Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

This really is a full service blog.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Motown is Joe-Town!

Not all heroes wear capes.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Let’s finish the job.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / House Update

House Update

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Almost done with the flooring on the second and third floor. Closets and spare bedroom left on the second floor, quarter round on both floors still not complete. First, the third floor bedrooms:

Next, the shower, which is in the process of being grouted:

Finally, the second floor hallway, master bedroom, and office (ignore the construction mess):

Kitchen counters, sink, and oven hood go in tomorrow.

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  2. 2.

    JMG

    John, you may be broke, but you will be damn proud of a beautiful home. Pride makes ramen taste better.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    Very nice! I like that you’re keeping as much of the original woodwork as possible. I definitely envy you for lucking into a classic Craftsman house.

  4. 4.

    MazeDancer

    Such excellent progress! May it continue.

    Hope the landlord will let you come back and get all the lovely dirt from your raised beds if the ground has already frozen. One BBQ’s worth of frat boys and a rented pick-up may be way cheaper than redoing at new place. “Dirt cheap” and we all know, is a lie.

  7. 7.

    SiubhanDuinne

    John, everything really does look great, but I have a question (seriously) about the photo of the soon-to-be-grouted shower:

    What the HELL is that pinkish roundish thing with eyes at the bottom of the photo?

    Seriously, that is creepy enough to be a clown in one of Omnes’ nightmares.

    What even IS it?

  12. 12.

    laura

    Any chance your home was a Sears Roebuck order? I don’t recall any info in the year it was built, but they were hugely popular because every single part was delivered and assembled on site, and made to last.

  14. 14.

    J R in WV

    Hi John,

    Looking great, happening so fast!

    What kind of flooring are you using? There are so many different kinds now, pre-finished, laminated, etc. It looks pretty good already, so I’m betting on pre-finished, which is what our next-door neighbors have laid in their dining room/music pickin’ room.

    Is it stained and pre-finished oak?

    The tile also looks great, a roomy shower is just what you need! Put in lots of grab bars!

  15. 15.

    John Cole

    @SiubhanDuinne: FFS- It’s the back of his head. He is on his hands and knees mixing grout. I’m not making this up- his head is turned to the right and down and you can see the damned right ear piece of his glasses.

  16. 16.

    J R in WV

    @laura:

    My wife’s paternal grandparents had a Sears house, it wasn’t as nice as John’s is. Smaller, too, only two stories on a basement.

    John, I’d be interested in seeing pictures from the basement, even before and after of the tragically old and unmaintained stuff being removed. Probably too late for that, tho….

  18. 18.

    grumpy realist

    Hope that the closets are sufficiently large….I live in Oak Park, IL and the one thing that everyone bitches about with the older houses here are the teeny-weeny closets.

  20. 20.

    Yarrow

    Looks great! What color is that in what looks like the hallway or maybe looking into one of the bedrooms (last photo). Kind of an aqua color?

  22. 22.

    satby

    It all looks wonderful John. I love that orange color, did you already say what it was? Because now I want to do one bedroom in my house that color.

  23. 23.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    Everything is great, John. As someone who looks at home improvement projects now through jaded eyes developed after owning 3 houses that always needed so.many.things.done. – most of them “mushroom projects” and all the expense, agita, swear words and inconvenience, and who rarely, if ever misses it, I still get that pang of loss for the feels you get when you see your vision of what could be, come to fruition on a house that becomes YOURS. In all those instances I remember, at the end, believing it was all totally worth it.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @grumpy realist:

    Another Oak Parker! I was born and grew up there (on North Euclid Avenue), and Mnem’s husband is from there, and Raven knows the village pretty well.

    What you say about closets is true. Our house was one of FLW’s early jobs — the exterior was largely untouched, but he gutted and completely redesigned the interior — but the bedroom closets for the most part were skimpy. OTOH, they all had built-in drawers. And the combo bathroom-dressing room in the first-floor suite was very generous with storage space for clothes.

  28. 28.

    Aleta

    WOW. It’s beautiful. The house must have come with elves?
    Some day if you have time, I’d be interested to know what the flooring is. Elegant, looks good quality.

  29. 29.

    satby

    @John Cole: Awesome!Thanks, it’s my favorite color, and the woodwork in my house is also dark. Now that I have a preview of how great it will look I want to get that too!

  40. 40.

    raven

    I’ve spent the better part of the day putting hemp rope in the cracks of our heart pine floors. I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out but it’s worth a try.

    Bohdi has been diagnosed with a cervical doc problem so we are doing crate rest and laser therapy. While we were there I asked the vet to look at the big lump on Lil Bit’s face and now we are going to have it removed and biopsied. Along with the continuing saga of my bride and her broken wrist we are fucked up.

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    @raven:

    People here complain about having to assemble IKEA furniture — imagine how much they would complain about assembling a whole house! ?

