Guntherisms

Uh oh. I fear the pig butt pic amuses my inner middle-school self just a wee bit too much.

I was helping my mom set up a fancy schmancy online photo book thing last night and the pig butt was chosen as the official placeholder pic for pages where she needs to dig up certain other pics. The photo book is being created in honor of the 10th anniversary of the golf tourney mom hosts in Florida w/ a bunch of her friends. Notable is the fact that the boobie prize for this golf tourney is a golf club cover in the shape of a pig butt. Maybe this fondness for pig butts is a hereditary thing.

But(t) this morning we had the pig-buttiest moment of them all! Anybody who knows us or has been reading this blog for a while knows we've been working on fixing up our...ahem..."handyman's special" of a 100+ y.o. house for the duration of our time here (15 years and counting), slowly but surely, room by room. It's the ultimate DIY project -- a baker and a transcriptionist figuring out how to do plumbing, framing, tiling, sheetrocking, etc. (You've already seen floor refinishing, upstairs hall gutting , wood stripping, stained glass window rebuilding, Jesse's bedroom renovation, destruction of the ugliest porch on the face of the planet.)

The guy who owned this house before us was named Gunther and his remuddling projects, or Guntherisms, have often left us shaking our heads in giggling bewilderment. We spend half our project time undoing his fine handiwork and the other half then moving forward again in ways that are safe, legal, functioning, and suitable to the age and style of the house.

You all know you can't solder PVC pipe, right? Gunther didn't. FYI: Soldered PVC looks a lot like a marshmallow that got too close to the campfire.

You all know that if wallpaper is coming loose, they make glue for that, right? Gunther didn't. Staples all the way, man!

You all know that if you cut live electrical wires and bury them in a wall, they should be capped or at least taped and inside a junction box, right? Not our friend, Gunther, oh no! Live, uncapped wires buried inside a wall! Lucky we haven't woken up in a pile of ashes, don'cha think?

If there was a gap between the roof and the horribly cheesy addition that you smacked onto the back end of your house, and that gap let in all kinds of weather and critters, you might think of any number of weatherproof/critter-resistant solutions, right? Gunther's answer: Stuff a towel in there. The man was clearly a genius.

You all know that five million linear feet of gorgeous chestnut trim should NOT be painted Brady Bunch turquoise and orange, right? RIGHT?!! Yes, of course you do. Gunther. Did. Not.

But this morning, in pig-butt Guntherismus maximus, we discovered that not only did Gunther glue that nasty crap carpet to the subfloor in Jesse's room (subfloor that is not installed at a height matching the rest of the house's flooring, BTW) so that its nasty black foam backing junk can never be removed, but he also NAILED down the edge of the carpet. INSIDE THE CLOSET! As if that area gets so much foot traffic. And as if glue and gravity weren't sufficient.

Ah, Gunther. We can always count on you for another entertaining chapter in our home renovation adventures. We shall miss your antics when we are finished fixing this old house up.

bwahahahaha...as if we're ever going to be finished fixing this place up. Me so funny!

Okay, enough of a break. Back to the oak planks and the chop saw!

now you see it...

(the ugliest porch on the face of the planet)

and now you don't...

It's difficult for me to post these pics because that Before picture is just so hideous that it makes me cringe. Not that the During pic is a thing of beauty, but it's a step in the right direction.

You see, we have an otherwise decent 100 y.o. house that had been totally hacked by the previous owners. Slowly but surely, we've been working to undo their messes and then move forward to fix it up. This ugly porch, which is used as our main entrance, is part of a repulsive addition the previous owners slapped on the back end of the house, without any attempt whatsoever to incorporate it with the style of the main structure. Not only was it clearly done on the sly and not to code, but they used crap for materials. I swear, they went out of their way to use whatever happened to be available for ultra-cheap or free. That had to be the case, as I can't imagine anybody would choose to buy vinyl, aluminum, AND wood to use together as siding on one small wall (see Before pic -- and yes, the squatty stupid windows will eventually be replaced and the entire exterior will be re-done). And the layers...oh, the layers! Rather than plan a little beforehand or take a moment to FIX a problem, these guys would just slap layer after layer of cover-up attempts onto problems.

I do have to admit, though, that there has been good entertainment value in the previous owners' maintenance efforts. Like where the wallpaper was coming loose from a wall, so they stapled it back up. Or where they tried to connect PVC plumbing to copper by soldering it. (In case you're wondering, PVC looks much like a torched marshmallow when soldered.) When that didn't work, they used duct tape to connect the pipes. Duct tape for plumbing! Then there was the genius maneuver when they had a leak in a corner between the main part of the house and the crappy addition, where the fascia hadn't been secured properly, leaving a gaping hole. What did they do for that? Go ahead and guess. I'll give you all the time you need. Seriously, if you had a hole in the roof of your house, what is the most bonehead fix-it technique you can think of? Stuff it with a towel?! Yes -- ding ding ding -- ultra bonehead homeowner repair maneuver! Dat no worky so well.

This porch has been a major thorn in my side since the day we bought this place and I am delighted to see it in its current state. I truly feel that the big empty hole qualifies a home improvement. ha! For those of you who haven't been here, let me assure you that the rest of our living space is a million times more pleasant.

Anyway, tearing the piggy pit apart has been great fun for the past two evenings. Now we have to figure out how to put it back together in a new and hopefully waaaayyyyyy improved version. Yikes!

Roy G Biv

I'm trying to clear out some random stuff from the stash, so when I found a small skein of one of Leah's first handspun yarn efforts, it seemed like a good candidate for some light summertime knitting of a winter hat. The handspun Grafton Fibers batt became the cuff and pom-pom of the Roy G. Biv hat, named with a nod to its bright rainbow hues.

Leah brought in the mail yesterday with a ratty, tattered package we sent out quite a while ago, apparently damaged during processing at the post office. The package originally contained the glass bead stitch markers we gave away a couple of weeks ago. We figured the stitch markers would surely be lost or shattered, but luckily, they were there and survived the rough handling. They have been repackaged and will be on their way to Cheryl of Seed Stitch again today!

There's been plenty of free time around here lately and the interior painting is just about finished, so Scott and I finally dove into destruction of The Ugliest Porch On The Face of the Planet, which is unfortunately situated on the back end of our house. As with every project in this old house, which had been terribly hacked by the previous owners, the porch required complete gutting and remodeling. We have struggled with the question of how to fix it for every one of the 13 years we've lived here. We finally stopped thinking about it and just DID IT yesterday. Yeah for progress, even if we need to take steps back before we can move forward!