http://www.bungalowchronicles.com A journal of a Chicago-style Bungalow Restoration and Renovation Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:27:40 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en That's how I've been feeling about pretty much everything around the house. It's been a chore just to keep up with the mail. I think I get this way a lot around this time of year. I get fed up with summer. It just seems to zap my energy. I can't wait for fall — the cool, crisp air is invigorating. This past week, I've been trying to work up the energy to clear up the home office area. Looking at that mess stresses me out, yet I can't bring myself to dive in. At the moment it's sharing a room with our "casual" eating space, which is currently covered with dry goods from the pantry. Some of the pull-out shelves were apparently too heavy for the glides and they kind of collapsed. We bought some new drawer glides but haven't done anything about installing them. I'm reluctant to start that little project because I really want to paint the kitchen cabinets, so why bother installing them just to take it apart again? And even though I already bought primer for the cabinets I'm not going to start a painting project until the weather is cooler. Ugh, it's a vicious cycle, this motivation/procrastination thing. Maybe I'll just take a cue from the cat and nap until October. http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3382 We haven't really been working on any bungalow projects lately, mainly due to heat and humidity, so I'll just offer you a bunch of random but somewhat related news. I had a tough time searching through many bug and insect identification sites to determine what this large black wasp-like insect was, only to finally find out that it is a Great Black Wasp. Go figure. It spends lots of time on our native Rattlesnake Master, is a pollinator and is also called Katydid Killer, not to be confused with the Cicada Killer [1] who is still digging holes [2] in our garden. Apparently our yard attracts murderous insects. Also in the garden, our tomato plants are humongous! We've already enjoyed a few Cherokee Purple heirlooms and a Lemon Boy, both of which were quite delicious. The other 2 varieties haven't ripened yet. We're going to be inundated with ripe tomatoes all at once I'm sure. If there's one good thing about this hot and somewhat wet summer it's that the tomatoes are going to be awesome. On the produce front, we're about halfway through with our 20-week organic vegetable share from Angelic Organics [3], our CSA. Right now we're swimming in cucumbers, so I'm planning to make a cold cucumber soup for dinner tonight. I saw a recipe that used more cucumbers, but now I can't remember where I read it, so this one [4] will have to suffice. I already picked up a loaf of freshly baked bread from Heavenly Hearth [5] in Wilmette. Yum. We also received several heads of cabbage, and while I'm saving one in order to make Stuffed Cabbage, a dish that both Pete's and my German-Hungarian families often made (although I'll be making a healthier vegetarian version of my Grandmother's recipe), I get tired of making cole slaw with the rest. I came across an interesting recipe in our BBQ cookbook for Grilled Cabbage (you can find the same recipe here [6]), so we decided to try it with a little variation, using chicken sausage in lieu of the bacon which was much healthier. It takes about an hour to cook, but it was soooo worth it! We'll definitely be making this again. Finally, along with all this healthy eating, Pete and I joined a gym. While we still have plenty of bungalow projects to work on and blog about, we also need to work a little more on "us". It's only been a week, but we feel like we've found a place that will keep us both motivated with the variety of classes and activities it has to offer. And even though the personal trainer just about killed me in my first session, I'm looking forward to more torture. As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: That which does not kill us makes us stronger. So while it's too late for the poor unsuspecting katydids and cicadas in our yard, we're planning to stay a step ahead and get stronger before the bungalow kills us first. [1] http://www.bungalowchronicles.com?p=680 [2] http://www.bungalowchronicles.com?p=612 [3] http://web.me.com/angelicorganics/farmblog/Welcome.html [4] http://cookingwithamy.blogspot.com/2006/07/cucumber-avocado-soup-recipe.html [5] http://www.yelp.com/biz/heavenly-hearth-bread-co-wilmette [6] http://armidacooks.blogspot.com/2006/02/grilled-cabbage-with-bacon-and-bbq.html http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3369 From the amount of time I sometimes hold onto things, you might think I'm a hoarder but that isn't the case at all. We frequently purge "stuff", but it seems like we rarely need to throw something in the trash. If it's clothing or small household