Don Davis gallery

Perhaps the greatest transformation took place downstairs in the Hotel Suite/Mud Room (pronounced hoh-tel sweet slash muhd roo m).

Back in January 2007, when we were still in the planning process for this renovation and working with the incredibly impractical Dumas architecture firm, we articulated a key goal:

Give a reason to go downstairs. The area is now a basement with a door to the backyard and feels like an excellent place to develop musculoskeletal maladies.

Thankfully, in January 2008, we cut our losses, stepped away from the firm’s over-priced, unbuildable schemes, sketched a more doable design ourselves and found a relatively inexpensive architect to complete the drawings.

While we waited for the renderings, we got to work. On March 16, we started doing the demolition on the walk-out basement ourselves.

In May 2008, we made the wise decision of hiring Steve Wasko as our primary builder. Structural repairs began downstairs on June 28. August was a month of tremendous progress. (Could a year have passed already?) One tree trunk lally column holding up the upstairs was replaced by two proper supports, among other improvements mandated by the structural engineer we needed to hire.

As Matt noted: “It is like getting a new house from the inside out.”

Replacement stairs were built in October 2008. Matt had the team construct them in an “L” shape, versus the straight shot we traversed in the past. With the space defined, and before Igor (whom I’d never recommend) installed the drywall over the new framing and insulation, we ordered a hospital curtain track from the easy to work with people at Brite Inc.

In January 2009, our Railco Metalcraft railings were installed. We took care of paint, stair treads and trim. By June, we were adding a radiant heating system to the floor, followed by tile. (We learned—too late—about the almost impossible to remove resin haze the pre-mixed grout leaves behind. Matt has doused the floor with various chemicals during the past weeks to try to reduce the shiny splotches.)

After a lot of searching online, we found a storage bed—and seem to have gotten the last one in the country from the very nice people at FOW in Fair Lawn.

After the bed arrived in mid-July, we did some fine-tuning, including tiling the ledge behind the bed, paint touch-ups and caulking, etc. Then came one of my favorite aspects of feathering my nest: Hanging art. At last, we could place the five paintings created, selected and given to us by Matt’s dad, Don.

The curtains Matt picked up at deep discount from a going out of business sale informed our paint color choice for that wall of the house. Then Matt’s mom, Jean, was kind enough to sew the two panels together, creating on-demand privacy.

I cannot believe what this house has been through... But for this corner of our home, at least, it may be time to declare: “Yes! We are done!”

Bronze Anniversary

To celebrate eight wonderful years in Casa de Roo, Matt and I thumbed through our scrapbook capturing highlights from the first two years. It begins:

We discovered the home in mid-December ’99 and put in an offer right away.

The Weichart Realtors’ listing stated (and I quote):

True pleasure to show contemp lakefront with aal new + custom, very open, light & dramatic panaramic lakefront views, new top of the line kit…

I’m not sure what line the kitchen was at the top of, particularly since “Captain Stupid” (the previous owner) looted the dishwasher and stove, along with the washer and dryer, from what was about to become our home. He admitted as much when he finally arrived at the June 30, 2000, closing—four hours late. He also ’fessed up to abandoning several of his unwanted belongings, including an enormous rear-projection TV that Matt had to dismantle with a sledge hammer in order to get it out of the walk-out basement.

So we charged him several hundred dollars for the inconvenience. Our real estate agent had sent a sub-junior associate as her proxy; his real estate agent never showed up. The Captain’s lawyer was so mad at his client, he gleefully accepted our terms.

Drama aside, the house was now ours. We sped home and a local cop pulled us over for speeding. Explaining the situation got us off with a stern finger wagging. Finally, we arrived at the house to find the movers, my Mother-in-Law Jean and “Aunt” Theresa waiting (which they’d been doing for hours—after helping us move out of our condo that same day).

I was able to see the sun rise over the lake at 5:30 a.m. the next morning, July 1, 2000, because:

We learned that nature is noisy. Thump! Thump! Thump! And out we ran to find a huge crow hopping on our roof.

We learned a lot of other things, too. Such as:

• Headless flowers lack charm. Thanks to the deer, stems are still a common feature in our garden. I was excited that our yard was a blank slate and after the July 2 maiden voyage of the orange mower (see top image, among the 2000 photos from the scrapbook; click to enlarge), I couldn’t wait to fill it with flowers. We’d wake up only to find the yard was once again a blank slate. We’re slowly learning to make wiser planting choices instead of annually adding to the deer salad bar.



