Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

This old house, a work still in progress August 6, 2014

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:00 AM
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I ALWAYS WANTED TO LIVE in a big old white farmhouse that holds the history of generations. Abundant, aged woodwork and built-ins. A sprawling porch and plenty of windows with sunlight pouring in. Wood floors that creak with age.

A farm site along U.S. Highway 14 between Nicollet and Mankato.

A farm site along U.S. Highway 14 between Nicollet and Mankato with the type of old house I like.

That was my dream.

But as we know, dreams don’t always become reality. Rather, I’ve lived for 30 years in a smallish home along a busy street. Anything original to our old house was hidden behind dark, dreary paneling. My husband and I long ago removed most of the paneling, replacing it with sheetrock. We didn’t want to live in a cave.

Yet, one bit of 1970s cavedom remained—in the basement. It was time, after 30 years here, to begin the process of transforming our basement.

We are currently in the demo stage, thus the stacks of Styrofoam insulation/ceiling panels, paneling and wood edging our driveway.

Gutting of our basement is well under way. This photo shows paneling stripped from the clay tile foundation walls with some paneling remaining yet on along the stairway. The floor shows carpet backing scraped off, backing to be scraped off and the not-so-lovely carpet.

Gutting of our basement is well under way. This photo shows paneling stripped from the clay tile foundation walls with some paneling remaining yet along the stairway. The floor shows carpet backing scraped off, backing to be scraped off and the not-so-lovely carpet.

Now we’re adding to that debris pile as, strip by strip, the red-and-black striped carpet is being sliced from the floor. Underneath lie the remains of black carpet backing and glue, there for, we guesstimate, forty years.

So, on hands and knees, we have been scraping remnants of carpet backing from the concrete with one-inch wide gasket scrapers. It is a slow, tedious and labor intensive process. My hands and arms ache. My knees and back are sore. But there is no easier way. We tried a wire brush on the end of a drill. The heat warmed the glue enough to melt some of the backing into it. This is not what we want; we desire the cement as clean as possible. Solvents are not an option.

Original wainscoting uncovered beneath the paneling.

Original wainscoting uncovered beneath the paneling.

But in the midst of all this mess, I uncovered a treasure when I pulled a portion of paneling from the basement stairwell. Underneath was wainscoting. Why, oh, why would you cover wainscoting with paneling? The answer, I suspect, lies in the paneling fad of the 1970s.

Perhaps I could ask Nicky or Cheryl or Randy, whose names and heights were penciled upon the wainscoting in 1969.

© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Stressing over a home improvement project February 2, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:08 AM
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I DON’T LIKE CHANGE.

I dislike chaos and disorder.

I delay making decisions when I’m not confident about the topic that needs deciding.

So you might rightfully guess that a home improvement project would throw me for a loop. It has. It is.

For some time now, we’ve been dealing with a project that put five new windows and a new door into our aging home. Of course, in an old house like ours, issues arise. New windows didn’t fit quite like the old ones, necessitating lumber and sheetrock patching. That means I’ll need to repaint. More decisions. More work.

There are issues with the new door, which are in the process of being resolved.

I am stressed and I really shouldn’t be. I mean, it’s not like we’re building a house.

But all of the decisions, the upheaval, the time away from writing, are wearing on me.

Every day for nearly two weeks I’ve pulled on my old faded blue jeans, one of my husband’s discarded t-shirts and headed upstairs to a spare bedroom to stain and varnish wood trim. Foot upon foot upon foot of wood. Sand and stain and varnish. Sand between coats and varnish each piece of wood three times.

Here's just a sampling of the wood trim I've stained and varnished during the past two weeks.

After about the third day of breathing stain and varnish fumes, and, honestly, “tasting” the toxins, I began wearing a dusk mask. I also left an upstairs window open. Yes, even on 20-degree days.

Yesterday I finished varnishing the last eight pieces of wood, until the carpenter brings me more wood for the door threshold. Oh, joy, more trim to prepare for installation.

I'm into my second quart of varnish. Every piece of wood gets three coats of polyurethane varnish.

But I keep telling myself I am saving us hundreds of dollars by staining the 75 pieces of wood and varnishing each three times. Hundreds. Of dollars.

That’s good because the money goes fast when you’re house-improving. For a frugal person like me, such spending doesn’t come easily.

I’m struggling, too, with choosing a color for the living room walls, which need to be painted before the carpenters nail the window and door trim in place. This is causing me great angst as evidenced in the endless paint swatches I’ve plucked from displays in three stores. I think now that I’ve narrowed the color down to two choices. I need to decide because once the sheetrock mudding is done, we’re ready to paint.

I've picked up way too many paint cards, further confusing me. I'm leaning toward "Whole Wheat," a warm color from Sherwin Williams with a golden tint. Anybody have that color on their walls?

My living room is a mess with wood piled in front of the TV, our bed headboard in the corner next to a bucket of sheetrock mud. A canvas covers the carpet in front of the new picture window and cardboard leans against the wall. Two white showers curtains serve as temporary window drapes…

I don’t even bother to put away the vacuum cleaners any more.

A corner of my living room. I'm not showing you any other rooms, some of which are also in disarray due to this "project."

P.S. To those of you who drive by our house daily, yes, we are getting new siding on the front. It’s tough living on a fish bowl busy street where “everyone” sees what you’re doing.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling