Knight’s Armor

My brother is visiting for ten days in August, and since he’s an 18 year-old farm-kid from Nebraska, we have no compunctions about putting him to work.  In particular, putting him to work with a brush and a can of house-paint.  Here’s the breakdown:

• Siding: dark gray (”Knight’s Armor” by Olympic*)
• Trim: true white (”Delicate White”, Olympic)
• Storm windows and screen door: black (”Black Magic”, Olympic)
• Front door: a light blue yet to be chosen (see how hip we are though?)

That leaves the porch floor, which is where we’d like some input – thoughts on painting it Delicate White?  What about Black Magic?  Or just a lighter shade of gray?  That would be the most straightforward option, but I don’t know if we want to introduce another shade into the mix.

The east side of the house gets a full blast of sunshine every morning, and the paint is in rough shape. The siding over here is going to take more prep work than the rest of the house combined.

*Independently, we picked Knight’s Armor twice.  It was the only dark gray we liked out of the entire Behr, Glidden, Sherwin-Williams, Olympic, and Valspar lines – all the others had too much brown or green or blue in them.  But, to be thorough, we wanted to check at Menard’s too (Dutch Boy and Pittsburgh).  “A-ha!” we said to the wall of Pittsburgh swatches – “There’s another gray we like!”  Then we pulled it out to read the name and realized that Olympic and Pittsburgh use the same color swatches (which is weird, right? Are they owned by the same giant paint conglomerate?).  In any case, Knight’s Armor was totally validated – out of the two colors we liked for the house, it was both of them.

Second Gilded Age

Listen: I’ll stop posting NYT slideshows just as soon as they stop being awesome.

This one?  Is awesome.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE: Hannah’s right!  Despite the photographer’s claim that the photos were made “without digital manipulation”, this animated gif makes it pretty clear that he’s lying.   It took me a little bit to understand why it makes the lie so clear, so let me try to help – the animation goes back and forth between the picture published in the NYT slideshow and a mirror-image of the left side flipped over onto the right.  See how similar the two are?  Even more damning, look at the two triangles of wood in the ceiling rafters.  First, there’s absolutely no reason to build a little triangle like that in the first place, and second, even if a builder did, it would need to be supported with a metal brace.  Conclusion: Fakey McFakington!  (It looks like commenters on Metafilter were the first to find the fraud, and they tipped off the NYT.  Score another point for Web 2.0)

Second Home, Starter Budget

Frak it – I’m re-naming this blog “Cut and Paste from the New York Times on Division”.
Witness:  A Second Home on a Starter Budget, the story of an abandoned cottage re-made with $10,000 of reclaimed lumber, thrift-store finds, and – wait for it -  free things they found on the street.   Don’t miss the slide show – that would be a mistake.

“Priced out of the New York City real estate market, the couple rent an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They decided to make their first home purchase a weekend house in the Catskills.

They had looked at about 30 houses during a four-month hunt for a country home last summer, and finally closed on the two-bedroom, one-bath home for $95,000 last September. Along with the house, a 700-square-foot 1920s cottage, the property in Sparrow Bush, a village in Orange County, N.Y., includes eight and a half wooded acres and a detached garage/barn 800 feet from the house.

Every weekend, starting in October, the couple drove two hours from their home in Brooklyn to the house, undertaking all of the necessary reconstruction themselves, except the re-roofing, which was done by a contractor. Both urbanites, neither had ever tackled a renovation before, but the project was thrilling to them.”

PSA: Free Quart of Glidden

Heads up: Glidden is giving away free quarts of paint (eggshell finish, your choice of about 200 colors) until July 2nd.  Take ‘em up on it,  yo.

Subprime Housing

GoogleReader also brought me this amusing Craigslist ad (emphasis added):

Looking for an experienced craftsman to build me cabinets for a home library. I have a 3 year old home so the workmanship must be excellent. Looking for someone to help me create a library, someone with great ideas. I’m trying to stay away from the high prices from contractors. Would prefer a retired person or a wood craftsman looking for a side job. If this sounds like something you can do. Lets Talk. .E-mail me and we can set up a time for an estimate. Thanks. Have a great day.

This Atlantic article may not be reflective of this 3 year-old house, but given the odds, a more appropriate second sentence would be, “I have a 3 year old home, but the worksmanship must be excellent anyway”.   I’m sure lots and lots of brand-new houses are built with quality and craftsmanship, but that’s the exception and not the rule.  There’s a reason hosts on HGTV sneer about contractor-grade details, and it ain’t out of professional admiration.

This future is not likely to wear well on suburban housing. Many of the inner-city neighborhoods that began their decline in the 1960s consisted of sturdily built, turn-of-the-century row houses, tough enough to withstand being broken up into apartments, and requiring relatively little upkeep. By comparison, modern suburban houses, even high-end McMansions, are cheaply built. Hollow doors and wallboard are less durable than solid-oak doors and lath-and-plaster walls. The plywood floors that lurk under wood veneers or carpeting tend to break up and warp as the glue that holds the wood together dries out; asphalt-shingle roofs typically need replacing after 10 years. Many recently built houses take what structural integrity they have from drywall—their thin wooden frames are too flimsy to hold the houses up.

Drainboard sink

As I’ve mentioned, Googlereader keeps an eye on Craigslist so I don’t have to.  One of the things its patrolling for is “vintage sink”, because something like this would be perfect.  Perfect, that is, if (1) it wasn’t much, much too big and (2) Missy liked it.  But other than those two hurdles, perfect.

For what it’s worth, the ad this photo came from is obnoxious in multiple ways.

Antique Drainboard Sink – $500

Single Bay Double Drainboard Kitchen Sink. Photo is not of actual sink. Mine is just really dirty and I was too lazy to clean it up to take a photo of it. The sink I have has a chip out of the paint on the left hand side. It is otherwise identical to the photo.

Cash only, please no scams and no cashier check offers.

Really?  First, cut that price in half.  Aaaaand one more time.  There’s what it’ll sell for.  Second, yours is “otherwise identical” except for all the crud and damage?  You know what?  Cut your price in half one more time, just for being so lazy.  Third, post some measurements.  Without them, you’re asking me to waste my time,  even if it’s just to e-mail for information that should have been in the ad in the first place.  Finally, and I hate to break this to you, but “please no scams” isn’t what I would call the most effective defense.  In fact, I’d even go a little further: it’s hilariously stupid.

Update: Oh no!  Dueling opinions in the comments regarding porcelain’s ease-of-cleaning!

A poll: please stay seated

Wooden benches inside the house: yes/no?  Open-ended follow-up: where?

Finally

It’s about time that I get some help with house projects around here.  I’ll show you how to use the heat gun next, kiddo.

Back

I’ve been in Vermont for a week, learning about teaching about war from some of the best military-academic folks in the country.  This weekend is commencement, and then, officially, summer work begins.  I hate the assumption that college teachers get summers off (publication pressure makes sure that’s nowhere near the case), but not teaching does make my already-flexible schedule even…flexier?

Maine Cottage

You know what?  It turns out we can’t afford a $2,000 coffee table from Maine Cottage.    Bummer.

So I cut the legs off a $10 table from Re-Store, sanded the varnish off the top, painted it robin’s egg blue, and bob’s-your-uncle, there you go.

Then I helped the baby take pictures of a cat.