May 2015

Yes, yes, I know its been awhile. Here it is:

The back porch

On this trip we conquered the back porch, the (hopefully) most screwy room in the house. I arrived a few days after Pete. He got a head start and left this pile of debris for me to load in the dumpster.

This is all from the back porch area. It's a major accomplishment ripping through 100 plus years of shoddy upgrades.  It's silly, but I feel like it's a big milestone.  

The room really does look bigger with all the layers peeled away! That out of focus-ness is actually the dust. 

On every trip we find something unusual, and this trip was no exception. Under the floor in the back porch is a pit. It's about 7 feet deep (it may be deeper, we didn't shovel it out)  It's lined with what looks like 18 inch thick bricks chiseled from bedrock.

It's got a pipe cemented into it, but the pipe isn't attached to anything.  It may be a dry well, built to collect storm water runoff, but to the layman's eye it looks like something built by serial killer. Whatever it is, we plan to build a trap door on top of it. It seems like a natural home for our plastic skeleton, or unwanted salesmen.

The Kitchen

After conquering the back porch we moved on to the kitchen, where Pete spent three days pulling off a club sandwich of sheetrock, cement board and steel wire mesh.

I would imagine this is how exterior walls of banks are reinforced.

 First he tried the reciprocating saw, which smoothed out the blades after one pass.

 Pete's friend refers to this as butter knifing.

A masonry circular saw blade did the trick, but it still took forever.

Another signature was found under the kitchen drop ceiling.

Suspicious slab

I found this concrete slab under some foliage that I cleared away. Its way too heavy to be lifted by hand, so we will have to get a jackhammer or earthmover to reveal what's underneath. 

Noteworthy debris

I finally tackled the rest of the pantry, an area I was ignoring for a while. We found these gems inside:

I had no idea anyone poured corn syrup directly on their pancakes! I thought corn syrup was only an ingredient to be added to food to encourage diabetes and obesity. It should be a schedule one drug, not something you can buy at the grocery store!

Why does one man need this huge can of vanilla pudding? I don't know what anyone would "use" this for besides eating. The thought of it makes me very uncomfortable.

I remember the name Galloping Gourmet from childhood, but had to look it up. This thing is the top of a small convection oven marketed by TV chef Graham Kerr.

I don't expect anyone to sit through this entire clip, but watching a proper Brit actually slurp when talking about rump pot roast at :20 is pretty funny. I thought the "galloping" in his name has something to do with a horse meat dish, but after watching him jump over furniture on set it's pretty obvious.  I guess he gets sauced before the show (wine glass in hand) or he just wants everyone to think he's drunk.

Flanagan Krrrisp KRAUT update

I failed to throw away a can of rotten sauerkraut after anthropomorphizing it in a previous blog entry. 

I found our prize fighter with some serious blunt force head trauma and subdural swelling. The cerebrovinegar fluid was not drained in time. Rest in peace Flanagan, you put up a good fight.

This astounding piece of both representational art (the print itself) and abstract art (the termites eating through it) is a true collaborative masterpiece of both man and insect.  We had a termite treatment last summer, so all the itty bitty artists were long gone, further proof that most artists only get recognition after they are dead.

Flora and Fauna

Whoa, irises are like the cockroaches of the plant world. We had the house treated for termites last July. That involved the workers digging a moat around the entire perimeter of the house and filling it with gallons of chemicals. When I first saw these flowers I thought we got ripped off, that they just filled the spaces with water, but we haven't seen any termite activity since the treatment.

Our special guest

This is Buddha, he belongs to our host Amanda. She went out of town for a few days so we took care of this big guy, we brought him to our house to enjoy the grass.  He's a really sweet gentle dog, but his bark is absolutely terrifying. Its the canine equivalent of a cocking a shotgun. You dont have to use your weapon, just the sound will make an intruder crap their pants.  

There was a cat hiding under the dumpster when the service came to pick it up. The poor thing bolted when the unit was tipped onto the truck. Ill be sure to bang on it next time, I don't want to see anyone get squished!

Recent acquisitions

 I saw this trashy Harley Davidson tool belt on Craigslist for free. What the hell, I'll save some cash and not buy one at Home Depot. After picking it up I got this email from its previous owner:

Hi Stephanie,

I have a question, although I don't want you to feel obligated to answer it, by any means.  Why do you want the tool belt?  I kept a lot of stuff I got when I had a Harley, but have been slowly been giving it away.  So far, the only things I regret getting rid of are my Harley t-shirts.  I got at least one every time I visited another city, even if I was just passing through.  The fact is I outgrew them, otherwise I would be wearing them still.  One thing I will never give away is my leather Harley jacket.  It is too classy and too beautiful to get rid of.  I wear it even when I am riding my BMW, which you know is a grievous no-no if you are familiar with biker culture.

Flea market finds

We went to two outdoor flea markets. The sun beating down on me was awful, but I endured. We got this random stuff:

Antique door knob back plate  $5.

Pete got this set of girly playing cards. "Score" has a double meaning with these cards. $10.

  The horse on the top sold me on this glass Heinz horseradish bowl. According to Wikipedia, horseradish is poisonous to horses. (?)  $10.

Pete doesn't know it yet but he will be sanding and repainting this old mixer/juicer for me. Thanks in advance, Boo.  $20.

 I was on the fence with this chair, so the seller kept lowering the price. According to Amanda, the best time for flea market deals is really early or at the end of the day. Those wooden wheels will destroy any wood floor, so they eventually need to be removed.  $25.

These are from a scrapbook of playing cards that someone took great care to organize. The movie Hunters and Gatherers from 1994 is a fantastic documentary about obsessive collectors, and this book should be featured in the sequel. The slits in the scrapbook paper are hand cut; that's commitment! $6.




Restore SCORE!

We got these fantastic cast iron pieces from the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store. The sales lady was bursting at the seams when she told us that the store acquired them by accident. Pete is gonna weld together a trellis that looks something like this:

Now we need that player piano

The next dumb decadent piece of furniture we can get for this too large house is a player piano. I see them on Craigslist all the time. We mentioned this to our next door neighbor, who has two pianos in his house and wants a third. Unlike us poseurs he actually plays, and treated us to a ten minute medley of Elton John and Bette Midler classics before giving us these player piano scrolls. 

"I'm not very good" he said modestly before banging out his rendition. I told him he's the pool hustler of piano playing. 

Industrial recycling

The militant recycler in me was thrilled to see the recycling drop off facility five minutes from our house. There were several old tires kicking around in the yard that we finally got around to dropping off there. They recycle lots of old crap,  including :

Paints and chemicals

Idiot boxes and computers