items, we'll donate them to Amvets, Salvation Army, or Goodwill. If it contains metal, we'll leave it out for one of the local "scrappers" who drive around the neighborhood before trash day. It's usually picked up within a couple hours of leaving it by the trash. Gently used furniture usually finds its way to Pete's family cottage, where I like to say "furniture goes to die." But sometimes, something from the cottage is reborn in our house, like a dresser (probably once belonging to his grandparents) which Pete uses, its matching vanity, which I use for a home office desk, or this awesome mid-century chair which I'll eventually reupholster and which now sits in my studio space. The area rug beneath it came from my apartment when I was single and living in Chicago. It's well-worn and not valuable monetarily, however it's valuable in providing some warmth over the hardwood floors, a place for the cat to stretch out, and in adding a finishing touch to the room. I bought it, along with a bunch of other things, for not much money from friends who were moving to Hawaii. I also sublet their apartment, which I loved and lived in until I moved in with Pete. In others cases, something that began with one use becomes something else, like this counter-height work table. Those same Hawaii friends built it for the Chicago apartment over 20 years ago because the kitchen had absolutely no counter space. None. Since it was freestanding, I decided to take it with me when I moved into our previous house and we used it in the laundry room (shown here). It was perfect for folding laundry and storing gardening supplies and other things. And then when I was in grad school and the university was going to throw out a light box, we brought it home and installed it in the work table (seen at the far end) which I use from time-to-time in my design and illustration business. When we moved to the bungalow, I moved the work table to my office space, and now that I moved my studio space to the remodeled attic, the work table has become my main storage for files and things. I wanted to give it a fresh look, however, so first we stripped the varnish off the wood and then I painted it with a black semi-opaque satin stain/varnish combo. It's made of plywood, so I wasn't too concerned with the quality of the finish; I just wanted to update the look to match the rest of my decor. The black finish looks great, but I also needed a way to hide all that crap. Using some curtains that I bought several years ago at IKEA and used in my old office space as a way to hide storage shelves in an open closet, I cut them down to size, sewed strips of velcro at the top, and instead of solid blue panels, I decided that the large grommets, intended for a curtain rod, would make a nice design element at the bottom of the panel. I positioned the velcro strips so that I could completely obscure everything, or leave it partially open to reveal some colorful boxes. Repurposing something, to me, is much more satisfying than buying something new because it looks and feels like something new without spending the money. Sometimes it takes a little elbow grease or hard work to make it into something new, but other times just using a piece in a different way makes it brand new, like our vanity-turned-home-office-desk. If you think beyond what the piece is, or was, and instead think about how it can be utilized, it may turn into something completely different. How about you? Do you have any great repurposed pieces? http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3340 It's hot and humid, and while we thankfully have central air conditioning, we certainly don't want to work on any projects outside. So recently we've been turning our efforts to the basement, which had become rather disorganized ever since our attic remodel last summer (it's been a year since the contractor finished up with us—that just blows my mind!). I couldn't find any photos, but trust me, it was a mess. We gathered up some things to donate to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore [1] in Gurnee and set them aside for a future trip (we already donated the vinyl windows we removed from the attic). On a couple recent visits to Costco, I saw some nice, heavy-duty shelving units for $60 apiece. They were too heavy for me to handle alone, so last weekend Pete and I went back and bought two of the last 3 units they had. They're made by Whalen. I think this [2] is the model. If you can find them, I'd recommend them: each (black melamine) shelf holds up to 1500 lbs. I saw a similar model at Office Depot for over $100, so it looks like a great deal. I already claimed a couple shelves for paint but still need to go through the rest of the cans on the floor and see if some need to be dropped off at the next local household chemical waste collection [3]. Under the stairs where I used to store the paint, everything has been recycled and reused: The