Finding our floor!

On closing day in our little corner of Michigan, we pulled up the carpet in the hallway and found our heart's desire - the original hardwood flooring. This was a purely investigative measure, and we came back two days later for our first weekend in the house.

In retrospect, the calmest weekend in the house.

Upon arriving, the house was chilly and I turned the heat on and went to work in the smaller bedroom while Alex unloaded the car. He thought this was from excitement, when in reality I wanted to heat up fast while the house warmed up. More on not freezing by the lake, later.

Local waste management asked me to cut the carpet into 4' sections and roll up for when we put out at the curb, or highway, and that worked out to a manageable width for me. The tacks around the edges were the worst in terms of removal, but only took a couple of hours total. Then, I yanked up the hallway laminate, and decided it was a good time to wind down when Alex came in with the last load.

Next morning, I finished the laminate while he sought out coffee and breakfast. The important things in life.

We had an appointment with a local satellite installer to have internet access at home, so I pulled the flooring until he appeared, got him started and then Alex chatted with him about the internet and satellites and gigahertz while I stuffed my face. We ended up needing a business class connection, and can share more about that if anyone else cares, but I have some next-level tech support in-house and really couldn't get anything done without him.

A few spots of water damage showed in the hallway and near edge of kitchen, so we removed a row of tile surgically to see what was under it. I crossed fingers hard that the floor would be salvageable in the kitchen adjacent area. Lunch and a trip to Lowe's began the baseboard trim stripping process, since I don't have enough fun hobbies - but we wanted to see what the existing boards could look like if we got it together.

We sorted the laminate into reusable and waste piles, filled our trash bin with underlayment and some super gross carpet pad, and took off on Monday morning between Alex's calls.

A Big Change.

I have failed to write about our home for over a year now. The projects have continued, but we have become busier with work and pet care and generally settling into I guess being adults? Which Alex says we really are and I have to stop calling us non-adults, and he has a point.

Because, we now own a second home.

With Alex working from home primarily, and me working out of our home and around town, we needed a space to go that isn't our workplace. Our condo was a gut rehab, and we have continued to do work to make a better fit for us, but started to find ourselves not wanting to do anything more here because it felt wasteful.

Also, we took a vacation, and when we do that it seems to clarify things for us. 

And anyways, we bought a house in Michigan.

These photos are from the listing, and the exterior is looking a bit frostier these days! 

In the front yard, that tree has dropped a multitude of pears, which we have left for the deer for one last season. One of the funniest things has been seeing our sweet city dogs bolt for the land under the trees to smell whatever has been there eating the pears. 

This little house is about the same square footage as our condo on its two main floors, but also has a nice dry basement we will be using for additional living space. It has three bedrooms, one bath, and the original 1940 kitchen opens to living room - AND we somehow ended up owning over two acres. 

Obviously there are going to be some updates to this home, but the bones of the structure are so, so good and has a lot of original trim, windows, and has been relatively well-maintained. We looked at many houses, and this one was far and away the best fit for us in terms of potential and space. There are such great plans going on for the space and we are excited to nurse the house and property back to health.

For now, our time involves finding something to eat, wandering around a bit for supplies and figuring out our surroundings, and sleeping hard after a day of projects. Oh, and giggling at Shadow in her sweaters now that the weather has turned.

Bed of Storage

The first month we lived in our home, Alex built a king-sized bed frame for our room. We had decided to downsize during the move, using our previous bed in the guest room and buying a king bed for our room to accommodate two cats and a dog.  (Little did we know, the occupants would soon include another 40 pound girl!)  For reference, the mattress was from Tuft & Needle, and we have loved it - although I think my hip issues may have escalated with my side sleeping on the extremely soft surface!

This worked well, but as we settled in, we realized that more storage would be needed. I went through several design options with my shop supervisor and we decided on a simple pair of frames with deep drawers.

Using 3/4" plywood cut into ~24" widths at the lumberyard (two from each 4x8 sheet of plywood), we cut two boards to length for each side of our bed, then three dividers and two ends from ~16" widths (three from each sheet). We used L brackets to hold the frames together and to support each of the interior dividers. These guys were heavy just as boards, so when the frames were built, they were solid. They lived in the "walkway" of our room for about a week while we plotted the next step.

The support system Alex had built on the original bed included a 2x4 frame, similar to an interior wall.  The 2x4s were covered by 1x8 boards, and the legs were made out of additional appearance boards of narrower widths.  We decided to reuse some of the previous materials in building the frame for the center of the drawers.  Two of the boards were cut down to the length of the frame and anchored to the backs of the dividers and end frames, ~ 1-1/2" below the top surface.  Additional boards were cut down to the right length for our mattress to fit across on top of the "slats" resting on the ledger boards.  At the head and foot, the slats were secured into the two sides for safety.

This was also the day we started painting our room! It only made sense for the bed to be pulled out from the wall before assembly, and we took this opportunity to clean really well behind the headboard as we were not clear how easily we would be able to remove it. Thus far, that has not been my burning desire.  We finished the painting the following weekend, and it has been one of our favorite decisions so far in this home.








We found that the drawer frames could be used as cubbies while the drawers and trim pieces were addressed.  Andy and I cut down some underlayment, previously used on the slatted frame, to use as backing for the drawer cubbies, and I crawled under and hammered them in.

This winter when we pulled out our warmer clothes and outerwear, I strategized putting summer things away under the bed as we only need to access those twice a year for the changeover and it should be as easy as possible instead of my ear warmers being MIA into November...  The clear bins we use for clothing storage fit under the bed with a little breathing room, and I also stashed our summer comforter and pillows in space bags there as well near the opening for easier access.