HouSe of LeAVeS: May 2005

Build a bridge and get over it.

We hung out at the HouSe today, just casually. I did take a ton more pictures... however, I still don't have MY computer hooked up, so I can't post them yet. But be patient-- they're worth it.

The house is really shaping up into a home. There are always new things to post about-- change is constant. Dad and Michael did some MAJOR "landscaping"-- they've torn out a ton of bushes and vines from the side yard that were strangling the trees. There are now just several large trees, and a great view of the side of the house with the stained glass windows. The backyard is mostly cleaned up, including the deck. We investigated the part of our backyard that lies behind the little creek-- we'd never bene able to go over there but some neighbors let us cut through their yard to get over there. Unbeknownst to even my dad, there's another whole yard of flat, fertile land.

Brad and I decided that we're getting an ATV one way or another, since we have all this bonus yard and a creek to ramp over. We also want to go sledding off the deck. But we'll wait for snow.

I'd never really gotten to see the HouSe at night. It's really beautiful and really creepy. It's less scary now that dad and Michael are living there, however.

Other small details: Michael has steam-cleaned all of the carpets now, which lends to a muuuch cleaner feel/smell to the house. We've taken down ugly/dirty curtains, and the HouSe is a lot brighter than it was. The attic smells like Jolly Ranchers. Amy lost her holly bush.

Ooh, and I heard footsteps in the attic when I was completely alone in the HouSe. Yea!

Woman versus Nature

Amy and I spent some time at the HouSe today. We started with Attic2... we moved the giant rug, Amy swept, and I ShopVac'd. I got a little bored, though, and moved down to do some minor cleaning projects like the TV and a lamp. When I was through with those, Amy and I went outside to attack the front yard again. We spent a good couple of hours ripping out plants and mutants posing as plants. We found neon blue pillbugs.

I found part of a secret sidewalk. By secret, I mean COMPLETELY overgrown. I found it by chance but dad and Michael knew about it from pictures. There is also a 12x12 concrete patio on the side of the house and a little man-made pond, both of which will need to be uncovered. It's really cool to completely rediscover things like this. It's really bringing the archaeologist out in Amy, too. She about flipped her lid when she found charcoal in the dirt.

That's about all that got done today, because the yard work took a couple hours by itself. I do have more pictures to add but I'll have to figure out how to post them on this computer. Hold tight. :)

Erica? I found another rock...

Today Mark Zimmerman came down to make a guest appearance at the HoL. He only had about two hours to spare, but he spent that time cleaning the wooden staircase that goes to the attic. He encountered what I consider to be the most disgusting thing yet: under a small rug was a half inch of dust-dirt. It was orangey-brown and really gross. When Mark ShopVac'd it up, it caused a huge dust cloud to rise up, too. However, he got it under control and it's marvelously better in that staircase now. Besides that rug he also took up the rubber mats that were on each step (for traction). Underneath those, as can probably be expected by now, the wood is a completely different color... in fact, Amy and I think that maybe they stained the wood AROUND the pads, without taking them up at all. The stairs are reddish, but the wood underneath is a light brown.

I mopped the attic room that we cleaned last time, and I mopped the stairs, too. Mark left but Amy came over so the two of us just kept working. We moved on to the other attic room and lifted the whole-room rug that was there. Amy started sweeping but it was getting to be too much for me, so I decided to go outside.

I figured that as long as I was out there I might as well sweep off the front porch. After a fe wminutes Amy came down, too, and we started sweeping. Of course, knowing the two of us, it didn't end there. I found another patch of concrete and Amy found a few stones that seemed to be intentionally placed there. We endeavored out to the little barn thing in back and found rusty hoes, rakes, shovels, et cetera, so we brought them out and started on our projects (completely neglecting the attic for about an hour). By the time we slowed down I'd uncovered a partial walkway and so had she. Mine was concrete and I think it's going to lead back to the side door (that goes to the basement). Amy had to dig deep but found most of a stone walkway that might go to the driveway. Thank god it started raining or we'd still be out there, tearing up the front yard.

