Windows & Doors

Hello.  First a couple of business items for those following along.  I've uploaded the photos that appear as thumbnails in the blog in full resolution from my 7 megapixel camera.  If you would like to see something in more detail click on the thumbnail photo in the blog and it will come up as the full file.   The second item is that if you subscribe to the blog then you can get email notices when I post something new.   If some prefer I can send a personal email.  Let me know if that's the case and I'll make a list and let you know when I've posted by email though it would be nice to use the system.  
    Sometime soon we'll get to the interior of the house and may touch on it a bit here but I'd like to go around the outside of the house and look at a few things more closely.   First I would like to shed a little light on the matter of how I came to be in the position of renovating a decrepit old house in Eugene OR after having happily lived and worked in Southern California for fifteen years.  If you told me a year ago I'd be doing what I'm doing now I would have had a hearty laugh.
     As stated I'd been living in SoCal for fifteen years doing background (BG) or extra work in film and television.  I nearly always felt privileged to work in the 'biz' and was blessed with enough union work to keep body and soul together.   Admittedly I had stars in my eyes when I first starting working in the industry.  But working on the set as much as I did opened my eyes to how political it can be.  Even so I spent a number of years attempting to crack the nut of union principal work with nearly no results.  After five or so years in the business I became aware that there were benefits - specifically health care and a pension - for doing union work.  Those benefits became an important part of my work goals.  Over the years I consistently achieved health care and pension credits for my work - a wonderful thing.  Understanding the pension as important put me more into the mind set of being able to take advantage of it when the time came - as early as when I reached 55 years of age but I figured probably later rather than sooner with work hopping like it was.  Things began to change in the industry one of the results being that fewer people would be in a position to make a living doing BG work as I had been.  I became old enough to collect my pension.  I had emotional experiences that presented me with the idea that I might not be doing the best for myself by continuing in LA.  I had always entertained the idea of living near sister Kate as we have been close through the years.  When I visited Kate in June and saw the house a door in my mind began to open.   I had visited OR enough because of Kate's presence here to know the nature of the climate so when I saw this house which sits high and dry on it's foundation - much higher than many area homes - and has an excellent southern exposure open to the south and west because of the streets and park limning it I began to think this might be a window of opportunity for me to own a home on the limited income I would experience as a pensioner.   When there is sun this little house gets it.   So a number of things came in to play that motivated me to 'take the leap'.
    Windows:   We're up on the front porch looking at the front window in the opening photo.  It was made to open but had been painted shut for years.  This summer the cat stench was so great in the house I went around and took all the double hung windows out of their openings every time I visited the house.  Wanting as much air as possible I attempted to open this large front window.  I succeeded in opening it but broke the glass and mangled the frame in the process.   I boarded it over with some of the pressboard wainscoting I took out of the bathroom.  I now am looking for a piece of glass for it and will have to repair the frame once I find the glass.  I don't want to replace any window units yet because the new ones might get damaged when I jack the house up to repair rotten floor joists and cracked foundation.

Off the porch and around to the west side of the house just at the corner where house and porch meet is this sizable stump that has to be removed as it's been impacting the foundation.  It's quite a monster and will be my spare time project for a while to come.  I worked on it a bit today during a blustery snow shower we had this afternoon, got hot and sweaty, and broke my new (to me) ax.  I'll have to fashion a handle for it now.  

Yes it does snow in Eugene.  A lot of folk here were pretty excited to see the white stuff in town.  The view from my garage apartment of MLK Park this morning.  The little trail in the snow is a meander I dug from the garage's downspout directing water to the garden and away from the garage.  It was raining when I did that a day or two ago and it reminded me of being five years old and playing at damming snow melt in the street.  Maybe I'm growing pin feathers!  Now for some down.....
      Many of the windows have overspray on them from when the house was painted without masking them off.   Garage the same.  I successfully scraped the garage windows clean with a razor blade but broke two panes in the kitchen doing so.  Thick paint, brittle glass.  Kate suggested using paint remover 'cause it worked for her and I did so on the remaining windows in the living area and it worked great.  The other windows in the house aren't so bad and I am working on cleaning them up, replacing glass and hardware where necessary.  While old they'll be fine while I'm working on the house.  Nice to be able to see views of my neighborhood from the house now.
      Nearly the first thing I did in the garage was rehang the side walking entry door so it would work. It didn't open because the building has settled somewhat.  I nailed the big garage car door shut and took it's opening hardware out to facilitate fixing up the garage - don't think there'll be a car in that garage any time soon.  I rehung the back porch door so it would open and close properly.  Too I put a screw eye in the door and one in the frame that line up so I can padlock that door shut.   I put longer screws in the top hinge of the front door so I don't have to kick it open every time I go in.  The small things raise my spirits.
      Further north along the west side of the house we come to the new 200 amp electric service I installed (two half scraped broken kitchen window panes just left of it).

