Things have been pretty quiet here this year. Perhaps “dead” would be a better way to put it. In my last post, I broke the news that we bought a house. We closed on August 2, but the previous owner had asked for up to an additional 45 days to clear all of his furnishings and various knick knacks that he had accumulated over the course of his life time. But, fortunately, he was out much sooner, and on the 24th he paid me a visit at my work, and told me: “Three things: 1) Call Brigham City and have the utilities transferred over to your name, 2) Call Box Elder Creek Water Users Association and have the water rights transferred to your name, and 3) Here are your keys.”
After that Tuesday, life turned even more upside down than they were. But in (mostly) the best way. That evening after work we set out cleaning and demolishing things in preparation for the renovations and repairs we had planned on making to the place.
First, a very brief history of the house:
It was first constructed in 1855 as a stable. It changed hands over the years, and eventually went into disrepair. Having attended the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933 where he learned of Spanish Revival Architecture, ???? Huchel purchased the property and renovated the entire house, including adding on to it, in that style. About a decade and a half passed, and Frederick Huchel was born, who would eventually inherit the house. Rick moved to North Logan ca. 2000 and left the house vacant all that time. Despite not living there, Rick was diligent in keeping the property in good order, both inside and out. That’s not to say that the house wasn’t lacking in more than a few areas. Being built in 1855, and remodeled during the Great Depression, there was no laundry room. Laundry was done in the kitchen next to the stove which provided the hot water to wash clothes by hand in the wash bin. When ???? remodeled the house, he added electricity and plumbing, and added a carport, a garage, another bedroom on the back of the house along with a second bathroom, a covered patio and an extra room behind the garage and attached to the patio. Sometime after those additions, plumbing was run to that extra room, which became Ricks workshop, and the coal chute was converted to storage, and a furnace and air conditioning unit and water heater were installed, along with a modern breaker box to work in conjunction with the original fuse box.
At the top of our list of renovations we knew we would have to make if we bought the house was to get a functional laundry room. With plumbing already run, we knew the shop would be the best way to make that happen. The garage hadn’t been used as a garage for who knows how long, and the front had been walled off with a simple Dutch Door installed to provide access. That would become my studio/office/fly tying room. We had purchased a fridge before we even knew this house would be an option, but it was too wide to fit where the previous fridge sat, so I knew we would have to cut a few inches off the cabinets there to make room. We wanted an over-the-range microwave, and would need to add a shelf to hang one. Several of the rooms were carpeted with pine flooring underneath. The carpet was pretty worn, so we knew it had to come out, but weren’t sure just what we wanted to do with the floors, but eventually settled on refinishing them. The master bedroom had blood-red wallpaper and carpet, and felt like you had stepped into Edgar Allan Poe’s world. Or an adult film studio if the lighting was right. So we knew that needed to be changed. The second we and Rick had shook hands that he would sell his house and that we would buy it, I committed to buy some Spanish tile I had seen in a local classified ad. We would put it in the laundry room, the covered patio in the back and my studio (more on that later). After all, what’s a Spanish house without Spanish tile? Yes, there was the terra cotta tile roof, but some of the floors needed that too!
It all pretty much turned out to be much more involved than it looked like would be (some of it I knew was going to be harder, some was a surprise), and there have been a LOT of late nights, a lot of cuss words, a lot of stress and despair, but also a LOT of much needed and appreciated help from friends, neighbors, and family. There was also a LOT of time away from my wife and kids.
I’d hoped to be done with the bigger projects by the end of September and move in before October. Boy were those hopes foolish. Turns out I don’t enjoy tiling very much. Actually, laying it isn’t all that bad. It was the grouting that broke my spirits. And my back. I had the laundry room tiled and about half of the patio done when I started grouting the laundry room, and after four weeknights and 7 hours on a Saturday on my hands and knees wiping grout residue from the tile, I’d had enough. We’d already bought enough tile to do the three rooms, but after doing the laundry, I decided I’d skip my studio and just paint the concrete floor.
Then the week after that, I rented a drum sander and set out sanding the wood floors. Doing the middle of the floor isn’t so bad. But the edges had the same affect on my as the grouting did. So we hired the rest of that job out.
All in all, it took that last week of August, and the entirety of September and October to finish enough of the projects that we were able to move in. I still have about 1/4 of the patio to tile, but with the cold weather having set in, that project won’t get completely finished until spring.
As of October 30, we are officially living in the house, and not in a second full-time job sort of way. It feels pretty amazing—though it still feels like a dream—to sleep under the roof of a house we own, with a yard where the boys can play. And now that we’re in and every waking moment (and most sleeping moments) isn’t utterly consumed by what has to get done before we can move in, I’m hoping to be able to get the camera out regularly again and make more work!
