Old House My House

First, let me say how excited my husband, John, and I are that our house has been chosen to be remodeled on "This Old House!" We still need to pinch ourselves several times a day to believe that we are really going to have our house and yard done by Tom, Norm, Richard and Roger! We have no idea how we got so lucky. 

The Thursday in October before we bought our house on Avon Hill, in Cambridge we had seen another house on the market just around the corner (pictured above). There was a feeding frenzy at this "House Around the Corner (HAC)," with many potential buyers milling about, whispering with their realtors—including a very pregnant looking woman and her husband.

More

When we were signing on to be featured on This Old House TV's next season, we were told by many who had been involved in past seasons that we would need to take a leap of faith when doing this. I think that can mean a lot of things, but for us, it's meant really learning to trust a team of experts, and let them guide us through an incredible process. This applies to all the wonderful folks who have advised us throughout this project, but, as I've discussed before, one of the things I've most enjoyed has been working with the Terrat Elms design team.

More

One of the first things Joe wanted to do when we moved into our house was to build a wrap-around seating area in our kitchen where we could nestle our kitchen table. We loved the idea of gathering the whole family there for meals and celebrations, and have always admired this element in other homes. It was on the to-do list for a long time, but never quite made it to the top. Until now. 

More

Okay, the countdown has really begun. And, oh my—the craftsmanship that is coming from Tom's team now! Wow! I've always trusted their work completely, but seeing them go start to finish with their projects makes me continuously appreciative of this team. The mudroom stairs are still a work in progress, but they have done an incredible job, and its future beauty is starting to emerge.

More

As I've mentioned before, Joe and I live our lives in a constant state of biting off more than we can chew. In that spirit, we decided to paint our garage ourselves. Because of Massachusetts lead laws, costs for hiring painters has skyrocketed, so we took on what we thought was a manageable project. I prepped and painted the entire interior of our house (with help from many lovely and wonderful family members), so I was pretty confident in my DIY painting abilities. Joe doesn't paint, but brings carpentry knowledge to the table, so we make a good team. We scheduled the project over two long weekends last month—one for prepping, one for painting—and asked for help from my dad and a few other saints (thank you Tom, Seth, Anne and John!!). We thought that would be plenty of time. Guess what?  IT WASN'T!!

We arrived on a Saturday morning armed with HEPA masks, goggles, paint supplies and scaffolding. But just a few hours into it, I started wondering which was more painful: delivering my first born child, or painting the garage. I decided it was the latter. Sensing my agony, Joe took on the role of Chief Cheerleader and encouraged me to keep going. We scraped. And scraped. And scraped and scraped. We stopped passersby on the street, begging for help, and, finally, we ended the long weekend with a garage that looked like the photo above. (Oh, did I mention that we decided to remove the entire facade and have Joe rebuild it?) But don't worry. Since then, Joe has rebuilt the front, and my dad and I tackled priming and painting, though we had to seek Tom Silva's help on two rotted, termite ridden sills.

We recently had the opportunity to work with ChromaLab, a small, very cool company that our designers introduced us to. Their work falls into the category of really cool stuff (one of my favorite examples of their work can be seen above) that designers know about, and we don't! We've asked them to do some work in our half-bath and study, and I can't wait to see what the final product looks like. These talented artists do many things, but what we will be working with them on is a hand-done specialty finish they will create offsite, then apply to the 1/2 bath wall. I think it goes on like wallpaper, but the coolest thing is that we get to choose the design. They can do just about any color, shape, or size, and we had fun with Dee, Andrew and Crystal (of Terrat Elms Interior Design) in picking a design. We went with a funky, fun, and very different print for the 1/2 bath, and a very traditional painted overlay for the study (a room we are keeping as traditional as possible). Check out the cool work they do here.Considering my inability to draw even stick figures, I am truly a fan of the artistry and creativity that goes into this!

One of the things I loved most about our house when we bought it was the natural country feel of its dirt driveway. Unfortunately, most of its charm was lost several time each year when it turned into a virtual mud pit, thanks to our incredibly high water table. This has not been lost on our dogs, who love playing around in all that mud, nor or daughter, who enjoys all the puddle jumping, as well as the mud pies we've made with her. Despite its pleasures, Joe and I were ready for an update. We contemplated pouring gravel over the mud, which is what the previous owners did (though they were much better than we were about replenishing the gravel). Thankfully, Roger Cook helped us come up with a cool alternative. His relatively inexpensive solution involved laying down a traditional driveway, letting it set for about six weeks, then laying an oil coating with embedded stone over the top. It creates a more natural look than a regular driveway—with zero maintenance. Thanks, Roger!

 

Last summer, we asked our landscape architect Jenn Nawada to come up with a long-term "dream plan" that would incorporate several major changes we hope to put in place over the next several years (feel free to ask Joe about his planned pickleball court).

No doubt we were pretty excited by what she came up with. Jenn's a great listener, who was able to integrate what we wanted with a few fun ideas of her own, including a flower cutting garden (love the idea, though I'm not sure my green thumb will be up to the task). There will still be a few more iterations of the plan as we move along, but it's really fun to think through the specifics. 

Since Joe and I don't know too much about plants, we asked Jenn and Roger Cook to recommend native, historically accurate, easy-to-maintain plants that will be reasonably priced and offer some privacy in the long term. Tall order, huh?  They actually have a few ideas that meet most of these criteria, and we're looking forward to making some decisions. 

Photo: Keller & Keller

“So many decisions, so little time.” That’s been our motto throughout this project. While Joe and I like to think of ourselves as decisive people who are efficient and agile in our decision making, I’m not sure if our self assessment is as accurate as we might think. There are SO MANY decisions to be made here! As avid do-it-yourselfers, we thought we knew what to expect. But we were wrong.

Apparently, working on a bathroom update that takes over 1.5 years to complete—which we once did amid many other small projects—is not the same as tackling the major projects we are managing right now. For our DIY bathroom renovation, we essentially had 18 months to make about four decisions (wall color, toilet type, fixtures, flooring), but the timeline and scope of this project are a bit different. Tom and his team work fast, which means we need to make decisions fast. And so we've discovered every possible Web site out there for quality reviews (Consumer Reports tops that list, but there are countless others). We've also managed to find all the showrooms within 10 miles of our home, and the short list of people we know who have already done this. All of these resources have been a huge help.

Above is a recent photograph of Joe and I with the TOH team trying to figure out what to do with some of our salvaged wood (the results of those decisions will be revealed in an upcoming issue of This Old House magazine). Believe me, Joe and I both appreciate how exciting and fun this all is. After all, while choosing the right countertops and appliances is a big deal and all, it’s not like we're trying to achieve world peace. Thinking about it this way always helps us keep perspective.

I wanted to dedicate a blog post to my dad, who we have labeled this season's This Old House "Chief Gawker" (a title he, in fact, endorsed). I don't think there's anyone who is having more fun with this renovation than he is. He watches the webcam constantly, attends as many filming days as he can, and has been a HUGE help on various projects Joe and I have been taking on. He also comes by to mow the lawn a lot, a small task that we greatly appreciate and can't seem to keep up with as of late! He spent about 50 hours last week removing lead paint from our garage windows (more on that in another post!), and actually seemed to enjoy himself. Here's a shot of the Chief Gawker doing what he does best—watching the action with a camera in hand. Thanks Dad!!