white base cabinet came from my old office space The stacked bins were our recycling center waaaay back when we used to have to sort everything The laminate counter remnant first came from the old house, then I used it in my office and now it's here The little corner wall cabinet is from our kitchen but is fairly useless and didn't fit into the new layout The tall metal cabinet on the right came from my childhood house and is from the early 1970s All of this storage is for my paint and wood refinishing supplies. It makes me very happy. We moved the treadmill, which used to face the stairs above, into the finished part of the basement and rearranged the furniture to hide it a little (on the left behind the couch). While the couch faces away from the pool table, it now faces toward the fake fireplace and TV so I think this will work better. It's also much more pleasant to use the treadmill there rather than inhaling kitty litter fumes in its previous spot. Finally, we removed the old basement door, which I plan to strip and use in the upstairs laundry room, and Pete installed this steel door which the contractor had from a previous job and was going to toss. He used it temporarily in our attic to help keep the dust down. It had no doorknob, but we scored there too and got a really nice sample that our friends at Evanston Lumber were going to toss. All the door needs is some elbow grease to clean it up along with some weatherstripping and it should be good as new. It's so satisfying to reuse a bunch of old things that would have normally been tossed into a landfill long ago. They are perfectly functional and will be well utilized here! [1] http://www.habitatlc.org/restore/index.php [2] http://www.whalenstorage.com/products/stepbeam_black.html [3] http://swancc.org/hcw/hcwcollection.html http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3328 One minute our robin fledgling was standing on the edge of the nest, and the next s/he was gone! All that's left is the well-constructed nest and a little poop. On Tuesday, sometime soon after I posted about it we noticed the nest was empty and we haven't seen the robin family since. I heard a robin this morning though, so hopefully they're doing okay. In other wildlife news, Pete and I were sitting on the patio last night and shortly before sunset we noticed our friendly neighborhood bat [1] swooping in and out over our yard, hopefully eating up lots of mosquitoes. Still no inhabitants in our bat house though. Supposedly it may take a season or two before they move in, if at all. Thankfully, also no sign of him residing in our house any longer. Speaking of which I don't think I ever posted the "after" shot of our bat house, which we installed over the compost bin (to catch nitrogen-rich bat guano droppings), so here's a shot of the garden taken about a month ago looking toward the alley. The neighbors who have inquired about it have been receptive. It's incredibly thin—we bought it through Bat Conservation International [2], so I'm sure they know what they're doing. I would have liked to mount it on the side of our house, but since the walkway is directly under it, it would have been rather risky to mount it there (see previous paragraph). The next best thing is to mount it on a post 10-15 feet high, which is what we did. The cedar post will weather and turn gray, which is the color I painted the exterior of the bat house per the instructions, so it will eventually blend in a little more. [1] http://www.bungalowchronicles.com?p=2389 [2] http://www.batcatalog.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=335 http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3320 Not only do we have our garden growing like gangbusters, thanks or no thanks to all the rain we've had this summer, but we also have a baby robin who looks ready to leave the nest very soon. We're not sure what happened to the other two eggs, but there always seemed to only be one that hatched. Here he/she was three days ago: And now this morning, looking much fluffier, standing on the edge of the nest while mom was out foraging for breakfast: Elsewhere, in the vegetable garden, the tomatoes are starting to get bigger and the basil is HUGE. I really have to pull those today and get going on making pesto. I'll also chop up the leaves and freeze them in ice cube trays for pre-measured cubes of fresh basil to use all winter long in soups and stews. In the backyard, between the house and garage, the Elderberry bush has flopped a little and hides the variegated dogwood bushes, but it also does a good job of hiding the expanse of vinyl siding on the garage. On the trellises in front of the AC units, the vine on the right is definitely a much slower grower than the other. The one on the left is Virgin's Bower (Clematis virginiana) and the one on the right is Leather Flower (Clematis pitcheri). Both nice, but since I want to hide the AC unit more, we may have to