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @debbie:

    Wow. I’m usually quite good at optical illusions, but I’m just not seeing this.

    But okay, whatevs, if John wants to have scary clowns grouting his bathroom….

  46. 46.

    mai naem mobile

    The flooring is beautiful. And it looks installed correctly with straight lines and all.
    The current outline of the done grout in the shower looks like am outline of Edward Snowden.
    Bathroom looks good too. If you’re doing another bathroom use bigger tile = fewer grout lines = easier cleaning.

  47. 47.

    dmsilev

    @Mnemosyne: There was a story a year or two back about Ikea being involved in a project to develop pre-fab housing setups in Sweden. You can imagine the jokes about how the houses came in a bunch of flat-pack cardboard boxes and were assembled using a single Allen wrench.

  48. 48.

    raven

    I wonder if the shower is a walk-in? Our is and has a glass wall. It’s great but you have to squeegee it every time you shower.

  51. 51.

    MomSense

    Hey my bedroom blue is very similar to your bedroom blue. A bit of a grayed blue? I love it. Looks great in sunshine and in winter, too. It’s also a very soothing color.

    House is starting to shape up and soon it will be home.

    ETA. What color is the living room?

  53. 53.

    mai naem mobile

    John, you should put a handicapped bar outside the shower. With you being accident prone and the issues you have with your shoulder it would be a good idea and it would be cheaper to get it done now because the paint/drywall whatever can be fixed if it gets damaged during installation .

  55. 55.

    Another Scott

    @SiubhanDuinne: Our brains are funny at pattern-recognition.

    As JC said above, you’re looking at the right-back “corner” of his head. He’s looking almost straight down. Just to the left of the black “double-lump” at the edge of the image (glasses earpiece and shadow) is a wrinkle on the back of his head/neck.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    Lizzy L

    John, the house looks great. I love the colors.

    I want to recommend you put a horizontal handicapped bar inside the shower. I have one, and it gives me great peace of mind to know that I can grab it if I slip. If you want to put one outside, fine, go ahead, do that too, but more people slip inside the shower stall than outside it.

  58. 58.

    Anne Laurie

    @raven:

    While we were there I asked the vet to look at the big lump on Lil Bit’s face and now we are going to have it removed and biopsied.

    Our 15lb, almost-15-year-old rescue Zevon had a fast-growing, lemon-sized lump removed from the back of his head last summer. Fortunately it turned out to be just a lipoma, which the vet says are common in older dogs… ‘particularly poodles and cocker spaniels’. Hope Lil’ Bit has the same luck!

  59. 59.

    J R in WV

    That flooring does look good.

    So does the shower tile, your buddy is doing a great job, that’s all such picky detailed work, finish work.

  63. 63.

    Eric S.

    That’s looking awesome, JC. I’ve been in my condo 8 years and still have no idea what to do with it. I get complete decision overload when ever I start thinking about it.

  66. 66.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Another Scott:

    Thank you, that’s useful. I can almost, kind of see it, but for me it’s one of those illusions that you can grab onto for a split-second and then it’s gone again. Very weird.

    But I’ll take the word of everyone who sees the hard-working grout-installing bald guy with glasses. If he’s a friend of John’s, he’s okay by me.

  69. 69.

    Gvg

    Did you check the tile wet soapy how slippery? Do it. Our latest house turned out to have slippery shower tiles which we didn’t know till we moved in. All tile is a little slippery but this kind looks ordinary and turned out to be difficult. We intended to move and didn’t bother to change it and now it’s been 10 years. The next time if the tile is slippery it gets ripped out as soon as we have cash again and grab bars put in no matter what. It’s tiresome to have to be careful every night for years and I am getting older.
    No threshold showers you could get a wheel chair or walker in are also worth planning and installing. My younger sister was in a wheel chair for over a year trying to heal an ligament tear then surgery in her 30’s from a fall. You look at things diffently after a year of helping. We have also had handicapped friends we wanted free to visit. Wide doorways to bathrooms are also worth planning.
    If the tile is slippery in real life use, get rid of it now. There are tiles that aren’t and they all look alike. You have to ask. It’s just the floor I think.

  70. 70.

    opiejeanne

    @Mnemosyne: I like his house but I really don’t see Craftsman or Arts and Crafts when I look at his house, I don’t see the details that both of the Craftsman houses I owned had (and one of mine was built in the 20s on the cheap as a spec house). It’s missing a built-in buffet which is a common feature, I didn’t notice “picture molding” at the ceilings (not sure, maybe it was there), and the porch is all wrong.
    It looks like mostly a mixed-style farmhouse to me, using some of the period trims but not necessarily the esthetics of the Craftsman style, and even utilizing a little bit of Victorian trim if I’m not mistaken about what look like rosettes on that door-frame that leads to the attic from the 3rd floor bedroom.

  72. 72.

