David Bazan Living Room Show (part deux)

Saturday post, what? 

Just thought I'd pop in real quick to say what a great time we had last night, hosting our second (what?) David Bazan Living Room Tour show and share a couple of pictures that Conan took. 

If you're reading this and you were sitting in our house last night, just want to say a big "thank you" for coming out and having a good time. If you're reading this and you're David Bazan or someone who knows him personally, thank YOU for stopping in little ol' Wichita again and for putting on such an amazing show. We will never forget it. 

Hopefully we're lucky enough to find ourselves in the position to play host again and hopefully we get to see some of you again! 

Until then, keep smiling!

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a toilet closet  powder room to work on! A valiant effort was made to finish it but alas, thanks to a SERIOUS bout with food poisoning on his birthday : ( and some...explosive plumbing issues we weren't able to offer people a luxurious downstairs bathroom option. Next time, folks. Next time. 

David Bazan Living Room Show AGAIN!

Remember when, a couple of years ago we had a very special guest come and play a show in our living room and the months leading up to it were spent hurriedly finishing the Accidental Kitchen Remodel?

Well, it looks like we have found ourselves in almost the exact same (very cool) position again! 

A couple of weekends ago, we were asked if we would like to host a David Bazan living room show for the second time! 

Of course we said yes and as you can see from the date on that lovely picture up there, we have exactly 

39 DAYS

to finish the downstairs powder room.

Hooray for deadlines! 

So, if you want to come hang out with us and hear some righteous tune-age (that's what the kids are calling it these days, right?) you can get tickets by going here: 

Undertow Tickets

They officially go on sale TODAY!! so get ye to a computer and order-eth those tix post-haste!

Can't wait to see some of your smiling faces, hopefully!

1940 Census

The other day I came across a story online talking about how the 1940 census is now online and free to look through. My interest was piqued since, essentially, we know nothing about anyone who ever owned the house except for they had really cool trash.

So I headed over to 1940census.archives.gov to start searching.

You can search by something called an Enumeration District or you can search by Location. I chose location since I wasn't looking for a specific person (apparently that's what the Enumeration District is helpful for).

I entered our state, county, city and street.

Then, if possible, you can enter a cross street. Luckily, we live pretty much right at the intersection of two streets which narrowed things down a bit.

After opening the scanned document and scrolling through a few pages looking for our street name, we found it!

Now of course, you can zoom in on the page and change the brightness and contrast. I'm not going to lie though, it's still pretty difficult to read fancy schmancy census taker cursive (my cruddy 2012 handwriting has RUINED ME!).

One very helpful thing, you can go to the FAQ section on the site and download a copy of all of the questions that were asked along with different code meanings.

I printed that off and then took turns squinting at the computer screen, changing the contrast and filling in the chart.

So, here's the deets on our house in 1940:

Our home was owned by Daniel W. Muck, 72 (not sure of that spelling) and his wife Eva, 68

Their daughter Maude, 45 lived with them as well.

The value of the home was $5,500

It was a "lodging house"

with 5 female lodgers

Ruth Hasler, 18

Margaret Dawson, 21

Katherine Skidmore, 20

Mildred Kingsburry, 31

Another girl whose first name I couldn't figure out. Her last name was Wright and she was 18.

Almost all of the lodgers were stenographers except for Margaret Dawson who was a Labratory Assistant for a photographer.

This was so neat! Hopefully someday I can use these names to do a little more research at our local library or city office. If you live in a house that was around in 1940, it's definitely worth checking out. I had trouble finding information on where I was born (rural Tennessee) though, so be warned that in some areas there may not be information? I'm going to keep trying using the Enumeration District maps, though.

If you're interested, you can even help by indexing the information as a part of the 1940 U.S. Census Community Project.

Happy history hunting!

UPDATE:

Daniel and Eva on their wedding day.

I'll post more information as I can find it and confirm it.

Eeeks! Exciting!

Bazan Living Room Show

So, the David Bazan show was last night and it was incredible. Just thought I'd throw these pictures Conan took on here so you guys can see what our house looks like with 50 or so people in it.

He played in front of the shelves. We moved one of the couches into the dining room and left the other in here.

Here's another view of the crowd and a little peak at what the whole room looks like (I'm lookin' at you, wierd little corner on the right where we watch TV).

The view from the dining room.

I know you're all thinking it, so I'm just going to come out and say it. What was it like in a house with no AC in Kansas in June with 50 bodies? It was hot. Not gonna' front. But these little fans that we made helped. So did having windows that actually opened.

I just like this picture.

