Archive

2010 Updates

June 3, 2010

We know, we know… we have been horrible about updating our blog. Things have been busy, and for a while we had a little side project going on that took up most of our time. However, 2010 has been a really good year for us and Westview!

Our best friend in the whole wide world moved in down the street in a beautifully renovated bungalow. (She grew up in Atlanta, but moved away 11 years ago. It is great to have her back!)

Our best friend!

Our best friend!

Our garden/plants have really started to grow in. Check out the backyard!

Our Backyard

Our Backyard

And the landscape strip by the street…

Landscape Strip

Landscape Strip

The grape vine we planted three years ago finally has grapes. (And a LOT of them!)

Georgia Grapes

Georgia Grapes

We’re also getting closer to finishing the front door our friends Josh and Carl gave me for my birthday last year. Finding the hardware has proven to be a challenge, but we are getting very close.

Bungalow Door

Refinishing the Craftsman Door

Westview completed the first step in our master planning process, and the BeltLine is in the process of also creating a master plan for the southwest area – which includes Westview.

Westview Master Plan

Westview Master Plan

The neighborhood also turned 100 years old this year, so on June 26th we’re having a big celebration for the centennial! If you are interested in moving to the neighborhood or just want to visit please feel free to join us. The full info is on the Westview website.

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Getting Ready for Spring

March 22, 2010

We are ready for some warm weather!! After the 70 degree temperatures this past weekend I can offically say we have the spring itch. Steffi has been making garden plans, and we have been raking up the leaves, pulling weeds, and started prepping the raised beds for our veggies. After the flooding, the snow, and the cold temperatures we are ready to get back out in the yard.

In our raised bed we went ahead and put in some sweet Texas onions. We also ordered a couple varities of potatoes. Last year we grew way too many tomatoes, but I realized tomatoes don’t store very well and we don’t use them so much. Onions and potatoes will last for a while, and we use them frequently. We’ll see how it turns out.

We put onions in our main raised bed in the backyard.

Onions in our raised bed

Onions in our raised bed

And we put more onions in the bed on the south side of the house.

Onions in our side bed

Onions in our side bed

We also demolished the old grill in our yard. It has been slowly falling apart since we bought the house, so it was time to go. It turned out to be more work than we expected. Who would have thought a few bricks would create so much debris?

So here’s the grill before. When we bought the house it had more bricks, but they kept falling off.

Ugly brick grill

Ugly brick grill

After a little work with the sledgehammer it was a pile of rubble. Too bad it couldn’t just grow legs and walk away.

Demolished brick grill

Demolished brick grill

We loaded it in the truck to haul it away. This was a lot of work.

Loaded in the truck

Loaded in the truck

When we tell people we demolished the old grill in the backyard I’m sure they’ll look around and ask “What grill?” That is always the case when we remove things from the yard.

What grill?

What grill?

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This and That

February 15, 2010

We’ve been working on a few projects here and there. One project has been paint stripping one side of the door between the hallway and kitchen. Patrick tackled it with the heat gun and I did the chemical stripping afterwards.

Heat gun to the rescue!

Heat gun to the rescue!

Scraping the Paint

Scraping the Paint

Progress

Progress

Another project has been the butler’s pantry glass doors. It’s been a while since we last worked on the butler’s pantry (March 2008 and August 2007). We attempted to pick the project back up in July 2009…

Butler's pantry glass door

Butler’s pantry glass door

…but then got stuck when we bought replacement glass pieces that weren’t cut straight. A cheap-o glass cutter didn’t fix the problem and the project was forgotten about until now. We bought new glass panes and have been working on glazing. Now we need to wait a week before we can paint!

Butler's pantry glass door glazing

Butler’s pantry glass door glazing

Unfortunately the next project doesn’t have any before pictures. There was a return vent in the hallway that looked really ugly. It’s a nice sturdy piece, but had unsightly chipped paint and years of dirt and grime. Instead of trying to replace it – which would surely be a challenge due to vent size changes over the years – we decided to try and make this one look good. Patrick scraped away at it to get it as clean as possible. He then spray-painted it with satin RustOleum and we think it looks great! I just wish I could show before pictures so the difference would be visible.

Refinished Return Vent

Refinished Return Vent

And on an unrelated note the winter in Atlanta has been really sucky. I’m not a cold weather person to begin with, but this winter has been particularly cold and rainy. I think there has barely been a rain-less weekend since before Christmas, and the temperatures have been dipping lower than we’re used to. I wanted to share one crazy flash flood photo of the back yard. Look at the waterfall coming off the steps by the wall!! Thank goodness we now own a sump pump, otherwise we could kiss another furnace and hot water heater good-bye.

Flooding Winter Rain

Flooding Winter Rain

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The Greenest House Is One Already Built

January 27, 2010

So our own house progress may be a little slow these days, but I just found out about an upcoming event that sounds really exciting! For anyone in the Atlanta area, this sounds like the place to be…

*****
The Decatur Old House Fair – March 6th

A day long seminar will feature a number of lectures about living in and restoring old houses. Some topics that will be covered:

  • Historic Wood Window Restoration: Did you know that a properly restored historic wood window has higher e-value than most new windows on the market?
  • National Register of Historic Places and Tax Incentives: The National Register of Historic Places is our country’s inventory of the buildings, sites, and cultural landscapes that are historically significant.
  • Researching Your Old House: Ever wanted to know when your house was built and by whom? Who lived in your house and how it has changed over the years?
  • “Greening” Your Old House: The greenest house is the one already built. But, did you know that there is even more you can do to reduce your old home’s carbon footprint?
  • Design Solutions for Additions and New Construction in Historic Neighborhoods: Want to add space to your historic home but don’t want it to look like an addition?
  • How to Hire a Contractor: Interviewing and selecting a contractor is a daunting task and not having all the information can cost you many thousands of dollars.
  • Maintenance Plans for Old Houses: Owning any house means maintenance. Owning a historic home means maintenance and preservation.
  • Historic Landscapes for Old Houses: Historic landscapes tell us so much about lives and interests of previous generations. Each style of home and each time period has its own unique landscape associated with it.

Go to www.decaturoldhousefair.com for more information. Advance tickets are $10.

*****

Something I personally love – they emphasize historic window preservation so much that they have TWO seminar sessions about it! Go Decatur Old House Fair!

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Happy New Year!

January 7, 2010

Happy New Year from Westview Bungalow! We had a fantastic time over the holidays. Both Christmas and New Year’s Eve were wonderful. We also took a trip to Washington DC and saw a number of historical sites along the way – including Mary Washington’s House (George Washington’s mother) and Kenmore (the home of George Washington’s sister). I promise we’ll post some photos soon, and we should start some more projects, or finish some old ones, later this month! Sorry for not posting anything in a short while.

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