Beebe -- our 1935 Bungalow on Baker Street.

[Lily left the valley]

I don't know why at this particular moment, but after I finished watching a show, my eyes wandered over to Sean's desk, his chair empty because he's sleeping soundly upstairs, with Kira next to me sleeping on her bed between our desks where we moved her just a few hours ago after finally bringing over the side table her bed rests on, and found myself thinking, "Where am I? Oh. I'm at our house." It was as if my brain was trying to recall this place, but the memory wasn't there yet to recall. We're really just starting to build the memory/ies now, and hopefully there will be many to come in the future.

We've said little things like this to each other since closing, all sorts of happy home related things--even joking about not calling the apartment "home" anymore, even though we've always said, "wherever you are, that's home." (We're big cornballs. We know.)

This time, though, it felt just a little different. Yesterday afternoon, we were talking about all the art we haven't bothered to hang up in years, even though we used to always almost immediately do so when we moved, helping wherever we were feel more like "us", like "home". Now we don't have to either use holes and nails that are already there (like the current apartment), or haggle with landfolks about holes we made on out own to hang it when it comes to security deposit time. He looked oddly pleased that now we can put stuff wherever we like and no one can say boo about it. I can't recall exactly what he said at that time, but it was in the neighborhood of "we can put our stuff wherever we want to make our home". I think the look on his face then might be as mine might have looked when I was realizing we were at our house.

We've known each other for roughly 17 years now. This August we'll be celebrating our 16th anniversary (barring any ill fate). In that time, we've lived in five states together (NJ being the most frequent, even in between moves to other states), in all sorts of possible rentals, and it would take me a while to count all the times we've moved even without those states. I can think of no less than 9 different places just in NJ without trying too hard, which includes the apartment I was living in when we met, and where he soon moved in after that. Even NH, the state we lived in the shortest, we had three moves in roughly a year. Three! (To be fair, we started at a friend's spare bedroom until we could find a rental--but still even two in a year is too much--bad landfolks! Throw 'em down a well, I say.) I think the last time we tried to count, Sean said it had to be more than 24 moves before I could start trying to chronologically name them all. I don't think he's wrong even now, especially after just thinking of NJ and NH. Three times before, we started looking for a house to buy, but something always changed, and recalling that now I'm actually surprised I don't have some odd underlying fear that some huge change will happen now that we finally did!

This though, with Beebe, this is to be the last. Last move, last home.

Even as I'm writing this, it still hasn't fully sunk in and been accepted in my gray matter. Maybe it's because we're still technically tied to the apartment and still have some stuff there, I'm not sure. Maybe when the last box is moved, the keys are handed over, and our rent checks become mortgage payments, maybe then it really will.

[Gothichome]

Lily, nothing better than than planting your feet in one spot in your own home for the long term.

[Lily left the valley]

Well, reality hit me in the face like a cold fish slap today. I had no time to fool around.

One interesting thing that came up today was Sean told me that since we've moved here, he's been sleeping amazingly well. He's usually someone that has a little trouble adjusting to a new place, so I was surprised. He thinks it's the relief of being in our home, and he's so darn happy about it.

We packed up more stuff today when he got home from work. Had dinner over there, laundry, and we were supposed to have two showings, but both no-showed. The realtor brought up the idea of using a lock box, now that most of our belongings are out and we're not actually living there and I said that was fine with me. He's going to bring it tomorrow when there's supposed to be another showing. So after that, it will be less distractions for me with the phone calls and e-mails about showings. Good news! I love good news.

We ran out of curtains, which I expected. We tried to go to the second hand shop where I still have some credit, but they were closed early today. Since our budget is still so tight, today we grabbed some extra flannel sheets and some general fabric I have and we'll be using those for the short term until the weather settles down. It won't be pretty, but hopefully when we finally put in more permanent types, if the neighbors were raising eyebrows, that should settle things.

I have to go back over soon to pick up some laundry, and do the dishes. We're at the point with the weather and the lack of icebox that we might just go old school with a chest and thermometer in the cellar and hope that works out for the few perishables we'll have. We considered the garage, but everything would freeze for sure with this weather. We still have canned goods and dry staples, so we're hoping to bring over the last part of the stove soon and we should be good to ride things out until we have a bit more funds to work with.

We've been eyeing the oil tank, because with the weather as it is, and will continue to be, there's slim chance that we'll be able to wait the two weeks for his next check for oil. I've already set some things aside to try to Craig's List, but I have no idea how that will go. That last minute surprise with the closing costs really did hurt.