The left side of the panel holds the meter and the incoming hot wires from the electric company through the mast.   The right side is the 200 amp circuit panel.   Below is the single duplex outlet I originally hung from the box.  Eventually a large conduit containing all the wires powering the house will drop from the box and go through the sill into the crawl space.  Here you can clearly see the yellow 2/12 - I learned they are now coding romex for size by color - (20 amp) romex cable I've run through the back of the outlet into the kitchen and onto the back porch to power the garage.  Not at all code but not a hazard as long as I'm careful with it.  It gives me the ability to live here and work on the place.  I'll make the setup meet code before I'm done. We go around back and see the fine faux wood grain linoleum and tar paper roof on the garage.  You can see the carriage lantern I put on the side of the garage to make it more inviting and easier to see one's way at night.

I had a uniquely OR welcoming a few nights back.  I was tossing and turning in my sleep as many of us do and reached for a pillow to put between my legs.  I touched a cold wet spot and  immediately thought 'damn I have a leak in the roof' (it was raining).  Got up turned on the lights and went to investigate my bed and above and there on the pillow was a big slug.  Must've peed his pants when I disturbed him.  He didn't stay inside very long.  I'm so pleased with and proud of that roof.  :)
      Next: up into the porch and there see the old two wire 60 amp service.

The circular thing toward the top is the old banjo style meter socket with the old mast next to it - too small to even carry one of the wires that now power the house and there are three of them.  The main box is below the meter socket.  Below that is a small box/breaker for the dryer outlet which is below it - the washer and dryer used to be on the back porch.   The bigger box to the right of that was for the hot water heater and the box to the right and above that was for powering the house.  The 2/12 romex that comes in from the garage is visible crossing the top of the picture just below the meter socket and above the main circuit box.  When I found it it came in just as it does now hanging in mid air then went into the small box to the far left for power. 

All of the lights and outlets in the house are powered through these two 14 gauge (15 amp) wires that emerge out of the kitchen wall onto the back porch through ceramic sleeves.  They are the old cloth covered  wire fortunately not too brittle and also fortunately like much of the house not reworked by anyone in the past.  The house's more original condition makes it easier to work on because everything is much easier to understand and hasn't been mangled like it would have had four or five or however many handymen mucked with it through the years.   In this photo you can see the ceramic sleeves that protected the wires as they passed into the circuit box - glad I don't have to do that kind of wiring!

And finally we see where I've hooked the new yellow 2/12 romex wire that comes in from the right after passing through the kitchen on it's way from the new circuit box to the romex wire from the garage and the two 14 gauge wires powering the house.  There will be more circuits when I'm done but this will do to get me going. Now both garage and house have electricity.

       I took the bike Kate gave me out in front of the garage for a photo op.  When it came to me the back wheel was well bent.  I took the bike into Kate and Eugene's shop, took the  rear wheel off, eyeballed it up good, put it on two pieces of firewood, and jumped on it a time or two.  Put it back on the bike, spun it a few times, then tightened and loosened the spokes where necessary to get the final kinks out of the wheel and now it's good as new.   Replaced one of the pedals as it was down to the spindle, a rear brake cable part, and raised the seat.  Good to go.  I want to find a rear parcel carrier of some sort for it.  Good old rugged Schwinn mountain bike.  Not little blue but it gets me around - and no gas expense.
      There was a toilet in the house when I bought it but it was not hooked up.  Too I mentioned I had to clean it of human excrement left by homeless who frequented the vacant house.   I went to install the old thing only to realize it was missing parts and then in manipulating it broke the brittle tank.  I decided to quickly borrow Kate's Subaru to go to nearby Restore resale house and get a used toilet.   Found one and found a nice chunk of light blue carpet just the right size for my apartment for less than their usual price and loaded it all up.  It was raining and once I got back to my place it was all I could do to get that big roll of carpet in the door and into the small apartment.  Then after a wiff or two I started moving the furniture and carpet around to try to find the best fit.  After a couple of hours moving furniture, belongings, and carpet around I got it all in place and settled as you've seen in previous photos.  So much for a quick trip with the car though.  Took the car back to Kate's place.  She was pissed 'cause I'd taken the car without letting her know where I was and she wanted to use it after riding her bike home from work - after all it is HER car.   I won't let that happen again!
      The next day after seeing both carpet and toilet for free on Craigslist - go figure -  I went to put the toilet in and succeeded only to find that the bolts holding the tank to the stool were leaking due to brittleness from being dry so long.  I procured some gasket sealer, applied it to the bolts inside the bottom of the  tank, and let set over night.  Finally on project day three I managed to get the toilet working well.  The floor of the bathroom was replaced at one time but is already rotten again so I had to put some strips of plywood under the edges of the toilet so it would stay level and work properly.  It works but you definitely don't want to be drunk using it.   It's kind of a balancing act cleansing oneself after doing one's duty - don't want the whole rig to go over.  Definitely quite camp.  The throne complete with padded seat that came with the house:

      Another thing that has taken me by surprise is my ambition for gardening.  I hauled in a load of horse manure with Kate's old truck and spread it in a patch about 10'x60' on the west side of the house.  The city manages fall leaves partially by collecting and delivering to homeowners who want them for gardening.  I ordered one load.  One nice morning I woke to find a city truck ready to dump leaves.  This shows 7 cubic yards of leaves by the house with the south Eugene hills in the distance.

A couple of hours later - and not a few huffs and puffs - a well mulched garden plot as seen from the back of the property.
      Since I've been here I've seen a number of beautiful vibrant rainbows - on account of the climate - that always seem to end somewhere near my place.  Guess I can't complain about that.

Next time we should be able to get inside the house and take a look around.  'Til then.  Peace       d

The Fourth Journey

   The house I purchased was built in 1924.  It sits on the north east corner of the intersection of 10th Ave & Grant Street.  The lot is 100' north/south and 50' east/west.  Directly across the street to the west is Martin Luther King Jr City Park.  I was told that this small section of the city was a black area at the time - thus the name of the park.  The house is a block off 11th Ave - a vital business street in West Eugene today - and is nearly directly behind the Amazon Market - a neighborhood cash & carry -  named after the winding creek nearby.  Now there is only one tree on the property.  It might be a mature Japanese elm and sits in the middle of the backyard.  A large tree used to grow near the front porch on the west side of the house that was cut down by the former tenants.  That stump will mostly have to be removed because it is impacting the foundation.
      I purchased the house outright from a man who had been a Ventura County Sheriff in Southern California but had moved to Oregon in the eighties with his family.  His daughter became involved with a man whose family was living in the house.  As time went by the daughter and son in law came to stay in the place and wanted to buy it and fix it up so the father in law obliged.   Those folks managed to do some - mostly ineffectual -  repair work on the house.  Replanking the front porch while the porch roof still leaks.  Repair floor joists in the bathroom but the floor is already rotten again.  Eventually their relationship went south.  She left him  - and her twenty cats - in the house.  Apparently it was in that situation for two years allowing plenty of time for damage to be done.   Then along came this hapless dude from SoCal......
      When I went north from LA for the second time this year for the closing in Eugene I loaded my car with my cast metal artwork, a big roll of paintings,  a bunch of flatwork, along with other personal items.   The car was heavily loaded but wonderful.  Drove like a dream using no oil and managing the mountains slowly but patiently.  Really quite astonishing for a little grocery getter with nearly 300,000 miles on it.  Just operating the car was a puzzle because of it's age.  Key had to go in right side up or no go.  Rear defroster - actually hooked to fuel pump - always on or dead in the water.  Etc.  But it got me there - and back to LA -  no complaints.   On my third trip to Eugene before Labor day I loaded the car equally as heavily with all my musical gear and other valued belongings and sailed north and back famously again.
     I left only a small portion of my personal stuff in LA for my return after Labor day.   A week after I made it back to LA safely in the little blue car I flew to the midwest for a wedding and to visit family and friends for a few weeks.  I had been in Chicago with my mom for about two weeks when I received a call from the previous owner.  'A couple of things' he said.  'Cops told me someone broke into your garage'.  Kate was good enough to go over and found that yes someone had broken into the garage but mostly for shelter.  She boarded over the broken window for me.  The previous owner said  'The other thing is they told me a homeless guy passed away on your porch'.  Well I had seen this homeless guy there when I was working on the place over Labor day and he was younger than I by years and plenty robust.  I think there may have been foul play on the part of the garage breaker inners as far as a perceived turf war may have been going on.  I called the Eugene police after the ex owner called me to let them know I am the owner, got tepid response, and have heard nothing further about it.  I know I've no corpse on my front porch.  For a moment another homeless had left a remembrance in a little cross stuck in one of the porch pillars but the wind has carried that away.
     After a couple of wonderful weeks with friends in Wisconsin I returned to LA prepared to make my fourth and final journey of the year to Eugene with my remaining worldly possessions.  Crammed in that little car I headed north.  Rolling down the grapevine in fifth gear the transmission jumped out of gear a couple of times - something in 200,000 miles of driving that car I had never had happen.   My mom - god bless her depression era soul - saved the following message I sent to daughter Skye a day later:
       
