The Inside Scoop: Interior Renovation Weeks 1 & 2

Weeks 1 & 2 of Renovation
So while the greenhouse was being dismantled and the outside wall was a-tumbling down, things were happening inside, too.  Here's how our house looked before:

Living room sofa nestled neatly against an interior wall.  The wall is not load bearing, but it is loaded with wires, vents, vacuum pipes, light switches. We are planning to keep the tan carpet in this area, as it cushions creaky knees during family prayer.

Here is a view of the dining room, with the laminate floor my dad and I installed years ago (Thank you, Dad!  Thank you Costco!)

This room has a funky textured block wall which was designed to let in all that heat from the greenhouse in the winter, and a massive fireplace which, as Abraham Lincoln said about the early Latter-day Saints, is too big to move and not suitable for burning, so we'll plow around it.

 But I did borrow a Dremel to try and smooth off a little of its character.

On the other side of the non-load bearing wall was this beautiful bank of cabinets suitable--and dangerous-- for a pack-rat like yours truly.

         ?
     _ ('') _
      \/ | \/
        / \
    _ |   |_
   

Here is the kitchen view facing east.  I will miss the cooktop with the built in griddle.  I will not miss the white tile countertop with hard-to-clean brown grout.  Nor will I miss the dark linoleum, even though it hid dirt very well.   Gratefully, the linoleum has come off the subfloor without too much trouble.

Here's a look at the kitchen facing west the day before all the fun started.  The fridge had already been moved to the dining room by the time I got the kitchen clean enough for a photo.

 At this point we were emptying out the last of the cupboards and moving stuff downstairs or into the pantry, which will be our mini kitchen for the next ??? weeks.  

Day 1:  Today, Frank started whacking down the brick wall outside.
Emily's favorite part? "We drew on the walls."  Kids, don't EVER do this at home.  Unless your parents are crazy enough to knock down the wall afterwards.  Some of Emily's friends helped, and there was a lively high jump contest.   

 It was like when the doctor drew on my right leg with sharpie before a vein procedure, just to make sure he did the right one.  (Are you sure this is the correct wall?  Yep, I see the sharpie.  Get the sledgehammer.)

Day 2:  Our contractor Randy Hickman and son took the cupboards down, and we started hitting the wall.  Randy's son is going to reuse most of our cabinets in exchange for grunt labor.  Yay for recycling!

The sledgehammer was almost too heavy for anyone but Frank.  The rest of us preferred a regular hammer for beating on the walls.  Quote of the day:  "It's not good to hit on studs."

Day 3:  Here's what the womenfolk did while Frank was leveling the dirt for the patio.  We eventually got smart and took off large pieces of drywall, which means easier cleanup.

Meanwhile on the other side of the wall, Randy's crew was prying up the tile encrusted counters. 

Day 4:  On Saturday, Amanda, Emily, and Emily's friend Katy were pulverizing the drywall with hammers, fists, and feet!  Chalky bits were everywhere! They also helped sweep afterwards.  Yay!  

Soon we could see daylight between the studs, and all the cabinets had been detached from the walls.  It immediately looked brighter.

Day 5 was Sunday.  We ate crockpot lasagna.  I started wondering if we could microwave hard boiled eggs for Easter in 2 weeks.  Answer: yes, covered with lots of water, and only a few at a time.

Day 6: Amanda and Daisy helped with the high parts of the drywall.   We started poking around in the soffits.  Pink chunks= good, stays somewhat in place.  Gray fluff= bad: avalanche!

Day 7:  Frank took a sledgehammer to the studs.  Yay!
The south side of this soffit was all drywall=good.

The north part was a layer of drywall over plywood=bad!  Seems like Gordon Greene who built the house was trying to make sure his soffits would survive the end of the world.

 

Day 7:  The last soffit was a fortress!  We hammered, we pried, we used some nice words and then some strong words... and got as far as we could before nightfall.  Frank has a new scar for all his efforts.   

The lesson?  Build your family as strong as this soffit, on a firm foundation of faith, so when the hammers beat against it and the prybars try to divide it, they shall have no power over you to drag you down!  And seal all the holes with glue while you're at it, so not even a wire nut can slip through.  

By Day 8, With a little help, the soffits are down, and we swept up the indoor insulation avalanche for maybe the last time.  Just a few flurries from now on, I hope.  This is also the day the cement was poured in the patio.

Day 9 A carpenter came and did some framing where the pocket doors had been, also prepped for the new exhaust vent.  The old exhaust port under porch seemed to have collapsed.

Day 10: Wiring for can lights and outlets in kitchen and office area.  

Day 11: I drove to West Valley to choose granite for counter top and island: Giallo Santo Classic, 2 cm, from Arizona Tile, quarried in Brazil.  We choose granite mainly because it's heat proof.  That was the one redeeming feature of our old tile counter.

 Also on Day 11, the vacuum guy came to move the central vac port over a few feet so it will be in the island. They found some random fans under the floor boards, part of Gordon Greene's innovative plans to use the space between floor and ceiling to recirculate air.  We still have an open ceiling in storage room 2 below, so this was a good opportunity to tidy there and vacuum the flurries of sawdust.

Day 12: Sunday. We made our traditional scrambled eggs and fried potatoes in an electric skillet.  I kind of like having the fridge in the dining room--so convenient!   Flurries outside today, none inside, yay!

