Behind These Walls

Living in Singapore for a year was a great experience and now that we are thrown into home improvement mania we have come to realize the good things in our Expat lives.  Life in Singapore was all about living your life.  Well, after you learn how to use public transportation, get groceries, and navigate a densely populated and culturally diverse city.  One of the things I missed most about being away from the US was having a yard and doing home improvement projects, but now that we are in it I realize how much time it takes from just having fun.  Life in Singapore was about what did to do with your day and what new experience or food did we want try.  Now, our life is about what’s on the agenda to get done and what do we need to accomplish today. Our lives have become a world of tasks and to do’s.  Is that an American thing?  I was at a point a few weeks ago where I missed my simple life in Singapore and not having an “agenda”.  And driving!  Wow, you forget how much of it you do.  It doesn’t help that we are living uptown, renovating a house 5 miles out of town and all of our friends and family live a few more miles out than that.  We are constantly buzzing around the city in our new Subaru Outback.  (We are loving our Outback BTW!)  I can’t say I like the fact that we have to drive as much as we do, but then again, I like having the time to listen to music and get caught up with NPR.  (I didn’t realize how much I missed NPR!)

So, where are we now?  We are one month into renovating our little blue house.  The first week or so we had to decide what we were going to do and what we could afford to do.  Then it became demo time.  Ripping out the kitchen felt good!  Unfortunately when the kitchen had been renovated in the 70s they built the cabinets into the kitchen.  Literally!  Getting them out was no easy task!  The hubby and my nephew had to more or less deconstruct just to get them out without pulling down the walls with them.  As they came down and our contractor started to change the walls for our new layout we discovered some interesting and not so pretty things behind those walls.  The worst was to realize all of the critters that had been living in the walls.  We even found a pile of leaves where some critter had made a nice little nest.  Unbelievable!  I got back in there and removed all of that and then some!  Pipes had to be replaced and electrical work redone.  Homes in the 40s did not have the same codes as they do now.  Not to mention homes in the 40s didn’t have all of the electrical appliances that we have now! 

One of the best finds was when we removed the wall where the fridge is going to go.  Doing this exposed the side of the fireplace.  We found a flashlight, a red stamps book with stamps, and some sort of wooden handle that we have no clue what it belonged to.  We have decided that we should put something in the fireplace nook from us, so that one-day when someone else pulls down the walls they will find our items.  Humm, what to place.  Any ideas?  Better make it fast as the walls will be sealed off soon!

We also began work on the smaller of the 2 bathrooms.  Things have been stripped down and all of the old removed.  This is the tiniest bathroom at just 3½ ft by 8 ft.  There is barely enough room in there to turn around much less have a sink, toilet, and a shower.  We almost thought about making it like the bathroom we had in the kitchen in Singapore (the helper’s bathroom) where you could shower, sit on the toilet, and brush your teeth all at the same time. Not really, but it was a funny thought! 

As I said before, we are trying to do much of the work ourselves.  What we also found out is that there is a lot that we can’t do ourselves.  We can figure out mostly anything, but it takes us sometime 5 to 10 times as long as it takes our contractor.  Yeah, well, we might not be doing everything ourselves I guess.  We naively underestimated how long it would take us to get everything done.  We were really hoping to be in our new old house by the time school starts (which is next week), but we know now that won’t happen.  To be honest, I am now hoping that we will be in there before Thanksgiving!

Oh, and the best part of it all is the shopping!  If anyone knows me I am not a mall girl and I honestly don’t like to shop for clothes etc. much.  Not my thing, but when it comes to home stuff now that is fun!  Shopping for my kitchen was great!  And let me tell you Ikea has some neat stuff.  It took 2 research trips and a lot of online planning for me to get it just right.  They had a kitchen planner come out and measure after I had done my part and with her expertise I was ready to order my new kitchen.  It is going to look great!  The cabinets are already in the house in their flat pack boxes all separated by cabinet #  (thanks to E and my sister for helping me sort and pile).  Just waiting on the floors and walls to be done so we can assemble and hang.  That will be an interesting and fun day! (Couple of days)

So, like I said the adventure continues!

Love begins at home, 

and it is not how much we do... 

but how much love we put in that action.

Mother Teresa

 Our little soon to be new, old little Blue House

Kitchen stove area before

Stove area demo

 to bedroom before

The hubby hard at work

to bedroom demo

 sink area before

 fridge area before

 from dining/living area before

from dining/living after demo and opening wall

 fridge area after demo

more wall opening

 small bath before

 shower before

after - check out that cool blue with gold specs on the old wall

 Leaf pile

Interesting fireplace findings