add something else on the right. In the side yard, between the patio and vegetable garden/alley, we planted a bunch more native plants and most of them have done a decent job of catching up with the established plants, which we either transplanted from the old house or planted our first year here. I planted some quick-growing but usually short-lived black-eyed Susans (on the left) while the other plants get more established. There's one plant that I bought by mistake. I may get rid of that one, whatever it is, but some of the others are Stiff Goldenrod, Wild Quinine, Purple Love Grass, and Rough Blazing Star. The ones surrounded by fencing are Pale Blue Aster—the bunnies obviously love the taste of those. Another view looking toward the back yard from the neighbor's side. The birdhouse my grandfather built is housing more sparrows. We really need to decrease the diameter of the opening to try and attract smaller, more desirable birds to nest there, like the Black-capped Chickadee, which can fit into a 1-1/8" hole, or the Downy Woodpecker with a 1-1/4" hole. Of the established plants, we have Rattlesnake Master (Eryngium yuccifolium), Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), the ubiquitous Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), and several grasses such as Indian Grass (Sorghastrum nutans) and Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). Here we see the same bunch of flowers but looking toward the alley. The Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum) is about 9 feet tall. It's in full bloom right now, which makes it very top heavy and makes a great backdrop even though it can get out of hand. I had to cut a bunch of it back and tie the branches together because it was really splaying out. It's definitely keeping the bumblebees busy though, and we're getting frequent visitors like Monarchs and the Swallowtail shown in the photo below. If this weather would just get a little bit cooler, I'd spend more time tending the garden. If the heat and humidity keep going like this, the garden is going to get even more out of hand, but I'll be too hot to care. http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3287 I think it was the weekend before the holiday weekend, or about 12 days ago, when Pete and I noticed that a robin was busily building a nest in our sumac next to the patio. She was picking up dried grass from the neighbor's freshly mowed lawn and also bringing some "muck" from the gutter. In no time at all she had settled into her nest. Luckily the nest is on the opposite side of the tree away from the patio and over our neighbor's lawn so she doesn't seem to mind when we're on the patio peering at her through the branches. Pete has checked the nest a couple times when she has flown away, partly because we wanted to make sure there were no unwanted eggs in the nest from a parasitic bird such as the cowbird who surreptitiously lays its eggs in others' nests, leaving the host bird to incubate the cowbird eggs. There's no mistaking whose eggs these belong to: Robin's eggs take about 12-14 days to hatch. I'm not sure when all the eggs were laid, but I think we should have three baby robins any day now—definitely before the weekend. http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3280 I've never been very interested in growing vegetables beyond tomatoes, and with our community-supported agriculture (CSA) share, I get a much greater variety of vegetables than I would by growing my own. It has also introduced me to a few vegetables I probably wouldn't have tried on my own, like fennel (not a big licorice fan) and kohlrabi. This is our third season with our CSA, Angelic Organics [1], and I'm determined to stay on top of it this year. Last year, with our remodel [2] and subsequent lack of kitchen for a while, it was difficult to keep up with a menu plan using all the vegetables each week. We'll be getting our third share this week, and so far so good. I've already made pesto using the basil and spinach, the abundance of lettuce each week hasn't daunted me, and I'm finding new recipes to try, either on Epicurious [3], Kalyn's Kitchen [4] (great blog!) or two excellent cookbooks, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone [5] and our CSA-authored cookbook, Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables [6]. Even though we'll get a variety of tomatoes in our share, including heirlooms, one can never have too many homegrown tomatoes, wouldn't you say? That's why we finally built a small raised garden bed conveniently located next to the compost (easy to add fresh compost to the garden, easy to toss rotted tomatoes into the compost). This was the project we were working on when we had our Yard Crashers encounter [7]. Prior to this, this area was the dumping ground for additional dirt, particularly when we were building our patio. We've kept a tarp over the dirt to kill off as many weeds as