Old Shit (Here-->)

There are some things I look forward to all week - the very few mornings I have time to jog, pasta dinners on the nights those jogs are long, days off in general...and, my very favorite, trips to the salvage yard!  AHH the salvage yard.

I'll admit it.  Once upon a time when I was really young (talking elementary school young, before I had a nick of taste obviously), I hated antiques.  I hated most old things in fact.  Growing up in Virginia, most of our school field trips were to places in the earliest days of America - Jamestown, Monticello, Williamsburg - and all I could think about while I walked over the three hundred year old floors was how much I wanted to be outside.  I couldn't stand the thought of touching a railing that hundreds of now dead people had touched (I mean how old must those germs be?) or the musty smell seeping from every inch of fabric.  Ick.

But somewhere along the way I grew up.  And grew smarter obviously.  And while I still love to be outside - and am still somewhat (?) annoying about cleanliness indoors - I've really come to appreciate the value in historic things.  Thus, my uncompromising opinion that our first house had to be at least 75 years old.  Maybe it's the older I get or the more I learn about age, but there's something undeniably amazing about a piece of work that has outlived its creator by decades.  And I've become a little creepy so the thought of the decades old skin cells of somebody in an entirely different life is just fantastic.  Yeah...

Now we're not all on the same page here.  My father, on the other hand, moans and groans every time I mention the word "antique" or "craigslist" or "classic" because he is the biggest do-er in this little project of ours and every time I try to get him to install something that wasn't made to standard sizes and bought at home depot this means more doing for him.  But never worry - if I get my mother behind my crazy, antique ideas, I'm golden.  You see, while I've had a number of years tricking my father to get my way, my mother has had nearly 30.  Yeah, she's a pro.

But anyway, today started out with a trip to the land that I love (no, no, not America, but that's good too) - the salvage yard.  Oh junk.  Oh dirty, nasty, cheap and messy piles of junk.  But if you've been, you'll know what I mean when I say that digging through the crap to find the truly golden oldies is half the fun.

Today, my mother and I went with the intention of checking out this gorgeous mantel I had seen a number of weeks back.  (Side note: you can spell correctly mantel - or mantle - two ways, did you know that?)  As I mentioned before, when our house was stripped a few years ago by the previous owner, all the original trim was removed - including the original mantels.  I still don't understand this mindset.  Replacing something that has survived for one-hundred years with something that came off the block yesterday?!  Really?!  Ok, off the soap box.

The mantels (or mantles).  So this particular salvage yard is huge and hugely overpriced, but when the lady said it would run about $1k, I barely batted an eye.  Sign me up.  You can't put a cost on character, right?  And then she said it was....SOLD.  Of course, we had her phone the buyer just to make sure.

The mantel we wanted originally. No wonder it was already sold!

So we made our way through the yard again, to examine some of the other beauties, but nothing was quite as grand.  We did find a couple suitable options of the dining room and den, however.

We came back to the house somewhat bummed...and then I did what any human born after 1980 would do: I looked online.  And thank goodness for craigslist because what I did I see just a few rows into the listings, but an early 1900's columned mantel for - get this - $300 measly dollars.  HOLLER!  And it was fully restored.  And it had beautiful detailing.  And the man was available for us to pick it up that day.  So we drove out to Dickson that afternoon and found our first good treasure! 

(Another side note: on the way we passed about a dozen antique and secondhand shops saying things like "Historic Treasures" and "Unique Closet Finds," at which point my mother and I decided that they should all just state the truth - just a sign with the arrow reading "Somebody's Old Shit."  Wouldn't stop me!)

"Dar he." (Does anybody get that reference?  Anybody?)

 

 The man we bought it from said the thing "was pretty light."  He lied.  Or maybe he wasn't thinking from the perspective of a little lady.

And there he is with Mom, looking just fantastic, the both of them!  This is where he'll be once we, you know, get the walls up.

The One That Got Away

While I was casually surfing the Trulia app today during my always-turns-into-ten-minute-lunch, I so innocently stumbled upon the recently posted photos of an ex-lover, 1209 Calvin Ave.  Re-done and back on the market.  I was crushed.  My soul was shaken!  This wasn't some old boyfriend I'd seen, this was my first real house love - and he'd be ruined!  I was so upset I could hardly finish my cardboard flavored Lean Cuisine, so I hurried back to relay the situation to my student and technician.  I needed a shoulder to lean on, of course. 

