Are we getting close?

This is my house for sale. More than thirty showings, some questions (monthly utilities, that kind of thing), no offers yet. This house is a leap of faith for most lookers, I'm sure. We're surrounded city dwellers on forty foot subdivision lots, city sewer and water, selling a house with a well and a septic system. 

There is feedback from almost every visit, often amusing. My house is more than seventy five years old, built by the original owner.He and his son dug the basement by hand. People were shorter then, on the whole. Like the house I grew up in, tall men like my dad and my brothers had to duck at the end of the basement staircase, to avoid hitting their head on the steps of the staircase above going upstairs. When we bought the house I purchased three brass figurines and hung them on those two steps. The first riser has two ducks. The last has a goose. 

I digress, a bit. One couple loved the house, but they were tall people. I would not like to live in that house and be that tall, so that was reasonable. One man loved it; his wife hated it. You know who won that one.

One couple thought the back yard too dangerous for their boys. Now, that's funny. The back yard does go downhill, and ends in a shallow creek past those trees. My oldest grandchild is twenty odd years old, so that's how long I've had children playing out here. Once Emily jumped the creek, decided she couldn't jump back and cried until the rest sent me out to talk her back. A lot of sled riding happened in that yard.

I took this by accident. Beautiful day, nice yard. That's the garden over there. Actually, I was out on a mission. The realtor called and said someone viewing the house today was concerned about a foundation crack that appeared never to have been addressed.

I could not visualize a crack where she said the client said it was. Back in the 40's, when the house was built, it was the custom to put a skim of concrete over the foundation blocks. An affectation. There are some cracks in the skim, and it's even wearing back to the foundation blocks in places.

Then I went around the corner to the north wall, and saw that crack with fresh eyes. I know it's in the realtor's notes, but it can be a heart stopper. It was the door to the well house for the original well. I considered keeping the well house as a sort of fruit cellar, but in the end it went. The door is bricked in and covered by drywall on the basement side, and concrete on the outside. 

We'll see if someone is brave enough to make an offer on a house in the country, contingent on the results of a crack test.

A new bathroom!

Our house was built in 1940, a four room cottage. Not an original farm house, but 1940 is venerable in house age in the township. The man who built the house, Mr. Amity, converted the attic into livable quarters, the Boyd’s, from whom we bought the house, added the studio wing that exceeds the size of the house—the reason we purchased. The original footprint of the house is unchanged, and my bathroom is still six by eight and a half feet. A galley bathroom!

The house was gutted and redone when we moved here; the first real upgrade since the sixties. I “enlarged” the bathroom then, by reducing the size of the vanity and substituting a shower enclosure for a tub. It’s an adequate bathroom, but oh, so eighties, and developing behind the walls and under the floor issues. Sounds like a new bathroom to me.

Jim, the man who builds it all, came round to take measurements the other day and see what I wanted. All the hours of Home and Garden TV notwithstanding, they will not write She Designed a Fantastic Bathroom on my tombstone. Not that they could; I will be tossed.

I only have two must halves for the new room: a higher toilet and a longer shower stall. That will leave fifteen inches for shelving along the shower wall. It will be open shelving; I’ll store a cupboard of stuff in neat wicker baskets, just like the designers do. Shelves over the toilet, more baskets, a new vanity, some grey paint on the walls, over and out. Jim suggested I go look in a big box store at fixtures and a vanity, and I was up for that.

Ninety minutes Sunday I walked the bathroom aisle at Lowes, eventually realizing there was no shower there I would step into and no vanity I could face in the morning. I came home determined to do a better job on line. I started with showers. There are mighty sharp shower enclosures out there, but I’m way over my head understanding them; that will wait for Jim to come back. I see I need toilet advice, too.

Well, perhaps I could pick a vanity. I found them either boring or ugly. On to the next. Then, look what I found:

Bead board. And that’s what I’ll do. Bead board wainscoting, light grey walls. A grey marble top for my bead board vanity, brushed nickel fixtures. I’m back to the internet for the perfect shower interior, and when I find it, Jim can figure it out.

That’s the plan. My two granddaughters can spend the summer removing eighties wallpaper, and gardening. I've planned the bathroom for late fall, so Jim and his crew have an indoor job.

Handy to have--Grandchildren

Twenty five years we’ve lived here.  We were much younger when we moved in. I’m not saying we bounded up the steps from the garage to the front door, but they were much easier to navigate. Two or three weeks ago I rounded up my brother and he showed Hamilton how to build the missing hand rail.

This is how you make the saw’s teeth work effectively.

And, they put up the handrail.  Hamilton stained it a lovely dark brown while I was in Wisconsin.  It shows up in the background from time to time.

