July 2015

Our old new van!

Pete purchased this van, got it registered, got the brakes repaired and new tires put on in four days. I was impressed until I got inside. It is in desperate need of a serious cleaning and some general TLC. He got angry when he saw how disgusted I was with it.  "Sorry, I haven't had time to clean it." He snapped. I could tell he was itching to punctuate that sentence with" princess" or "your Majesty". It's still better than the thousands of dollars we've blown on rentals. 

Another gift of garbage from our neighbor

I'm pretty certain this was left on our porch from our gossip/hoarder neighbor. Everyone else just asks if they can use our dumpster, because we don't always fill it up. This is not this first time there's been random crap in our driveway. We hear he's planning to move, so I'm bracing for a really big pile of debris in our yard sometime soon.

The Back Porch

On this trip we worked on the back porch, removing rotten floor joists and shoveling out about a foot of debris under the crawlspace. Half of the floor joists looked like this.  

Pete was considering cutting off the rotten parts and splicing in new pieces. He called a local lumber yard to see how much they cost new. The guy on the phone said $13. each for a 2 by 8 by 16 foot long joist.  We didn't believe it so I called and got the same answer from someone else. So we removed the bad ones completely. Here's Pete cutting the last one apart.

This is the foundation from the inside of the house. I always imagined the stone being squared off on the outside and inside.

This tree was not rooted, it was a loose stump that was holding up a 2x4 that was holding up the joist. 

A flower pot was jammed in this old drainage pipe. I can only assume this was a part of the foreclosure/sabotage plan of '81.

 Here is the garbage after a couple hours of digging. I got discouraged. I felt like it would never end, so I thought about how I could chart my progress.

I was inspired by anthropological digs and how they grid out the area. I resisted gridding the room with string and just shoveled in straight lines. This appealed to my organizational nature. 

Here is the room with all the trash removed.

Things found in the debris

No bodies or bags of jewels found yet, but I am still hopeful.

This ceramic looking life saver is an insulator from the really old knob and tube electrical wiring.

 I am unsure if this copper/steel hybrid is a technique taught in plumbing school, but it looked suspicious.

A small piece of textured glass.

This plastic cup was in incredibly good condition, like it was purchased from Urban Outfitters the week before. 




Recent Acquisitions

This is a kiln we got from Craigslist free in New York last fall. It needs to be converted to gas. Pete will be making many a tiki mug in it, and I am looking foward to making tiles for our bathrooms and kitchen with it. 

We bought this fantastic convertable ladder at a stoop sale on 9th street in New York for $30.

I found this end table on First Ave in New York. I can safely assume it was once at the Panna 2 restaurant. An Indian man was very happy to see me drag it away.

Pete's colleague gave this table to us. It belonged to her granny.

We bought this oval table at a yard sale a few miles from our house. "It's restored" the woman told me in her throat cancer gravel voice as she sucked on her cigarette. The paint job looks so crappy I almost passed it up. Its hard wood underneath, and will look amazing once we remove the latex paint and let it breathe.

Pete has joined the creepy book of the month club.



Scrap yard

I finally convinced Pete to take some metal to the scrap yard. We've been giving away all our metal to a local guy. I didnt think it was worth much until he said. "Thanks, this load is a car payment"  This place is owned by Andy Warhol's relative, his great uncle, I think.

We made $62. Pete was surprised, but I had no idea what to expect. 

Flora and Fauna

During every visit we try to do some random driving in our neighborhood, on this visit we saw a wild turkey crossing the street! 

Much less dramatic than the turkey was this fuzzy white caterpillar.