Slowly but Surely

That's the theme of Renovating Tara right now. Things are moving at a snail's pace, but I promise they're moving! I've got a rhyme repeating in my head to keep me sane:

Tile
Gutters
Doors
Shutters

That's all our contractor has left...but it's taking ages! Yes, I want every detail perfect, but I want it now! (Frankly, I don't think that's too much to ask...)

Until there's more to take pictures of- enjoy!

At least Rhett is able to celebrate what's been done so far!

Making All Things New

Happy Easter from Tara!

Easter is my favorite holiday and traditionally a celebration of Christ making all things new. We certainly are experts here at Tara with renewing things, aren't we? So, what better thing to do today than to get a whole new roof!

The boys showed up (remember our trusty pals Freddie and Cesar? They brought friends!) about 7am. Welcome happy morning, indeed! By the time we arrived home from church, they had torn the old roof off and put down tar paper. Unfortunately, my mind was busy with Easter baskets and deviled eggs, and I neglected to take pictures of the progress until about 4pm...

As my 7 year-old said, "Those men are working hard!"

Oooh it looks good already!



But oh the trash to clean up!

While they may have gotten an early start, as I type this it is nearing 8pm and they're still hard at work. As Rhett surveyed the progress earlier this evening, he decided he'd better pitch it- and it seems they needed him!

Rhett and Freddie strike a pose...

And now it's too dark outside to get a picture of the finished product, but just wait. Tomorrow, friends!

Happy, happy Easter!

BONUS!

I love a good bonus, don't you? Even if I don't need anything, Clinique Bonus Time always necessitates a trip to the makeup counter. Getting a "bonus" is a surefire way to get my attention.

Tara is getting her bonus this week in the form of a bonus room over our garage. Tara's existing attic is downright huge, running the length of the house. With a little creativity, you could easily set up a game of touch football up there. Okay, it would have to be touch football for vertically challenged individuals because of the way the roof slopes, but you get the idea.

Rhett decided it would be easy to take half of the gigantic attic and make a family/bonus room. Why not? And so the roof comes off.

Darling Rhett tore up the old subfloor and put down some studier stuff. Once that was done, our trusty pals Freddy and Ceasar came to take care of the rest.

Off came the shingles, and then off came the beams! Nothing like a HUGE hole in your roof.

Hi Ceasar!

This was taken from the bonus room, looking into the rest of the attic. We'll put a lovely door here and finish walling it off.

Hello again, from our friendly helpers.

And more progress...

If you look closely at that last picture, you might just get a sneak peak of the colors we're thinking for the body of the house, the trim, and the doors. Lord willing, this little ranch of ours is going to look worlds different in about a month. Stay tuned!

In the end, of course we all have our ideas of what the bonus room should be. Rhett wants an office. I want a yoga sanctuary. The oldest wants a music room for her drum set (drum set not included...yet). Our baby probably just wants there to be snacks. So we'll see what this turns out to be. For now, however, there's nothing like a bonus.

Fixing the dome on our little home!

The new facade is coming along...

The next step will be to knock out those pesky (and crooked) front steps and replace them. I know the guys who are working on our front porch aren't looking forward to jackhammering those steps up, but they have to go. More pictures to follow!

You've come a long way (baby)

From demo to framing, our little porch is coming along!

(Please note little Miss Karate and her owl sidekick...)

Caesar insisted in fixing his hair and posing before this shot!

As of this evening, our roof is alomst complete. It's beginning to feel like the house is getting bigger, and it is!

Now you see it, now you don't.

Before we can even begin thinking of a new roof, we have to add something else to the house!

Tara's aged back deck has never been a favorite. It's too hot in the summer, with too many bugs swarming. It's far too cold in the winter to eat or sit outside (though our oldest loves making it a hockey rink of sorts when it snows). Until now, the back deck has functioned best as a hangout for neighborhood kids and a place to pile all the toys.

Not anymore!