Rather like spring house cleaning, spring gardening can spring from nowhere and turn out the house, too.

I bought a lovely hanging basket and two peck baskets of pansies. 

Then I realized I have young muscles available and it past time to attack the overgrown front garden.

Emily and I put in three hours, and made small but noticeable inroads.  I taught her how to use a spade.  My dad would be proud.

Then Jan and Tom came home with a project near to Jan’s heart.  A lettuce tower.  A lettuce growing tower.

Today they got it located, put together and full of soil.  There are lettuce packets on the chest by the door; it won’t be long.

Emily and I planted the pansies.  It was three o’clock; we called it a day.  Before it rains tomorrow I expect we’ll get some more done.

Yesterday I thought the cold is more acceptable when it’s accompanied by a good snowfall. It snowed all day and was lovely.  It also snowed all night, and continues as I glance at the window.  We’ve had our four to six, it’s time to stop.  Are you listening, Lake Huron and Lake Erie.  We don’t get lake effect snow in February during real winters when the lake is frozen over.  Living on the watershed between Lake Erie and the Ohio River means snow in any event; storms hit the ridge, stop and dump their load.   But it’s been a very mild winter.  No Alberta clippers, no panhandle hooks.  One lake effect event in mid February with forty degree temperatures by Wednesday---I shouldn't be grumbling. 

Today I am going to attempt some blog housekeeping.  I may succeed, or I may disappear.  Check back tomorrow.

Snow in NE Ohio

Last year we broke snowfall records, this year I’m looking at the second reasonable snowfall of the season. One four incher in January sent the snowplows out and they seem to have been down today, as it’s been snowing since last night to give us the two inches we have. 

Fat boy has a snug coat.  Everything Tom owns has a name.  He tills the garden with Big Red and mows with Big Yeller. I think he snow blows with another Big Red.  They aren’t twins, though.  He sends the grandkids around to pick up all the sticks and branches that fall, after which they can build a fire in Fat Boy and roast marshmallows. 

That upturned stone is a barn footer with a heart carved into it.  I bought it at a show, from a teenager with autism.  He had a corner of his mother’s booth at a spring herb show.  He had much larger stones with complex designs, some large enough to be watering troughs. This little heart was the least expensive among the small stones, the design was the most simple.  I paid seventy dollars for it in the 1980’s and he carried it to the car.  I would have preferred the clover or the fleur de leis, but could only afford the heart.  The animals don’t know that, and it’s the outdoor water bowl for the cat and dog all summer.  We tip it up in the winter so it doesn’t accumulate water, freeze and crack.

Toby watching me take pictures.

With a purloined pen.  He may want to appropriate the computer and write his own blog.   Does he really think I'm just a big cat?

Turkeys redux

I asked Jan for more pictures of Angus and Fiona.  I got the contents of her bottom desk drawer, a haul I have spent the afternoon selectively scanning.  We have actual photos of the turkey invasion:

In the side yard, featuring the compost bin Bill didn't burn down.

In the front yard.

Possibly too late for bed check.

A true cat fantasy.  No, Purrl didn't do it.

Turkey Adventures

Jan and I were real city girls when we moved here.  An occasional raccoon in the trash was our total experience.  Here we had skunks in the front yard, fox (who moved into the front yard in broad daylight with their cubs the year the 17 year cicadas came popping out of the ground), hawks, coyotes, and our neighbor reporting Sasquatch in his woods across the street from us.  They have nothing on turkeys.

We would see the flock of turkeys down by the fire station, five miles north, then in the park five miles east, then somewhere else, until one day they were in our front yard.  We were invaded by wild turkeys.  We became turkey experts and learned they roost at dusk in the highest available spot.  We live on top of the hill.  They went even higher.  Our roof.  The turkey patriarch settled down each night on the studio chimney.

They got up at dawn, about the time the dogs went out and started their morning walk up the street.  Turkeys stand up, stretch, spread their wings and lift off.  Some lazy turkeys used the slope of the roof to gain lift momentum, sliding down as they lifted up.  We lost both front awnings to turkeys who misjudged the angle of the slope, went over the edge and through an awning.  Now we have metal awnings on the front, replacing the destroyed canvass awnings.

The turkeys went air born not to leave, but merely to get from the roof to the ground.  Once on the ground they walked up the street with Jan and the dogs.  Each morning she had a squawking, crowd behind her, beside her, in front of her, wings outspread, half running to keep up.  At the head of the street they would spread out in the field and not be heard from again until dusk.

