If a tree falls in a forest...

This is the story of a very lovely 80 year old maple tree. Loved by many, it spent it's life trapped in this tiny backyard.

 

It provided shade to this fabulous porch.

Unfortunately, due to it's size, I cannot make a photo that illustrates it's grandeur.

The branches were hovering so dangerously close to the power lines, it appears to have been hit by lightning, perhaps many times.  The branches that hung over 3 garages, were split and strung up with tension wires by the previous owner.  It had become a danger to itself and everyone around it.  Sadly, we decided to have it cut down.

 

Over the past 3 weeks, we have watched The Tree Guy slowly whittle this fine mammoth beast down to a few tall stumps.  Complete with fun dangling pieces!  The neighbors loved this part.  Don't get too close... 

 

The wood will thankfully be used by one fabulous woodworker for various projects over the coming years.  There is a ton of beautiful lumber bearing solid mahogany colored centers.  it will make lovely furniture some day.

It's also great for exploration.

 

 And makes creepy sunset images

Now, it sits like this until the The Tree Guy comes back to finish the job.  We will miss this lovely tree, but look forward to having a back yard.

The Charlie Bucket Kitchen

Our basement kitchen has acquired a name and I'm not entirely sure it's a good one. 

While working on the kitchen shelves a few weeks ago, Trent's friend (who will remain nameless for his safety) came over and swiftly determined our temporary kitchen was a little sad.  He called it our Charlie Bucket Kitchen in reference to Willy Wonka's main character Charlie who lives in squalor only to find glorious fortune in the Wonka Chocolate Factory. 

The name stuck.

I'm finding that the more we embrace the Charlie Bucket-ness, the more fun we can have.  It no longer has to be a work of art; this space where we will cook for the period of time while we work on the real kitchen.  The shelves can be a little Wonky and the floor will probably always be dirty and that's OK. 

Basement kitchens were even featured in this month's This Old House Magazine with a story about a couple who are renovating their kitchen with no help from the outside world. They have spent the year cooking out of their basement.  They included a recipe for Toaster Over Beef Wellington, which is right up our alley!

So.  Here it is.  The Charlie Bucket Kitchen. 

Feeling the political energy today

THE toaster oven

It looks better in color, not quite so basement-y

Special spice rack

Fancy dried goods shelves

We've Got the Blues

Thanks Dr. Martin Luther King for the great speeches and the long weekend.  We used ours well, we met our neighbors during an awesome gathering and painted, painted, painted some more.

Thinking back, before we even considered buying a house on 49th Street, we had heard tales of block parties, experienced Halloween Extravaganzas and longed for the community our friends had, who already lived in the Washington Heights Neighborhood.  Trent and I had the opportunity, thanks to a friend already on the block, to join in a neighborhood outing last Friday.  A bus (well, not just any bus - the block party bus) would pick us up, feed us beer, drop us at a restaurant in the Third Ward and then again to a gallery/bar in Bay View, also owned by neighbors on 49th.  We had fun and lots and lots of drinks.  It was a great way to get to know a good amount of our neighbors while enjoying (watching) salsa dancing classes at BYO Studio.  Their cucumber mojitos were very good too.


Child Labor

Ceiling Detail

From Living Area to Library (formerly Dining Room)

And for the painting: it's is pretty boring to talk about, but here are some photos.  Don't report us for putting the kid to work, she wanted to do it.  This weekend's color was Russian Blue - lots of it.  It seems to change nicely with the light and looks different in each room.  Since the living room, library and office merge into each other, it made sense to have it be a transitional color.  The green splotch was my original choice, but it was way too yellow for me.  Next weekend : a hint of Violet.

Holiday Madness

For Christmas this year, Trent and I both got each other 1 solid week of work time at 49th Street.  Add in a few festive days off in Chicago and family engagements and we’re down to 3 solid days of work.  With 2 days down, we’ve logged some quality work.

1. Cleaning out of chimney surround (items found - 3 Miller bottles from 1917 oddly spelled Mueller)
2. Home networking of speaker & CAT 6 wire for entire 2nd floor
3. Carpet, staples & screws (lots and lots of screws), & carpet tack removed
4. Linoleum removed from old kitchen (soon to be art room)
5. Radiators cleaned and painted (items found - army men, curlers and matches, those darn kids)
6. Basement completely cleaned
7. Debris left from previous owner removed from site

So now, what we're left with looks a little like woodwork with some walls.  And shiny radiators!

 Carpet removal, that is a half of a tub too. 

 "Clean" floors, see all the holes?

 Carpet be gone

 Radiators before, this is where the army men lived

 Shiny and new

 Beer bottles, old knob and tubewiring and more!

 After the linoleum, nice water damaged floor in the center

 The Paneling Comes Off, and so does the wall

 Millions of tiny holes

Mystery Door between the universes

The First Weekend INside -November 5, 2011

After hovering outside for a week while the former owner packed 40 years of stuff into a 20 ft van, we finally moved inside this weekend.

Friday, November 4th we set our sights on a garage full of refuse, and Saturday we lugged out 5 contractor bags full of clothes hangers. Well, there were other things too, but mostly clothes and weird newspaper articles on how long you can keep food in your freezer. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was a weekend spent doing mostly what I would expect any house seller to do, throw their own stuff away.

Sunday we arrived early, sent Sophia to a friends down the block (she has the luxury of walking herself to her friends house -no traffic, no crazy people, just a bunch of friendly kids) and went to work cleaning. The basement is now in good shape, some book and art supplies are moved in.
We did OK for the 1st 2 days. phew. need a bath.