    Lizzy L

    @raven: My 13 1/2 year old Belgian shepherd mix has bunches of the damn lumps, including one really big (bigger than fist-sized) lump over his right ribs — all lipomas, my vet says.They don’t bother him and they’re not dangerous. I hope Lil Bit’s are no thing and that everything goes smoothly with the biopsy.

  73. 73.

    MomSense

    @raven:

    Oh Raven I’m so sorry that all of this is happening to you. Sending my best wishes for all of you. Hoping that your bride, Bohdi and Lil Bit all recover fully and quickly. And you be careful!

  75. 75.

    mainmata

    ey o interested in your restoration since we have slowly been restoring an 1896 Shenandoah Valley farmhouse and land only 18 miles from W Va since 2012 that had been trashed (methers). We used a different palette and used local stores to buy used but good condition kitchen appliances. Where we bought state of the art was the HVAC because there wasn’t any. Good savings.

  78. 78.

    opiejeanne

    @raven: And they hired local carpenters most of the time.

    There was one near a house of ours. It was a cute little house, emphasis on the “little”. I remember my dad laughing at it, saying that most of the people putting them together shouldn’t have been the ones putting them together.

  79. 79.

    opiejeanne

    @dmsilev: We saw one at the IKEA in Orange County when we lived there. It was tiny and seemed expensive for the square footage. I think that store was in Costa Mesa.

  80. 80.

    Mnemosyne

    @opiejeanne:

    Those are all bungalows, but there’s more than one style of Craftsman house. John’s looks a little closer to a “foursquare,” which is more common on the East Coast.

    If he posts more pictures of the entrance to the living room, you’ll see it — it has that curve and point at the top of the doorway/entrance that you get with Craftsman. But East Coast Craftsman went a slightly different direction than West Coast because of climate differences. You don’t need those high rooflines to diffuse the heat in West Virginia like you do in California.

  81. 81.

    CaseyL

    It looks gorgeous! The rooms are delightful with their sorbet colors, all cool and creamy. Yes, it’s all horribly expensive – but the quality materials and quality workmanship mean it’ll last.

    I’m curious about those 3rd floor bedrooms; are they a bit on the small side, or do they just look small because they’re up under the curved roofline? I imagine them as warm cozy places to curl up with a book, or watch/listen to rain fall. Quilt covered daybeds with a lamp at each end and a critter to cuddle.

  83. 83.

    John Weiss

    John,

    Good show!

    When I rebuilt my Craftsman house in Dallas, it took me the better part of 30 YEARS! You lucky son-of-a-buck! It only took you a year or so!

    Whelp, I’m proud of my accomplishment and you should be proud of yours. I only mention one of my travails (how would you like to be stoned on LSD and catch yourself on fire under your house, for one) only to encourage you.

    Too bad you can’t be my neighbor in lovely SW Oregon by the sea.

    jw

  85. 85.

    seaboogie

    Dibs on the blue room on the 3rd floor – it looks so cozy and peaceful. Also love the more modern ceiling fan choices you’ve made (from other pics) to go with the existing ones. Can’t wait to see the pics of the kitchen after tomorrow’s installation.

  86. 86.

    NotMax

    Not even functional and already sharing a shower. How post-modern and hip.

    Sure the flooring isn’t pink oak?

    :)

    New floors will be an incentive to keep dogs’ nails trimmed. When it comes to a bath mat, suggest going with memory foam. Lots of brands and styles; have found the kind with a tight honeycomb pattern the most comfy and durable. (Not necessarily recommending the purple as linked, there are dozens of colors available.)

  87. 87.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    I know that it’s a painful process, and that you’re feeling beaten down by the cost – but that’s looking pretty damn good. You’ve got a home to be proud of.

  89. 89.

    Raoul

    Nitpicky, but I implore you, JC: Do not use quarter round on the baseboards! Use base shoe. Quarter round sticks out too far and makes things like dressers annoyingly far from the wall. NOw, maybe you said quarter round but will go to the lumber yard and buy base shoe. I think that’s not that unusual. But I’ve owned two old houses that had quarter round and I ripped the shit out of the second one because that isn’t the right product for the job!

    End rant.

  90. 90.

    Raoul

    Hm. Posted less than one minute ago, but cannot edit comment at all. None of the usual edit feature showing up. So, typo stays!

    G’night, all.

  95. 95.

    opiejeanne

    @Mnemosyne: Ok, thanks; I know about Prairie and the other styles but I always think of bungalow as The Craftsman.
    I have thought all along that his house looked like a farm house crossed with a Four-Square.

  98. 98.

    NCSteve

    Got any realtors dropping off cards and sending letters suggesting now is a great time to sell yet? Because, seriously, you may want to at least listen to what they have to say about profit potential before you move all your shit and it becomes a “fuck off! I’ll move yet again after they cart my decaying corpse out of this place” thing.

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