When in doubt, tear it down :)

We found a load of treasures hidden under this fifty year-old porch. Fortunately there were nice concrete steps and the pavement under the deck had been *fairly* well preserved. There were also fifty years worth of hockey pucks and even a baseball (pictured below) which thrilled our kids (and our dog, who was able to retrieve several tennis balls). Finally, our contractor, Frank, noticed a complete possum skeleton (not pictured below- you're welcome).

Here's what the back of our house looks like today:

We're thinking of a screened-in porch. Wait, who am I kidding, we are officially adding a screened-in back porch! Picture it! Great ceiling fan, a little heater or fireplace, dinners outside nearly every night. Relaxing with the kiddos and reading in the summer...ahhhh. I'm so excited! We had a wonderful porch like this at our last house and it is the number one thing we miss the most. I'm ecstatic to bring it back.

Math is still hard.

Q: What do you get when you cross the Pythagorean Theorem with a Post Hole Digger?

A: A very tired Scarlett, mentally and physically.

--

I took Geometry in the 9th grade. Confession: I loved it. I loathed all other kinds of math- Algebra, Calculus, Trig, simple multiplication and division. But for some reason, Geometry made complete sense to me. I think it was the way that Geometry panders to my obsessive compulsive personality. Take for instance proofs. Remember those? You had to prove that something was true, such as the area of a triangle, using a step-by-step method of stating mathematical truths. Confusing for some maybe, but if I had it my way, Will Shortz would run one in the New York Times daily. They're fun!

Okay, for me at least.

I remember my teacher, Mrs. Everley, started class each year asking us all what we wanted to be when we grew up. For every occupation given, Mrs. Everley had an example of how Geometry would be useful in everyday work. Architecture may be a given, but Mrs. Everley had been teaching for such a long time that she could convince you that Geometry would be useful for lawyers and artists. She was truely a pro. I'm fairly confident I told her I wanted to be a mom, and I bet she gave me some answer about how Geometry would help me do laundry or something.

Well, Deborah Everley, 15 years later you're actually right. Moms need Geometry, and not just to cut sandwiches into equal triangles. In fact, I needed Geometrical knowledge this weekend as I continued to work my days away as a stay-at-home mother. You win.

Rhett is building our kids (and himself) a two story shed/treehouse. Remember when I asked you what our next project should be and you emailed me with suggestions (main bathroom! screened in back porch!) as to what we should do next? I'm pretty certain none of you voted for a shed/treehouse, but Rhett is kinda in charge here, so a shed/treehouse it is! Isn't it nice to know your vote mattered?

After clearing a spot for the treehouse, Rhett roughly measured out space enough for eight stakes which he used to mark a 10x10 square which became the footprint for the building.

Apparently, it's not good protocal to just eyeball these measurements (if your contractor eyeballs his/her measurements, you might want to worry), so Rhett insisted that we have right angles at all four corners.

"So," Rhett instructed. "What do we need to do to make sure these are right angles?"

My palms began to sweat. Um...a piece of cardboard that was already a perfect right angle? A compass?Where was my iphone so I could look this up?

"The Pythagorean Theorem, right? Remember that from Geometry?"

It sounded vaguely familiar and eventually, after I'm-not-revealing-how-long, it became familiar once more. Taking a second for you?

We measured 3 feet on one side, 4 feet on another, and then...VIOLA! We made sure the points connected on a perfectly measured 5 foot line. After repeating this procedure on all the other corners, we ended up with four right angles. Ladies and gentlemen, we had a square. The first round of this project, however, did not stop with a Geometry refresher course.

Rhett deemed it necessary to put up nine concrete posts to support the subfloor of this new structure- at each corner, halfway on each side, and in the middle. To put in these posts, Rhett needed a post hole digger (pictured below) and asked me, being completely serious, if I knew how to operate a post hole digger. To quote my storybook friend Eloise, "I am a city child." So, no, Rhett darling, I can only guess as to how to operate one of these contraptions.

