Exploding Fireplace

We've waited months and months after moving into our house to use the fireplace. It was full of ashes, nails, pizza boxes and other mysteries, and we didn't know if it was safe. Plus, there's a gas line that goes into the fireplace, and we had no idea how it should work.

We recently had a chimney sweep inspect it, and he told us it was perfectly safe to burn wood in. In fact, the insert is called a "heatilator" and should provide a nice source or warmth for the house, especially when running the built in fans set in the fireplace stones.

Since our backyard came complete with a liftetime supply of wood scraps, we've been itching to start burning them. We lit one fire about a week ago, and it went well except that we didn't have any fireplace tools. I scored a set of tools and a matching log holder at the Goodwill yesterday, so I proudly lit my first fire last night.

It was all going so well. The room was warming up, the fans were going and the gross smell of heating dust was in the air. I stoked the fire to get it going from a soft crackle, and it quickly built up to "roaring".

Then, the door on the right shattered.

Seconds later, the door fell of its hinges and hot, broken glass was all over the hearth and our new carpet. We stayed back until we felt it was safe to pull the glass of the carpet.

We kept the ever-curious cats out of the way, and let the fire die down before cleaning up the giant mess.

Now, we're using this piece of scrap plywood to cover it up so the cats won't get inside, until our new fire screen arrives. Ugh. We thought the Heatilator was ugly anyway (and they installed it crooked), so we were hoping to remove it eventually. I guess we don't have much of a choice now, but to deal with it a lot sooner than I would have liked. Maybe we should get an outdoor fireplace instead...

Catching up

Woah, it's been a long time since I posted something over here! I've been so busy updating the business blog, that I haven't even thought to post anything here in ages. So much has changed, that I'll just give a quick recap for the sake of any future readers who want to know the story between "then" and "now".

Pretty much right after I last posted, Sean and I started looking for a house. Sean's parents offered to help us by paying our down payment (which was massively helpful!), and the market was finally right. Being self-employed (and Sean being employed by my little company) was a challenge to explain to the underwriters for our loan, but it all worked out somehow.

We spent the whole summer looking at houses all around the east side of Portland. Each house had it's own issues, and we were starting to get discouraged. They were too small, too run-down, too expensive, half-way remodeled and halfway gutted, too close to bad streets, or bank owned. We put a few offers on "short sale" houses (google it), but nothing was working out. Because of the economy, there were a lot of houses going into foreclosure, but the banks were happier to hold onto the property than to sell to us for some reason.

Also, Portland has a lot of tiny bungalows that aren't much bigger than our (rather nice) apartment, and we were having a hard time justifying yet another stressful move into a place that wouldn't really be any nicer than we were at. We needed considerably more space to house our growing business, especially since we'd have to move out of our artist studio in order to afford the mortgage. We kept searching further and further from the areas of town that we found desirable.

Then, one day, we found a huge 50's ranch that had been added onto multiple times, and remodeled in the 70's to be completely yellow. It was further from downtown than was ideal, but much closer in than most places we'd seen. It was in the process of being remodelled again, and the house was full of trash, tools, and bizarre debris. The backyard hadn't been mowed in what looked like years, and there was an abandoned truck trailer just barely visible under a bramble hedge.

We quickly moved on, but found ourselves thinking about this house a day later. Okay, long story slightly shorter, after many torturous ordeals with the buying process (and doorknobs that wouldn't unlock, and agents that couldn't be located), the house became ours on September 11th, 2009! We've been busy every single day since then, getting the place back into shape and up to our standards. Our new neighbors are fantastically nice and willing to lend us tools and ladders, so it's completely a dream come true. We still have navy blue and beige carpet glued down to the kitchen floor, but the improvements we have done are vast, and we're able to work completely from home.

In other news, we adopted a new kitten last winter, and named her Triana (after the Venture Bros. character). She and Rupert are best friends, and keep each other entertained. Sean became me business partner, so we no longer have to pay extra insurance for him being an employee, and he can sign his own checks now. Business slow because it's springtime, so we're getting tons of gardening and outdoor projects done before the summer craft fair season starts.

I've taken tons and tons of photos of our house renovation, and the cats on Flickr.