“Spirit of Alexandria”

I have been longing for New Orleans of late.  Just like the song says, “There is no place like home”.  I think what I miss most about New Orleans is the fine dining and that everything is always open late.  I loved the low light and ambiance of Houston’s on St. Charles Street.  I loved going to the Apple Seed for lunch in the Business District.  I loved walking up Canal Street and shopping at some of the trendy stores, or looking at the well prepared window displays.  Coffee and beignets?  No problem, Cafe Du Monde is open 24/7.  On any given day, I could get on a Street Car (trolley) and ride the entire Garden District line, just to gawk at the large commanding historic mansions that New Orleans is known for.  All of these things, to me, encapsulate the “Spirit of New Orleans”.

Moving to Alexandria was a shock.  Well, let me back up….moving to Provencal, Louisiana was a SHOCK!  According to Wikipedia, the population is 708 and there are only 300 housing units in the whole town.  This was a shock to me, I swear I have only seen around 200 people and they ALL knew MY business whether I wanted them to or not.

When our jobs moved us to Alexandria, I certainly was relieved and glad to live somewhere I could get high speed internet and did not have to make all of my purchases at Wal-Mart (not that there is anything wrong with that…but, when you have no other choices….).  I viewed my move to Alexandria as moving back closer to civilization.   Now, don’t get me wrong, Provencal had its charms.  It was close to the Kisatchie National Forest, had beautiful rural roads and its very own walking track right smack in the middle of town.  It also has one gas station/pizza place/typical country store that was a Circle K when I lived there, but that everyone lovingly called “Po’s”.  Now its a Chevron.  When I would say I am going to get gas at Circle K, I would get very odd looks from my husband’s family and some of the church people there.  They had no idea what I was talking about.  When they would say, “You mean Po’s?”, that would completely confuse me because nowhere on the sign did the store say “Po’s”.  Needless to say, I am very literal and from the city.  A combination that usually got me off the hook, because people normally just sighed, rolled their eyes and chalked my “ignorance” up to my being a “city folk”.

So, I thought, moving to Alexandria would be an improvement, right?  I guess I got the high speed internet, but I am surprised to find that, even though Alexandria is sprawled across a large area of Cenla, it is relatively still behind other comparable cities of its size.  I find that, even though we have a good Administrative leadership in Cenla, that most entities, businesses, charities and non-profits are still singing their songs solo.  Alexandria severely lacks cooperative involvement from corporations, as well as private citizens.  A lot of people sit around pointing fingers and laying blame at someone else’s door instead of getting up off their tushes and working together as a cooperative whole to find a solution. 

Anyway, I am thrilled to see the two beautiful trolley cars that the City purchased.  Of course the trolley causes my nostalgia all over again but I am hoping that, in time,  it will make the pangs of longing for my hometown subside.  Maybe the City will come up with a tour through the Garden District?  Thrilling!  I am so glad to see some charm rattling down the streets of Alexandria.  What would be even better, is  revitalization of the downtown area.  Alexandria has so much potential with the old store fronts and buildings relatively intact, to host a number of thriving businesses which would cater to the local professionals, tourists, yuppies, bicycle riders, etc.  Can’t you see it?  Coffee houses, music, loft apartments, entertainment.  People leisurely walking the streets enjoying the scenery.  We already have a wonderful orchestra and a great art district.  I think what Alexandria is lacking though is a little “soul”.  I love the quote from Winston Churchill:

“We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.”

Isn’t that so true?  We need to shape our buildings in the downtown area to become a pleasing recreational place for families, for tourists, for convention go-ers, you name it.  It would give our city a little “spirit” and “soul”.  I wonder if that perhaps is the reason we have such limited cooperation, prevalent racism and negativity in Alexandria?  Is it because our “soul” is gone and we feel empty and destitute which causes us to angrily lash out?  What we need in our city is a little romance and nostalgia from a gentler era of Alexandria’s history.  Whatever they decide to do with the trolley cars, I am 100% for it.  If they ever decide to use it for public tours or transportation, I will be the first in line to buy a ticket!  Thank you City for some putting Spirit back in Alexandria!