Linda saw the turkeys at our house and said she needed a new turkey feather to put in her Shaker Woods hat.  “Not to worry,” said Tom, the hunter.  He was on medical leave at the time, foot in a cast from chasing a foolish dog into the neighbor’s horse corral and breaking something.  She and Tom were on the front porch. A turkey walked up the ramp, Tom leaned over and grabbed a handful of turkey tail feathers.  The turkey kept on walking, Tom kept on holding on.  The turkey dragged him across the porch, Linda holding him back for dear life as the turkey proceeded down the steps.  Tom balancing precariously on the edge, Linda holding him from going over the edge in his cast, yelling “Let Go Tom,” and the turkey kept on walking.  Tom let go.  Turkey lost no feathers.

Jan searched the internet for a solution and read that turkeys look for a place to roost at dusk.  Ah Ha.  If turkeys are not here at dusk, turkeys will not roost on our roof.   She rounded up half a dozen brooms and passed them out when the turkeys walked down the street as evening fell.  Even a broom to Tom, his leg in a cast.  The orders to her troups—no turkeys in the yard.  Turn them back.  Line forms at the street.  Don’t let them on the property.  Slow, steady, wait for the whites of their eyes.  Now men, present brooms, drive them back.  Up the street.  Up the street.  Up the street.  Don’t stop until it’s dusk!  In less than a week she had them roosting in our neighbor’s trees, where they could spy on Sasquatch.

Eventually the herd of turkeys moved on, we replaced the awnings and thought no more.  Until we had the roof replaced.  “Lady, do you know how much shit is on your roof?” 

Thanks for the memory, Pearl.

  

A comfortable old house

When Jan and I went looking twenty odd years ago for a house with a studio we looked at a lot of properties.  It was quite the slog through northeast Ohio.  “Outbuilding” turned out to be house trailers scattered around.  “Near turnpike” was actually under it.  Imagine the noise!  One beauty was feet from the Cuyahoga River.  I imagine there were several hundred feet of front lawn when the house was built. 

Jan did a drive by of this house on the way back from an afternoon of house hunting and called me the minute she was back in Akron.  The street actually was on her way home, before the highway was built.  She told me it might be the one and seemed to be Poppy approved; he’d barked as soon as she turned into the street.

I arranged with the realtor to see it the next day.  We came up the front steps into a foyer and through another door into a tiny living room and through that to The Studio.  A room empty except for a pulpit and a wood burner.  A huge room.  The two young men of the house were home, one was at my elbow.  “How much is this house?” First words out of my mouth.  My realtor jumped in, “We don’t do it this way.”  So, we suffered a complete tour of the house we wanted.  A small house with a big empty room.  In need of a total renovation.  Except for the big room.  We bought it from the parents of the two young men.

Making that big room into a weaving studio and then a quilting studio has been another serendipitous chapter in the life of this house.  Only three families have lived here, and every child who lived here has come back to visit the house and share some memories with us.

The house was built in 1940 by a man named Amity.  He called it Amity Acres and liked it so much he put a sign announcing the name up on the corner.  Way before zoning in the township, but the trustees asked him to remove the sign, and he did.  His son, who was twelve when his dad bought the property to build the house has stopped by twice to look over the old place.  He helped his dad dig the basement and build the house. He brought his half brother, who was seven when the house was built, the second time he stopped.  He told us his dad was an old skinflint who taped newspapers to the windows not to buy curtains.  He certainly built a sturdy house.

Originally the house was an old cape cod style, four rooms on the first floor and a finished attic that was made into a suite under the eaves for his grandparents. The grandparents didn’t like the accommodations, so it was a rental unit until the house was sold.  His dad did add the front foyer which allowed for another room under the front eaves.  There were two front entrances to the house, one for the upstairs apartment.  When we bought the house the two front entrance doors remained, and there was an entrance to the very steep stairwell from the living room, too.

The next family also lived here twenty some years and raised two boys and a girl.  The father was a contractor and a lay minister.  The father built the addition as a gathering room.  The Fisher wood stove at the end of the room remains the only source of heat in the room.  We’ve heard about that from people who gathered here!  The two boys, Matt and Adam, intended to purchase the house from their parents, but it didn’t work out.  I think Matt’s fiancée really wanted a home of her own.  It was perfect for us. 

After some work.  We had to upgrade the electric, the plumbing, septic, replace the bathrooms.  We tore down the wall to the foyer and the staircase,  to make a small room look larger.  We replaced the steep staircase to the upstairs with normal steps.  The steep stairs to the basement couldn’t be adjusted, so they remain.  We redid the kitchen.  New wallboard and paint and wallpaper everywhere.   Tore up five different kinds of carpet and refinished the original oak flooring.  About 15 years ago the roof of the back end of the house was pushed up.

