2006 Year In Review

update: We have started the new year with a renovation of 1912bungalow.com. That being said, the comment system was down since New Year's Eve but is now up and running again. We're sorry that we missed your comments over the last day or so.
- david chiu

Compared to our past pace, 2006 was a very slow year on the house restoration front. We completed one project. Our project wasn't even a large one, but it was labor intensive as all our projects somehow seem to be.

It has finally sunk in that we don't have the stamina to have house projects going all the time, one after another, lets hurry up and get everything done so our house is restored all ready. Our what seemed realistic at the time plan, the one where we complete all the work on our house within five years? It's now the 10 year plan or the hopefully we get the house done before we die plan. Considering this is our fourth year in the house and we are barely halfway done, I think the new plan is a good call.

We have decided that completing one project a year is a more realistic pace for us. Although, it would have been nice to have restored the kitchen and our main bathroom before we hit upon the one project a year for a more balanced life approach. I think it is going to be a while before I have the ever changing kitchen of my dreams.

January
My dad came to visit and finished some plumbing work he had started the year before. This culminated with hooking up the sink in our downstairs half bath. It only took us 3 years to actually have water running out of a faucet in one of our bathrooms. Yes!

February
The episode of "Restoration Realities" featuring us aired on the DIY television network. Really, they were here for the house. Along with the show's host and carpenter we built a period appropriate screen door and weather stripped our windows and front door. Despite feeling like I looked ginormous, they say the camera adds 10 pounds, I was happy with the way the show turned out - although, I felt a little differently right after we finished shooting.

Heather + Dave on Restoration Realities Part 1
Restoration Realities Part 2
Restoration Realities Part 3
Restoration Realities Part 4

March
Did absolutely NO work on the house.

April
Did absolutely NO work on the house, but may have scared a very nice sounding family away from the idea of restoring a rundown Craftsman home of their own.

May
Did absolutely NO work on the house. Starting to see a theme here?

Simon, our beloved 2 year old corgi, died unexpectedly.

We adopted a demanding but lovable 28 lb. feline named Tiny. Apparently his previous owners had a sense of humor.

June
Did absolutely NO work on the house, but did manage to get very depressed over the death of Simon and my grandmother who had passed away 2 years earlier.

July
Did absolutely NO work on the house, but I saw Dr. 90210 at the mall.

I finally resolved the ownership issue of the oil and mineral rights to our property. It's a long story. We do own the mineral rights to our property and have begun collecting royalty payments on those rights. Although, we haven't received a payment lately...and that makes me scared to even mention anything about our situation here. After everything we went through, I'm afraid of jinxing things by talking about them.

August
We headed East to attend the wedding of David's younger brother, Jon. While there we also spent time in Baltimore with a good friend of mine from high school and in Richmond, VA, with my best friend from college. We had a great time but it was so hot and humid. We are very spoiled by Los Angeles weather.

The Chiu family, left to right
David's youngest brother Chris, David, me, David's father, David's sister Charissa, David's mother, Mary the bride, and David's brother Jon the groom.

While we were out of town our cat Hemingway had a stroke and had to be put to sleep. Not a very good year to be a pet in our house. I didn't write about it here because it was too sad after losing Simon just a few months before.

I gave David a belated birthday present of a corgi puppy. Just what he always wanted! We named the puppy Winston.

And, finally some work on the house! Stripped the woodwork and doors of the stairwell, landing and upstairs back hallway. I purchased leaded glass French doors from the early 1900's off of eBay for the upstairs back hallway.

September
Pablo and crew plastered the walls in the stairwell and back hallway.

I publicly confess that I have resentful feelings towards the house for the first time. I think I used the word "hate." And, in certain moments I do hate the house. There, I said it again. We are at an odd point in our restoration experience. The honeymoon period with the house is definitely over.

Maybe this is normal? Maybe around year 4 of an extensive restoration project everyone starts hating their house a little bit, or at least all the time, money and energy that goes into it? After all the work on our house year, after year, after year, we are barely at the halfway point of having our home fully restored.

I'm not talking about nit-picky, little obsessive things - I mean walls without holes in the plaster, ceilings that aren't caving in, sinks with running water, a shower. Just the basics. And, now I know exactly what it is going to cost and how much work it is going to take to get there.

I'm still passionate about the house and think all this will be worth it...someday when the house is finished. But, there is also something else. Feelings of frustration and deep resentment. Anyone know of a support group for wayward house bloggers? :)

It's not like I hate the house all the time. It comes and goes. There are moments when I also love our house. Most of those loving moments are spent in the completed portion of the house.

October
We discovered that the upstairs sleeping porch, a 1918 addition, was inadequately framed. I'm not sure if inadequate is a strong enough word to describe opening up a wall and discovering two 2x2's as the sole support for a load bearing wall. Shocking comes to mind, so does what the hell were they thinking, quickly followed by I wonder how poorly the rest of the sleeping porch is built?

Pablo rebuilt the wall and put in the leaded glass French doors.

November
Ah, November...November was a month chock full of resentful, or maybe even hateful feelings. There was a lot to hate (my family not included).

Getting right to it, we both hated the color I selected to paint the stairwell and hallway. I was going for silvery sage but ended up with baby nursery mint green. We received alot of wonderful paint color suggestions, but in the end decided to go with a blue green color that matches the original 1912 wall color of our bedroom.

This leads us to The MOST Mysterious Occurrence that has happened during our entire restoration process. Two weeks after the woodwork was stained and sealed with several coats of varnish the woodwork faded. Drastically. Overnight. We have no idea how or why this happened. It's so unbelievable. I didn't even know that such a thing was possible? We are hoping that someone out there might be able to provide an answer.

We spent Thanksgiving with my family in Indiana. So, nice to mention my family after talking about lots to hate. Just kidding...we had a good time. Here are some pictures David took while on the farm over Thanksgiving in 2003. Things don't change much on the farm.

Photo of David and my brother, Daniel. Daniel is a freshman at Purdue University studying aviation. Both David and I flew with Daniel in that little airplane you see parked behind them.

December
Our stairwell and back hallway project is completed. One more down, seven major projects left to go...

David and I spent a quiet Christmas in our little bungalow, just the two of us.

Looking forward to 2007!

Posted by heather at December 31, 2006 2:43 PM

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2005 Year In Review, 2004 Year In Review, 2003, What We Have Accomplished So Far,