Tomorrow will be more focused on clean up here. Kitchen and downstairs bath are the priority. We're past the point of annoyed with the mess, and just want to move on and start living.

The short term plan is to shoot for 2 trips in the PT in daylight, then spend time at night unboxing and such. We're still uncertain about when and if we can get a truck for the big items. Spouse still says he's willing to push things up the hill if I am, and who knows? It might come to that. Aside from the comics and the few big items we have, most everything left is kitchen, some bathroom, hanging clothes, and easy to move in the PT furniture. The upright is the only thing I'm actually concerned about pushing on a dolly two blocks, and only because of that last hill.

Right now, the pace is going good, and I think we'll be fine and have the apartment spic and span in plenty of time for a possible April tenant.

Lily, nothing better than than planting your feet in one spot in your own home for the long term.

We have had many amazing adventures due to all the moves, but we are both very glad to have exactly that now.

[Lily left the valley]

So although I promised not to start any major projects, curiosity has been sitting on my shoulder mewling discontent over my lack of knowledge.

Keeping in mind his exasperation that day I spotted the red in the crack between baseboard and fake wood vinyl strips, I've started covertly finding spots where I can peek behind without my efforts being obvious.

Tonight was the downstairs bath.

I found a small patch of the vinyl where it was pieced around a jut, and lifted carefully, only to find rather non-descript late 80s or maybe early 90s vinyl. It seemed in ok shape, so maybe they just covered it up because it was the wrong kind of dated look? That layer is also not tucked under the baseboard, so I know there's more. Unfortunately, if there was a threshold at some point, it's long gone as with many rooms, so I couldn't even disassemble that to find a spot I could maybe see better. The older layer wasn't pieced around, so lifting it without taking off the most recent layers was a no go.

With the surround of the bath, they're not tiles. It's molded plastic sheeting, which was installed over a 1/4"? white Styrofoam sheet. The kind that's a pain to cut up because you get covered in the leavings and need to air yourself off with a compressor. I only could see this because they didn't cut it flush to the wall, so even though the sheeting edge has a nice rounded edge, you can easily see what's directly backing it. Again, I feared trying to pry that off to see what lay beneath would cause too much mess and my poking around would be discovered. Has anyone ever heard of that--the Styrofoam sheeting in a bath? It makes sense on some levels in the wrong sorts of "makes sense", but was a first for me to see. I'm wondering if that is a very recent addition like the floor, and that's why there's a lack of caulk at the base--more unfinished work. Fortunately, when I caulk it to make the tub immediately usable, that can easily be removed later when I can delve further into the layers.

I still have not managed to find a spot to easily remove (despite the screws) the lower half of the wall covering. However, there are Drunken Weasel gaps, so I did see tile like lines, BUT...they're painted pink--and poorly too, with gobs of drips, and I couldn't get in there well enough to dig further yet. So most likely not a classic pink bathroom. Trying to figure out what's best to remove the paint without scratching the tile, if in fact it is real tile. Water could be enough, but I still haven't moved over the bath stuff, so the Qtips are still over at the apartment. It could be more of that plastic molded tile sheeting. In one corner, it's obviously pink paint, and badly cracking. So I'm not even sure if what I saw goes all the way cross, or just surrounds the sink. No tile whatsoever unless they gooped the heck of the corners with whatever. In that same corner, I realized the chair rails are not lined up evenly. At least 1/8" higher than the other.

Inside the hole where the medicine cabinet should be, that cabinet must have had one of those safety razor slots, as there are oodles of them laying about, and stuck in between the wallboard and the framing wood.

Speaking of wallboard. Although someone slapdashed a coat of paint on it, I recognized the wallboard. It's exactly what I saw in the attic under the beams. Same sealant between boards too. Silver backing to the board--but smooth, not textured. I have no idea what the right terminology is, so I can't find it on the web with the words I'm trying to use. So on the office side of that wall, that's not plaster it seems.

The other oddity in general about the bathroom is the utter lack of towel bars. An older tile like toothbrush and cup holder are there, obviously moved as they are screwed to the chair rail, but no towel bars or even TP holder anywhere. I just realized I forgot to try to see if the screw holes are original or a jury rig.

