Beebe -- our 1935 Bungalow on Baker Street.

[Lily left the valley]

Lily, I see a formal Victorian look to your scetch, maybe the "overly imaginative" brain of yours deeply wants a grand Victorian rather than a grand Craftsman.

Is that mostly because of the paneled bits on the porch and lower fencing? I got the idea from these homes below. The first was labeled as an arts and crafts, and the latter is labeled a craftsman. I have images of other older bungalows with wider than usual balusters as well.


Here, I know local code will require we keep the porch stairway railing as well as put another on the right hand side since we'll lose the grandfather, even if that isn't customary for bungalows. If we have to do that, I'd rather continue the rail pattern down like I saw in the image below. We could keep the pipe on the lower concrete stairs, but that already feels disjointed to me with the left wood rail that replaced the original pipe when they redid the concrete stairs with partial wood.


Garden plantings wise, though...that's a mix. We have a rather steep slope in the front, and it's mostly badly maintained grass right now, which I don't want to keep. On the driveway side, the slope currently is almost a pure vertical drop, and we've got a lot of erosion there. I've been watching water retention/pooling since the rains started, and my concern is that if we don't go with a "wall o' ground cover" or step it as I did in the sketch, we might start losing a lot more ground. The main reason for the stone under the fencing is, again, concern about soil retention.

For frontage, I like a bit more formal in look, and I do like the Victorian leaning of separating public and private spaces in that fashion, hence the short fence. The backyard, though, will be a lot more organic. I do love Victorian homes, there's no debate from me there, even if I lean more towards the Carpenter Gothics that are more like the vernacular Vics in regards to less ostentious ornamentation overall. Maintaining them, though? When I was younger, maybe. To me the bungalow is easier to keep up myself for the most part for at least a few more decades.

The other thing I pondered is our neighborhood. Most of them have fairly orderly if sparse yards in front. I thought maybe having something a bit more tailored would fit in better. The craftsman next door, she pretty much just has a lot of neatly trimmed evergreen bushes with some hostas here and there.

I guess we could go back to concrete stairs up to the porch when we finally getting around to working on the porch overall (it's currently slowly sliding downhill... ) I guess although I like pipe rails, I just don't think they mesh well with the wood porches of bungalows. I know it's still a "natural" material and all, but just about any other metal form might be too decorative or look like a bad remuddle.

Let me know what you think after knowing some of the behind the design thoughts. Now I'm a bit worried I'll be creating a weird schism.

[Lily left the valley]

The downstairs bath has both a cup holder as well as a toothbrush/paste holder.

Welp, our toothbrushes don't fit in them, and neither of us uses a cup, really. I know, I know, we're savages.

Anyhoo...we'd been temporarily using the cup holder as the hand towel holder because there is a lack of any towel or TP holders in there, and it's just too small a base for trying to use it for a bar of soap either. In my past experience trying to use a cup holder for soap, I've found that it is never ideal as getting the soap scum out--even with a rubber holder that allows air under to help the cake dry out to keep the scum down. The toothbrush/paste one though, I've been puzzling over, wondering how I might incorporate a bar on it to make that a more proper towel bar.

Then this morning it dawned on me. We can use both in the kitchen.

With some removable additions of some form of rustproof ring/hooks on the toothbrush/paste holder, it can turn into a sponge holder (where the tube of toothpaste is supposed to go), as well as all our various scrub brushes (straws, veggies, glasses, etc.) I double checked just now after removing the piece from the bathroom wall, and it will hold the brushes out just far enough so they won't wet the wood trim, and seems the brushes hanging down will fit pretty unobtrusively in the gap where the faucet juts out from the hot and cold.

The cup holder can hold the steel wool. I already keep it in a small ingredient cup to keep the rust off the sink area, but now it can be off the windowsill as well.

The windowsill has been something I've been trying to decide as to curtains or shades, whether we want to try to put some herb there or just accept reality that if I want to open the bottom part for air, I want the sills clear--which is much more likely since we do not have central air here, and tend to rely on through breezes except for some aid with window fans in the hottest months.

So, now I'm pondering the ring/hooks I might be able to find later today at the hardware store for the brushes, and then it's just deciding on placement. There might also be something similar to the ring on stained glass hangers were the metal goes around the nub behind the cup, and has the one bit for the hanger portion of the stained glass. I'm not sure if that metal will be rust resistant, but maybe I can spray it with a coat of poly spray or rubber dip them. Some of the brushes have rings I can use if I open the top wire twist another turn to broaden the ring portion, but at least two bits might need a little something as they either lack a hook or the opening won't fit in the current slot system.

