NunkProTunk or Now as Then

Passed our rough in re-inspection last week. Reinstalled some windows. Easier than expected. BioBased insulation goes in on Monday. (Supporting northwest Arkansas innovation.) Frantic rush to get speaker wire in before the polyol goes in. Dry wall the week after. Hit a stump with our construction loan so we ended up scrambling to pay for the sheathing, siding, and repainting ourselves. School is out so we have a second grader in our house. Lease is up August 1 so we three will be moving back in with my mom. Not my mom and my dad, because, four weeks ago, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died at home, with all of us with him, a week ago, on Father’s Day, during the summer solstice - the shortest night of the year. Memorial service Tuesday. I miss him.

Our grade school is hosting its annual house walk. Proceeds go to the library, and mean that there will be no selling of cookie dough or the like for us although the Little One was a top seller of Girl Scout cookies in her Daisy troop this year - she really enjoyed it.

We are still not ready to be on it unless somebody wants to tour a house with no windows or indoor plumbing or lights.* We do have rough-in plumbing and more than a mile of wiring installed.

Like last year, we’re hosting a house - the Hunts’ house, which I think of as the Januarys’** new house (since they bought it when they moved out of our house in about 1960). We haven’t been inside, but we’ve been in their garden when it was on a garden tour last spring. It is very French (as you might expect, since they own French Metro Antiques), with a brick wall around it, and has two beautiful Montmorency cherries. The cherries are probably what started me thinking about permaculture/sustainable agriculture/joys of having fresh fruit in your own yard.

     The brochure has photos of this year’s houses, and here’s the list:

• Jack and Anne Butt 526 E. Lafayette
• U of A Chancellor Dave and Jane Gearhart 523 North Razorback
• Terry and Renee Hunt 432 North Washington
• John and Jennifer Lewis 137 S. Kestrel
• Philip and Jennifer Maynard 315 N. Washington
• Raymond Niblock 601 North Highland
• Jan and Stacey Sturner 1 West Mount Nord
• Reception and Refreshments at French Metro Antiques 200 West Dickson

This is a great collection of houses, both old (the Hunts’ house is pre-Civil War) and new (the Chancellor’s house is about a year old), for a great cause, so buy a ticket and take a tour. Tickets are available at French Metro Antiques, or at any of the houses the day of the tour.

*Strangely, we do seem to give a lot of tours of our house. The neighborhood seems to believe that a house with no plumbing, little electricity, and fewer and fewer windows every day is an improvement over the five-flat of college students that it was. (We stopped by the house yesterday morning, and three four windows in the living room were gone. I thought we weren’t doing those windows until we moved in, but apparently the siding needs to be replaced there, too. Don says the bright side is that we will only have to rebuild three or four windows after we move in. I guess that’s true. I’ll feel better after he’s put back one of the 87 gazillion we’ve taken out and rebuilt. I think he will, too.)

**Tom January stopped by our house last week while Don was there. He remembers watching the big house fire from Washington, and not being able to go home. He said his parents bought the house from two sisters, presumably the Brown sisters. Don thought he was pleased with how the house was going. (He didn’t think to ask whether he had any pictures of the house.) I think he’s going to stop by with his wife soon. I’d enjoy meeting him.

Last night the Little One came in and announced that her stomach really, really hurt. Soon after that, she was throwing up all over our bedroom floor and herself. Yuck. After I got her cleaned up, she and I spent half an hour lying on the bathroom floor, joined intermittently by Ceefor Cat, while Don cleaned the trail from bedroom to bathroom. While lying there, I remembered how I cracked up our crack team of architects by telling them that I really wanted a bathroom big enough to lie down in. (I believe they said that that might end up on their wall of famous requests from clients. I am sure that it came soon after spending a fairly horrible night in our bathroom.)Our rental bathroom is big enough, but I sure don’t like lying there when I myself have no reason (beyond sympathy) to lie there. Eventually, I carried her back to my bed, where she stayed until she had to barf again a couple of hours later. (She got to the toilet in time.) I am looking forward to a bathroom of our very own, but hope we won’t have to use it for sleeping. 

I loved the tree-lined streets of our neighborhood. Even though we had to cut down five trees over the summer, I loved the settled feeling that you get from tree-lined streets. Except that our streets have considerably fewer trees now. Yes, we got hit by the ice storm the end of January. (Also got hit by lethargy, so I drafted this, but didn’t post, but since then, we almost lost our computer so I shall stop aiming for perfection and see if I can just post.) We spent Monday night-Friday morning at my folks’ place on the Hill because 45+ trees fell on their driveway. We had planned to take advantage of their their in-line generator and work on windows, but it refused to engage, so we were very glad for their wood-burning fireplace. Wednesday, Don and I hiked down and hitched a ride to town with neighbors. We then backpacked supplies back to the house. Thursday afternoon, a four-man crew spent six hours clearing the driveway, and our apartment got power back that evening. We didn’t go back to the apartment until daylight Friday — and, two months later, the driveway is still pretty alarming at night. The Hill got power back Sunday. We got cable, phone, and internet sometime the next week. (One of those package deals.)Before:During:Us: Our apartment escaped unscathed. Our house lost the electric mast, and four more trees. The redbud in the front yard, a massive pecan by the driveway (which fell into the dumpster), and a couple of little trees in the side yards. The debris was piled up chest high.FEMA estimated six months to remove it all, although the contracted removers have already made two passes through the city, and are starting their third (and final) pass. The chipped trees from Fayetteville (about 150,000 cubic yards) are sufficient to mulch 800 acres 5 inches deep, so disposal is going to be a problem. I wish we were further along with the house so I could mulch my gardens with free mulch.