So at this point, now that I've calmed down (thanks in no small part to this tasty glass of wine), I feel like it's important for you to know a little more of the backstory of home buying process.  Really, I just need to get this off my chest.

Back in December, I signed up for a common foreclosure service so I could scout out interesting bank-owned properties and wait for them to hit the market.  I would see a few every day, think, "Oh that's cute," then quickly file away the thoughts into the other 249081 homes I had scouted.  That is, until I found CALVIN.  (I say that with a serious swoon of course).  1209 Calvin Ave was a rather sizable Victorian in the insanely desirable neighborhood of Lockeland Springs (one of Nashville's oldest and most strangely beautiful), and he was perfect.

Unfortunately, he wasn't on the market.  So, in late January when I received at work an email with his photo from my realtor that said he'd just been listed, I wasted no time excusing myself from the pharmacy to not-so-calmly yell my excitement into the phone.  I met her that evening after work with Todd, and it was love at second first sight (or second, considering my prior stalking).  Calvin had broken plaster.  He had beat up old wood floors and a marvelously awkward floor plan.  He had a dark, dingy stairwell and sky high ceilings.  Stately fireplaces, closed off rooms, and a crumbling space where the kitchen once stood.  He was so perfectly historic and gorgeous and I wanted nothing else but to make him mine.  I was in love.

So we put in an offer.  And so did 8 other people in the first few hours.  And we waited.  And we offered again - highest and best.  I was set.  I was so blinded by love that I thought if I just loved Calvin enough he would be mine, nevermind the other people, nevermind the fact that he's a goldmine. I wanted Calvin for his character, for his awkward and charming personality.  I wanted Calvin for the dead man buried in the backyard (marked by a large and leaning tombstone).  That was my dead guy, I thought, he would be my ghost, my friend.  He, and me, and Calvin.

But some people wanted Calvin for the money.  Some people didn't want Calvin for Calvin.  They wanted his name, his location.  When we started our offer battle, we were told the property was being sold as a Fannie Mae HomePath property so by regulations, investors were out.  Just me and Calvin and some other normal folks, I thought.  I told myself, nobody wants Calvin enough to beat my price, nobody understands him that much.  But what investors understand is money.  And loopholes.

I know that because today I saw Calvin back on the market, a mere five months down the road and $350,000 up in cost.  But he's not my Calvin anymore.  He's been stripped and torn up, modified to the point of no return.  They moved the dingy stairwell.  They ripped out the towering mirrored mantels and replaced them with this cheesy fake stone.  They opened all the rooms but didn't even bother to put in matching trim along the new openings.  He doesn't even look like the same house.  What was once one-hundred and twenty years of history has been wiped clean and made cheap, made generic and unimaginative.

(I mean seriously.  THAT VANITY in a 120 year old house?!)

(They took out the gorgeous mantel and original tilework for THAT?!  They took out the stately double-doors and corresponding trimwork for a set of massive and poorly designed built-ins?! And that light fixture. REALLY?!)

It breaks my heart.  If I couldn't own Calvin, I just wished that somebody would love him enough to treat him right, to renovate him with careful thought and deliberation.  To honor and respect his beautiful detail and undeniable character.

Sigh.  It's over with us.  Facebook is not the only means of ex-lover haunting in these days of social media.  Damn you, Trulia.  

Time to look forward to the one I can save: Cleveland.  Now most of 317 Cleveland's little pieces were already removed when we bought him (the trim, the mantels), but I refuse to turn him into another suburban-cookie-cutter-builder-grade-horror.  He may not have salvageable wood floors or door trim, but he still has his bones - his wide, welcoming entryway, his tall ceilings, his undeniable charm.  Heck, that gorgeous solid wood mantel I saw a few weeks ago at the salvage yard may have been from Calvin Ave, and it would look no less as stunning in our new home. 

And so going forward, I make the vow to respect Cleveland's history, to honor his past.  He turns 100 years old next year, you know.  He may not have a dead guy in the backyard, but he's probably got his share of stories, and ours together begins right now.

