Bend Renovation

Some new shots

mrjwrites — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:03:45 +0000

New images

mrjwrites — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:57:29 +0000

Eight legs in the garage

mrjwrites — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:42:34 +0000

This morning I went out to the garage to put another coat of stain on an interior door—one of two doors I’m still working on—and upon entering immediately saw the little legs of a spider sticking out from beneath the underside of the door, which sits up on sawhorses. Get off the door, spidey! I figured he/she was just a house spider of some species, so without really looking at him, I just reached under and flicked at him with my finger. (Killing spiders just ain’t cool.) He didn’t budge. Wow, tough little spider. So I bent down to check him out and immediately recognized the little red hourglass shape on his abdomen: the unmistakable “warning” sign of a black widow. We’ve seen black widows around our property before, mostly in our basement and in the old wood shed we once had. Since their venom is neurotoxic (according to Oregon State University’s urban entomology website, their venom sometimes leads to death; apparently only females have fangs big enough to pierce skin) we give them wide berth and let them be. But not when they stake their claim in a place where we and our spider-loving cat are likely to rub up against them. I removed him from the door with a piece of wire, put him on the ground, and let my shoe do the rest. I’d prefer the bad karma from squishing a spider than a dead kitty or a bit homeowner. Lesson: next time I’ll look before I put my finger to a spider. Something tells me I’m gonna get a lecture from the bug-minded dude over at aphriza.wordpress.com…..

A look around, part 2

mrjwrites — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:33:25 +0000

Wes and Beth are sitting pretty in the new breakfast nook. The seat is elevated so that the table is flush with the countertop. The feel is sort of like a brewpub booth. There’s a giant drawer underneath that’s home to our recycling center. Wes did a great job.

My office is finally taking shape.

The other side of the office.

The “master” bath.

Guest bath. (What do you think, Claire?)

Living room.

Looking into Beth’s office.

Looking into the guest room.

The guys in orange vests

mrjwrites — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:55:31 +0000

The guys in orange vests are the Bend city building inspectors. They command the same kind of respect a gunslinger would’ve in the wild west. Don’t mess with ‘em and try to blend in. They show up at your door clenching a clipboard and looking rather determined to find something in your home. Namely, they have an eye trained on anything in your house that might pose a potential safety problem. And today was our day to undergo final inspections: one for the electrical system and one for everything else. Big day.

I saw the white SUV with its city insignia on the door pull up in front of the house and park. Syd began barking to beat the band. It’s showtime. The inspection feels sort of like a final exam in school where you’re staring at a blank blue essay book, your heart beating rapidly, and you’re assuming the worst but know that you obsolutely, no matter what, need to ace this puppy to move on. The electrical inspector came in, looked at the plans, then proceeded to switch lights on and move from outlet to outlet throughout the house testing almost every one (they’re supposed to test at least 60 percent of them, he told me). It was short and sweet and we passed. We expected to, but you never know.

Next came the wildcard inspection, where they scrutinze things like how many inches you have between your sink and shower. We did all things to code, of course, but this is a remodel and we just weren’t sure how it would all shake out. It happened less than an hour later when another white SUV pulled up. He came in, asked me what we did to the house, and then walked from room to room, testing the smoke detectors, measuring ceiling heights, stepping into closets, looking at how the plumbing was set up. He couldn’t tell which part of the house was the addition and I had to tell him. (We like to hear that.) Five minutes later he started signing paperwork on our dining room table. “Does this mean I get to take down the green permit stickers?” I asked, which are required to be visible from the street and had been taped to a front window, glowing radioactive green, for an eon. “You can take ‘em down,” he replied. The gunslinger was moving on.

Snowdude

mrjwrites — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 02:00:00 +0000

We’ve got a new friend. Note his beer of choice: Black Butte Porter.

A look around

mrjwrites — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:53:24 +0000

A few angles of the new pad…

The ice dam cometh

mrjwrites — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:42:57 +0000

Winter is pounding Bend pretty good right now with snow falling every day this week and piling up fast. Beth even got a snow day from work on Thursday (her gov’t office follows the school district’s snow-day “ruling”). It’s unusual for Central Oregon—more snow in town than I can remember in the past 13 years—and reminds us of living in Utah where wintertime meant serious snowfall. We’re making the most of it: Beth got out on cross-country skis four times this last week and I managed three of those outings. And while the snow looks rather quaint heaped up on our roof, it has created a bit of a problem in the form of an ice dam. Over the back door we have a gutter, now packed solid with ice, and snowmelt caused by the warmth of the house’s heating drips down and has nowhere to go but back up into the house, where it climbs up under the shingles and drips out wherever it can, as shown by the moisture stains in this photo:

The only solution I saw was to get up there with a hammer and chisel and manually chip all the ice out of the gutter. Some of it came out in cocktail-sized cubes, but a lot of it I was able to remove in tubular sections of ice. Seems to have done the trick for now but I’ll have to monitor the situation.

Getting artsy

mrjwrites — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:07:13 +0000

We’ve never really bought any artwork before. For one pretty obvious reason. And although we’ve inherited a few nice items and also have some framed prints and such, plus some works that Beth has created, we’ve always wanted some original paintings to hang up, especially now that we have a new home with wide-open walls. But it was really more a dream than anything. The chances of us pulling the purchasing trigger on something as irrelevant as artwork when we’re paying down a recently “modified” mortage were about as good as us taking a sudden interest in Mitt Romney.

Plein air artwork—landscapes painted outdoors—were a big thing for the early 1900′s Arts and Crafts movement, of which our bungalow aspires to belong, and a style we quite like. But the trouble is buying an original plein air painting can set you back several paychecks. At least. But after looking around at some antique stores one lazy weekend, more intent on tracking down a cheap bookcase for Beth’s office, and not wanting to seriously consider anything (besides a 1901 Oregon map that didn’t even show Bend), we happened to duck into a little frame shop where they had some neat paintings displayed on the wall. We were just curious. Inside, I happened to find a basket on the floor that was full of small-scale oil paintings of Central Oregon outdoor scenes. They’re basically “warm-up” paintings that this one local artist did to get the gist of a scene before doing a larger canvas. Price tag: $30 each. We plunked down for two, including the one shown, entitled “Alpen Glow.” We think it might be North Sister, shrouded in early autumn snow. I stuck it an old frame and here she be:

The paint goes on

mrjwrites — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:12:10 +0000

I’ve been painting the final room in our house, the guest room, and here’s a sneak peek for all you future lodgers. We’ll get a bed for it hopefully.