Boo to capital gains tax!!!

Okay, this post is not going to be incredibly interesting, perhaps, but in the spirit of adequate blogging, I want to post anything HouSe of LeAVeS-related.

Michael informed me yesterday that there's some kind of real estate law where if you use a particular building as an office for more than a year (there's a more definite duration that I need to check on), you don't have to pay "capital gains tax" on it when you sell it. Apparently that's a really good and interesting thing to a home inspector (which both my dad and Michael are). They are setting up HoL to be their main office for this purpose.

What does this mean for the HouSe, really? It's relevant because we'll be keeping the HouSe a little longer than we expected. We aimed for one year-- dad wanted to get it done sooner but if we sell it before a year is up we have to pay some kind of penalty on the mortgage. Now, however, they're thinking of keeping it closer to two years.

More on this riveting story as it develops.

Thanks, Rambo.

Today, dad, Brad, Ryan, Amy, Michael, and I spent a good deal of time at the HoL. While dad and Michael started working on the first floor plumbing, Ryan, Brad, Amy, and I started working on one room of the attic. (Bradley's moving in there soon, and needs a room that's clean and as dust-free as possible.)

Oh my GOD.

First thing I did was grab a rag and scrub a little circle on the gray wall. Apparently the gray wall is a WHITE wall. Honest-to-god. We took a picture of that first little circle. I about gagged. That room was so unfathomably filthy. We spent all four hours we were there cleaning it... wiping down the walls took the most time. Ryan ShopVac'd up the floor and all the crud in the windows (but relocated a bird's nest with four eggs in it because he is, and I quote, "not a heartless monster"). Brad cleaned the windows and helped with the walls.

The floors are hardwood and they were dusty as hell. Ryan and Amy took care of a lot of the dust but there's going to be a lot more cleaning required. However, at the end of the day we could breathe freely in the room-- a MAJOR step up from how we found it. I can safely let my little brother sleep there now. The changes are amazing, just in that single room.

I feel like we got a lot done but it's a little depressing that four hours later it's still not FINISHED. Not that I thought it WOULD be... but all the walls need to be washed again, especially the parts where Amy and I couldn't reach because they were too high.

Dad and Michael didn't make a lot of progress in the plumbing, but they did rip out a lot of stuff in the bathroom, so I guess that's cool. Michael had to leave early and dad went to Home Depot to get a torch and a crowbar. He also tore out some pieces of the wall in Den1, where the plumbing comes downstairs. (Underneath is an entirely new wallpaper that we've never seen! Yea.) When I left, dad was still working on the plumbing.

Ooh, also interesting in the attic room we were working on: Amy found a place where you could see the dirt lines around where a picture had obviously once hung. Not only was there a dirt square on the wall, there was also a nail and a line of dirt where the STRING had been, to hang it. Mmm.

At one point I walked near Amy and scrubbed HELP in the grime on the next wall, thinking she was watching me do it. Five minutes later I hear her scream and all of the sudden she's yelling how not-funny it was. *wince* I totally thought she saw me do it. She's so creeped out about the house. She even refuses to go into the closet in that room, for reasons that I can't quite figure out.

Today was the first time that I saw The Ceiling Fan. In Den2, there's a ceiling fan that none of us had ever really noticed before, but dad and Michael decided to flip it on a couple of nights ago. (It wasn't that we discovered the ceiling fan... no one had ever bothered to turn it on because we had lamps in the room and there's light from the foyer.) So I flip on this ceiling fan and lo and behold... it's stained glass, too. There's a bright ring of stained glass that above the blades, where the light comes from. It's red, green, and yellowish. Really killer. Dad cleaned it up really well. It works very well, too... it's expecially quiet. It doesn't do nearly enough to brighten that room, but that will come with time.