Well sweetie you'll have to begin to think of me without my little car finally after 16 years.  Yes the transmission locked in fifth gear about two hours north of LA and I only realized it as I got off the freeway to get gas at - of course - Lost Hills.  I was just able to push the fully loaded vehicle from the top of the exit mostly downhill past a truck stop onto a dead end road.  A big yellow traffic sign loomed a few feet ahead that said 'END'.  I drained the tranny and took the bottom pan off Wednesday evening thinking I might be able to unjam it in the morning light.  Couldn't so Thursday I pulled the tranny out of the car thinking that would help me - I've taken it apart and reassembled a couple of times but always had a manual to do it with.  I could see one of the main bearing keepers had disintegrated and I think a chunk of metal got into the shift linkage jamming it up.  Didn't think I could rebuild it in the windy dusty desert without the manual - not to mention having to go fifty miles to get parts.  Found a local mechanic who happily took it off my hands with most of my meager belongings still in it.  I got the essential stuff out but left him my tool kit, a futon mattress, my TV, a bunch of clothes including a tux and a nice Italian suit, and various other odds and ends I'd collected over the years.  Fortunately I'd already transported most of the things I consider valuable - primarily my art work and music gear - up to Eugene.  Tried getting a ride with truckers for a while at a truckstop with no luck.  Then thought I'd head east 20 miles off interstate 5 to Wasco where there's an Amtrak station but in passing the 5 on ramp decided to - illegally - attempt to hitch hike.  Moments later a guy who teaches inmates media at the Wasco state prison picked me up.  We drove north on the five about 30 miles then he said he could get me close to the Amtrak station in Hanford, CA so we drove off the freeway another 30 miles or so.  Then he had to pick up three of his five kids after school so we did that then he said 'I'll just take you to the station'.  Which he did.  So now I sit in the Sacramento Amtrak station awaiting the second and final train ride to Eugene from Hanford.  So a not too bad ending to today's story.  God bless that dude - who also thought I should blog about the house - not to mention the mechanic that didn't charge me to take my car.  Apparently I'm meant to restart my life in Eugene nearly clean as a baby.  So that's the latest story.  Probably haven't told you yet about the homeless guy who passed away on the front porch of my house in Eugene.  This real life thing is certainly turning out to be quite a story!  Train's here gotta go.  Love   dad

    So I entrained at Sacramento and made it safely to Eugene with only what I was able to carry on my back.  That big yellow END sign in Lost Hills said it all for the little blue car.   Since I've been carless.   Sis Kate has been good enough to allow me to use her old white Chev pickup which appears in some of these photos.  And after walking for a while Kate also passed on a very serviceable Schwinn mountain bike - in need of repair & I repaired - that is my current transportation.   I've used the truck three times now.  One beautiful day I picked up a load of horse manure at a farm south of town.  They had a little diesel Kubota tractor with a front end loader that they let me fill the pickup with. Took the shit home and spread it along the west side of the house - about a 12'x60' plot for a vegetable garden.  Later that day I picked up a cabinet with nine drawers I'm using for a dresser, pantry, and tool box I'd found for free on Craigslist.  Another day I retrieved a free full futon and frame and bookshelf near what is getting to be famous Autzen Stadium - Go Ducks!   The third trip was to go cross town last Sunday to an estate sale to get an axe - needed for grubbing roots and stumps.  Otherwise I'm riding bike.