Projects – 2008 in Review

I was sitting around trying to think about what we did all year.  It seems like 2008 was a slow year for us as far as the DIY scene was concerned.  In the early part of the year, around March, we spent a lot of time getting construction bids and filling out mountains of paperwork for our construction loan, only for the subprime mortgage crisis to hit and, in the end, we ended up scratching the whole deal.  I had to go back through my pictures to see what exactly we DID accomplish this year.  I was glad to find proof that our year was not wasted.  Here is a pictorial review of our year:

January:

Finished the rent house (Hallelujah!) and took our three year old employee to Chuck-E-Cheese.  Hey, we had to pay her somehow for all that painting she did!

February:

We celebrated our five year anniversary

March:

My birthday!  Ahem….anyway.  In 8 hours, I cleaned, primed and put two coats of paint on the living room walls.  It wouldn’t have taken me 8 hours normally except that I: 1) painted alone; 2) pushed a very heavy 10 foot ladder around the room 8 times while I painted the middle and top of the room …twice! I have 13 feet ceilings.  [is it 13 foot, or 13 feet?]

April:

In April, I redid an ugly 80’s dresser for Vivian’s room and, for storage, we revamped an old shelf my brother made many years ago by adding crown moulding to it and painting it.

May:

We took down the ugly drop ceiling in the attic.   We also painted the Master Bedroom.

June:

I sanded, repainted and recovered an old chair I bought for $5.00 at a junk store.  I also managed to tick off the entire Ratcliff family and get called a potstirrer.   Hahaha….that’s definitely a new one for me!

July:

I started this blog. Yay!  I pulled a metal tray on wheels out of the garbage and remade it into a plant stand for my porch.  Click here for the details and pictures.  Even my husband could not believe I wanted something this ugly.  But it turned out well.

My new plant stand

August:

We went to the Philippines.  What a life changing experience!  Click here to see more photos of the trip.  In case you cannot figure out who I am, I am the very white girl in the middle!

handumanan

September:

Vivian’s Birthday.   Hurricane Gustav hit Cenla.  That was very interesting.  It took us about a month to recover and get all of the debris cleared and everything back to normal.  I can’t complain though, we did not endure anything like New Orleans did.  Click the link above to see pictures of that fun.

October:

Was definitely not a project month.  I was caught up watching the media and reading the news regarding  local and national politics.  I did get a call from the Louisiana Historic Preservation Office in Baton Rouge telling me that they want to put my street on the National Register.  Which reminds me…..I need to give her a call.  That nomination is supposed to be sent to Washington in April.  I am definitely going to help make sure that happens!

Precious!

November:

I repainted and reappointed the guest room and stripped a fireplace mantel.

December:

We worked on the attic/loft area so we can add another bathroom upstairs.  Steven put up two porch lights in the back.  Steven stripped a door and a transom down to the bare wood.  We also stripped some paint in the hall that was caked on to the wainscoting.  Click here for December’s project pictures.

I guess all in all it was not a bad year.  We did not get as much as we wanted accomplished.  We didn’t nearly come close to the amount of work we did in 2007.  Oh well, put it on the list!  It will get done eventually!

Andrea

What’s Under There?

Since Viv and I got bored with pulling up plywood in the attic, we decided to play “What’s Under There?”  We could not see what was under the flooring between the roof rafters, so I pulled out my camera, stuck it in the hole and took a picture.  We would then pull the camera up, see if there was anything in the hole and then move on to the next hole.  I remember doing this as a kid on nature walks.  I would stick my camera in a place I did not want to go, make sure the flash was on and take a picture to see if there was anything lurking in there.  It is a wonder I did not have a run in with a snake or other animal.  This was basically the same principal and just as much fun!  Here are our pictures from our game “What’s Under There?”

Yes, I did find two very old glass bottles.  Other than that, I can safely say that there is no hidden treasure in our attic!  I am not sure how old they are and if they date back to the building of our house (what other reason would you have bottles in the attic), but here they are all spiffed up.  They will go on the “Things we found in and around the house” shelf.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Andrea

Working on the Attic/Loft

Since we have five more days left of our vacation, Steven decided to continue working on the attic area.  He started pulling up plywood so he could get it ready to blow in some insulation.  We always thought that the plywood was sitting on rafters or beams, but when he started pulling up plywood, this is what he found:

I was excited about it because it is grooved and fits together pretty well.  I started envisioning refinishing it for the loft area we are planning.  Steven was not too happy about it because it meant he would have to take it up (or at least some of it) to be able to blow in the insulation.  In fact, this discovery threw a huge kink in his plan and he was not happy about it at all.  He is green (anyone who who has taken the Colors Communication Assessment knows what I am talking about) and he does not like his carefully calculated plans to get kinked up.  We will probably take most of the plywood up to make sure all of the electrical is ran properly and up to code.  When this house was built, it did not have electricity.  We found gas lines, so the first owner must have had gas lamps.  You can see where the knob and pole wiring was retrofit in the ceiling.  It appears that our wiring has been updated and the knob and pole wiring is no longer used, but we just want to make 100% sure before moving on.  It would be awful if we had to go back and pull up flooring again in the future due to electrical issues.