Let's see, what else happened today? When we took a break, Brad and I decided to see if we were too old to slide down the stairs on our butts. Answer: no. Somehow I'm better at it than Brad. Then Amy came down and blew us all out of the water. She brings grace to the act of sliding down stairs a la derriere. Not to be outdone, Bradley displayed how he can crawl through the bookcase, so Amy and I did so too. I have pictures of us all being idiots.

I also have pictures of the grime in the attic. Unfortunately I had to use Michael's camera (dad's was in the wrong house) so I don't have them just yet. Be patient.

Oh. In the back yard, there's one yellow flower (WEED) growing straight up. There's nothing else around it for yards. It's growing absolutely straight up, and it's about three or four feet tall. Ridiculous. Maybe it marks the horse's grave.

We had our first family meal in the HouSe today. Just lunchmeat and stuff, but mmm.

STILL TO COME:
*We need to focus on the other attic room, to get that floor ready for Bradley. It's just as filthy as the one we cleaned today. And, we moved everything from one room into the other, so we need to move it all back out. However, we left the fan on today so a lot of the attic dust should have moved out by the time we start on the other room.
*Plumbing. This is not my department, but as soon as plumbing is up and running I'm sure we'll be called in to make the bathroom... not suck.
*Pictures of what we did today.

Good thing we have a piece of wood on a rope.

Amy and I spent a good couple of hours in the HouSe of LeAVeS today. Our missions: to clean up the kitchen as much as we could, and to clear out Den1 (there are three rooms that I consider to be the "den"). I had another mission, which was to get pictures of the outside of the house-- I hadn't posted any yet because it was always rainy or overcast when I went over there. Today was gorgeous.

So gorgeous, in fact, that we got to air out the house. Finally. It needed it desperately. While it's still a bit musty, it's exponentially better than it was when we got there.

But why the kitchen first? Dad's moving in. While we (Amy, Ryan, and I) take over the family home, Dad's moving in to Raglan. Brave soul. He's even going to use the creepy shower stall in the basement until we rig up a real bathroom. The kitchen was a health hazard, honestly. Amy and I took care of a big chunk of it (see picture) but there's plenty more to do, even just in that room. We spent $50 on cleaning supplies, and it's clear they aren't going to go as far as I'd hoped.

Den1 is also in use now. It was full of clutter and junk... most of which we simply relocated to Den3, but at least it's all in one place now. ;) I scrubbed down the chairs and vaccuumed, while Amy de-dust-ified. I about killed another vaccuum cleaner-- they just aren't up to the job of shag carpeting that hasn't been vaccuumed since it was installed. (Or so it would seem.) Amy found out that there's tile under the carpet, too. Brick tile. What... is with... the brick tile?!

Ooh, same room, new story. I decided to clean off the chandelier in that room because it was probably the filtihiest thing I've found in the apartment yet. No joke. The dust was thick and greenish-brownish-yellow. Under the dust, it was SILVER. I had no idea. Anyway, that's not the interesting part. When I climbed on a chair to dust it, I found keys hidden on the main wheel-part. I took pictures because I'm a dork and I thought it was really cool.

We didn't get much else done today-- the kitchen was a big job, and we only got mostly through that one half of it. (There's another half, with the stove and refridgerator, which has yet to be touched.) But already you can breathe in that room, and it smells like PineSol, not mildew. Mmm. The windows are all clean and there's light now, too. A vast improvement.

I'm really excited to get crackin' on the projects. As Amy told me on the way home, after today it seems like more than just talk about the future. This is something that's actually happening now. As soon as there's a bathroom I want to move in, too. Soon I'll have all the time that I want. Mwuhuhahaha.

Aside from those points, little else of note occurred. There was one Satan-cat and one annoying child, but no ghosts yet. I learned how to turn the water on and off. Whoopdidoo. I also learned that there's a lock on the attic door, so you can actually get locked in there. Creeeeepy.

Okay, enough blabbing. Look at the new pictures!