Fun fact: Mr. Bazan brought his ADORABLE little girl along with him. She was such a trooper and mostly just hung out in the kitchen watching a movie. Our chalkboard fridge did get some use though. Her masterpiece was so good I even asked her to sign it. We might be looking at a famous artist someday.

She also really liked Maggie. And Maggie LOVED her.

After the show, some people stuck around and got things signed, chatted.

And got their pictures taken with David.

All in all it was amazing. Couldn't have been better. It was so fun to see everyone have a great time and enjoy this beautiful music in our house. It will always be a really special memory and a great story for us!

This Old House Magazine: Our Living Room Edition

EDIT: If you want to read the teeny-tiny article, Conan scanned it and put it in the "As Featured" section down below.
Or, if you are on a strict, no scrolling diet, just click here.

Well folks, I was all set to get home from work and start snappin' pics of that "awesome thing" I found in the basement and mentioned the other day but then, to my surprise our dear reader Jenna mentioned that we were in This Old House magazine. What? Crazy, right?

I ran out and bought a copy (okay, I bought two) and took them straight to Conan at work so we could ooh and ahh over it.



There it is guys, the closest I'll ever get to meeting human teddy bear, Tom Silva.

I kind of alluded to the fact that we were going to be in the magazine waaaaay back in this post.

I never mentioned it though because we had no idea when we were going to be in the magazine and I just assumed (incorrectly) that they would give us a heads up before it came out. Nope.

But, whatever. It's just awesome and we're just as happy as can be.

Here are the AWESOME pictures Conan took for the magazine.

Fun fact, they had us remove just about everything (including our other couch) and then take a picture, put some things back, take another picture and so on.

We communicated with them via email and they would tell us what they liked and didn't about the picture. Like, "Move that chair a little to the left and center" and "move the couch away from the windows"

Compare that to what our living room normally looks like:

I'll have Conan scan the article tonight and we'll link it over in our "As Featured On" section in the sidebar if you want to take a look.

Yay!

Chalkboard Fridge & Kitchen Ceiling Progress

NOTE: Before I begin this post I want to say that my ding dong camera card went "sasldfkj" this afternoon so any before or even during pictures of the fridge chalking are temporarily *poof* gone! As soon as Conan works a little magic of his own though, I will put some more pictures of the process up here.

Okay. Now you may proceed.

Okay so, is the suspense killing you? A chalkboard fridge, you say? But how can that be? Well, let me show/tell you...

First, you take a normal, very beige fridge (that we didn't buy-it came with the house)

(that's where I would normally put this awesome, face-on picture of the fridge but...whadaya' gonna' do?)

Then you follow this tutorial you found on Apartment Therapy

(insert more awesome during pictures)

Sand the fridge a little

Buy some chalkboard paint (ON SALE for $8)

Brush/roll it on (I did a little of both)

Let it dry for three days, rub chalk all over it and wipe off

And.....

Ta-dow!

Pretty neat, huh? We really like how it turned out! I especially like the way it looks with my thrift store dresser there.

Look at that adorable cow! It's no surprise that one of us has a degree in art, now is it?

It was such a cheap and easy project, I would highly recommend it!

UPDATE: Two years later, here's how the chalkboard fridge DIY has held up!

In other news,

the kitchen ceiling now has one coat of paint! Hooray!

Looks pretty awesome! Especially since my mom and dad came this past weekend and put that big, fat trim over the place where the old wallpaper was still peeking out at the top of the paneling.

We're going to try to spray on our second coat since we did the first by hand and it was...ugh!

Wish us luck!



Living Room Show

So, big news 'round here.

Big for us anyways.

A long, long time from now (June 15th) we're going to have a very special guest at our house...

It's David Bazan!!!! (Squeeeeeeeeel!)

We're very excited as you can tell by all of the exclamation points. My very good friend Alana emailed me some information about David's living room tour and told me I should give it a shot. A few back and forth emails later and here we are, having a Living Room Show with Mr. Bazan this summer!

How is this house related you ask? Well, aside from it being IN OUR HOUSE, I also have to get a majorly long list of projects finished by June 15th. Why? Because...I just do. That's why. So stay tuned for all of that because...eesh, it's a seriously long list of very strange projects.

If you're in the area or you're just a fan and would like to come to the show, tickets are available starting tomorrow, March 14th

here.

There will be NO tickets sold at the door and there are only 40 tickets so hurry, hurry, hurry!

On a related note, thank God we got the bathroom finished before this summer.

Hey Now!

Look at us, movin' on up!

Little did we know, we were on the list for Apartment Therapy's Homies!