The outside was several colors of yellow, so new siding went up with the initial remodel.  That was when we noticed Matt’s red truck going down the hill and coming back up (dead end road), so we waved him down and gave him a tour.  He was pleased with the changes.  He admitted he had been concerned, but he approved. He brought his new wife.  Months later he appeared with his sister and her children, asking if it wouldn’t be too much trouble…………So, we gave her a tour.  In the front bedroom she told her children, “This is where I laid on my bed on Friday night and watched for your dad to come down the street.”  She and Matt had a little consultation and then asked if they could bring their parents the next time they were in town.  Apparently having a contractor for a husband/parent is a little like being the shoemaker’s child.  Their mom’s kitchen cupboards had been on the floor in the gathering room until Matt and Adam put them up just before they put the house on the market.  They thought their mom might like to see how the house turned out.

When the parents were brought to inspect the work, the mother was quite shy at first, but the dad was plenty jolly and they took a grand tour.  At the end the mother said, “I could have had a house like this all along.”  The dad reminded her they had retired to a nice little house, she agreed, and said she was pleased and happy with our work.

That visit was years ago.  But over the summer another family came to the door.  It was Adam, his wife and his two teen age daughters.  The women were shy and even embarrassed, but Adam seemed like he needed to be there.  He noted the changes to the living room, but was drawn to the studio.  I explained to his girls the room had only a pulpit when we first saw it and was perfect.  Adam told them this was where his ministry had begun.

As they were leaving I pointed out the fossil in the fireplace to the girls.  Adam had never noticed it in twenty years.  Tom Amity had told me his dad had split every stone for the fireplace and just that one fossil had turned up.   He told me he figured it was a crustacean, like his dad.  It’s probably a trilobite, but I have trouble remembering that when I think about a crusty dad.

  Fossil on the right

Fossil on the left

Mom's brick fund

We bought this house in 1988, when Jan and I started a business and needed one studio.  We moved in stages; it’s a nice house that needed a total redo.  I moved here in June and lived in the construction dust. For a time I even climbed a ladder to the second floor bathroom.  Mom and Mark moved in September, in time for Mark to start school.  Jan and Tom came in October.

I had a deck built the length of the back of the house, with a door from the kitchen that had been a window.  The deck is fifteen feet wide and about forty five feet long.  It’s on the north side of the house, facing a little back lawn and the woods.  Very shady.

Mom and I had an exchange or two about the deck; she thought I was making it far too long.  She even countermanded my contractor; I came back one day to find he was building a twenty foot deck, on Mom’s instructions, as forty five was too expensive and far more than “she needs”.  I’m sure moms are moms the universe through and through.  I reminded the contractor who would be writing the all checks; end of problem. 

Not ready for prime time, spring 1989 on the deck.  Aunt Flo (married to Uncle Hank) concerned, Mom coughing, Beth smiling, me not, Jan hiding, Shelly blinking

Over its length the deck is five to eight feet above ground level, depending on the slope of the hill.  That fall mom told me the ground under the deck needed attention or it would become a mud pit, as the north side received little sunshine, not to mention all those trees.  “What do you think I should do?”

“Well, I’ve started saving to have it paved with bricks,” she said, with slightly tight lips, as she set about rescuing me.  “That will be nice,” I replied.

In the spring a load of brick was dumped in the front drive.  “You can start laying brick now.”

Neither Tom, Jan nor I knew a lick about brick.  “I’ll show you how to do it.”

We all trouped around back, Mom with her cane as she was only a few months from being sprung from a wheel chair for an injury involving telling Dutch, a young Doberman she had on a leash, “Let’s go home.”  Dutch took her down three stairs and over a motorcycle on the way. 

We started in the small section under the stairs, putting bricks wherever mom pointed her cane.  She was not pleased and dismissed us:  “I’ll teach Mark how to do this.”

So, an old lady taught her sixteen year old grandson to lay a basic basket weave pattern in brick.  They did a fine job and we had the best brick pavement under an overhead deck in all of Summit County.  Sadly, my brother and brother-in-law contrived to store every piece of manly junk they could hoard there, out of sight of the neighbors, until the bricks were inaccessible to any ray of sunshine.  Some ultimatums produced a dumpster this summer and it is now fairly cleared out.  It won’t look like it did twenty years ago, but maybe I can get some grandkids working on it next year.

Mom’s brick fund didn’t end there.  Over the nine years she was here we’d hear “We need new gravel in the drive.  There’s enough money in the brick fund.”  “Let me pay for (something we needed to buy).  There’s enough money in the brick fund.”   A year or two after she was gone Mark got into some wrong place, wrong time scrape and spent the night in jail.   In the morning I bailed him out with the last of Grandma’s brick fund.  She probably would have known a bail bondsman at midnight and had him out at 12:01, but I did the best I could.