The really funny part about pulling up the plywood was to find this:

What were they thinking?  It appears that an attic fan was removed from this area and also that electrical wiring was retrofit.  Instead of sistering some beams (or some other proper and efficient method of leveling the floor), they decided to stack together pieces and parts of wood in order to make the floor semi level and then to nail a piece of plywood on top of it.  Sigh……

For some of the other “nice” jobs done to the attic, click here    Not only will you be able to see the lovely sheetrock job, but also a drop in ceiling which the PO must have installed blindfolded.  I laugh when I write anything about a PO…it makes me wonder if in 20 years or so, someone else will be writing a blog about me and all the horrible house blunders I made.  🙂  Anyway, we completely removed the drop in ceiling.  It is not a great improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.  This kind of thing makes me excited!  It means progress.  Steven is more of the demo man and I am the cleaner upper, detailer/finisher.  I usually let him do the demo and rough in work and I come back in, fill in holes, sand, scrape, paint, etc.

Here is the color scheme I would like to use for this space once we get it all done…you know, about five years from now!  I want this space to be sophisticated.  These are all Valspar Signature colors by Martha Stewart.  I picked them up at Lowes today.

I am thinking the lime green for the walls, maybe the dark slate blue for an accent wall.  Dark brown furniture. The throw pillows and accessories would be the middle three colors: red, light blue and gray.

Here are a few pictures my daughter took.  Here is the remodel of the upstairs through the eyes of a four year old:

Happy Monday everyone!

Andrea

More Ideas for the Craft Room

I found some more spaces and ideas that I like.  Here are a few more pictures to add.  I am using this post as my inspiration board.  Tell me what you think:

I love these colors!  I am looking for the right shade of lime green for the paint color.  I think the use of red here is very daring!

I like the use vintage objects in this one.  However, this one makes me feel cluttered.  I would like to have clean lines and simple storage.

 I love this open shelving unit.  You can find many options at IKEA.  I would love to make the trip to the IKEA in Texas (that’s where the closest store is to me) with a long list of items needed for the house.  IKEA is awesome!

Here are some more seating options I am contemplating.  My husband is not really sold on this style.  He is envisioning late night XBOX parties and movie nights, so he wants a nice big comfortable couch.  We are going to have to marry comfort and style.

I would like to have 3-4 of these to pull up to a work table.  I envision hosting scrapbooking parties!

Ideas for a Craft Room

After making our annual trip to area stores to take advantage of after Christmas sales, Steven and I decided to finish cleaning the “attic” upstairs to get it ready for insulation.  I am not sure if this space was used as an attic, or if it is just unfinished.  There are so many bad PO jobs done to the poor space, that I can’t really tell.  We are planning on turning the space into: 1) spare bedroom, 2) bathroom, 3) home theater/man room, 4) craft area.  It is a huge space.  It feels more like a loft than an attic.  More about the loft thing later.  Anyway, we basically moved things from here:

(This is going to be the spare bedroom and bathroom) To here:

To the left will be the home theater projector and to the right will be my craft room area.  We had to clean up the area that we will put the bedroom so that we can pull up the half inch (yes, I said half inch) plywood that is on the floor, check to make sure the electrical has been ran properly, blow in some insulation and put down a sturdier plywood subfloor.  Right now, when you walk across the room, the boards bow and squeak.  One of the last PO’s decided to frame this space up for the master bedroom.  The hysterical frame up and drywall job pictures are here. 