Digging Them Holes

Our first weekend! It was early. It was physically demanding. It was lonnnng.

When Mom and Dad agreed to do (or dare I say, offered to do) the renovation for us, they had one request: their own space close to the house we were working on. This was win for Todd and me as well obviously - a working bathroom within a couple miles of the house AND not having to share our tiny rental kitchen? Well, luckily for them, just a few weeks before they were set to move, an adorable space opened up on Eastland right above the thriving Eastland Village shopping and dining. So I made a few trips to Homegoods, spent a disgusting number of hours looking for a sofa that we could use in our new house when they moved out, and started to get their little spot ready for their move in last Friday. Move in went smoothly enough. Granted, I missed the 15-hour drive from Houston and hauling my mother's umpteen work boxes and my father's couple thousand of pounds of tools thanks to a long day at work, but by the time I arrived, my parents were hungry and ready for dinner out. So, we grabbed a bite to eat at Rose Peppers - the local, hipster-fied version of cheap mexican - and while we were waiting outside, I noticed the glowing marquee said, "Happiness is a cold margarita." Yep. Hold on to that little bit.

{A quick aside: that evening I was embarrassingly self-conscious about the fact that I had to wear my somewhat unattractive work uniform out to eat. Today I went to lunch with Einstein hair and mud covering most my limbs. Things change fast.}

So fast-forward one week.
Things I have learned so far about renovating a home:
A. My parents work harder than anyone I've ever seen (although I really already knew that).
B. How to properly use a trailer tie-down.
C. Setting 10-ft fence posts in concrete sucks.
D. Pressure washing is fun...but only for the first 7 hours or so.

My parents arrived at our house bright and early at 6:30 Saturday morning before we made our first of what will be many trips to the Mecca of home improvement, the land of smelly men and shiny tools, the only way to use the restroom when you have no plumbing: HOME DEPOT.

 Sometime earlier this week, I was researching gas-powered augers and I called Home Depot's tool rental department to price out a few options. The man on the other end somewhat begrudgingly listed out the varieties - the one-man machine, the two-man machine, the one-man with as much power as a two-man. Sounded simple enough, I figured. I noted all the price options and made sure to look at a few product photos on their website. A two-man was a safe bet, I figured after browsing the photos, and we could certainly fit the thing in Todd's trunk. Whoa-ho-ho now. Apparently I should have looked a few photos of the auger compared to the size of a human being. The thing was like a Transformer - after transformation! In my head, I had imagined digging the holes with Todd, maybe singing Dippity-Do-Da and sipping sweet tea while we barely lifted a finger. In reality, it was riding a mad bull at the Houston rodeo. (Or so I was told. Me actually using the auger would involve me attempting to control it from above my head.)

Don't worry, although I missed the shot of the auger taking Dad out in the mud, I do have some other photos:

The first side when fairly smoothly, but this is an old house and as old houses tend to do, it threw us a few surprises during the second round. A never-ending buried brick wall of surprises to be exact. And maybe a woman's dress 1.5ft deep in the back of the yard (and no, we didn't look for bones, but we may have made up a story or two about how she got there while ripping pieces of her checked skirt from beneath layers of dirt and brick).

And after the digging came the lifting. And the mixing. And the shoveling of 37 bags of concrete.

So in conclusion, the most important thing I learned this weekend is that that peeling marquee dimly glowing outside the crumbling Mexican restaurant is right. Happiness is a cold margarita. Or beer. Or maybe even just a little A/C.

What Dreams May Come

Let’s just get this straight: I am a dreamer. I am that person that spends hours looking at paint chips, cabinet doors, area rugs, imagining the space they could fill, the emotions they could elicit, the days I could spend admiring them. More importantly, I am that person blatantly overlooks every important detail (wait is that ceiling falling in…?) in exchange for all the possibilities of a space (but OH if we just knock these seven walls down, imagine the breathing room!). While some home-buyers apparently have trouble overlooking the minor details of houses to see the true bones of a structure, I can’t stop looking past things, searching wildly not only for the bones of a house but also it’s complete medical history and it’s prognosis for the next 200 years. Well-lit front entryway? This baby’s gonna look great with a couple coats of BM Weimaraner, a kitchen overhaul, and oh, three new bathrooms installed. Nevermind the mold problem. 

