Pondering God's Plan

Things are coming along on the renovation as we continue to live our lives in the Queen City.  We have made much progress these past few weeks.  Thank goodness as I really needed a boost!  Some days our goal of a Thanksgiving move in timeframe seems next to impossible.  Every morning (I try) to take time to reflect and "be still" pondering our life, God and how everything fits together.  It seems my devotional continually reflects on hardship, adversity, challenge and how it makes you a stronger and better person.  I can't say why our lives lead us in the direction of where it goes, but I know that God has a plan.  We never know where he will lead us, but I KNOW that it will be a worthwhile path.  I have trusted in this so many times in my life.  When I lost my sister, met my hubby, never thought we would have a family, nearly lost my life, our precious E was brought to our lives, and we moved to Singapore.  Everything has a reason; we just don't know what it is until he is ready for us to see it.

So, the kitchen is nearly done with all of the cabinets in.  The hubby did 80% of the work himself with a little help from me.  Our contractor guy helped build out some supports for the dishwasher wall.  It's is amazing to think that we did it ourselves and when we step back and look at the results we are proud!  We know how every cabinet is hung and how everything works.  We put each and every drawer, hinge, door, and leg in place.  Counter tops are ordered and we are weeks away from kitchen use!  

The small bathroom is near completion as well.  We decided to hire out the tile job for the shower.  Good thing too as once I saw Paul the tile guy do his work I knew that task would have totally stressed me out!  Sometimes it's better to just let someone else do it.  Even with the extra cost it is worth it!  I learned a lot about tiling and ended up searching all of Charlotte for just the right threshold to the shower.  That took an entire morning and the results  were amazing!  We made the right choices and our teeny tiny bathroom looks almost "normal" size.

One thing that we have been trying to do is to stay true to the period of the house with necessary modern upgrades.  To keep with the style we are trying to match all of the doors and moulding that was original to the house.  That has put me on a quest to finding doors to match the rest.  I started with an architectural antique store.  I found one door, but at $65 a pop I decided to keep shopping.  On to the ReStore (Habitat for Humanity Repurpose Store).  Score!  I found the perfect door for only $8.  I had decided to strip the door and repaint it as it was in pretty bad condition.  Little did I know that it would take hours of work.  Was it worth it?  I would say yes, as the door looks fantastic and I learned how to strip paint from an old door.  After that I thought I might hire out doing the rest of the doors in the house.  Not going to happen!  The first quote for 6 doors came in at $1800.  Ouch!  I think I will find a different way to fix my doors.  I also, found another door from a neighbor via our neighborhood facebook site!

Last week demolition began on our hall bathroom.  This bathroom has had little to no improvement since the house was build.  Originally, the tile was yellow and black which I had refinished some years ago to white.  The white had since been stained and the grout cracks were back.  The hubby and my nephew started the job and the hubby finished it off.  Again, he did pretty much all of the work.  I think he is actually starting to like this work.  He even mentioned wanting to make home rehab his "new" job.  Really?  Please dear God, help him find something else he likes better!  I don't think we are cut out for that type of career.  I will say, he is pretty happy doing it.  So, we are currently in the process of re-supporting the floor and all of the floor joists.  Again we found plumbing and ductwork placed by someone cutting through floor joists.  There was so much sag in the floor that it had dropped as much as 1 inch.  Well, we know that our house will be solid and well supported when we are finished - Right?

Still much more to do and lots more shopping to come.  (tile, bathtubs, vanities, appliances)  That's the fun part, right?

Door Rehab

My door ready for a new life!

Bathroom Demo

Look how thick that plaster was behind the tile!

Mold and rotten floors

Nothing like some bangin' on a cast iron tub for some stress relief

No more tub!

Newly supported floor

Bathroom tile 

(That red stuff is called Red Guard, seals the seams and turns red when it is dry)

Ready for grout! Beautiful!

Ikea cabinet installation team!

