Beebe -- our 1935 Bungalow on Baker Street.

[Lily left the valley]

I'm all for buying another house, I plan on doing everything possible to buy 4 or 5 houses adjacent to mine if they become available at the right times, possibly for renting out or a bed & breakfast type of thing. Buying houses to rent is a fantastic way to build wealth if you can keep good tenants (a big "if", I know), you have someone else pay enough for all the bills and maintenance and you end up with a paid-for asset and maybe some monthly profit if you're lucky.

Thanks for the encouragement, Munch. We're still simmering the idea on a back burner for now.

I've did start bookmarking some sources about MA landlord/tenant policies/law to see what it is compared to other places we've lived. Since I've property managed in the past in another state, this wouldn't be my first rodeo, so to speak, but it's one thing to work for someone else. It's another when you're the owner.

[Lily left the valley]

The weather has chilled considerably in short order. We were slowly working back up to somewhat average temps for August, but compared to the erratic heat waves we had this summer, it's been feeling positively fall like--54°F as I write this at 5am. Now it's officially September, so fall is definitely in the near future and the frosts that come with it. I have a few things I need to do in the garden in the coming weeks so I can at least cross some stuff off my 2020 garden list and keep some kitchen garden plants alive best so they can finish what they're doing.

Since the whole stove cleaning went from likely to yeah, we have to refinish the stove, I have been pondering if maybe this winter is the time we start the work we have discussed in the kitchen. What better time to do so than when we'd be moving the stove out of the way anyway? I'd really, REALLY like to not move that sucker in and out more than once. At the same time, I know both sides of this coin quite well--especially given how crazy things have been with the post office. All carriers have been saying since the pandemic lockdowns it's been like Christmas rush time, and are dreading when the actual rush hits in a month and change--especially with all the ballot related issues.

So this is where I am on the issue of do it this year or wait: the kitchen will turn into a dropped can of worms we just don't have time to pick it all up before they start to wriggle away from us. Having said that...

1) We are both really tired of getting tripped by the damaged -oleum in there. Cork is what we decided for replacement, and I should be able to make a stencil to recreate my favored vintage floor pattern with stain, then seal. I did find a company that will make Marmoleum that looks like whatever you want, but it's out of our budget range even with such a small kitchen. More so since we're now eyeballing the house next door.

2) The one thing my Floor Manager wants to do that I'm not 100% on board with yet is take up not only the -oleum and the tarpaper they used as underlay, but also the original wood flooring. He knows if have a wood floor in there, he will wreck it in short order one way or another. There are cracks we'd have to fill as well, and water damage to bits we can see let alone what we can't...just no.

One one hand, I'm very much for this idea because we do have a small area of floor damage in the dining room near the exterior door where it would be quite useful, and at least one of the radiators in other rooms had leak issues so there are soft spots that could also use a few strips for replacement. There may be two rooms with such, but I haven't poked about enough in the other from below to be sure yet.

On the other hand, removing the wood may require removing all of the lower cabinetry alone the south wall--which would also include the metal cabinet surround for the cast iron sink. The wood cabinets do not have a "bottom", it is the wood floor at present. Currently, the sink cabinet's connections to the floor is four short corner "legs", which may be easy to work around than if it was a solid surround at the base. There is water damage to the wood under the sink from a leak prior to our purchase. It's not terrible warped, but it isn't great visually either.

3) Now, you know how you notice something near when you buy your house and you're like "oh, we should fix that?" Well, there is an inch-ish gap (I haven't measured it lately) between the sides of the metal base of the sink and sides of the built in wood cabinets. I can only explain this away because it keeps the edge of the sink mostly level with the countertops. They had filled the curved gap beween sink and countertops with I don't know what, which is now completely gross and every time I clean it, more parts chip off--it's not silicone I could just easily putty knife away due to how they filled the top curve. I shined a flashlight in those gaps this year one night when a bat shimmied around the drainpipe from the cellar and got stuck in that cabinet (ah, yes...this was a first in our bat adventures--I'm still trying to find their ingress point to the cellar.) The gaps are filthy, and the narrowness reminded me why I couldn't really get in there to clean well prior. It's also, in my mind, wasted space.

Of course this led my brain back to a talk we'd had before about doing some minor rearranging of the kitchen layout. And now I'm stuck on that. Given how well I know Sean, it won't be until we remove the first cabinet that he'll be all, "Hey, didn't we talk about rearranging these?" (NARRATOR: No one ever saw him after that day. )

The main reason I'm not assuming my response should be, "Yes, but we can revisit that later," is because I know him all too well. Once he gets that idea back in his head....he'll do the "I don't want to redo the kitchen/move the stove twice" complaint. Which, trust me...I don't either!