Frank and Ernest are (is?) not on my must-read comics list, but every so often they nail it.

(And … how cool that you can just embed the strip like that. Yay for technology!)

Don met with the plumber today. He starts next week, which means we may one day have indoor bathrooms again. Although it has been convenient to have this in the front yard (complete with weekly maid service), we probably shouldn’t plan on keeping it forever.

Having seen a half dozen houses with original square-edged subway tiles and floor tiles (hex, penny round, and rectangles),* I want some for our house. The modern beveled or pillow-top tile doesn’t look the same. Here are some sources:

• American Restoration Tiles
• Subway Tiles or Bungalow Tiles
• Designs in Tile (there is something wonky with it; last summer, when I started to collect subway tile information, it was booked up years in advance, and now it is just unclear)

American Restoration Tiles seems to best echo the combinations and shapes I’ve found in Arkansas. Not surprising since they’re in Mablevale AR (near Little Rock). They also have the penny round tiles. I feel a field trip coming some day. (We’ve talked a couple of times about stopping while we’re in the area, but the timing has been amazingly bad. Like Saturday. We drove back from Orlando, and went through Little Rock at 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday. Not a good time to find a tile company open.) The real problem is the price. I don’t have precise prices, but it looks like it will be $32/square foot for the subway tiles and up. Maybe less for the floor. Except I love the penny rounds, which are $42/square foot and up. We have considerably less in the budget for tile.

Of course, there’s always the real deal. Only there are no real deals for salvaged tile. This source wants $3.75/tile for antique, plain subway tile, which I think comes to $20/square foot. Plus shipping from New Jersey.

Maybe I’ll go over budget on the upstairs floors, install wood floors downstairs, and beadboard and/or stencil the walls until we can afford subway tiles. (I’m thinking about using 1/16″masking tape to simulate the grout line, and maybe faux marble in between. In the dry areas, obviously.) We have a lot of beadboard salvaged from the house. It’s all painted and splintery, so it’s not as nice as the beadboard we used in LaGrange Park,** but it’s free, and original to the house.

Or maybe we’ll go with linoleum. We recently bought green porcelain sconces (on clearance from Rejuvenation), and I recently saw a nice bathroom floor done with black and green linoleum squares set on the diagonal.

*We went on a Little Rock house walk last Mother’s Day where we saw a half-dozen examples of antique subway tile, and that solidified my desire to have square-edged tiles instead of rounded edges. But I apparently took only a single picture, and it’s not particularly gorgeous. Still, here it is.

Here is part of my collection of floors in Arkansas:

** I also am lacking in pictures of the beadboard, as installed in the main upstairs bathroom. Not surprising since the bathroom is very narrow and the beadboard is on the narrow wall. Still, here’s one picture.

While waiting for financing, we have been doing other things like rebuilding windows, planning our landscape, and making fairy houses. The Little One had some specific ideas about how a fairy house should look, which she sketched out for me.

She told me later that one of them was round. However,Don built a regular-shaped house, which she declared was even better than a round house. He painted them with leftover spray paint, and then the Little One and I scavenged shelf lichens, moss, and acorn caps on a nature walk on the Hill. She furnished the interior with sage and thistledown because she knows just what fairies like, and I got to use a hot glue gun for the first time. Fun.

Sometime this winter, we’ll spray it with a coat of polyurethane, finish the other one, and put them out for the fairies to enjoy. I think she still believes in fairies, although the gig is up for Santa. Merry Christmas!

We started the construction loan process in early October when we realized that our Chicago equity was disappearing.  Approximately 75 days, or 1800 hours, or 108,000 minutes or 6,480,000 seconds later, we finally closed the loan this morning.  I cannot listen cheerfully to senators blaming car makers for not being able to get a loan from the banks.

Our main misstep was in starting work before we got the construction loan although we had a small stumble over the appraisal.  The bank worries about mechanics’ liens beating the bank in priority.  We deal with that by getting lien waivers from all future subcontractors.  Whatever.