I'll post pics later whether it all works out as planned or not. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to the hardware store or not. There's already two drywall screws in just about the right place in the window trim wood there that I can use at least one of, so less new hole drilling for that, since the wood is original. Time will tell.

[Lily left the valley]

I just had an interesting realization today.

The two bedrooms (east and west) are not exact mirrors. In truth, I knew they weren't perfectly exact already because the chimney juts in to the east. But...today when I was measuring to try to figure out where to put the chifforobe in our bedroom, something dawned on me when I was looking at how we laid out the room. So I walked across the hall, and looked over there. We don't currently have another bed yet for the "guest room", in fact it's full of boxes full of clothes (we enjoy costume events/conventions though we haven't done as much of late for various reasons).

Still, it felt off. I had the tape measure already in my hand, so I measured to the closet wall in the west room, then walked back across the hall and measured the same. The east bedroom was definitely longer. I pondered if this was sleep deprivation talking, so I went back and double checked. Over a foot difference. That's when it dawned on me. The east bedroom ceiling has a section fairly high up where it's angled to fit the roof slope. The west does not. That got me to thinking about the oddness of how the building is a shade longer going back on ²/₃rds of the house--favoring the east, part of which is the odd build up protection for walking up the cellar stairs to the backyard, as can be seen from this image taken from the south.


Still, it didn't seem quite equal, and then I figured the difference. The west walk in closet (I can walk in a portion of them, folks taller than me would have issues) has a wider walkable passage than the east. At my eye level (I'm 5'6"), it was 42" or so across from wall to sloped ceiling in the west closet, but in the east, it was something like 27" (I forgot to write the exacts down.)

For starters, this explains why my one floor plan was off, I had forgotten the pull in on that side of the house, and that's why the MCM furniture didn't fit in the office along with everything else. Yet it also raised a predicament we hadn't thought of yet.

Originally, we had thought of making that the craft room because of the costumes. Yet the room is the only one up there with no radiator (ever, as far as we know), which would mean potential cold during winter when we'd be doing most of our crafting unless we supplemented with something. That room, coincidentally, also has the only four outlet box in the entire house. That outlet also suffered a small electrical fire, as evidenced by the burnt bits on the not replaced nor covered box. We immediately assumed an electrical heater overwhelmed the 15 circuit that it was most likely wired to, and our inspector agreed. (We do still have two circuits that were not marked "spare", but we can't figure what they go to yet.) That room also was the furthest from the bathroom up there, and some of our crafting (models, canvas) does involve paint.

Since we are in New England, there's less chance that we'd get company in the winter, so we ultimately decided to make that room the guest bedroom even though there is currently no heat in there. Even with our costuming stuff, the smaller closet to the north could be kept open for guests, and even with our costumes in the larger walk in to the south, there would still be some room for such too. We could work out something related to the heat later as well. The north bedroom has no closets, and is on the street side which does get school buses and trucks for the few nearby businesses west of us.--that was actually the original deciding factor in why to not make that the guest bedroom, and the fact that it was that much closer (barely) to the sink was just a bonus.

So I thought we had it all worked out. Until I realized, given the swing of the door, plus the loss of over a foot of width (that our bed uses on the other side to perfect advantage to fit)...now we had a "where can a queen sized bed go" problem.

It could go under the sole window of that room, but then the foot of the bed would be just misssed a brush past with the door to the hall. Worse, if someone should stumble out of bed in the dark to get up to use the bathroom, that's also where that atypical step down landing is, which could cause an almost immediate tumble down the stairs before they'd have a chance to get their bearings. It could also go on the opposite wall between the door and the walk in closet wall, but that will leave very little room for a side table (if any), and my inlaws would not be keen to stay in a bed that is pushed up against a wall to make room on the door side.



I have now bumped "retake room measurements" to much higher on the "not pressing, but needed" list.

[Lily left the valley]

Had a brief and well executed visit from our local oil company we'll be going with for fuel. They have various budget plans, and they send him out for free to help new home owners estimate what size their plan should be constructed around. The plans run from May - April. He agreed that it's really more of an offering to help folks spread the cost burden over the year for the most part although some programs (for an additional fee) have price guarantees attached.