Sink wall

Fridge and range wall

Our cutie in our cubby

Our office

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Renovation Realities

Where to start!  It seems like ages ago that the DNC was here and I have not posted anything about our new old home renovation.  I think about it every day, but when I get home from working on the house, making dinner, putting E to bed, and going through the paperwork for the day I am pooped!  When I do feel enough energy to sit down and blog, it seems that I don't have  a private space to work or the mental bandwith to devote.  But, yes, I think about it every day and wish that I was blogging about our renovation daily!  I started this post almost 3 weeks ago and finally I am pressing the "publish" button. There is so much to say and show.

Working on the house has been both rewarding and depressing.  To be honest the hubby and I both have our moments of just getting through, and lucklily one of us is there to bring the other up.  

Our little blue house has had a few problems along the route of our renovation journey.  And as a wall comes down or a floor comes up we find problems that MUST be fixed.  Some days we feel like we are on Holmes on Homes or one of those renovation shows on HGTV.  Honestly, they would have quite a show filming our crazy life.  Humm, there's got to be a good name in that somewhere too.

So, we have just about finished 3 of the rooms that we started on.  In the kitchen we found past water damaged floor joists that needed to be replace, past renovation mistakes (who would cut through a floor joist to place a heating duct?), and unsupported walls  just to name a few.  Each thing set us back and each HAD to be fixed.  The back bedroom had paneling that we thought we could live with, but in the end we decided to take it down and put up drywall.  Not only was there 1 layer of paneling, but 2.  After the 2 layers of paneling came down another layer of problems reared their ugly faces.  We found no insulation, disintegrated sills, and wet walls.  That week was devestating.  We weren't even going to do that room!  Well, I guess it is a good thing we did.  Once the problems were fixed the hubby and I went to making the room new again!  New insulation and dry wall at last.  The hubby hung all of the dry wall and I taped and mudded the room.  My nephew gave me a lesson on drywall finishing and I went to town.  After priming and painting the entire room we moved on to crown moulding.  That is a nemesis for sure!  Cutting and getting the angle just right is a skill!  The hubby did great and we now have the most amazing crown moulding in our new old kitchen and refinished bedroom and bathroom.  This week the hubby finished laying hardwood floors throughout those 2 rooms.  Wow!  What a transformation.  We have accomplished a lot and learned how to do so many things!

I think when we went into this project we thought it would be as easy as taking down and putting up, but nothing is ever that simple.  Through this we are learning patience and how to deal with unexpected problems.

Our goal is now to be in our new old how by Thanksgiving.  I think we can do it with help (we are going to hire out a few jobs).  Say a prayer for us!

Bedroom redo:

 Nothing like finding light coming in from the outside when you pull off paneling

The second layer, and there used to be a window?  Why would you close that off?

 New insulation and vapor barrier too!

 Drywall in !

Nice tape and mud job!

and Paint!  (getting close!)

The Kitchen:

 The cubby

Sink wall

The side stoop:

 Before

 Demo

It's gone!

After

The hardwoods floors:

 Nice job honey!

The old with the new.  We'll blend when we have the old refinished.

The hubby under the house, glad he is doing that job and not me!

And, our E entertaining herself with leaves and a paint roller.

She sure can get creative!  Who needs all those plastic toys?

Politics at Work in the Queen City

With the exception of an additional siren or two, the no parking signs, and the street closures, its an ordinary day in Uptown Charlotte.  Well, it could feel that way if we didn't venture out of our small block here in Uptown.  The preparations have been in motion for months now and the day has finally arrived!  The Democratic National Convention (DNC).  For those of my friends that are not American, the Democratic Party is one of the two political parties here in the United States.  The Democratic Party typically supports the social liberal and progressive platform and currently holds a minority of seats in the House of Representatives, a majority of seats in the Senate, a minority of state governorships, as well as a minority of state legislatures.  The primary goal of the Democratic National Convention is to nominate and confirm a candidate for President and Vice President, adopt a comprehensive party platform and unify the party. (Wikipedia)  Ok, enough of the history lesson.