We have nine months to complete construction, but it is supposed to be relatively simple to get an extension because the extension comes out of the first sixty months of our 5/5/5/5/5/5 ARM.  (The 9-month construction loan and the first 5 years/60 months of our ARM are at 5.95%.  If the construction takes longer, then the 60 months will be shorter, so that the total remains 69 months at 5.95%.  We just pay down principal for less of the time so the P+I will be a little higher.)  The ARM has a cap and a shoe (or whatever the bottom is — it will never go below 5.95%, which doesn’t seem so great given the below 5% rates we’re hearing about for thirty-year fixed, but it’s better than our current mortgage, since that one was for non-owner-occupied … even though we paid a point for that mortgage). It only recalculates every five years.  I’ve had ARMs before without problems, and we’ve never stayed 5 years in a house, so it will probably work out.  Assuming the housing market in northwest Arkansas doesn’t completely dissolve, we can also refinance without a prepayment penalty.

Oh, and we don’t have to make house payments during the term of the construction loan.  But, we do have to pay all the accrued interest at the end of the construction loan, so we’ll either make house payments or we’ll put that money aside each month.  (Or, I guess we could take a cash advance on a credit card.  Not.)  Knowing Don, I bet we’ll make monthly interest payments since we are allowed to.

Who am I kidding? We’ve been out of money the better part of a month, and I haven’t posted. Maybe just posting tonight will get me started again.

Tonight, Don is on his way home from returning his mom to Chicago after we borrowed her for a couple of weeks, and the Little One drew her own bath and is splashing around so I’m writing. (He was there on Election Night, but didn’t go to the City.) We took her to see various sights, from War Eagle and Applegate craft fairs (where the Little One bought more than we did) to Terra Studios to the Fayetteville Farmers’ Market to Little Rock (zoo, art museum, Flying Fish, the Arkansas River from both North Little Rock and Little Rock sides, a couple of estate sales,* and the Riverfront Park). I don’t think she’s going to move here, but we had a good time and good weather.

Although we may expand on our past house doings later, in sum, we have:

• a new foundation,
• a new roof (with reflective sheathing),
• new exterior walls on the back third of the house,
• most of the framing done (including a lot of new old walls due to the extent of the fire),
• missing windows on the front of the house,
• no plumbing (unless you count the Potty House** out front),
• a storm shelter,
• one set of outlets,
• lots of extension cords,
• a new electric service,
• three fewer trees, or maybe four,
• fewer Japanese honeysuckles (invasive creatures),
• new kitchen subfloor,
• a design for the front yard (middle only; I can’t cope with planning the woodland sides of the front yard)
• lots of estimates for everything that’s left.

We’ve been working with two banks to see about getting a construction loan. (Yes, we waited until the market tanked to run out of money.) The most recent issue has been that we started work without them. I think they wanted to get their construction loan recorded ahead of any sub-contractors, but then the loan would have been bigger since they want it to be finished in 9-12 months, no matter how much work lies ahead. I think one of the banks has found a title company willing to insure over the subs, so we’ll probably be back in the money one way or another. Once we have the money, we’ll do plumbing. Otherwise, Don can always rebuild windows.

*I bought some more half-size cupcake pans so I can make a full recipe of yellow cake cupcakes*** in the tiny pans so I don’t have to eat a full cupcake when I want to sample other desserts, too. Also, a big white round casserole (like my ramekins, only big) and a liquid tablespoon measuring cup, and an Ozark Do-Nothing for the Little One. I didn’t buy two club chairs that I quite liked. We took the Honda to Little Rock, and they couldn’t possibly have fit, and Don and his mom were leaving the next day for Chicago, so those will be the chairs that got away.

** The Potty House is serviced weekly, and the service apparently includes setting it upright when it gets tipped over as an early Halloween trick.

*** Here’s what the cupcakes looked like in mid-October. Our neighbor burned a bunch of our brush, we grilled hotdogs and marshmallows, and I brought cupcakes for Don’s birthday. I made another batch for my office’s birthday later in the month, and I made some for the Little One’s birthday party. I’m looking forward to having enough little pans.

One of the places I went during our prolonged blog silence was a field trip to UT-Galveston Medical Branch. (Umm. Before Ike. Right after Dolly.) My dad and his brothers (and their father) all have (or had, in the case of Poppaw) a spinocerebellar ataxia that hasn’t matched anyone else’s ataxia genes as of yet, so we went to visit my uncle’s neurologist. The neurologist was not as helpful as we had hoped, but the visit was great. (A lot of driving, however, from Fayetteville AR to College Station TX and thence to Galveston. And back.) We had creamed corn, purple hull peas, corn bread, two desserts, and some sort of meat, along with great company for dinner. And more great company when we visited my Houston cousin and her son. (Memory fades on the details.) My uncle called dinner a Floy meal, and he was right.

(Lisa, The Uncles and my mom)

We left, however, with a small mystery. One of the two stained glass windows (above) at my uncle’s house is from the Jackson Street Methodist Church in Magnolia AR. The other is not. None of us are sure which one it is. (My folks bought it for my grandmother long after the church was replaced by Asbury UMC.) So, I’ll need to share this post with my cousin who remembers more than I do, and who has cleaned that window more than I have. I have a feeling I know the answer, but I don’t want to bias her.