Of course, Rhett was not at all deterred and saw this only as an opportunity to further my home improvement education, and now I am a post hole digger expert. I have the aching back to prove it.



We dug 9 holes for 9 concrete tubes, and the next day Rhett and his father mixed the concrete to fill into the tubes. And at the end of chapter one of the Shed/Treehouse saga, we have this (without the random tire):

What's on the agenda next for this ambitious project? We'll put down a floor and frame up this little house this coming weekend. I'm really looking forward to seeing Rhett's vision come to life (almost as much as I am seeing how much fun our kids are going to have playing in this treehouse!) but I'd be lying if I wasn't a tad bit hesitant about any upcoming math quizzes or scary new tools to learn to operate.

But learning is what this is all about. Lesson learned here? Playing in the dirt is hard! Almost as difficult as math.

Scrub, scrub

The most interesting place I have ever lived would no doubt be Wellington Arms. I loved everything about our little 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo in this historic Clarence Kelley Colley building. I honestly wish I could go back and visit- just to walk in the building and smell the air. What I wouldn't give to turn the key on the lock to my old apartment and hear my feet on the nearly 100 year old wooden floors. The windows were huge, the crown molding was ginormous, and the elevator had one of those little cages that shut as you rode up to your floor- it was saturated with historic detail, and I was head-over-heels in love. The building oozed architectural and historical character.

We lived on the 5th floor of this 7 story building, so we had beautiful views through the treetops. I could leave my windows open at night and hear the traffic, the nearby train, and the ambulences of the hospital across the street. I miss so many things about living in that fabulous building. However, because the building was not renovated and the units could not support any structural renovation, living at the Wellington came without a good deal of the creature comforts we come to expect in our homes today.

For instance, because the building was built in 1919, we had no washer and dryer. Well, to be fair that's not entirely true. The building did have a wash room which was constructed out of some of the servant quarters in the basement of the building (I am not making this up- they still have some of those servant rooms that they rent out for storage). Going into the basement to do laundry with a 2 year-old is not only inconvenient, but going into the basement of Wellington Arms, with its huge furnace and dark, dingy, mechanical spaces, was a bit like going into a scene from Law and Order SVU. This is the room in its best light...

Fast forward to Tara, 2 residences later, where we now have our own little laundry room. We did have a washer and a dryer at our last house (hallelujah!) but we didn't have our own wash rom, and let me tell you it's particularly nice to start a load of wash (or just throw dirty laundry on the floor) and close the door.

After a weekend like this past one, it's absolutely necessary.

THE BUG caught hold of our oldest daughter on Sunday night, then my husband, then me, and finally our youngest daughter. Everyone in our house has had the yacks within the past 24 hours, and very few bedsheets, stuffed animals, carpets, and articles of clothing have been spared. I've done 9 loads of laundry since yesterday morning, and I couldn't be more grateful for a front loading washer and dryer.

When we bought Tara and started construction, the washroom looked like this:

Charming, no? There was a heaping amount of water damage, which luckily was easy to fix. In demo, we found- wait for it- FIVE layers of linoleum, subflooring, and rotted wood. Gross.

The good news is that as construction went on, the laundry room got better...

...and, with some basic tile, new appliances, fresh paint, and a pre-made cabinet, Tara's washroom now looks like this:

Please note the stuffed animals hanging to dry:

Though the laundry room isn't large by any means, we've made it work. And just in time for THE BUG to invade our house. Hopefully the washroom will be used for daily laundering only and no more emergency midnight washes, but with two kiddos I can anticipate a few more of these in our future. Again, thank goodness for a front loading washer.

I get frustrated with Tara sometimes and am guilty of saying that it has no character or is completely devoid of any architectural detailing. True as that may be, Tara is more functional and easy to live in than anywhere I have ever rested my head. I miss the character of the Wellington, yes, but when it comes to practicality, I'll take something a bit more up-to-date.