Initially, we thought that we would have moved into our little blue house by now and had planned on renting our uptown condo for the event.  Well, things don't always go as planned do they.  In the best interests of our family, and the many changes that we have had lately, we decided it was best for us to just stay put, even with the expected chaos of the convention.  And, we are glad that we did!  

There is an air of excitement just being in the vicinity of the DNC and everything that goes with it.  Friday we decided to check things out and venture out to dinner.  Our city looked better than ever!  Clean and beautifully groomed.  You could just feel the squeak of the freshly cleaned streets and sidewalks.  Interestingly, our Friday night out was quiet.  Like the quiet before the storm.  All of the city workers had rushed home and all of the convention goers were probably packing their bags to head south.  It was fun to see the calm city just before it was "transformed" as police were beginning to take their posts on just about every corner.

Saturday, streets began to close and things started to rev up.  By Sunday, the energy was visible.  As the hubby and I headed out to work on our house, the hubby's Mom took E uptown to check out the scene.  The protests had begun just as the heat and humidity began to crank up - Welcome to the South!  (almost felt like Singapore)  It's hard to not feel the excitement, when you are in the midst of Americans from all walks of life, speaking freely for what they believe in.  You don't have to agree with people's views or politics to see the importance of what was happening here.  This was going to be a once in a lifetime experience!

Monday we all ventured out into the political swell.  As we walked along, checking out the preparations for CarolinaFest, we happened upon some great music coming from one of the temporary stages they had set up.  Lucky us, Jeff Bridges and the Abiders were doing a sound check for their show later that afternoon.  What a great start to the day!  So, what does the DNC atmosphere look like?  As you walk the streets you can hear the chants of pretty much any political view, lots of Red, White, and Blue;  and the best people watching around! 

We also checked out "The Presidential Experience" and learned some new facts and tidbits about our country and our former presidents.  What an amazingly educational and patriotic experience.  E enjoyed checking out all of the political buttons, playing in the lincoln log area, and practicing her presidential skills at the podium and we all got to check out the Airforce One replica.  What a great way to feel our American roots after living as an Expat in Singapore.  It made me proud of this amazing country and realize how lucky I was.  

Some interesting facts and trivia:

• Martha Jefferson Randolph (George Washington's daughter) - assumed the duties as First Lady from 1801 - 1809, after her mother passed away.
• At the age of 39, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was diagnosed with Polio and was paralyzed from the waist down.  
• Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair.

The beauty of living uptown during the DNC?  Walking home and taking a nap!  

An then the rain came . . .  More DNC adventures and photos to come soon!

"America just works better when more people have a chance to live their dreams."

Bill Clinton

"Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle."

Thomas Jefferson

Living Life by our "lessons learned"

As we have been living here in an urban city I can’t help but notice some of the things that Singapore does right that our city just doesn’t get.  When we knew we were moving back to the states we were excited, yet we had learned a thing or two.  We had led our lives in a “different” way.  We lived small and simply, without a car and we lived fully!  We experienced life, culture and other ways of living.  Coming back to our home country, we had in our minds that we wanted to continue some of the things that we had “learned”.  Many of our friends were surprised that we didn’t want to move back into our beautiful home.  And let me tell you the house, the yard, and the neighborhood ARE beautiful.  Yet, we wanted something different now.  Our priorities changed, our perspective broadened.  If we were to move back to Charlotte it needed to be different, it needed to encompass some of the new things we had learned on our Singapore adventures.  No longer were certain things important to us.

Some days I look at our new lives here and I think, “ What have we gotten ourselves into?”.  Really, what sane person would move back to their home country and take on the huge task of renovating an old home when you also had to deal with buying 2 new cars, reacquainting yourself with your home city, putting your daughter in a new school and oh yeah, did I mention finding a new source of income?  See what I mean?  Really, sometimes I do think we are crazy.  Yet, as we constantly reevaluate our circumstances we continually make the same choice.  Our little blue house gives us so much more of the “things we have learned” than any other choices did. 