Anyway, since this is a large open space, I wanted to decorate it loft style.  Here are a few of my ideas:

Most of the pictures pertain to my side of the room…the super craft area.  But, you get the idea.  When you first walk up the stairs, to the left will be a wall of built in shelving to house all of my books.  I was thinking about painting the wall behind the shelves with chalkboard paint and using white shelves.  Should make a nice black and white contrast.  The shelves will be tall so I can write on the chalkboard above the books.  For wall paint, I was thinking about a nice lime green with accents of turquoise and brown.  Maybe a splash of red accessories here and there.  You know me, gotta have red somewhere.

Unfortunately, the decorating part is WAAAAAAAY far down the line.  The first order of business is insulation.  The second order of business is installing a bathroom so we can demo the HORRIFIC one downstairs.  We only have one, yes, yes, yes, only ONE bathroom downstairs.  It is hard to imagine that we have 3200 sq feet and only one bathroom.  There is no other place to squeeze in another bathroom except upstairs.  So, unfortunately, we are working on the upstairs so we can work on the downstairs.  (Doesn’t make sense, does it?) We cannot remodel the bathroom downstairs until we have another one somewhere else.  We cannot remodel the kitchen (the kitchen is ALMOST as bad as the bathroom) without having somewhere to wash the dishes, etc. (a bathroom).  So, we had to sit down and figure out what needed to come first.  It completely galls me that we have to spend time and money on an upstairs space before we can work on OUR living space downstairs.  Oh well….  I guess it all comes down to: What comes first, the chicken or the egg? 

Steven and I both have one more week off, so we are trying to make the best use of our time.  We are going to try to blow in the insulation next week and, while we are at it, retrofit some insulation in the walls downstairs.  I sure am glad I caught that episode of This Old House two weeks ago showing exactly how it is supposed to be done! 🙂

Maybe, if all goes well, I will be able to post pictures of our framed up new bathroom next week.  It will still be a while before we get the flooring laid and have it replumbed, but I can hope for the best and dream about it anyway….right?

Andrea

PS I am enjoying our high of 75 degree weather!  You won’t catch this Southern Girl anywhere close to snow! 😀

***Update:  This never happened due to a lot of bad electrical wiring we found.  So, we held off on putting in the insulation until we could get the electrical updated.  Don’t want to start any fires!  Ya know?!

The Old Fashioned Way

Drop in ceiling (were they serious?)Upstairs 1100 sq feet open space

Well, the towel has been thrown in and we have decided to go allllll the way to the drawing board and start over.  We started out only needing around $50-80k in repairs, but by the time the bank was done adding their projects that “would make the house appraise for more” and making us hire a general contractor, our bottom line total of borrowing $178k was just waaaaaaaaaay more than what we wanted to spend.  So, we are pulling it all back and deciding to go with Plan A, which was, do the work ourself!

We will have to get creative on finding someone to help with the roof work (we have a LARGE roof), but the other things are just maintenance issues that we can take care of ourself.  I almost feel relieved to be going back to Plan A.  I trust in myself more than I do the general contractor and the bank.  We also were not thrilled to add all of the things the bank wanted to add, just to make our house supposedly worth more.  As you can tell from our previous blog, you can see how well their theory held.

So, we are dusting off the power tools and mourning the six months lost on filling out paperwork and getting the house appraised.  We could have already gutted and redone the kitchen or bathroom by now!!!  Or at least sanded and repainted a porch ballister or two 🙂  It was nice for a while to think that we could have all of the work done at once instead of laboring over it for the next ten years, but in all honesty, I think we will be more satisfied and proud to come home and see the transformation and know that we had a hand in it.  So, three cheers for doing the old fashioned [hard] way! 

Drop in ceiling (were they serious?)

Upstairs 1100 sq feet open space

Upstairs

First, we are going to gut the horrendous sheetrock and drop in ceiling job that some misguided PO attempted and try to frame up an extra bedroom, bathroom and recreation room.  Even though I hate that  our first project is to finish space that we don’t need yet.  I mean, we have 4 bedrooms downstairs already!!  But, in order to gut the bathroom downstairs, we have to create a bathroom upstairs.  In our 4000 sq ft house, we only have one bathroom.  YES, I said ONE bathroom!  So, new bathroom upstairs first, along with the extras, then we can gut the ugly bathroom downstairs.  As a woman, I would like to scrape and paint the exterior of the house first, that would be a super improvement to the face of the house, but, in the Louisiana sun, instant gratification falls second on the list to keeping cool and avoiding heat stroke!  So, the upstairs it is. 

Andrea