bathroom served as a jack-and-jill. We're converting it to our master bathroom and the door on the left used to lead to one of the spare bedrooms. Since we closed that off, we decided to close off the door that lead into the room over the porch. We have french doors from our room to this sitting room and decided the wall space was more valuable in the bathroom than an extra door.

 

We have some framing to do between the dining room and the kitchen and the kitchen ceiling that I mentioned earlier.

 

Our list is still long but we're trying to make progress, hopefully before we know it, we'll be doing nothing but putting it back together instead of the prep.

 

Today, the HVAC installer is continuing to work. He's already cut almost all of the supply vents, is working to get the duct work in place and is moving along at a pretty good pace. The insulation crew comes out today and applies the spray foam to the underside of our roof deck and will come back later to blow in the insulation for our exterior walls.