• We learned that Captain Stupid invited all his fishing buddies to use his dock and pee in his poison ivy infested arborvitae bushes at the shore line. So we spent our first several weeks chasing people off what was now our land. (Did ya meet the new neighbors? What a couple of A$$h013$!)



• We learned that calling the house a three-bedroom was a misnomer. The 10’x10’ space downstairs, three steps up from the walk-out basement, next to all the noisy utilities, over the dirt floor crawl space and under the master bedroom, was better for storage than sleeping. Our two nights there while repainting the upstairs in January 2001 due to ice damming damage were likely to have been the only time that room ever served as a bedroom. The space is destined to become our second bathroom.



• We learned that a fireplace insert doesn’t work if your chimney is installed incorrectly using materials that aren’t fire rated. (The Italian masons were cursing the Captain like mad, crossing themselves and gesturing wildly when they came down from the roof to tell me that if we had been able to light a fire, we’d have likely burned the house down.) Our first successful and safe fire crackled on December 1, 2000. Woodworker Michael Juras installed the custom mantle in May 2002, along with our kitchen island.



• We learned that having 20 skylights is a really bad idea, even in a room that is 26’x16’. So we added the Unico System A/C and heating in May 2001. Still not enough. On August 2001, we added 3M Scotchtint Plus window film to the skylights. It still isn’t enough.



• And we learned that, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home!

Aggressive solar

My husband brought my over-sleeping to an end this morning at 8:50 a.m. by informing me that the Imaginary Chipmunk was back. The striped critter occasionally scurries through the great room, easily entering via our faulty foundation.

Usually, only I see him. Once he stopped by when my Mother-in-Law was joining us for lunch. Now Matt “imagined” him, too. Where he is now? No clue. I’m guessing he came in to escape heat only to learn there really was no escape. Like us, he probably fled outside to survive the 96°F weather.

I’m a lover, not a hater. There is one thing that does, however, negatively inflame my passions: the 20 skylights in our great room. I assure you that this feature is hate-worthy. Oh skylights, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning):

1. I hate thee for your length and width and height as you disrupt my morning and ruin my sight. Let me explain. I wanted to ease into the day before tackling my chores. Get properly caffeinated, see a few home shows, eat a bowl of cereal and chat with my husband… Tough to do when you are blinded by the light. Glaring sunlight. Through each ridiculous skylight (as shown in the Photomerge™ image above; click to enlarge).


2. I hate thee for the level of every day’s most uncomfortable heat, by sun and into night. For example, during the winter, it was 80°F in the room on a day when there was snow on the ground. Today at 3:40 p.m., it was still 95.5° outside—and 80° inside after a full day of running the AC and keeping the shades down. At almost mightnight, it still 76.6° indoors. Balmy! These skylights do not provide the eco-benefit of passive solar—they radiate at us with aggressive solar! How much environmental damage have these roof windows wrought? How much money have they cost us as we try in vain to condition the air in our home?


3. I hate thee purely, as ye let in the rain. With the setting of the sun, we saw the storm in “stereo” on both the local weather channel as a green blob and out our windows. Across the lake, neighbors presented an impressive fireworks display, with thunder as applause and lightning as the crescendo. Then came the rain down—and the rain came in.

Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer until the builder slays my nemesis; Matt dropped off the permit application at the municipal building department on Friday. Sonnet 43 says it best: I shall but love thee better after thy death.

Full Frontal

We stepped away from our original architecture firm because they consistently failed to provide buildable, cost-effective plans (instead indulging every whacky idea I could dream up). It was a relief to end the nightmare by cutting our considerable losses and moving on. We met with the replacement architect, Todd Lendt (AKA “The Todd,” at least to me), on February 22 and hired him on March 1.

For those of you who say you like the house the way it is, you are in luck: We are no longer changing much. Especially now that I’ve embraced the ranch house vernacular—and lost some of my power to go deeply into debt thanks to the credit crisis.

The image (click to enlarge) shows our home in its current state (created via Photoshop® Photomerge™ panorama, hence the jagged edges). The hot tub waits under a blue tarp for construction to begin (kind of like my psyche). The drawing (from April 8) shows the new design for the front, which isn’t too different from the PowerPoint picture we cobbled together in September 2007 because we asked The Todd to execute our vision and to focus on practicality (even when I myself don’t, which is often).