This Old House...15º---38º

This Old House

Some thirty years ago, in 1980, after owning our house for three years we decided to do some remodeling and updating...Our house was built around 1920, back before it was common to insulate houses, and our incredible view was not a priority...So the house, a three story was built with its back to the mountains, a small kitchen, laundry room downstairs and windows that let in the cold, wind, flies and dirt...A bedroom was made into a utility room of sorts, when it became difficult for the older couple to navigate the stairs to the basement...Making the best use of the space hadn't come into the picture...The heating system was inadequate.

So Herb and I being young and strong but very dumb about carpentry decided to make some changes...Some of the smart things we could do and did were: We added a composition roof over the old shingled roof, insulated the attic with blown-in insulation and rolls of insulation...Then we tackled the remodel of the bathroom and the kitchen/utility room...I had the ideas, Herb had the hammer...Not to go into much detail we did some good things: added a shower to the bathroom, enlarged the kitchen into the "utility room" and added a picture window (for our view of the mountains)... We definitely made the house more livable...But then we got bogged down with the finishing details and lived with the unfinished walls, woodwork etc for about ten years.

In 1991, Tony Anton started working for the Forest Service and he and Herb became friends...By this time I was fed up with living in the unfinished house and had a local carpenter come to give us a bid on remodeling the living room and doing the finish work in the kitchen...Herb mentioned to me that Tony was an expert carpenter and was looking for part time work to supplement his FS job...Long story short...for the next six months we lived in a demolition zone on the main floor...His first day on the job, all of the original lath and plaster was ripped out and piled a foot deep on the living room  floor... When Tony started to remodel he didn't waste any time and when I arrived home from work that night I wished that I had been content to live with the unfinished house...I stood looking in awe and disbelief with tears running down my cheeks, at the incredible mess that lay before me!..I thought he was a mad man.

Six months later he had become a miracle worker...The utility room had floor to ceiling cabinets, I had a built in pantry, the ceiling in the living room no longer sagged, insulation and sheetrock had been installed...windows and doors were trimmed with red fir boards and our house was transformed...Again I stood in awe, with a smile on my face and tears running down my cheeks.

Now thirty years later the kitchen cabinet doors have lost most of the springs in the hinges so Herb is replacing the hinges and I'm sprucing up the doors, hoping we can do a small remodel and live out our years without having to do another renovation...Although we both know that the bathroom needs to be revamped, making the shower easier for our "aging" bodies to get in and out of...and hand railings need to be added to the steps leading in and out of our house making access easier...Guess it never ends...Hugs to all...  OWAV:)