The bouncing ball

Well here I am answering my own meme questions as instructed by maitress Jeannie at A House in Progress. She threw the ball back in everyone's court, and since they were such good questions ::smiles smugly:: who could resist. I certainly couldn't.




1) What has been the most challenging aspect of your house project?

I think it's living in our house while we're doing it. We have a very difficult situation because the original bathroom setup was and still is just a powder room with a shower installed seperately, outdoors off of the rear balcony in a sort of closeted area. It's not really a house that was meant to be lived in beyond summer. It was originally just a little vacation home visited one month out of the year by its elderly owners. The upper floors hadn't been inhabited in at least 50 years or more, and yet we foolishly moved right in.

2) Regrets? We all have regrets about certain projects in our renovation files. Do you have any regrets about anything like "I wish we'd done this first" or "not bought that" or something?

We didn't really plan well at all. We did a lot of picking and then left projects by the wayside. We started stuff we had no desire or ability to finish. Seb regrets us not waiting three months to move in and then gutting the place, taking out ceilings and walls. He's right. It would have saved us lots of time and energy.

As for purchases we only regret our house's front windows. We bought solid oak widows for the front of the house and it cost us a fortune. However, we had a special finish done that completely hides the wood. Also we let the salesman high pressure us into believing that this was the only product worthy of our windows and that there were only three colors to choose from. The windows are tinted MAHOGANY and we had no desire to have this whatsoever. We spent an awful lot of money on oak and you can't even tell it's oak. They all have to be stripped and redone one day.

3) What's the most common statement people make when they see the house for the first time? What part tend to impress them most? Least?

I have to agree with what Jeannie said in her interview that there are the types who think it has potential and others who think it's an eyesore. In the beginning everyone thought it was an eyesore! Slowly the walls came down and the ceilings came out. Soon people started seeing the beauty underneath the condemned house.

People are most impressed by the stone walls in the living room. They comment a lot on the wood beams and the metal stairs and how it combines well. The mix: stone, wood and metal gets impressive nods (we just need water and fire now to complete the five elements!) They are certainly least impressed with our lack of a proper bathroom. Normally when you live in a nice resort area you get lots of visitors. We get very few visitors because they think, "yeah it's nice .... but damn it's cold and dusty there!" Now that baby S is here we'll probably get those who think, "now that they have the kid it'll have to be nicer!" But, baby S was born here so to him it's perfectly normal, "mommy showers outside and daddy wears holey pants all weekend!"