First, we don't have to shower in the basement anymore and now this!

Things are lookin' up!

If you want to vote, click here.

Then scroll for like two days and there we are : )

Voting ends March 2nd.



We're On the Tweeter

Hey guys! A few things are new and neat around these parts.

For one thing, we have a nice new "About Us" page right over there ==>

We also have a twitter now! Hooray, right?

Welcome to the 21st century, old house!

Please do us a solid and follow along! We'll be posting about the little things from day to day that go on around here and also, plenty of weiner dog pictures, rest assured.

@keepsmilingblog

P.S.

The tile is done.

Woot. 

Shiny & New

So, as part of my ongoing "Bathroom Door Saga" I needed to polish up the fixtures that we had taken off (keyhole, door knob holder thingys). Simple enough, right? Conan took them off of the door and I sat down with my Brasso and got to work. A few seconds in and it was obvious that at some point, someone had spray painted them gold and then years of grime had covered that too. They also had some paint on them that I just couldn't scrape off by hand so into the stripper they went. I soaked them for about ten minutes in a little metal container of stripper and then proceeded to use every sort of "tool" I could to get them cleaned up. Rags, toothpicks, cotton swabs, whatever. After I had gotten all of the stripper off with some mineral spirits I got back to work with the Brasso and here are the results:

Not too shabby for about an hour worth of work.

And if there's anyone out there that is scratching their head thinking, "What is Brasso?" This is it.

My secret weapon. I used this stuff on brass push button switchplates and they look like new. Worth every penny. 

Now, back to stripping that door.

And also, hooray! We got a light fixture for the bathroom ceiling! I'll put that up here as soon as I get the chance. And guess what it needs? Some stripping. I'm a glutton for punishment, huh?



First Place

Let me just begin this by saying that Conan is the greatest husband in the world.

Okay.

So.

The other day was not a great day. I got some bad news and I was feeling pretty down. I had called Conan on the phone on my way home to tell him and when I got there he said he had gotten me something and motioned to the coffee table.

On the coffee table was a book that I didn't recognize.

I picked it up and tried to act really happy about my new book on Ansco Color Film. : /

He told me to open it and when I did, to my surprise was this:

A first place ribbon for some sort of puppy competition held in, get this, 1949!

 

I ran right out and bought a frame at the DAV for $1.50 and stained the heck out of it. This afternoon, Conan helped me put it in a frame and there you have it!

 

The very first thing in my collection for my "salon style" hanging in the new bathroom. Squeeeeel!

Turns out, Conan found the book in the back of the store where he works in a pile of stuff and decided to take it home because as he put it (with some fancy pants photo language) it's "the most useless information ever put into book form." or something like that. He opened and lo and behold, my puppy ribbon was inside and he knew right away I would love it. What can I say? He just gets me.

Okay.

Enough puppy talk.

I have a door to finish stripping (just a tiny bit more to go and then some pictures and staining!).

Cheeseburgers in Paradise or How We Found the Bathroom Mirror

Soooooo after the incredibly dissapointing trip to Architectural Salvage last week resulted in zilch bathroom mirrors I made plans to drive out to Northeast Kansas. 

So, back to the mirror sitch.

I was looking for a wood framed mirror with rounded edges kind of like this one from Door Sixteen:

And I was coming up perpetually empty-handed.

So yesterday, after making an appointment, we drove out to beautiful Marion, Kansas.

Pretty, huh?

We headed to the antique store and started to rummage.

It's a rummager's dream. We were truly two cheeseburgers in paradise as I told my mom.

Tucked under my mom's arm is what we thought was coming home with us. Not exactly right but pretty close. Then, as we were headed out the door, something told me to look in this corner. I was staring aimlessly at some shelves when my mom said, "Here's your mirror." very matter of factly. I turned around and she was holding a frame (no mirror inside) that was exactly. perfect. Can you believe it? Search over!

(this is a prime example of my not great picture taking abilities. crooked, too dark, etc.)

Now all I have to do is shine this puppy up and put a mirror in there and we'll be cookin'!

I am so unbelievably happy! So happy in fact, that on the way home, I agreed to let my mom stop on the side of the road and steal some rocks. Because...well, you'd have to know my mom to understand this kind of adorably wierd behavior but whatever.

All in all, a great day.

Can't wait to show you pictures once I get the mirror all finished!

Now to go finish stripping what paint is left off of the bathroom door and finding a frame for something very special that Conan got me to hang in the bathroom : D

Bust

Don't worry. Contrary to the title of this post, the cat didn't manage to bust/break anything. This was a bust of the "waste of time" variety. As I mentioned yesterday, I was going to go to an antique store called Old Town Architectural Salvage here in Wichita and try to find a mirror like the one I mentioned (beveled edges, wood frame, perfect, etc.). Well...let's just say I came home empty handed.

