Windows

When we first acquired this apartment, standing from anywhere in the house, it sounded as if all of the windows were open. Air and noise (and ugly) flowed freely. We have replaced every window in the apartment (12 in all) with white vinyl replacement windows, re-insulated around them and I have painstakingly stripped, sanded, filled, caulked, and re-painted the trim, which had approximately a million layers, and 91 years, of bad chipping and peeling paint. Before, the trim was painted the same color as the walls, a flat gritty grayish white.


BEFORE:


AFTER:


Also, the trees got green!

By my calculations, the cost of replacing all the windows in the apartment is not justifiable by the amount of income (rent raised) that it brings in, but in my opinion, it is really necessary for several reasons:

1) energy efficiency- There's no way you can reasonably heat and cool a house with that amount of air flowing through the windows.
2) comfort- same thing. My front living room was unusable for comfort reasons in the coldest part of the year until I replaced the window. Not fun to sit by a drafty window.
3) aesthetic- crisp, clean, and white. They just look cleaner and nicer from the inside and the outside. Particularly if the outside has been fitted with aluminum screens and storm windows. Removing that old gray bit from the outside really makes it pop. The exception to this point is when you have original wood unpainted windows. This is what is in my own house now and it is sad to remove the original when they are still beautiful.
4) value- Units with new windows will rent for higher amounts than if they didn't have new windows. Like I said above, the cost, unlike most improvements, is not quite justifiable by this amount only though. However, I believe that the value it adds to the property overall (realized when selling or refinancing) makes it perfectly justifiable.
5) cleaning- the sashes on these new windows unlatch and fold in towards the living space to almost horizontal, making them a breeze to clean. No climbing around outside the house. No pulling out layers of flimsy storm windows and then trying to get them back in correctly. Screens pop out easily too for cleaning.

Because there are a few extra hoops to jump through for government tax credits on new energy-efficient windows, I don't pursue this. The other advantages are enough for me to keep it simple.

Bathroom, 3/4 there

Here is the bathroom at the apartment-in-progress, as of a few days ago. It's even better now, and final photos will follow shortly.

Thanks for the photos, Mom.

The BIG project: Bathroom

Ok, so this is what I've really been working on. In February, my dad and I bought this duplex in the neighborhood and have been renovating the top apartment ever since. Here are some before pictures of the bathroom.








The tub "surround" is a DIY job that someone saw on HGTV with brown paper bags and some kind of clear adhesive coating that, in the right context, looks like a neat leather faux finish. But not in a shower.

The tub is not level, and so the water runs out the top, down the side and down in between the shower and the vanity where both the wooden vanity and the floor were rotted out and the downstairs tenants' kitchen ceiling caving in.

The door has a mirror framed in gold-painted spray foam insulation as trim. Classy.

So we ripped out the surround, all the walls (several layers of drywall and plaster). We replaced the window, along with all the other windows in the house. We tore up the floor, put down a new wooden subfloor and concrete board on top of that. We added two sets of built-in cubby shelves, new drywall, a new vanity, a new tub surround, and new light fixtures. We tore out and re-installed the crooked tub, and put down new flooring.

After pictures coming soon!

Eco-Hypocrite

I have an ant problem that I have been battling for two summers so far. So, sadly, this year, as the ants have started to come out again, I poured ant poison granules all around my house. Then, I diligently recycled the bottle.

Berries

I really enjoy gardening, and have had two or three gardens at previous residences. Although I LOVE my 1920 duplex in the city, because it was built on a side street corner, what would have been my decent-sized backyard has been subdivided into two lots and there is a tiny house built between my back porch and the alley, effectively eliminating my backyard and leaving no room for a garden. And even though I totally believe in gardening more than having chemical-lawns, my man disagrees, and won't allow me to till up my also-very-small front yard to grow veggies. For the second season in a row, he has been diligently tending the small patches of grass and they are starting to look like a lawn that any upper-middle-class-suburb-dweller could be proud of. So... that's nice, but still no garden.

So then there are the sides of my house. One side has a small bed that is approximately 2 feet wide, raised and bordered with railroad ties and right next to the sidewalk. Last year I moved and transplanted all the bulbs that had been growing untended for years into better spots, and filled the bed with mostly lilies, a few daffodils, and an occasional tulip. They are doing really well.

Then the other side has a bed running along it that is about 4 ft wide, low to the ground, with the neighbor's driveway next to it. This has become my berry patch.



The first two-thirds have been planted with red raspberry transplants from a friend's garden along with a few that I got a good deal on from a mail-order nursery. They were planted haphazardly halfway through the first summer I lived here and tended badly, so I didn't expect them to survive. Despite that, they grew again through last summer, giving me a few berries. Earlier this spring, before they started to bud, I pruned the canes down and am hoping that this is finally the year to get a good crop.



In addition, last summer, one of my roommates brought with her a couple of strawberry transplants, which we stuck in the ground, and which have EXPLODED this year. The strawberry section is creeping into the raspberry section where there wasn't quite enough sun for the raspberries to thrive. This is the first strawberry bloom of the season. (And yes, a weed.)



A few years ago, I bought Earthbound Farm's Food to Live By by Myra Goodman. They got their start growing raspberries and so have an entire chapter dedicated to raspberry recipes which I have been waiting for years to try, because grocery store raspberries are too expensive and never as good. (FYI- this is a great cookbook, highly recommended.)

So, needless to say, I am terribly excited about the prospect of a small berry crop this year, as this is my only edible plant besides the potted herbs that my roommate grows. I have dreams of homemade strained frozen raspberry yogurt, in particular.