So I want to head this aspect off at the pass before we've carted out half the kitchen and such to the temporary space we'll likely use for the interim in the dining room. Because, as I said, we have no idea how bad things will get for him at work come October. So if we can't mange to get this done in less than two months...it might sit til February.

4) So having said all that...the floor, and tripping hazard. Gaff tape comes to mind, knowing of the tar paper where the holes are in the -oleum we currently have. It holds up better than duct tape (cloth based rather than plastic). It will look like hell this winter, but the floor looks pretty bad now, and we might head off an uglier problem of having the kitchen all over the place except where it should be for months.

That's where I am on this right now--desperately wanting not to trip and would absolutely adore getting that room done in one, as it were. My thought is wait til February to do anything (other than the Gaff tape) at this point, and spend the time between then and now making very firm decisions (with wiggle room for OH NOES) before even starting then.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome. I'm mostly shouting to the wind to try to get it off my mind, since we talked about the kitchen yet again just yesterday.

[Lily left the valley]

House related half of the "move a door" planning. 1/? (No idea how long this will take to suss out.) Bits related to the Garden/grounds in general here.

As I mentioned prior in my Future Gardens thread, things took an unexpected-to-me turn the other day when I once again broached the subject of possibly moving what is currently our side door. Using the side instead of back is fairly common for homes here, though usually it goes into the kitchen proper, not the dining (and whether our dining is really an eat in kitchen or not I've mentioned before, with what we use as the kitchen being more a baking pantry in some cases around these parts--so one could argue it isn't a dining room...but it's not usual at all to have the only stairs to the upstairs be an open wall nicely railed one within any kitchen I've seen--servants' behind a wall or cellar stairs behind a door are more the norm if anything.)

There is a small covered but open-sided porch off of it, 4' 5" from door sill to driveway edge in width which actually overlaps our narrow driveway a shade, and 7' long. If one parks even a small car right next to the porch, either one or both people inside have at least bit or more of a squeeze to get out because there's only 6-ish inches between the east side of the driveway and the neighbor's fence. Also, when he forgets it's Wednesday and parks too close to the porch, the car has to be moved so we can squeeze the trash/recycling bins past the porch without worrying about scraping against the car.

We had thought about avoiding moving the side door by three season surrounding the small side porch, to help him avoid overnight snow drifts since that side of the house sometimes turns into a wind tunnel given how narrow it is. We even talked about extending its length for more room for a bench and coat and boots storage, but to do so would either extend it under the two windows (a further bit of security weirdness), or we'd have to move the fill pipe for the oil tank to around back. Seen here in a listing photo:


In some sense, the location of the door makes sense because if one is moving furniture/materials in or out, it's a bit easier going, both in the sense of much less slope than coming through the front door (way more steps), plus a straight path from the door through the dining room to the stairs to the second floor. Yet the only full bath is also at the base of those same stairs, so it feels a bit weird going into that bathroom in one's robe because of the door there, even with a curtain over the door's windows. For reference, if I'm standing at the base of the stairs, I'm looking across the dining room directly at the door--the photo was taken from the corner of the room that leads to the purrlor:


I am really tired of the mess by the door (collectively). Especially because the layout of the room dictates one has to walk through the "mud" area to get to and from the purrlor/library to the dining room where the mud room is or the kitchen/office/stairs up. The room isn't big enough to do otherwise unless we'd push the table closer to the other wall, then we'd have a longer walk around with groceries to the kitchen. Can't even try to be tricksy with a folder screen or half wall. Given where the opening for the kitchen is (closer to the stairs), trotting in groceries in NE winter is a routine and a half as well to make as little mess as possible. (We once tried to pass the bags through the kitchen window when it was particularly slushy--notice I say once. )

In the garden thread, I also mention we've also both been bothered that even if we put in a narrow walking path along that side between the house and the driveway, the steps and porch interrupt a straight path from front to back.

I posited three possible moves for the door or just leave it as is/three season the side porch. Sean brought up the notion that wouldn't it make more sense to just put an attached permanent greenhouse out back on the garage side (see other thread for more details related), with a walk way through from the driveway/back yard directly into the kitchen, with the door located in line with the current doorway of the kitchen (roughly 8' in from the driveway, along the wall that separates the kitchen and bath). Since most people do not move big furniture in and out of their home frequently, the dining room could still act as a "corner turn" location for anything needing to go anywhere other than the kitchen. The other two places I had suggested either would have made long object turnings near impossible or we would have had to move the opening between the kitchen and doorway which neither of us liked due to sight lines from the purrlor as well as if someone were at the back door looking inwards.