        I'll follow with a guided tour of the garage:

You've just stepped in the door and look to your left and see the living area.  Living area door open.

   Straight ahead is the 'garage' - where I keep garbage, bike, $8 mower from St. Vinnie's, building materials, etc.  The 'garage' door is open.

You step into the middle of the living area and look out the window at the back of the garage.  there's Kate's truck.  It kinda lives there now.  Now we'll turn around three sixty. this is north.

 North west.  The blue chairs came from Jesse.  They're a little broken in the backs and - of course - I cut a knuckle pretty good cleaning them.  You can see the nine drawer dresser I'm using for from top left: pantry - kitchen stuff; tool drawer; miscellany & drug drawer; socks, briefs 'n hankies; pants - nonhanging; shirts - nonhanging; photos; photos; trash & miscellany.  A keen eye can see the urinal at the foot of the dresser - hey it came with the place.  Too you catch a glimpse of my 13" digital TV that I use rabbit ears for reception and get all of four stations on.  Fortunately one is THIS a movie station.

South west living area door closed.

South east closet door closed.

South east closet door open in the evening.  Guitar and amp well evident.  Free shelves.  Too you can see how the fabric drapes the ceiling here.

 North east.  Craigslist free futon with freshly washed cover and comforter.  The oil heater is by the end of the futon with a boombox from Kate behind it.  I listen to bobfm - KEUG - sometimes.  I used coax cable  -  the little house was wired for cable everywhere including the garage - to hang curtains on.

 North and left out the picture window there to get a closer look at Kate's workhorse.  A corner of Martin Luther King Park appears in the background.

North and to the right.  Some sort of third world place or another.  I know how to pick 'em.  Nice trees though.  You can see I cut the fabric to the corners of the windows, folded it under, and stapled for the openings.  Turn to go and see through the open living area door the entryway and the exterior door.

Into the entryway to the left the 'garage' door is closed.  My growing arsenal of tools on the wall ahead.  Rubber garden boots at the ready.  Exterior door to the right.

In the entry way to the right an aging mirror that was hung on the wall of the living room in the house horizontally and about six feet off the floor and very dirty.  I cleaned it up but want to keep the decaying silver around to remind me of the place's state when I found it.

Next we'll go out the garage door.  The stairs to the back porch are right in front of us.  A bit poorly planned.  Eventually I will change this setup to make it easier to get in and out of the garage.  More heavy doin' - those concrete stairs will have to go.

 And there's the door at the back of the porch.  My gloves, truck keys, pant binder for riding bike made from a dryer exhaust hose clamp, & door lock hang on a coat hook between the door and the mirror.  Another time we'll go into the house and take a look around.  It was such a boon to come up with that extensive roll of fabric to fashion a living area out of.  Kate says those rolls show up at St. Vinnie's a lot.  I gave five bucks for it.  Most of the walls have two layers of fabric over them for added warmth.  I'm home for now.     Peace     d

The Beginning

Hello.

I've started this blog to document the story of my purchase and reconstruction of a derelict house in Eugene, Oregon.   I purchased the home at the beginning of August 2010 .  I had been up to my sister Kate's in Eugene for a visit from Los Angeles in June and she pointed the place out to me.  I had been considering relocating north though not very seriously.  After looking at the place and mulling over for a month or so the idea of buying a home that needs almost totally rebuilding from the ground up I decided buying the house out right would allow me to live rent free while fixing it up.

    I will try to tell the story from the beginning but there will almost certainly be backtracks and digressions as I go along as this is an impromptu operation.  Too I would like to be responsive to queries folks might pose and will include those responses here as well.  It is now November 16 and I have been in an apartment I made in the garage for about a week.  I finally feel that I have the security of place and comfort for winter in place so I can go ahead and spend energies on communicating the process to those who are interested.   I'm just getting started here and feel the reality of being here permanently is beginning to set in. 

       The photos I've posted today show the exterior of the home I purchased.  I made four trips from Los Angeles to Eugene this summer.  First was to visit in June.  Second at the end of July I'd decided to buy the property so made a trip north for the closing and also brought some belongings with me.  I stored them at sis Kate's house.  I was in Eugene for about ten days at that time.    Once I purchased the house I decided to come up to Eugene at Labor day for a couple of weeks with more belongings and to prepare the house - mainly the garage - for winter habitation.  The previous tenet of the house had allowed animals - primarily cats - to over run the place and they urinated and defecated freely through out the house.  So one thing photos won't communicate is the stench that continues to plague the house itself while the garage was spared as it was being used for storage.  My focus became preparing the garage for habitation so I can live there while I work on the primary residence.