possible until we finally were able to use it. We'll see how successful that was in the coming months. Not very attractive, I know, but it has been hidden between the "waste corral" and the prairie garden. With tomato-growing time a-wasting, we stacked landscape timbers three-high, drilled through the stack and drove 24" lengths of rebar into the ground. It was a fairly easy project once we had the right drill bit and used the old electric drill (our battery-driven one didn't have enough power). We had plenty of dirt piled up to fill the bed. We have four heirloom varieties planted and plenty of basil. If I could grow buffalo mozzerella to complete my caprese [8] garden, that would be planted here too. We capped it off with 1x6 cedar planks. The cedar plank scraps will be used for grilling salmon. Yum. Pete added the pavers for now just to keep the mud at bay, but I'll be moving those and shoveling the excess dirt away to make the ground more level. The tomato cages have been added along with a soaker hose connected to the garage rain barrel. Now it's your turn, tomatoes: grow! [1] http://web.me.com/angelicorganics/farmblog/Welcome.html [2] http://www.bungalowchronicles.com?tag=attic-renovation [3] http://www.epicurious.com/ [4] http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/ [5] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767927478?ie=UTF8&tag=thebungchro-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0767927478 [6] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1423600142?ie=UTF8&tag=thebungchro-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1423600142 [7] http://www.bungalowchronicles.com?p=3215 [8] http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Insalata-Caprese-13232 http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3267 Three years ago today we became the proud owners of this fine bungalow and haven't regretted it for one minute. The blog began about a month earlier, and it has been great to "chronicle" all that we've done and see how much the house has changed. Since I recently compiled the renovation highlights in the 2nd Annual Bungalow Blog Tour [1] post, today I thought I'd take a look at the exterior changes. When we first bought the house, it was looking a little tired. Seeing it here now, I wonder what I saw in it. Maybe it was just the change in residences I really needed so I looked past its faults and only saw its possibilities. June 2007 After our first anniversary, we began to landscape a little, we had scraped and painted the basement windows, and some of the lawn had regrown (the PO had a storage pod sitting in that spot for literally six months). I also tried some annuals in window boxes, but wasn't thrilled with the outcome. June 2008 On our second anniversary, we were in the throes of the attic renovation and it was here where we really made a big leap in improving the bungalow's look, first by clipping the gables in the front and back which made the bungalow more ground-hugging. The red/gray/white shingles (which made the roof look pink) were replaced with a more earthy color to match the face brick, and the vinyl windows were replaced with aluminum-clad wood windows that matched the size and look of the original windows left in the attic (damaged beyond repair). June 2009 And now on our third anniversary, how it looks today: June 2010 The landscaping still has a long way to go. We haven't even started on one section of the side yard, but at least we smothered all the weeds there. It has been covered in mulch and will probably remain that way for a while longer. We dug up the sidewalk that led from the front sidewalk because it just seemed to chop up the yard and made it appear like the side yard didn't belong with the house (actually, we paid some guys who were pouring a new sidewalk for the neighbor to dig it up). Right now that is covered in mulch too while we figure out a better landscaping plan (or get some professional help). Eventually I'd also love to build a brick surround for the fireplace chimney, but that will probably be further down the road. As I've already mentioned, the next exterior project will be a custom storm window for the arched basement windows and then new wood storm windows for the seven bay windows, hopefully before the next anniversary! [1] http://www.bungalowchronicles.com?p=3168 http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3239 Luckily we avoided the worst part of last night's storm. I hope those of you reading this in Chicagoland weathered the storm as well. There were some really cool cloud formations as the storm passed through, and there was a golden glow everywhere: Although all the rain we've been having has been great for our newly-planted additions to the garden, I'm a little tired of the heat, humidity and rain. Today's weather has been much more pleasant. Let's hope it stays that way for a while. http://www.bungalowchronicles.com/?p=3261