We spoke briefly on insulation, and he told me outright that the 800 gallon recommendation he was going to make would be 1000 if we weren't planning on insulating the attic. He was rather shocked that there was no insulation at all up there, but he found the joke about the quilts funny. He spoke glowingly about how we have a steam system. My kind of folk.

One nice thing he also said during our conversation is that we do have a good boiler in place, affirming what our inspector said. However, he did tell me one thing I did not know prior, and that was whomever installed the boiler saved themselves some money by having one with a copper heating coil installed. (He rattled off two other metal types, but I already forgot them though I'm sure I can look them up easy enough.) Apparently, the water here in Gardner is known for chewing through copper. He said we'd likely be needing to get that replaced sooner rather than later. He said some homes, a copper coil will last a year at best. I'm wondering now if that means they are on well water without the filtration the city offers, but I didn't think to ask at the time. We do have some homes in the area that are--you can get septic only service from the city. He seemed surprised that the copper coil we have hadn't given out yet. He also noted that our float on our tank, despite the tank being new was a bit stiff. I wondered if that was due to how low we are right now, but he didn't say either way, just that he noticed it when he pulled it up to check. One thing I should have asked is if maybe it means we have sludge issues, but I can always ask about that later. I still can't help but think that the problem tenants of the past might have been remiss in yearly maintenance.

Based off of that, I'm now re-evaluating long term plans I had for plumbing work in the cellar.

In other utility related news, we received our first water bill, and they gauge in cubic feet when I'm used to gallons. As Tex predicted, the water difference for whatever's going on with the boiler hasn't caused as much loss as I'd feared. 42 gallons a day average, which is lower than what the web says an average person uses in the U.S., and there are two of us living here. So I guess we're doing ok there.

That reminds me. I have to make sure Gardner isn't one of those towns that is anti water barrel. I want to set one up for the garden.

Speaking of outdoorsy things, I have a lot of dandelions to uproot today.

[Texas_Ranger]

Ugh, if your water is known to attack copper I'd definitely get some pH test paper (lithmus paper) and check it! If it's below 7.2 or something (not quite sure where trouble starts) I'd be worried about drinking tap water over a longer period of time if you have copper plumbing! If it was really bad you'd probably notice green deposits under every tap, particularly in the shower but I it doesn't have to be that extreme. I spent my childhood summer at a farm that had fairly acidic spring water and while the holiday apartment (in a separate building) had PVC pipes, the main house had copper and every sink and tub was green all over! I don't think the family ever had health issues but better safe than sorry!

Water seems to be charged and measured in odd units everywhere - we have cubic metres instead of litres too. Probably litres would be too cumbersome for larger houses (1 cbm = 1000 l or roughly 250 gallons).

[Lily left the valley]

Ugh, if your water is known to attack copper I'd definitely get some pH test paper (lithmus paper) and check it! If it's below 7.2 or something (not quite sure where trouble starts) I'd be worried about drinking tap water over a longer period of time if you have copper plumbing!

Our plumbing is a huge mish-mash. We have cast, copper, PVC, and pex. When they redid the boiler, all the lines that run to and from the boiler for domestic water (not steam) are copper. I think I found one other small patch somewhere, but I'll check again tomorrow to be sure. Most is not, which if you're right is a good thing! I have not noticed that green anywhere, but of course now I'm going to be looking for it. I think I've lived somewhere before that had something like that. We do use a BRITA pitcher, and that's from old habit because we have lived in some very metal heavy areas. Even tea water and Kira's water dish get poured out of that pitcher. Now I want to setup that rain barrel even more for the garden.