Some of our more seasoned city friends think we should stay here in our little 700+ sq. ft. condo in the city.  To be honest there are great advantages of living in the city.  Like walking out your door to: a plethora of restaurants, the science center, the kid’s library, a park, and lots of incredible people watching.  These things are great, yet living in the city as a family does have its challenges.  First, we are living in an old building in an apartment that is 700+ sq. feet.  We essentially have 2 main rooms: a bedroom and a room for everything else.  Sorry to say, as adaptable as we are, this just doesn’t work for us!  We also don’t have dedicated parking.  As a single person that might be just fine, but when you have to walk a child, groceries etc. 2 plus blocks it gets daunting, not to mention the 4 to 6 flights of stairs that we have to walk up once we get here.  We also worry about our 2 beautiful new cars getting broken into.  Grocery shopping isn’t easy either.  At least we have a grocery store in the bottom of our building, but one shopping trip typically includes more than one grocery bag.  Since our building is old we don’t have an efficient elevator that can wiz you upstairs.  Gone are our Singapore days where the lift took you right to your living quarters.  That was a pure slice of heaven.  And grocery delivery, no such thing here!  Singapore got that part right too.  If you spent over $100 pretty much any store grocery or otherwise would deliver your goods for free.  What an ingenious idea!  If we could get them to do that here I might be able to tolerate things.   Oh, and did I mention the homeless?  It is so sad for us to see the many homeless persons that live in the park next to our building.  It is safe to say that on any given day we will see as few as 2 and as many as 10 homeless persons sleeping and living in the park.  That is another thing we never saw in Singapore.  Not kidding.  Either there weren’t any or the city/country hid them.  With all of the homeless I am honestly more afraid for our safety.  Not to say homeless people are dangerous, but where the homeless are there also tends to be crime.  Again, another thing I never worried about in Singapore.  I felt safe walking after dark in pretty much any part of town and I knew that my family was safe.  I believe this is due to the fact that Singapore has many laws and is adamant about enforcing them.

So, you may think that we wish we could move back to Singapore since they seemed to “get so many things right”.  Not so, we are very happy here in the US!  The idea is to incorporate some of the “lessons learned” into life here like I said.  And I really do like having a yard.  Back to our reasons for moving to our little blue house.

So, a few more observations.  In Singapore I quickly found that living a chemical free life and eating organic was a difficult task.  Chemicals, I think they were everywhere.  Everyone is so afraid of germs and bad smells that everything was over scented and excessively cleaned with who knows what chemicals.  Organic choices were minimal if there were any at all and when you did find them they were typically even more expensive.  As you know Singapore was already expensive.  When we moved there I gave up organic milk, yogurt, eggs, produce etc.  We just couldn’t afford it.  At the market, where I loved to shop, nothing was marked organic, grass fed, antibiotic free etc.  (Common lingo here in the states.)  It took me a while to just let that go and hope that what I was feeding my family was healthy and safe.  Now that I am back, I have gone back to my ways of organic eating and a semi chemical free life.  I am a little more lax about it but with all of the reading I have been doing and hearing about GMOs I feel like I need to be even more diligent about things.  Why is it I worry about things so much more here?  Maybe ignorance is bliss.  Not knowing what is in your food and not having a choice about it does make things simpler, yet I would rather know.  But, what can I do about it?  That is something I have been thinking about a lot.  One solution is to have my own garden.  This is one of the things I missed the most while I was gone.  And, one of the things I look forward to most about having a yard again. 

This week will be a busy week with E’s first full week of school and the hubby and I fervently working on our little blue house with hopes to move in sooner rather than later.  Next week is the Democratic National Convention, which is to be held here in the city.  Since we are in the middle of the city I am sure there will be a lot of interesting things to tell you about.  Till next time!

You have succeeded in life when all you really want

 is only what you really need.  

~Vernon Howard

I'm just a simple guy; I live from day to day. 

A ray of sunshine melts my frown and blows my blues away.  

~Led Zeppelin "Out On The Tiles"

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