We had already talked about reconfiguring the kitchen, plus the new-old door we found actually doesn't swing the same way as the current cheap replacement on the side, but can work well to where he spoke of moving it

Then that led to should we then take the extra step of extending the kitchen/bath exterior wall since we were planning to extend the overhangs of the roof anyway to help with water mitigation from outdoors. Remember, our galley kitchen is roughly 7' x 11' including the built ins within that footprint. I know that will likely be a bigger leap financially, but if we're going to have to dig for new foundation footings anyway, it would help line up the later added bulky exit that is just that annoying bit past that back edge, and if we're going to have to be dealing with special moisture considerations for a full out greenhouse... So that part we've not yet decided, though I do think Sean is starting to accept why the three season is better than a rough dirt "floor" greenhouse. Especially because he still absolutely wants the pit greenhouse and if we do the extension we can tie the two together outside as well as use the bulky stairwell for access to that greenhouse.

Obviously...this is not something we'll be breaking ground for this fall. Yet it is what we'll be starting to seriously consider, budget and plan for this winter. We still don't know if the landlord that owns the property to the west really is serious about selling, and I'm still erring on the side of cautious in that I'd rather work with what we currently have rather than take a big risk. Especially if Sean is still only a PTer by winter's end. (This may change, but is very light on the "may" right now, so I'm not counting chickens just yet.) Now if he does secure FT, that will definitely weigh in on my risk assessment about taking on next door if the owner does want to sell.

I have long been researching craftsfolk of various sorts for various potential projects we've discussed since we bought Beebe. I know my skill limits and comfort zones. There's two locals I would trust with this addition, whatever was decided. (One is based closer than the other, but the farther has much more solid experience with thoughtful and detail attentive old house addition work like we'd be proposing.)

So...related to the kitchen...looks like I'll be purchasing some Gaff tape soon for a temporary fix to the floor until we get a better handle on how this will go and when.

Did I also mention I might have a lead on another Country Charm stove in nearby NH that owner is getting close to just wanting it gone, forget selling it or parting it out? I think I did. She and I are still keeping in touch.

[Lily left the valley]

Just scored a vintage wood Wagner Spice Cabinet from ebay that still has the front and inside info intact and even some of the jars in the set. I am squeeing and I don't care who thinks that's silly. I got it for half the price of another one that was available that also had about as many missing jars, and it's a good seller I've bought from before so I'm confident it will be well packed for its journey here. I've been collecting Wagner bottles for a while, because they are similar to the look of the set that I think was one of my parents' wedding presents they gave me when they "upgraded" to something more modern. Their set is smaller with an open rack, and I'm going to turn around and sell it to help cover the costs of this one. Now I don't feel like such a loon for collecting the other Wagner bottles because finally we can fit all our spices in one cabinet in jars that match and are fun to look at too!

I'm going to take lots of pictures of the front and back of the door papers just in case anything happens to them so I can have them printed up again. I can't recall if the paper is coated for easier cleaning or not, so if not I won't regret taking them. Given the yellowing in the pictures, it's likely they aren't, but I can't be sure until it arrives.

[phil]

That's super cool. I like that it has an educational value that is still current. Lily you know how to handle graphic programs well enough so you could reproduce it and lighten the shade if you wanted. cleaning attempts might cause damage.

I have a bunch of old bottles and jars. I think some are very old but I dont even know how to research them. I'd like to sell them or trade for other stuff that I enjoy having more. I should post pictures( in a different thread) and maybe others would like them. I dont really get into collecting bottles myself. I realize that thing has a useful purpose though so it's different.

[chocolatepot]

I love your spice cabinet! Right now I'm using small magnetic tins that live on the front of my fridge - I'm going to have to find a nice period alternative for my house (once the kitchen Happens, anyway).

[phil]

when I did my kitchen floor I kept the countertop right where it was, put braces to hold it up and removed the lower cabinets.

then I could work on the floor, some had plywood patches and some had some floring of a different width. i removed what I needed to and replaced any bad flooring then sanded the whole thing, then built new cabinets. I used reclaimed flooring where I needed to.

I needed to keep the sink working and counter in place to live , a bit awkward but it worked out ok. for a meantime thign I just bought some black interlocking rubber floor mats. I've used those in a lot of different places as a temporary floor just so it wasn't so messy looking during the reno. they are easy to pick up and reorganize to fit any floor area. I can take them and wash them in the tub or outside with the hose. in the end they are ok on the basement floor , garage etc. I like them because if you want to work on the floor it's easy to uncover any part.

[Lily left the valley]

I love your spice cabinet! Right now I'm using small magnetic tins that live on the front of my fridge - I'm going to have to find a nice period alternative for my house (once the kitchen Happens, anyway).

Thank you! I did get it up on the wall for now, but have yet to clean out all the bottles I've been gathering to have a somewhat matching set of all Wagner bottles. Most of them still have their original labels, but we don't use some of the spice/combos that were popular at one point. I've been debating if I should type up all the label backs and make a post of them here or on my old house blog just in case there's someone who really really wants to period-perfect their own Wagner spice cabinet, but has lost some of the labels along the way.