A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build: Exterior Week 1

After 13 years of enjoying our 35-year old house, it's time for a little face lift.  The seed of the idea started with peeling linoleum and impossible to clean counters, compounded by the imminent retirement of our favorite contractor, neighbor Randy Hickman.  From there, the idea grew that we could possibly address an aging greenhouse and dark, divided kitchen area.

We liked the way the greenhouse keeps the house warm in the winter, and it was a fun place to play outdoor messy games on a cold winter afternoon, but we haven't used the space for planting, and it has a few broken panes and leaks when it rains. It also needed some serious shade or venting solutions in the summertime.

The first step to become a reality was to empty out all the dirt from the greenhouse.  It found new homes in our planting areas.

 The next step was to advertise the greenhouse on KSL classifieds.  A nice couple with 4.5 kids came and disassembled the greenhouse on two chilly Saturdays, hauled away all the parts, and paid us $500 for the privilege of doing so.   They are serious gardeners and also hope to insulate their house with it.

Before, during, and after pictures:

 Just after the last of the greenhouse was gone, we had a snowstorm.  It was odd to have to shovel out the greenhouse patio!

Once the weather cleared up a bit, Frank went all gangster on the knee-high brick wall out back.  The wall put up a valiant fight that lasted two days, but in the end, Frank won.   

 Robert Frost had a few things to say about walls coming down in the poem, "Mending Wall."

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.'

The next step required some professional help.  A crew came in with a concrete saw and sliced up the outer wall into pieces small enough for a small front loader to cart off.

With all the moisture, our waterlogged lawn was no match for the power tools.

But it was worth a little lawn patching to have things moving along quickly.  

Frank finished off the brick and leveled out the dirt to prepare for a 4 inch reinforced concrete pad in the patio area and also the planting area to the west.

And the concrete went in just in time to set before another few days of rain.

So now we have a nice outdoor area for a little backyard recreation!  The next step is to built a roof over the patio area, hopefully with a little cooperation from the city, who is insisting on having 25 feet of set back from the fence, which would cover only half of the patio...

I Walked Where Jesus Walked

Original Song by Lisa Judd

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8kxDDC-WB0&feature=youtu.be

Last Week Walks

Every semester eventually comes to the point where the end is near,  the 3 1/2 months draws to a close, and we start dreading saying goodbye to the students who have become very dear to us.  During this solemn time of impending separation, the students retrace the last few days of the mortal life of Jesus Christ.  They visit the sacred Christian sites in the Old City and  reread and contemplate the implications of the Savior's last week. 

Here is the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a visual representation of the compromise and tension which  characterize this tiny piece of real estate precious to so many Christian denominations.  

This is a place of lavish ornamentation, asynchronous reconstruction, and pluralistic communities funneled into a single shrine with one entrance.  It is a sacred cacophony of worshipers and tourists propelled by the contradictory goals of trying to experience a transcendence peace and capture it permanently in a digital image.

This building has the best archaeological claim as the site of the death and burial of our Savior, and yet its bewildering architecture and sectarian tension present a harsh atmosphere for the Mormon or Protestant pilgrim looking for a contemplative experience.

In the effort to make sense of this sacred space, the visitor has to work harder to plumb the meaning of the symbols and shrines here.  The spirit strains to bring all the sensory input together and filter what is essential.

Just like the effort to hear a soft spoken sacrament speaker, the extra layer of difficulty can either obscure the message or invite it to sink in to a receptive, yearning heart.

The key to the single entrance has been entrusted to the care of a Muslim family for centuries.  One gentleman brings the key, and another  gentleman from another Muslim family inserts the key and unlocks the door.

The chance to linger or take photos in the Edicule, the sepulchre itself, is a rare opportunity.  (This is my friend Danielle, whose sister is in our ward back in Orem.)  The limestone of the tomb is covered with ornamental marble carvings.  It has been recently renovated and looks beautiful.

We went to other churches in the city.  Here is the Jerusalem cross in a wrought iron window grate.

Here is the doorway to the church of St. John the Baptist.  The inner doorway behind my friend Heidi shows how you have to bow when entering.

The church is Greek Orthodox.  From above it is shaped like a Jerusalem cross or square cross with arms of equal length and a dome over the center.

The iconostasis contains vivid pictures of the Savior, his apostles, and various saints.  The iconostasis is a long paneled partition which restricts entrance to the holy place behind it, so Greek orthodox churches are typically wide, stretching across the center of the cross, rather than long like Catholic or protestant basilicas which are based on an elongated cross floor plan.  So entering in through the vestibule, you come face to face with the symbols of worship right away, rather than walking closer little by little as in a basilica church.  It is common to see visitors pausing before each sacred area, crossing themselves and praying or touching the icons then kissing their hands.    

Also it is common for a sweet caretaker to remind us to be quiet and not take pictures.  Here is a quaint dwelling for the caretakers of the church.  

At the Russian Orthodox church of Alexander Nevsky, the caretakers requested that we cover our heads and wear skirts over our pants.

This arch is in the basement of the church.  At one point, the church of the Holy Sepulchre reached all the way down the block to this area.  It was destroyed and rebuilt with smaller proportions.

This is a small opening in the side of another gate, perhaps to allow animals to wander in and out of the gate area.

This piece of rock was bought and brought from the church of the Holy Sepulchre so the Russian speaking worshipers could commemorate the death and burial of the Savior in this building.

This church has beautiful paintings of the events of the last week of the Savior's life.