1 Yr. Anniversary

     Welcome to a very special edition of the Dueselhouse Blog. 365 days ago (Actually, it was May 31. I forgot to post this on time), we signed a pile of papers and became owners of a ramshackle 2 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom house. Running water, indoor plumbing, and a fifth of an acre to mow regularly.

     In short, the place was a bit of a dump. This is some before and after photos of the changes we have made to our little home. We are pleased with how much of it has turned out.

 

Our Kitchen:

Your Backdoor, Man:

 

The Famed Man Bathroom:

Bathroom:

The finished product (no, we haven't painted; yes there is a mirror)

The Blue Room (for the baby due June 7th):

Floors for the House:

 

     It was a busy year. I am still surprised with all the improvements we have made - or that Katie even let us buy a house that needed this much work! Also, thanks to our parents, for loving us and encouraging what seemed crazy.  We tried to put forth a strong face, but I know sometimes I was scared with the number of things to be done. Everyone else who helped, keep your eyes peeled for the shout-out blog post in a few days (weeks) we didn't forget all those paint-stained hands and sacrificed weekends!

     That's all for our little before-after tour. It's less than a week until Frankie gets a new brother or sister, and we are headed to one last dinner at a restaurant without cartoon animals or slides. (don't worry, we won't really go to those places with our children!)

     So long, for now, and thanks for all the fish!

-Jeff

A Short Story Titled: Improving the Yard, or Pleasing the Neighbors

This is a writing sample I shared with my students:


Saturday morning, I woke up. "It's time to plant a garden," Mrs. Duesel told me. "Ok," I said. We got up and had breakfast. We drove to the garden center and looked at plants. We drove home, the Jeep was filled with plants. We dug holes, and filled the bottom with mulch and plant starter water. We put the plants in the holes and filled around them with dirt and more mulch. We watered the new plants. There were Camellia, Golden Euonymous, Firepower Nandinias, and Gardinia's. We went inside and had dinner. The end.

This was my second version:



My hands were black with soil, and my knees were raw from the hard ground. I pushed one final handfull of soil around the last Gardenia. Brushing myself off, I stepped back to where Mrs. Duesel was standing. Crossing my arms, I admired the Camellia, Golden Euonymus, Firepower Nandinias, and Gardinia's. It was our first garden!





It was a lesson on how to write about the moments of the good stories you have, not telling every booring bit of the day leading up to your real story. Being one who is long winded, I need to be reminded of that myself. 

Peggy's Design

We planted a garden.


It started a week or two ago, when we stopped to talk to the plant guru at Craven's Nursery. Peggy looked at a picture of the house on my phone and came up with a drawing and ideas - along with what we thought (guessed) was reasonable pricing. So we bought what we thought would be the first of several purchases for the front yard, and set an order for a couple of Golden Euonymus.

Katie shuffled off on business, while I dug holes and watered diligently. over a week later, Katie had been home almost four days before I remembered to ask if she had ever heard from the garden shop. 

The answer was no.

They called the next day. We, of course, bought the rest of the plants in one fell swoop. Last I checked, you only live once.

The lineup was like this, from the steps out:
Golden euonymus flanking the steps, a nandinia "Firepower" is next, then a gardenia, and another firepower, with a camellia ending each row. 
The golden has a nice yellow tint, the firepower turns red in the fall and keeps its leaves through the winter, and finally the camellia will flower in the winter, around Christmas.

The clay that makes up the topsoil around Virginia needed to be cut with find grind mulch. We prepped the soil with some wild plant starter that packs the soil with vitamin B12, and that's the bulk of the task. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday. 

It looks good. Dueselhouse is looking pretty sharp now, we have officially been upgraded from "worst house in the neighborhood" status to "just another house on the block," which is a big step. Just imagine what will happen when we slap a fresh coat of paint this place.

BOOM!


This place is gonna be changing its facebook status!

In a relationship!

Sponging, borrowing, storing... Furnishing on the cheap!

Circa 2005

We hear it all the time, "You guys are really making Dueselhouse look great, but how can a lowly teacher and decor coordinator afford all this?"

Truth is, we couldn't, if we weren't astronomically wealthy.

We, literally, have debts well into the hundreds of dollars on our credit card. We cut extreme corners wherever possible - this is why so many of you haven't gotten thank you notes for wedding gifts yet. Next month, I promise!

Rooms like the Man bathroom cost nearly forty four dollars to remodel. Our bedroom closet almost broke the bank costing over a hundred dollars, not to mention the intrinsic costs of two full days of work! The revamping of the kitchen (paint and the Ikea countertop)... well let's just say it was the equivalent of a dinner and several drinks at Smith and Wollensky's, for one person!

Point being, we have been mortgaging Frankie's future college fund in this pile of sticks and plaster. It's time to start cutting back and stop spending what we don't have in the first place.

It's election season, so we did what any natural D.C. citizen would do, grass roots furniture campaign! Those with the least are likely to give the most, right? You already know how we milked mother and father Duesel for the back door, Katie's brother for a table saw (do I still have to give that back?), my sister threw in a shopvac, and paint labor from Katie's sister and husband. The time had come to look for more suckers friends.

We began at the bottom of the barrel, former roommates, college friends, and generally people who wouldn't likely want whatever they offered returned any time [soon]. After an exhaustive few hours on the phone, Katie hit on our first donor,  John Birkhofer! Always the cautious optomist, staunch republican, and friend of over seven hundred on facebook; Katie and I were confident, that John was the man to abuse!

On the same Friday as the man bathroom remodel, John pulled up to the Dueselhouse donation center with a fancy futon with underneath storage drawers. Awesome!

"It's been in storage for almost four years," he revealed, "So you're welcome to it until I get my own apartment again." What John doesn't know, is that by the time he gets his own apartment, there will likely be a girl involved. We all know that women don't like their man to bring along his single guy furniture. Proven fact.

I expected a flashback to college, until we began assembling the futon. Solid oak construction, steel gliders, magazine storage in the arm rests.

No, we not on campus anymore, Toto.

As we finished tightening down all the screws, Katie paid the man. Cold beverages for everyone! Not a bad exchange for a futon; when a thought crossed John's mind. "Do you guys want a coffee table for up here too?" he motioned to the TV just sitting on the floor opposite the new couch. With that, he increased his donation to silver-status.

Already in the truck, we only had to walk downstairs and shuttle the generous "map table" up to the attic room. In minutes, the newly air conditioned space had turned into a room. We are greatly appreciative to John for all his generosity. While much of my phrasing is in jest, the appreciation is very real.

Next up at the loading dock, the eldest Indrisano offspring, Lynn, is going for platinum-donor status with a corner cabinet, and who knows what else, for Dueselhouse. But when you walk upstairs, it becomes clear that there is a real room for guests to settle into; or just escaping my random escapades - not that Katie ever needs a break from me.

Not a bad looking room either... it just needs a quick coat of paint. We could knock that out in a single evening, right?