 There was a sizable tree growing over the garage the branches of which had abraded the roof of the garage 'til it was gone allowing rain to get into the garage.  The large holes caused in the roof allowed water to damage the sheetrock and insulation that had been installed there to make a comfortable pottery studio for a former tenet.  A photo here shows the stump of that tree left remaining after I cut it down.  I put my keys on the stump for scale.  Disintegrated sheetrock and insulation dangled from the ceiling where the rain had gotten in.  The stud walls of the garage are rotten toward the bottom so the garage will ultimately need rebuilding itself so I wanted to make it habitable but didn't want to spend money on repairs that would have to be torn out later sooo...   In the best spirit of recycling I took some pressboard wainscoting that had been installed in the bathroom of the house and used it to repair the roof and ceiling of the garage.  I stripped the faux wood grained linoleum out of the main living area in the house and used it along with some 30 lb felt and some other linoleum my sister had around to make a waterproof roof for the garage - so far so good!  At the time I did the roof on the garage I put a bib of old linoleum around the chimney to keep it from leaking there as well.  It had separated from its old flashing because the house is settling considerably due to the floor joists being rotten all the way around the house on top of the cement foundation.  I cleaned the attic of the garage out which had a bunch of canning jars, a number of old speaker cabinets, a few sheets of plywood, and a bunch of small pieces of 1/4" plywood in it.  I used the large plywood pieces along with the wainscoting to cover holes in walls and ceiling of the garage to make it ready for decorating on my return in October.

Other photos here show the new (well new and partially recycled) 200  amp electric service I installed so that I could have power.  EWEB - the public service company here - wouldn't hook up the old two wire 60 amp service that the house had in place so I relocated the service from the back porch to the side of the house and hung one outlet under it so I could get inspected by the city which allowed the utility to hook up electricity.  I have gone ahead and wired the garage into the new service but that will ultimately need to be redone as well as it is not up to code.   I needed the help of  a local - Doc - to get the new (recycled) mast up through the existing roof so it would be waterproof without damaging the fragile old roof.  He pushed the heavy steel mast up from the ground  while I stood on the roof holding the shingles down and guiding the mast upward properly.  

     My other chore while in Eugene over Labor day was to clean the house out some to start reducing the stench.   I scraped cat poop out of kitchen cupboards and cleaned defecations of homeless people out of the nonfunctional stool all the while with as many doors and windows open as possible to let the place air out.   Too I scraped quite a lot of dirt from right around the house up as the previous owner had apparently been dumping kitty litter after used right out the front door and bedroom windows.  I relocated that dirt out into the yard where there were low spots.   The ground around the garage was quite uneven as the city had replaced the sewer pipe from the alley to the house a few years back and the damage had never been leveled.  Too while the traditional car park has been in front of the house and garage I want to move it behind the garage off the alley so there will be quite a lot of earth to move there.  In the process of leveling the area I found a plastic bag protruding from the ground.  Not being wise enough to leave well enough alone I unearthed the bag thinking to discard it only to find it contained the rotten and very smelly remains of a dog.  I quintuple bagged the remains and disposed in Kate's biweekly garbage pickup.

I had redone the electrical service, had it inspected, and finally the day after Labor day EWEB came and hooked up the electricity.  That allowed me to spend the rest of that day and part of the next power washing the inside of the house with a finicky pressure washer Kate has.   The week before I had washed with hose and water only the interior of the house.   All the water flooded the house but there are enough rotten places in the floor that all the water seeped out.   Prior to returning to Los Angeles  I sprinkled a bag of barn lime around the house to help eliminate the odor.   

So this is the beginning of the story.  I will continue with the story of my fourth and final trip to Eugene from Los Angeles as well as the events that occurred in regards to the house while I was in Chicago and Wisconsin visiting my mother and friends during September and October.  Too there will be photos of my garage apartment and of the interior of the house.  I have uploaded photos in full resolution if you should care to look more closely at some detail or another.  As time goes on I will attempt to document here at least some of the proceedings involving renovating the house.   'Til then peace.    d