The window in the shower is in a very sad state. I am a bit fearful of what might be behind the plastic tile sheeting, given how weathered the window wood is. The top trim is badly cracked. There are even parts where it's feathering on the farthest out edges of the moulding. I do not know how salvageable it will be. Oh, and when I set the storms in there, there is so much junk inside the window frame, not the least of which was pennies. I didn't pick them up because I figured they weren't going anywhere, but there's a lot. None seem overly old. It made me wonder if someone was taking a shower clothed and then suddenly remembered they had all this change in their pocket, so they reached in and dumped it all out there. Who takes a small handful of pennies into the bathtub, anyhoo?

Time for bed! And lost the hour too.

Storm heading our way later this week. We seem to be in the 1-2' range. I guess I'm glad we have that cheap busted plastic snow shovel in the basement? I might borrow one of the half dozen from the apartment just to save from spending on a decent one for the long term. I have a stiff broom I use for snow, but it won't help much if we get near or more of a foot.

[Gothichome]

Lily, if you can lift the decorative echelon up from you steel line. You might be able to see the number of layers and the material used.

[Lily left the valley]

Lily, if you can lift the decorative echelon up from you steel line. You might be able to see the number of layers and the material used.

Okies, I have no idea what either of those are. I tried to look them up, and found nothing that helps. The first kept trying to get me to look at various products from the Echelon company, the latter only wanted to show me steel mill related things .

Help me understand, please?

We're heading over to Beebe in a few minutes. Dinner and a show. (Last supper, as it were, since we're bringing the rest of the stove over tomorrow, and there's at a showing of the apartment too.)

[Gothichome]

Lily, poor spelling and the autocorrect doesn't do me any favours. Lift the trim ring on you steam pipe.

[Lily left the valley]

Lily, poor spelling and the autocorrect doesn't do me any favours. Lift the trim ring on you steam pipe.

Awesome. That was one of my two guesses. The other was the plumbing under the sink. I thought I was just encountering new vocabulary I should learn.

I may have permission from Sean about taking off the one fiber board wall piece that's screwed on if in fact only the screws are holding it in place. I think he's leery of saying "Yes" outright because if that works, and there is tile, painted or not, I'll be wanting to yank off the rest so I don't worry about steam warping them which could make things even worse.

I did notice a few oddities in the upstairs 1/2 bath today. Both the towel bar (falling down) and the TP holder were put on with that sticky foam stuff. (No wonder the towel bar is falling down.) The TP holder is in the weirdest place, behind the bathroom door, but high up, just under the chair rail. We decided when I tackle that, we'll put it behind the one door in the huge cabinet. The tile in that room is actually kind of neat. It is white, but the tiles aren't the usual squares, they're just a bit more rectangular and larger in size. There's also an embossed white pattern on them, which is kind of pretty when the light hits it. Unfortunately, whomever put that huge cabinet in there cut the tiles so they could mount it flush. So when we get rid of the cabinet down the road, I'm not sure how we'll work around that, really. I also realized today that something happened to the upper inner panel of the door. Some of the molding was broken off, and there's gobs of glue where they apparently tried to glue it back in. I'm going to try to look at it further later, because it seems that panel is a replacement, as it's loose in that channel. It's very thin. So now I'm wondering if maybe there was glass in there before, because it would help keep the hallway lit if the door was closed during the day. We still can't figure out why the layout is as it is unless the tub used to be upstairs. The toilet is just too close to the door to make sense. You can't open it all the way and if you're not careful, it bangs against it. The wood floor doesn't seem to have much in the way of ghosting, though. So we're really puzzled. We both agree that because my closet is on the other side of that wall, if the walls line up like I think they do, we'll likely turn it into a pocket door. We both like pocket doors better anyway!

Started clean up here today, after unpacking some. Didn't get far because Sean was home earlier than expected, and then we sat and talked about the week ahead. He still doesn't have many days scheduled, but with the storm coming, we know he's likely to get last minute sub calls too. So I'm trying to convince him to not get nervous just yet.

We are really loving the bedroom closets. We even put our dressers in them. I still have no idea what I might do about hanging items, but since he doesn't have many, instead of me keeping mine in the guest bedroom for now, we're thinking I might just hang mine in there. A lot of my closet will be seasonal storage, we decided, since it's much wider, and it's easier to run shelves in the knee area than try to put in a hanging bar without killing the walk in nature of the closet.

