Keeping a Level Head

It's raining in Seattle today but we're on a tight time line to get this foundation done so we'll be out there anyway. Below are some pictures of the forms that we've placed so far. More to come later. I didn't realize how much work (that phrase has been coming out of my mouth a lot lately) it is to ensure that everything is exactly level. In fact I've never even seen as many levels in one place as at our house - including my favorite -- the laser level. It kinda looks like a bomb in the pictures...

Howdy, Neighbor!

Ballard has proven to be a very friendly neighborhood so far and we've found out that our house is quite the talk of the town. Not surprising I guess when you take a look at it. Everyday someone walks by asking about it and congratulating us on our 'hard work.' A couple people stopped by to tell us about the day the house was actually lifted (Craig and I were both working so we didn't get to actually see it go up). The woman across the street said she had to leave and take her kids for a walk because she didn't want to have to answer to the insurance man when he came around asking why the house fell. Another woman kindly said she had to shut all the blinds because she got so nervous. I guess somethings are better just left to the imagination.

A Little Too Close to Home

Thanks to Chris for pointing out this article about a couple in San Francisco who decided to do some 'minor' foundation work on their own... Yikes! I hope our neighbors don't read the Chronicle.

Dream House Slips Into a Nightmare

This is why they used to make prisoners do this

Digging that is. Digging trenches really sucks. It's as simple as that. That being said, it's how Craig and I have spent the last week of our lives. Now that we're almost done with what's hopefully the worst part of this whole experience, I can sit back and reflect and confirm 100% that next time someone's getting paid to do this. Too bad prisoners don't still have to dig (ala Shawshank), it be great to see Paris do this for a change.

This week also included *almost* accidentally hitting a gas line (false alarm), actually hitting the neighbor's water line, and re-routing the sewer line -- fun fun! We're hoping to have the first round of concrete poured on Friday. Fingers crossed.

Consider the house officially lifted

The crew raised the house yesterday. It was during the day so neither Craig or I were able to witness the process firsthand, but according to the neighbors it was quite exciting. I'm not going to lie, it looks a little makeshift and you can definitely feel the 'bounce' in the floors. Last night we started digging what will eventually be essentially a moat all the way around the house where the footings will go. We made great progress, completing almost a full side before it go too dark. Goal #2 of the day was my attempt to put up our mailbox by myself which I failed at miserably. Baby steps.

DIY Headband

Functional and stylish, blue tape will adorn the heads on all the runways in Winter 2008 just wait...

Scary Haunted House pics

I decided to test out the different settings on my digital camera. Using the Sepia setting, it's easy to visualize what our place actually looked like in 1908 (assuming the people that lived there at that time were really, really dirty and technologically advanced enough to have a washer and dryer).

Demo Part Deux

Last week = Lots more demo and concluded in sending two dump truck loads of trash off to the dump. Highlights included the former owners ingenious idea for using shredded newspaper under the kitchen floor to make it level, "wires to nowhere," and the big honking Winnebago that decided to park it in front of our house for the week.

I've discovered my favorite thing to do now is to use the ShopVac. If you take off the attachments I swear that thing could suck up an elephant. It's quite cathartic after a long day of manual labor.

I'm really happy that 90% of the demo is done. Now comes the really fun and even more dirty part -- digging the trench for the foundation...yippie!

Parents' First Glimpse

My parents arrived on Friday, and yesterday they joined me for an enjoyable afternoon of sitting, soaking in the rain in Husky Stadium, to watch me accept my diploma. They'll be here through Wednesday which will inevitably lead to more solo Craig time at the house (I'm detecting a trend here...). But come Thursday, it will return to a joint effort. Well, at least 70-30...

These Rats Don't Scamper, They Saunter

In addition to rats and beetles and probably dogs, I think a person lived under our house...

Stage 1: Demolition

Demo started the day we got the keys. Not wasting any time, we went straight to work that night, demoing the main family room area including an unsightly wood burning stove that some genius in the 80s thought would be 'cool' to install - Cockamamie!

While Craig handled the tough stuff like ripping out the wood burning stove and busting up the tile, I handled the "novice" tasks of ripping off trim and plugging in new air fresheners to improve our quality of life. The next couple days were even more exciting and included removing the entire deck (Craig), ripping off old fake wood paneling, doors and frames (me) on Friday and tearing off the siding and hacking through enough bamboo to feed all the pandas left in the world (team effort) on Saturday.

Sunday proved to be the most exciting of all, and on multiple occasions almost drove me to throw in the towel on this whole project. As you can see in the pics, Craig - decked out in head-to-toe Tyvek - crawled under the house to clean out all the insulation and debris (which included a couple shoes, old newspapers, liquor bottles and an authentic arrow bow). Going around the house bagging up the insulation left me itchy and crabby and dreaming of the days when we're working on things like choosing paint colors and tiling the bathrooms (you know, things that don't include fiberglass, huge spiders and rat poop on steroids (see video below for details)).But the work for the day wasn't over yet. Craig plowed ahead and continued to jackhammer the entire front porch while surely making lots of new friends in our neighborhood who had trouble hearing for the next few days.

This past week - our first full week in the house - I was in San Francisco for work, leaving Craig to his own devices for continuing the demo and prepping the house for the impending foundation work which should kick-off this upcoming week. I felt bad that he was working alone everyday, but during his demo he found the 2004 Women of Playboy calendar in one of the cabinets so I think he was OK.

Our dream finally came true - Oh Sh*t! What do we do now?

As most of our friends and family know, Craig and I have (casually) been looking for an affordable fixer-upper since moving to Seattle. The lack of affordable houses anywhere close to Seattle put a damper on our goal, but alas we did not give up. Then one day at the end of April while sitting in the back of the classroom, I decided to peruse redfin.com and found quite a beaut. At the open house, three days later, the Realtor smiled and said it just needed some fresh paint and some "TLC." Not sure which house he was talking about because it surely wasn't the one we were standing in (noses' plugged), but the place showed real promise. After walking through it for only 15 minutes Craig had new floor plans sketched out on a napkin at Hattie's Hat.

Flash forward 24 hrs, and after an 11pm phone call with our Realtor friend Todd, and mortgage guy, David, we were pre-approved and within 12 hrs after that, had officially extended an offer. To both Todd's and our surprise, they accepted our bid and that's when it all started moving 1000 miles a minute and it's yet to cease. There were inspections to be had, loan options to research, permits, quotes, earnest money, insurance, credit reports, appraisals, signing over my first born and on and on.

We signed our official papers on May 30 developing severe cases of tendinitises, then finally got the keys (in a fancy gift wrapped box) the next day. Checkout the album below for all the 'before' shots. Hopefully 12 months from now, we'll compare these to the 'afters' giggling like little school girls with glee at the drastic improvements :)