More Demo Work

As we've already mentioned, we spent some time pulling up old carpet to reveal the original hardwoods. We've received a bid on refinishing the 3 rooms (plus a hallway and stairs) that were previously carpeted. It's a no-brainer as an old-house-preservationist, right? You gotta pull up the carpet.

Well, we are not just stopping at carpet. Last weekend, we decided that the kitchen--which features a nice-enough ceramic tile--just doesn't look right in the context of the rest of the house. Sure enough, there is hardwood located underneath the ceramic tile, which is enough to warrant a death sentence for the tile. It's all coming up this weekend, provided we can figure out how to get it done. Are we qualified to do this?

Same goes for the laminate flooring in the downstairs bathroom--it's coming up this weekend, too. After our weekend demolition, we should be down to hardwoods throughout the whole house, except for the back-porch-turned-laundry-room and the upstairs bathroom.

The good news is that last time we pulled up flooring, we found 12 cents, and this priceless artifact:
I can't be sure what this means, but I strongly suspect foul play. In the conservatory. By Professor Plum.

Mirrors, Mirrors, on the Wall

The dining room in the house embodies several things we love about our place. Here's a picture:

Notice the beautiful, original woodwork. The floors look great, too. The vaulted ceiling is handsome. The door to the kitchen is a double-hinged swinging door, which is kind of cool. The walls are original plaster. The window is huge and original.

And then there are the huge double mirrors hung on the wall. Bleh. Some people have told us that they like the mirrors, and they certainly make the room appear bigger. But these things have to go; they definitely don't fit the original decor of the house.

Last weekend, I was set to take them off. I unscrewed the mirror clips, thinking that the glass would just come off. The mirrors, however, are stuck to the wall. It appears that there may be some kind of backing to which the mirrors are attached. As you can see, the mirrors are huge. I was thinking of taping up the front to prevent breaking shards of glass, and then trying to chisel them off the backing or the wall. I'm pretty sure this will result in some plaster damage, but I guess we'll see. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Porch Problems

One of the big issues with the house is the front porch--it looks like it could collpase at any minute. The condition of the porch was flagged during our inspection. We foregoed (forewent? What's the right word here?) having a structural engineer inspect before buying because...well, I can't remember why. Because we are cheap? Because it was a calculated risk? Because we wanted the house anyway, I guess.

After we closed, our biggest concern was that the front porch was a symptom of a bigger structural problem. If we just needed to rebuild the porch, we were prepared to handle that. But, if it turned out that the porch was falling off because the whole freakin' front of the house was falling, too, then we'd have some problems. Our worst-case scenario involved us driving up to the house and seeing something like this:

On Sunday, we had an engineer come to inspect the house. Thankfully, it looks like the porch itself is the only issue. It will be a complete rebuild, but that is something that we were planning on anyway. The rest of the house looks to be structurally sound, with only some minor repair needed to the foundation. And, since the inspection was done by a family member, the price was right (thanks Mike).

Pulling up Carpet

There are hardwood floors throughout the house, most of which were refinished by the previous owners. However, there was still carpet left in 3 of the four bedrooms as well as the upstairs hall. So our first big job was pulling up carpet. I was ready for the carpet and carpet pad, but who knew there were so many accessories (and by accessories, I mean tackboard, nails, and staples). After a long day of work, the old hardwoods are now exposed, staple-free, and ready for refinishing--as soon as we come up with the cash to get it done.

One of the formerly carpeted rooms is painted a lovely shade of blue with bright red trim (see before and after pic below). We call that the Jayhawk room. Clearly the color scheme needs to be changed immediately. Black and gold, perhaps?

What were we thinking?

It's the natural progression of things, I guess. You get married, get good jobs, buy a modern urban loft, do a little traveling, and enjoy a lot of happy hours and nice dinners out. Then, for some reason, you decide to turn your sweet life upside-down and have a baby. And that baby literally forces you to slow down and reflect on everything. You start to long for green space and good schools and the small-town upbringing you had. And amid the sleep-deprivation and chaos of having a newborn, you decide buy a house in the country. So that's what we did. And to get Max ready for this wonderful new life we plan to impose upon him, we've become quite fond of singing him the opening line of a song by the Presidents of the United States of America: Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches. I'm movin' to the country, gonna eat me a lot of peaches. Hence the name of our blog.

We closed on our new home on October 19. It's a 1913 Craftsman-style home located in Lathrop, a small town in Northern Missouri. So now--thanks to the dismal real estate market--we still own our loft in the city (we'll call it our urban highrise) along with our new small-town abode (we'll call that the country estate). It's just as well for now, because although the house is in decent shape, there are several things we want to do to make it our home, many of which need to be done before we move in. As we complete the transition, we'll use this space to update friends and family--and the world, I suppose--on the progress we make. Welcome to our blog!