Some hardware stores have the test kits that I've noticed in the past, so I'll look into it. Thanks for the tip!

~~~~~Our yard
Our yard was neglected for a while. It seems that the last time anyone cared for it was when the Google Earth images were taken of our house six years ago.

There is a lot of overgrowth and rubbish and small bits of children's plastic toys. There was a fire pit--in which they burned just about whatever--even glass and metals. Sadly, this includes furniture. Loads of hardware in the ash. We removed most of it, but there is still ash and trash and bits to dig up. We've done a few passes of clean up already, but I forgot to take a "before" after the snow melted. Part of that rubbish is broken glass, crushed beer cans, and bits and whole parts of metal from car and bike repairs. There's also some odd white wire like something that I keep finding everywhere. It gets brittle when it freezes, so there are thousands of bits to pick up, and I seriously wish I was exaggerating, as I am soooo sick of picking that stuff up and I don't know when I will ever get the last of it. You have to be careful doing just about any work with your hands because you never know what you'll find. We also have squirrels who are prodigious in burying acorns and other bits as well. Many mini saplings abound that we're addressing as time allows. I took some photos today, which I'll put just the mini images at the bottom of the thread. My usual commentary can be seen in some when you embiggen them.

When I was young, and we lived in a multifamily with my mom's folks, they had a tremendous garden. Most of it was a wide variety of plants, trees, shrubs, flowers--not really decorative grass or hardscaping though. They also had the east edge that lined up with part of their half of the house fenced off as a huge vegetable garden, with a compost just behind one of the regular beds and accessible only through the veggie garden. They also used the fish leftovers from my grandfather's fishing trips that happened over spring and summers which stocked their full sized upright freezer with flounder that lasted until Lent. (Yep, we did a lot of fishing.)

My grandparents were both children of the Depression Era. So even though you'd find loads of commercial frozen veggies and canned goods in their home that they would label with dates (this was before expiry dates became common for canned goods) so when they'd hit ShopRite's CanCan sale each year, they'd rotate any left from the last time. Still, summer and early fall was all about what was grown in the garden. She also canned some as well, and made strawberry jam. They even grew asparagus, and tried corn one year too, it was quite a wide variety of food. There was also one tiny strawberry patch that grew close to the backyard drain in the sidewalk as well. When they added a great room to the house (I think when I was in undergrad), that sacrificed part of the veggie garden. Yet, at that point there were getting older, so it made sense.

I did help with their garden a bit, but we've moved around so much in the last 15 years, plus college for many years before that, so I now remember very little of what I learned back then. I did handle the landscaping at the property I managed in NJ, but didn't really garden there. Before that, I mostly just tended whatever beds were already present at rentals, which I also did at our apartment here in MA.

So in some ways, I'm so thrilled to have a yard and garden that is ours. On the other hand, I feel like a fool because there's so much I need to relearn and remember.

Because of the neglect, and our complete lack of spare cash for clean up and upkeep, I'm just glad I have what tools I do, and eventually I'll find the box the few bags of flower seed and pips I have are hiding in to plant as well. Hopefully! Oh, and I do love the fact that we have the mini woodland area bit going on, as well as all the wonderful moss we have! I am not a turf grass well manicured lawn person. Nope.

Here's what we've got to work with. I know the previous owner before she passed and the daughter started renting it, and possibly one tenant did do their best with making the place look nice. Now we're trying to bring it back to glory, but it's tough because I'm also waiting to see what's there to begin with so I don't rip out something by accident. So it's more clean up right now.

My camera ran out of batteries while I was taking the shots below. It was already way past dinnertime, so I called it a day. As you can see when you look at them, they taper off just as you come around to the front of the house.

[Lily left the valley]

Calling

{snip}If 1935 is indeed the correct date, it's definitely one of the last of its kind that was constructed.

&

{snip}Ugh, if your water is known to attack copper I'd definitely get some pH test paper (lithmus paper) and check it!

I didn't know if you both had this thread reply notice marked, so I wanted to make sure you saw what I posted for you.

[Texas_Ranger]

Re: the picture of the copper pipes under your kitchen sink in the other thread: it might not mean that much that they're green on the outside, I'd be a lot more worried if the water actually left stains on white surfaces like inside sinks, tubs or showers. Pool water test kits are dirt cheap though so no harm in getting one. Or it might be as simple as a call to the water supplier, asking if the water in your part of town is safe for copper pipes.

[Lily left the valley]

I'm really not too concerned, as there's been no sign of the green coming out of the pipe, as it were. I just thought it was funny because when I found myself hunting up that thread after failing to find or remember the other copper I had seen in the house overall, there were the pictures--copper pipes! If they hadn't had the green on the outside, I may well have glazed right over that.

The next time I hit the plumbing & electrical place, I will ask them about the Gardner water/copper claim as well.

[Gothichome]

Lily, I see a formal Victorian look to your scetch, maybe the "overly imaginative" brain of yours deeply wants a grand Victorian rather than a grand Craftsman.

Lily, read past this several times, best get it answered. Your scetch to my eye has a formal terraced look with a fancy formal balladstraid deliniating the terrace. That, and a formal Victorian style of you plantings and every thing in it's place.