If you don't mind a smaller open style rack, I still have the one I inherited from my folks. Same bottle style, just not an official Wagner set. Let me know if you're interested, and I can take a picture of it.

[Lily left the valley]

when I did my kitchen floor I kept the countertop right where it was, put braces to hold it up and removed the lower cabinets.

then I could work on the floor, some had plywood patches and some had some floring of a different width. i removed what I needed to and replaced any bad flooring then sanded the whole thing, then built new cabinets. I used reclaimed flooring where I needed to.

I needed to keep the sink working and counter in place to live , a bit awkward but it worked out ok. for a meantime thign I just bought some black interlocking rubber floor mats. I've used those in a lot of different places as a temporary floor just so it wasn't so messy looking during the reno. they are easy to pick up and reorganize to fit any floor area. I can take them and wash them in the tub or outside with the hose. in the end they are ok on the basement floor , garage etc. I like them because if you want to work on the floor it's easy to uncover any part.

I remembered your post when I was doling out Turbinado sugar we bought this week into storage containers. (I buy it in bulk from our local natural food place because it's way cheaper than the smaller boxes at the local grocery chain.) So when I was sweeping up the little bit that missed the mark and of course managed to fall in one of the spots where there were missing bits of the old -oleum so got caught under the edges, I got to thinking about the floor in the kitchen again.

We've been discussing off and on what to do about the kitchen in the short term. I might use your idea about the mats. I did mean to buy gaff tape, but each time I think "I could just take up the -oleum and then I wouldn't need it." We don't need to worry about propping up the lower cabinets for now because they installed it right up to the edge along that line, even at the sink although the sink has a gap between the corner legs.

If nothing else, pulling it all up will finally give me an excuse to clean the rest of the stove because I'll have to dolly it to get it out of the corner. (And what a mess that's been--ugh.) Time will tell!

[Lily left the valley]

So, I saw an ad on our local NextDoor for a two drawer long file cabinet that was supposed to be oak. The person selling it for $25 misjudged the size to fit where they wanted it, so they wanted to sell it ASAP because it was "in the way" as the ad said. I managed to be the first responder to the ad, and even offered our old upright metal filing cabinets to help them make do until they could find better.

Welp...long story short? NOT OAK. Chipboard and laminate=weighed a ton. (The handles, I'm happy to say, are real wood and not plastic.) Still, they happily took one of our filing cabinets which knocked the price down and I can still sell the other. I am just really, really glad we could get it in the office via the hallway rather than having to go through the window like we did for my desk!

I knew it was for legal width hanging files, but was hoping it could be easily converted, nope...the rear metal rail is glued over the top of the drawer backs. I could deconstruct them to refit the rail, but we've got too much going on right now for that. There are plastic pegs where the letter size rail would be, but if there were inserts that went with this back when, they did not come with it now. We still had one of those hanging file rack kits from a set we bought to put the rails in Sean's vintage metal desk we got a while back, but the rails on that are too short. Still, good enough for now in one drawer so I could start getting files where they need to be rather than in boxes taking up space on the floor. A bit of internet searching later and I found hardware on one woodworking site that will function just fine long term to give us the rail style we need. They should be here and in place before the end of the year.

Also, I remembered I had picked up some odd and end modern metal office bits I had gotten for free from my fav second hand shop and realized I could take the shorter hanging file frame and turn it sideways to run long ways in the drawer and it fit in my false double handled but really single drawer on the right hand side of my old school teacher style wood desk we got a while back (the drawer is too narrow for even a non hanging letter folder to fit the usual way-front to back-despite grooves someone made in an attempt to do such prior to our owning it). This is especially nice because the larger cabinet only fit across the room, and this way at least I can keep the most relevant files an easily reachable drawer pull away without having to leave my comfy office chair.


Sean's still working the Xmas rush, so I'm doing what I can because he's just pooped more often than not when he's home. We were supposed to bring the two parts of the fake tree down today (yesterday--I just realized the time) to put in the library, but he literally fell asleep in his office chair after we had a late brunch, and I didn't have the heart to wake him. So later I'll be wrestling with the bagged portion and the boxed portion while he's at work. Hopefully he won't be too tired to help me put the ornaments on. Which reminds me...I still have a few old wooden ones that need some repair work.

I also can't find the wreath I usually put the one string of larger old fashioned light bulb strings on for the center shed dormer window, but I did find a basket that might work size wise because no one will know the difference from driving by! The rest of the usual minimal holly day decor we do are all in the boxes that will come downstairs after I wrestle the tree into place. We never did get around to decorating last year, and I'm determined to do so this year.