So when Todd and I moved to Nashville, I made it clear to our realtor that we wanted a project, some place we could make entirely ours with a little time and hard work. In fact we made it so clear that on one particular house viewing our realtor even said while we stood staring at the gaping holes in the crumbling plaster, “None of my other clients would step foot inside this house. I just knew it was perfect for y’all.” But even for a project house we fought hard to get what we wanted. We struggled for months, putting offers on multiple houses and getting out-bid every time. We knew we were looking in a trendy neighborhood, and the longer we searched, the higher the prices were rising.

Finally, I enlisted the help of my fabulous, overachieving parents. (Seriously, they put every tiny accomplishment I make to shame in just a day of living. It’s both humbling and mind-blowing.) Anyway, Todd had just left for a Europe tour and I had sunken into another round of house-hunting blues, searching teary eyed through the same Trulia pages, when my parents came up for a weekend to visit. They had heard and even experienced first-hand our numerous tales of housing defeat, and so they suggested, as if to just past the time, making a few appointments with our realtor. I did so, reluctantly if not grudgingly. Quite frankly, I was tired of being let down, and not to mention, the market had stalled. But, I called her anyway, at least glad to have my parents opinion on a few of the homes I had already seen. Another disclaimer: I am disgustingly indecisive, and often require the minds of a tribe to turn conclusive corners in my own life.

And thus, we went out in the bright weather one Sunday morning in what I assumed would be a slow ride of disappointment. Here’s where the story changed. But first some history: At some point during the weeks before I had seen an ad for a fixer upper in Cleveland Park. I was both intrigued and terrified. Todd was just terrified. We drove by the brick building one evening after dark, me already dreaming about what magical opportunities might await us inside, Todd looking nervously around for gunshots for drug deals. “NO,” was all he said. Over the next few weeks, I made an appointment to see the house and then bailed last minute when another house appeared in a better location. Then when the other house fell through, I couldn’t help wondering about the Cleveland house again. So, when putting together a list of properties to see with my parents in the little time we had, I threw the Cleveland Park house on the list last minute more out of plain curiosity than actual interest.

Well, it turns out Cleveland Park was more than just interest, and not only to myself. At this point, my super-handy parents had so graciously offered to help Todd and I do a somewhat small renovation project, or more specifically a total kitchen overhaul. Anything else would be ours to tackle on our own, and since neither of us is able to do more than hang shelves, we were limited to superficial things like painting and refinishing. That is, until we saw the Cleveland Park house. Or rather, saw what was left of the Cleveland Park house.

There were no walls. I don’t mean it was an open floor plan, I mean the plaster or sheetrock, what little insulation or filler was there 100 years ago had been removed and the only things remaining on the inside were studs. Yes, 2500 square feet of nothing but two by fours. Oh and of course, two fireplaces and a set of original pocket doors (slid between two rows of – you guessed it – 2x4s). It was a dreaming girl’s paradise. While I stood mystified by the fireplaces, my mind already spinning, my father stomped around upstairs, his pace quickening with each new room he entered. I listened intently to his hurried footsteps until they came to a halting return at the bottom of the stairs.

I couldn’t bare to turn around at see him. I thought, he must hate this house, he must think it’s a total unsalvageable dump. Surely, he is moving so fast because it’s just a waste of time. And then? I heard my mother’s voice when she saw my father, “Oh no.” She was half laughing, and my heart jumped. I turned around in anticipation, feeling my dreams - the toasty warm fireplaces burning hot on rainy evenings, the pocket doors concealing a quite study with built-in bookcases - painfully slipping away. I caught my father’s expression only briefly - he had already begun racing through the downstairs for a second time - but I heard him loud and clear when he exclaimed with child-like excitement, “I like it!” As it turns out folks, I’m apparently not the only dreamer in our family.

So here we are. My mother, my father, Todd and I beginning a wildly adventurous, tool-filled dive into the rabbit hole of renovation. I couldn’t be more thankful for my generous parents, or more excited to spend all my waking hours with nailing, sawing, lifting, and gluing with three of the folks I love most. I’m excited, but I say that with caution - the way you take a photo before a 10k, when you’re still all smiles and clean hair. This is where the dreams get real.