73. We Do Do Windows!

I thought I'd pick up where I left off - the front step.  I brought these salvaged bricks from home, where I have them all over the place.  This area was one that was prone to washouts, and worse - heavy dog traffic.  It's a narrow spot where Roscoe zooms through during  his 'crazy bouts', and dirt would go flying everywhere.   I knew there was no way to get the grass to grow with that going on.   I've adjusted the grading so when the water splashes off the roof (no gutters) the stones take the brunt and the water flows to the left and out into the yard rather than down the front walkway.  A lot of brutal work in 90 degree weather, but well worth it!

From that view if you look to your left down the fence line this is what you see.  It's not completely finished yet, but lots of stuff has been planted and everything I've put in seems to like it here.  There's been lots of rain and the grass is filling in nicely, things are blooming - tra la!!

Might as well wrap up this part of the report with a picture of the back yard, in which the grass is also growing nicely - it's hard to imagine it was a sandbox only a few months ago.  Kathleen, that vine is the pink trumpet vine you gave me... it's going nuts but no blooms yet at all, I'm hoping for a big surprise next spring.  If you look closely you can see the baby-bed spring that is mounted on the fence as a trellis.  Dave and I picked this out of someone's trash on one of our walks.  Lucky for me he's such a cooperative soul.


When I first bought the house I got a quote on replacing all 26 windows in the house.  It was something in the neighborhood of $17,000 so that idea was quickly discarded.  Early on I finished the one over the kitchen sink (Episode 52 in September) and the one on the porch (Episode 60 in November), which was no easy task.  The rest of them have been covered with visqueen since it got cold last winter because I knew it would be a long long time before I got around to working on them again.  They rattled and when the wind blew the visqueen would "breathe" hot or cold air depending on the season.  Then not long ago, after a very heavy rain and wind event we came to the house to find a puddle on the dining room floor.  At other times we saw puddles in the living room and foyer as well.  Ok, ok.  Time to work on the remaining 24 windows.  

As I mentioned before, we came to the conclusion that the windows on the sides of the house would rarely need to be opened, since the cross breeze from the beach (mmmm it is as sweet as it sounds) goes from front to back.  This simplified the issue, and we decided to make all the side windows fixed in place, caulked up and no more leaky drafty-ness.  Ever.  We began with the two in the dining room, which you already saw.  Then this one, and the one opposite, in the living room.  Only 20 to go!

Our next victim was this cutie on the side of the sunroom.  Now let me say here, I hate to have to close up a groovy old window.  But if you could see how - um - messed up - they are you might understand.  Originally the two panels on either side were fixed, and the center ones slid out to open up.  Fine if you don't have central AC but very hard to get them to slide, never mind seal up against the elements.  Plus there were muttons (cross-bars) broken, and damage where apparently a doggie (not mine) was trapped inside and tried to eat his way out.

I helped a little but Dave and his expertise are really the ones getting this window project finished in fine style.  It starts with taking everything apart and putting back new pieces with the old - here he has fashioned a replacement for a mutton that was half-chewed off.  Another job for his elite coping skills!  One pane of glass got replaced, and I added window glazing caulk on the outside after scraping off any loose old stuff.

Here's what it looked like with a little added trim for pizzazz...  19 to go!

These three are on the second floor - that's the view back over our cute little neighborhood.  In the other direction you can see the ocean between the buildings on A1A.  Over the course of one whole day these windows got disassembled, scraped, put back in place atop a bed of caulk, and expertly trimmed.  You can see the new wood along the edges.  The original charm of the windows is retained, but no more hot breath as you walk by.  The two in the front of the picture are in the guest room and the furthest one is actually in the hallway.

And now for the piece de resistance... the first of the cute cranky windows along the back of the second story.  There are two of these in the laundry room and two in the upstairs bath.  They were in such bad shape because this wall is the one that endured most of the damage as the house sagged way back when.  Take a look at a "before" shot in Episode 51 when I was working on the laundry room if you want to see how kitty wampus they were.  HOWEVER... I was determined to save these because I think they have such appeal and the glass is all original.  I thought I would have to take them out and rebuild the jambs, but Dave knew just how to fix them.  I even kept the original hinges and casement cranks - a little TLC and WD40 and they are as good as new.  The whole thing is weather stripped and tight as a drum now and I love it.  This one window took the better part of a weekend because of the complexity and there are three more just like it! 


There are 15 windows left to deal with which seems like almost nothing at the rate we are going.  Another area that was providing a lot of air leakage was the front door.  Since it's going to be replaced we didn't want to go crazy fixing it but it got a full weather-strip job this weekend.  I am going to start this week refinishing the door that will go in it's place... remember the one that went into the shop many moons ago?  The day that gets installed will be an exciting one and it's not far off.

I found these beautiful little tiles on a recent trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  There were boxes and boxes in all colors and I was oh-so-tempted just to buy them all!  The boxes say "Made in Morocco" and the glazes are all imperfect and beautiful.  I picked four colors to use in a random pattern on the bar top and the kitchen back splash.  The colored glass tiles I was going to use would have cost twice as much and not been nearly as unique and cool as these are.  And since glass tiles probably wouldn't be a smart thing to put on a bar top I was almost ready to settle for something beige!  So there's another fun project to entertain you in the not-too-distant future.


