649 6th

now come the details

Believe it or not we were actually able to grow a few flowers in the shade spot that is our back yard. For a while there we thought it was a bust but nature proved us wrong.

This morning I'm trying to get started on the millions of finish details that lay ahead of us in the next few months. That's the problem with the functionally finished house; it's harder to make trim as much of a priority as we did say, oh, the toilet? I'm finding this is a common phenomena with many do-it-yourself contractors there's always finish work that "just never got done."

garden plan

How many ur-designs can one have? Michael made this sketch for the garden one night this week. We're trying to move away from the hard lines we have in the rest of the house. Drawings like this have been abundance since day one. Sometimes it good to single out a particularly nice one for the blog to give all that effort its just due.

day 10: perspective

Over the weekend, we went down to Philadelphia to visit friends from college. Our hosts live in a shingle-style Victorian in Elkins Park, an older suburb just north of the city. We kept commenting how big their house was, and they kept saying "it's really not that big".

This morning we were talking about gardening when it began to dawn on me: it's all about scale. I was thinking about Michael and the tweezer-like precision that he tends our new sprouts; our entire yard is about the size of one their flower beds. Peter (our host) went on to explore a metaphor about size. He said, "You basically want to do the things that beat it into submission with the biggest pay-off for the effort. Gone are the days when I thought I could manage the entire yard with any sort of precision."

When you have a yard that large you paint in much broader strokes. As my father used to say, "A man on a galloping horse will never know the difference".

I then started thinking about up-keep, renovations, and how size plays there as well. I'm skating off into "not so big house" territory by saying this, but the scale of our project allows us to attend to detail in a way we (two part-time people doing almost all the work) couldn't otherwise afford.

I mean, we rip into stuff and gut rooms with little regard, but none of the projects are really that big. At 2500 sqaure feet (including the basement) this house just isn't that expansive. I sometimes wonder what I would do with a bigger house. I think customization would be the first thing to go. Everything would need to be more pre-fab. I guess that's the route to McMansions and what makes them so uniquely sterile. Or you'ld need a vast crew of people to get the work done in any reasonable amount of time (with  deep pockets to match).

What about you other housebloggers out there? What are your thoughts on scale and detail? How do you manage? How do you mitigate? Just curious.

belgian blocks

Just a quick note to say thanks to Molly for the load of Belgian blocks. She brought them over earlier in the week. I had been meaning to thank her for hefting that entire load that pound for pound rivaled the 25 sheets of  hardiebacker we crammed into Douglas's car. The funny part was I didn't know what they were called. You know... "those squareish granite blocks you see people using for stuff".

Belgian blocks. Thanks Molly!

day 8 post coming in a bit...

stuff

as you may have noticed from previous post we've adopted a bit of the 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) attitude toward the house. taking things old from one place and using them new again in others. (we have big plans for the tin ceiling we "harvested" from under the drop ceiling on the first floor).

here's the hitch. construction sites make garbage, demolition multiplies that exponentially. there is no way to not throw tons (and I don't exaggerate) of debris away. building little fires out of the clear wood will only get us so far. we have bundle upon bundle of old oak flooring tied up in the backyard. it's too good to throw away but we have no idea where to use it.

on a like note, what to do with the rarified building materials (I'm looking at you big pink insulation plank) that are still good but not likely to ever be used? I feel like we're becoming a home for wayward building supplies. not to mention the whole ethos of getting rid of hazardous materials.

I struggle. when we got into the whole home reno thing I never thought about the large percentage of work that is procurment and disposal. buy crap and get rid of crap. rinse and repeat.

we hired some demo guys to come haul away the debris we made in demoing the first floor. it was the best $300 I ever spent. we called them on a sunday afternoon, and they were there within a couple of hours (yes New York is good for some things). they hauled away all but the most choice 3R bits.

and now our backyard is filled with debris again!

the entire time I have been typng this post michael has  been yammering about this idea or the other for how we can use all the reclaimed wood. so we are still trying to stick to our guns. but I pledge you this -- once everything is done the rest is going. of couse as I make that statement I think about the three principles of wabi sabi:

All things are impermanent
All things are imperfect
All things are incomplete

how does your garden grow

More demo this weekend. Walls around stairs from 1st floor and to attic are now nothing but framing. Figured we'd leave that much in place until contractor can take a look at the structure. Only thing left for us to do ourselves is strip the drywall from front wall in preparation for major window work to happen in conjunction with replacing the front siding.

Dredged out the foulest smelling crud from our front gutter. Pretty sure the downspout is totally plugged up. Fortunately the whole conTRAPtion will be replaced when roof and siding go on.

Spent a delightful and finally warm afternoon in backyard thinking of ways to reduce our view of the apartment building wall behind our yard and the reciprocal view from same building via the line of illegal windows that directly abut our property. Right now all that's in the flower bed are merest sprouts thanks to generosity of Wild Flower Charlie, but someday I hope to bask in the misty shade of a private hanging garden.