Well, not totally empty handed.

I got these pictures.

As you can see, this place literally has everything except for what I was looking for. Such a bummer since I was certain that they would have at least a frame that I could plunk a mirror into. Oh well. I got to wander around and have two guys try to get to me to buy stuff I didn't want. Which would have been really annoying if it weren't kind of endearing. The search continues.



One Man's Trash

You know how the saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Well, when you live in a house that is nearly 100 years old that is literally the case. As mentioned previously, we are in the middle of the world's longest bathroom remodel (I kid, I kid) which if you've ever had the pleasure of enduring you know that around month three your patience is wearing pretty thin and the novelty of plaster and lathing has completely worn off. You just want the thing done. Well, yesterday we were given a little glimpse into the past life of our house that made all of this worth it. Conan was just passing through the bathroom, checking on the progress of the shower when something caught his eye sitting beneath the staircase to the attic (which, is now exposed because the bathroom wall is gone). He went to pick it up and lo and behold it was a little bottle of "Colgate's Brillantene"! He later told me that he thought about just showing me the bottle, having a laugh and then giving up but thankfully, something told him to grab a piece of the aforementioned lath and poke around under the stairs. And what followed was this:

A treausre trove of trash. Apparently, what we thought was a laundry shoot in the hallway was actually where they threw their trash. Makeup containers, gum wrappers, dry cleaning tickets, mentholatum lids, whatever, if they were done using it, it went in the wall. My favorites are of course the makeup containers, especially the Oriental Cream (which is recommended to be put on with a velvet sponge - ooh la la!) but the best part is definitely the can of tobacco. A worker found one of these once before while installing our heating ducts but this one is far better, and here's why: on the top of the can is a date March, 1919. If you've ever lived in an old house and been unable to positively identify when the house was actually built it is like stumbling on the Holy Grail. Something that helps to date your house! Well, needless to say I will definitely be displaying these treasures somewhere special. Probably our new, shiny, glorious bathroom when it is finished. I highly recommend looking at the larger size of that picture up there and reading the fine print on the bottles, it's a blast from the past.

Escutchion Excursion

You learn a lot of things when you’re remodeling your bathroom. Like how long you can go without taking a shower and no one in the free world has ever seen nor heard of a sink without holes in it. But for me the most fun little tidbit of knowledge I have garnered has been about Escutcheon. According to Wikipedia, an Escutcheon is a shield, something that goes around a keyhole or in medicine the distribution of ahem...hair. But for the purpose of our discussion (which is exactly how you pronounce escussion minus the “d”) we are going to talk about the bathroom variety, found behind the knobs of your sink or in this case, shower.

 

So, last week I went on an Escutchion excursion. And wouldn’t you know, I found two beautiful knobs with matching Escutchions at a place in Wichita called Old Town Architectural Salvage. 

That thing on the right is the Escutchion of which we speak.

So I’m driving home with them and I decide to stop off and show them to the hubs at work. As he inspects the merchandise, I start dinking with one of them and lo and behold, it breaks right down the middle.

Fantastic.

Add that to the list of things I’ve learned: don’t put unnecessary pressure on 90ish year old porcelain. Okay, so now I have to find a matching Escutchion to replace that one with or I have to find a pair that will work with our knobs. So yesterday, my dear old mom and I head out to Halstead, Kansas to the fascinating, fantastic Old Hardware Store.

This place. Let me tell you. It’s amazing.

Drawers full of treasures stretching up to the ceiling. Nearly identical to how it appeared when it opened in 1879!

Which, would in itself be a feat but the fact that they actually are an operating, useful hardware store just blows my little mind. So, after we are greeted warmly and ushered to the back of the back of the shop, our hostess eyes a seemingly endless wall of drawers and Bam! Pulls out one with at least a dozen Escutchions. We search through them, find two that work and trade the one I hadn’t broken for store credit (if you were wondering why I only have the broken one in my picture).

(New Escutchions, Yay!)

Now, of course you know that you can’t drive 30 minutes to this treasure trove of old timey goodness and leave with just two little chunks of porcelain! So, I bought this stuff too.

A porcelain glazed switch plate cover and a brand spankin’ new push button switch.

So there you have it, bathroom remodeling, while tedious, dirty and sometimes very, very trying can also be a cool learning experience.

Next up, finding a matching pair of these:

Wish us luck! I have a feeling we'll need it.