There were two showings as we packed more stuff up and made dinner at the apartment. The first hated the bath (older couple, so I can understand with the clawfoot tub and no grab bars.) The second was a younger couple, and they stayed a long time to talk to the realtor, so maybe they'll take it. I handed a key over for the lockbox, and the realtor says he'll still call me to let me know when he has a showing. I'm fine with the arrangement.

We did find one surprise in the apartment. In the smaller bedroom where Sean had his stuff, there were mouse droppings behind some shelving units we had set up. We think that now that Kira is out, our floor is the safest place for them to run around because there are a lot of cats downstairs, and the tenant upstairs has 2 or 3 as well. What's odd is they don't seem fresh, and Sean thinks they came in when we first started moving with the last cold spell started, and now that we've started removing their shelter, they fled. We had a mouse trap under the sink because a few came through when winter first set in, but it still hasn't nabbed any since that first wave of explorers. We're going to keep looking for any new signs, and if we see them, we'll tell the landlady. That room never had food in it at all. The only possible water source there would be the hot water pipes for the heat. We're both puzzled. So far it's the only room where we saw any sign of mice, and most of the rooms are getting very empty quickly.

One thing we did decide today, due to space considerations, is that despite my original intent, the MCM furniture we have is going in the library, and we're putting the modern rug I've mentioned before in there as well. The office is just too small for all the pieces I have, and the rug really is too big for this room. So we put the rug made out of jean pockets in here instead. We did leave the one step table in here, since Kira's bed is on the lower level. Eventually, I'll be building us new desks (Sean commandeered what we had been using as the dining room table for his desk), and I'll build her something so the layout will be similar, and then we can move the step table to the library.

I did find out today why Kira has been having a hard time on the stairs. (And now I think that day she had the mild limp that this could be related as well.) With all the insanity of the buying and moving, I have not trimmed her claws in too long. Some of them were starting to looks like half disks. So I sat down with her and fixed that. Now she's having no trouble with the stairs at all.

Tomorrow, unless he gets called in, the plan is to clear out the boxes in the kitchen and bring the last part of the stove over. After that, we'll bring whatever immediate needs from the kitchen. If I can make enough time for it, I'll finish cleaning up the bathtub so we can stop showering over at the apartment. Otherwise, I'm determined to finish that up on Tuesday. Now that most of our clothes are over here, it feels silly packing a bag to go take a shower. We're assuming the storm will arrive on schedule, so Tuesday will mostly be cleaning and unpacking, and that he will likely get called in to sub so I'll be soloing anyhoo. If the snow is as bad as they say, we likely will not move anything on Tuesday and just focus on moving in here with what we've brought over already.

[Lily left the valley]

Interesting update to the pink: the section on the jut out behind the toilet isn't tile at all. It's plaster scored to look like tile. It could be that this was a quick and dirty way to mimic tile that is under the board, but I don't know yet. There are not one, but two shades of pink paint layers, the newer is a softer more muted pink. Under that is the infamous marine green.

I tried to find the layers under the steam pipe. All I could see because the hole is tightly cut on the top most layer is at least 1/8" inch of gray under the gray underlay+vinyl planks, plus some very rough cut wood that is in bad shape (likely because it's close to the steam pipe), but also seems to be the thinner plank style I see all over here. I tried to reach in and feel around for a sub floor beneath that but honestly couldn't feel a seam, so I have no idea. I might later try looking up from the cellar to see what I can see that way.

I can't tell how many layers that is, as it's very compressed there. I scooted over to the base of the tub where there's a gap, and there I think I can see a completely different layer--what looks like one of the lino scraps on the kitchen shelves. I'm guessing I couldn't see the same layer that's under the jut corner because there is no caulk currently at the base of the tub. So whomever installed the secondary layer I saw before might have just cut it to the caulk line at the time, whereas the older layer I can see was installed properly, and thus now that the caulk is gone, it's there for the seeing.

One thing, I did find via Apartment Therapy was a link to a British company, Papers and Paints' site There, I spy a few colors on their 30s page that might be related to the prevalence of what I keep referring to as marine green.

[1918ColonialRevival]

The "faux tile" was big in the 1920s and early '30s. You are absolutely correct that it was a less expensive alternative to tile. Through research, we discovered our kitchen underwent its first remodel in 1929 and was outfitted with it.

It sounds like you are digging through the years with the paint layers. The pink became popular in the Eisenhower era and continued into the early '60s. One of our bathrooms was re-done in Pepto-Bismol pink tile (even on the ceiling) around 1955. Before that, sea-foam green was the color of the '40s and early '50s.