When we got back from a recent walk to the beach I spotted Roscoe, eagerly awaiting our return.  Fortunately neither one of my dogs has a taste for wooden window sills - they'd rather take naps until there is something more interesting to do.  However he does have a bad habit of jumping up to peek out the glass in the front door, which is really going to be a problem once the new door is in.  Hopefully I can lovingly modify that behavior - or worst case put a chair in front of the door so he can climb up and look out safely.  If only the big goofball wasn't so doggone cute I would spank him!

72. Dragonflies, Front Steps and a Kitty Cat

Well hello stranger!  If you think we've been slacking off and not getting anything done at Grandview, think again.  I know it's been since mid-June since I posted last, but I have lots to share, so buckle up!

My 49th birthday arrived on June 23rd, and Dave surprised me with this beautiful light for the house.   We had been tossing ideas around for just the right pendant fixture for the second floor stairwell, and this is the one we liked best.  I was thrilled because Dave's taste at times runs along some very modern and "hi-tech" looks... I was prepared to compromise some, but when he said he liked this one because of the colors, I knew we had a winner.  Dragonflies are one of our most favorite insects because they are a predator of our least favorite insect:  Mosquitos!!  Plus it has all those beachy greens and blues that I'm using throughout the house.  Next to go is that wall fixture you can barely see in the background there... as soon as I find just the right one to replace it.

Wow, does this look like a mess or what?  Not so!  This is exactly the kind of project that Dave and I thrive on.  If something isn't right, we begin by taking it apart piece by piece, until we get down to something solid.  The next step may not be clear right away, but we stand back and take a good look, discussing different ideas, and soon we are putting pieces back into place.  Here we are dealing with the entryway to the porch, which will be a focal point, obviously, of the whole project.  There had been so many patchy-poo jobs done on it previously it all had to go.  The siding, trim, and even a lot of the tiles had to be removed before we could start again, with a clean slate.

I had the illustrious job of crawling under the house to get an idea of what was going on down there, as the porch floor was seriously sagging at that front corner.  On the left you can see the back of the concrete steps (covered with tile on the outside) - what a mess those were!  Solid but pieced together in chunks, kind of a funny way to build steps in my opinion.  You can also see the pipe that connects to the hose bib.  Once I got under there, it became apparent that we weren't going to jack everything up like it should have been, but we decided to shore it all up so there would be no further sag and proceed with the cosmetics after that.  We put in a bottom plate and added several vertical supports, so the work we were about to do on the porch wouldn't be a waste of time.  I spent a few grueling hours hunched over under there, but I was grateful for how cool it was - In this heat it's amazing how the basement and crawl space remain so comfortable.

Here we've made a little progress.  All the underneath work is done.  At the lower left you can see where the hose bib is, and below that a pipe that is connected to a drain I put at the lowest point of the porch floor.  When it rains water would collect there in the corner, but now it has a place to go.  I can also hose the porch off to clean it if necessary.   Also note the tiles have been removed from the side of the stair.  Because of the "inconsistencies" of the concrete underneath, and since the guy who put the tile down used an ice cream scoop to put the adhesive on them, there were huge gaps between the tile and concrete.  Whenever you have gaps like this the tiles can break very easily, which was happening along this side as well as that top step where we pried everything off.  Trust me it will be solid as a rock when I'm through with it!

This view of the side shows the bottom row of tiles in place with adhesive, and mortar poured in behind to fill in all the gaps.  I used caulking backer rod (a 5/8" snake of styrofoam for filling large gaps before caulking) in between the tiles to keep the mortar from oozing out where the grout will eventually go.  I let that harden up for a day before adding the next row, followed by the ones on top.  And check out that beautiful little drain pipe - Dave cut the circle with something called a "coping" saw which he uses like a surgeon does his scalpel, for all those little detailed wood projects.  I'll show you more about that in a future post.  I haven't tried it yet, but I would like to learn to cope as well as he does... yes the irony of this is not lost on me.  I'm also quite proud of our little stone area where the hose is - no more trampling through dirt/mud to get to the hose bib.

No, Dave is not building a piano.  After we removed the tiles (that were so poorly installed they were an eyesore and a safety hazard) the subfloor had to be rebuilt.  It was important to create exactly the right slope, so Dave created custom shims - each one just a tiny bit thicker than the one next to it.  Here he is preparing to put the piece of floor decking on top.  I will top that with concrete backer board to create a perfect base for a quality tile job.  You can also see the lovely supports that he installed with the help of someone who crawled into that little space underneath.  Well actually I went in through the basement door but I was UNDER THERE!  Thought maybe I'd find that hidden box of treasure I've been looking for, but unless you count a couple of aluminum cans, no luck there.

All the tiles are in, but not grouted yet.  Nice and sturdy, stable and level.  That black mat in front is a piece of tar paper someone glued down, and I've begun peeling it up, but it's one of those things I've walked over so many times I don't notice it until I see how ugly it is in a photograph.  That beautiful cypress lap siding is the same wood that brought me to my David...the same stuff we installed together on that window wall there almost exactly one year ago!  Can you believe we are almost ready to paint it!  What a process, and what fun it has been along the way.

To wrap up this episode I bring you Dee Dee, Queen of Grandview.  Doesn't she look regal there perched on the front ledge?  We take her out for a walk on that little leash, and all she wants to do is pose right there.  I thought it would be fun if my readers would caption this photo, so please leave a comment this time - I think there's a link to click at the bottom and tell me what you think she is thinking about, and I'll add the best one to the photo.

I have lots more photos so there will be another post very soon!