Have a fabulous weekend! :)
Original photo via.
All posts by Sarah @ 702 Park Project
Check Your Attitude
This has been possibly the most important lesson I’ve learned through our ordeal adventure of restoring our house. I admit, I haven’t always had the best attitude 100% of the time, and I certainly still get frustrated. It’s a work in progress.
Here are a few things I’ve been working on that help me to keep the right attitude about our adventure:
Make a decision, then move on. I’ve always been a pretty decisive person. My parents tell me this is why planning my wedding was so easy. I’ve always known what I want. But when you have to pick out 7 different types of flooring, 50 light fixtures, 12 paint colors, etc., it can get a little daunting. So, we make a decision and we move on. What’s the worst that can happen? We don’t like it. Easy fix!
Share your journey. This is me sharing with you. I’ve been so humbled by the number of people who follow this blog, and I’ve made some great blogger friends along the way. I’ve always been one to feel better about a situation after writing it down and thinking through it, and this blog is no different.
Look forward. Looking back can be exciting when I think about all of the progress we have made on the house since the beginning, but it can also be frustrating to see that we have been at this for 7 months and we are still not finished. So, I’m choosing to look forward. One day, hopefully 20 years from now, we’ll look back and this past year will just be the blink of an eye and we will have our dream home. So I’m looking ahead to that day.
If you can’t get out of it, get into it. My sweet cousin-in-law Michael taught me this saying a while back and I love it. There are things that are thrown at you sometimes that you can’t avoid, so you might as well just go with it. I’ve seen in many areas of my life that the things that appeared to be major setbacks or obstacles at first ended up being the things that have made me who I am.
Just some food for thought. Thanks for reading! Have a wonderful day!! :)
Original photo via.
Living in the Gutter
Today’s guest post comes from none other than my other half…the one who keeps me sane through this project…the calm one. Yep, my husband Charles is here to talk to you kids about something really exciting: gutters!! And just to get you in the mood, here’s a shot of our metal roof from about 2 months ago. (The boom has been broken so we haven’t been able to get any shots lately. Hopefully soon though!)
Hello All! My name is Charles and I am the other piece of this beautiful 702 Park Project. Lately we have been doing a lot of sorting through old pictures and seeing what has happened so far. It can be a lot of fun to see how the house has transformed. However, sometimes when we are looking at pictures, we look at the same thing, and we talk about the same thing, but we confuse ourselves anyway. It’s time for a little vocabulary lesson.
Here’s a shot of our gutters before we got to work on them:
Not looking too good, huh? For the sake of “the lesson,” here is a picture of hidden gutters that are very similar to ours:
See how the roof shingles stop, then there is a vertical metal face, then a gutter, then the metal continues out to the edge of the roof and drops down? Here is a cross section that will make it easier to picture:
Our house does not have the masonry wall, but the rest is the same. For the sake of clarity look at this:
Our house is the same. We have rafters, ceiling joists, soffits, soffit vents, lookout boards, fascia boards, roof sheathing, etc. The only real difference is that where this picture stops at the fascia board, we have a gutter that makes that “fascia board” into the vertical inner edge of the gutter. This means the lookout boards are elongated and dropped down slightly. If you look back at the second picture, you can quickly see how the fascia board in the third picture is the inner face of the gutter in the second. Are y’all still with me?
The gutter, when properly maintained, is actually quite foolproof. Note in the second picture that the exterior face of the gutter is shorter than the interior face. Lets just say, hypothetically, that someone in unable to convince their contractor/husband/brother-in-law/dad/son/brother/sister to climb a 35 foot extension ladder to sweep the leaves out of the gutters. The clog would keep the water from being able to reach a downspout and force the water to pool in the gutter. The front face is shorter so the water can run off at any point and not back up into the eves! Now, we wouldn’t be doing all this work if the system had worked perfectly. It does require maintenance. Unfortunately, we know our gutters were not maintained for about 10 years, but there is not a single water-mark inside the house. The gutters failed, but failed in such a way that they protected the house. In my opinion, the system worked.
Now I know that anyone who has ever had to go clean out their cutters are looking at this and saying, “Where does the water go, and what happens when leaves clog the whole thing up?”
That hole is one of our new downspouts from the top view. The downspout connects to a downtube just like any other gutter downspout. Also, look for a post coming up soon on how to repair/maintain these things so we don’t put the house right back like how we found it.
So lastly, next time someone says “Those gutters are going to cause you a lifetime of headaches, you should just tear the whole system off” I’m going to send them this:
If you are interested in being a guest blogger, please comment below or email me at 702parkavenue {at} gmail {dot} com!
Catching Up
Sorry I’ve been MIA…I’ve been a little under the weather the last couple of days. I’ll be back tomorrow with some updates on the house. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite links at the moment (and my favorite quote from my favorite Christmas movie!).
Whether you’re actually interested in taking on an old house, or just browsing, it’s always fun to look at these historic homes for sale across the country. A quick search around NC led me to a few favorites, which you can see here, here, and here.
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I love changing up my desktop wallpaper from time to time. Visit this round up for some great holiday wallpapers for your computer, phone, ipad, etc. (PS- I have this as my lock screen on my phone and this as my background. So festive!)
I was a winner of the 11th day in the “12 days of Damsel” on Damsel in Dior! I was so excited–I never win anything! I can’t wait for my Origins make up kit to arrive!
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It seems like there are 8 gazillion gift guides out there, and to be honest, I find them pretty redundant. It’s rare that someone comes up with a guide I haven’t seen on 187 other blogs. But there are a few. My favorite overall is the annual To & From Gift Guide. You can literally find something for everyone on your list. I’ve also enjoyed browsing this one, this one, and these this year.
This before and after is pretty incredible. The Ikea hacks are endless!
This weekend I stumbled upon a new Food Network show, Sandwich King. I have to say, I’m not a huge fan. But he did turn me on to one new thing: sausage bread!! I think I’ll be making this for Christmas morning. Yum!!! Also, I’d love to try a few of these holiday cocktails.
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I got this faux fur “scarf” at the J. Crew outlet on Black Friday and have been loving it. I got it in brown, but they also have black, and they’re on sale!!
I’m going pretty neutral with my Christmas wrapping this year. I love all the kraft paper ideas I’ve been seeing, so I ordered a roll of brown kraft paper and black and white stripe grosgrain ribbon. Be sure to follow me on Instagram to get a few sneak peeks!
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Christmas is only 15 days away! Still looking for some decorating inspiration? Visit my holiday board!
Don’t forget that The Remedy House is having an ongoing Stella & Dot trunk show until next Monday, December 16. Shipment before Christmas is guaranteed on all orders prior to December 18. What’s even better? For every $50 you spend in December, you get $25 to spend in January. So you can get a present for someone special, and yourself!
Quotable Friday
A Hole-Free Christmas
If you have plaster walls like we do, you know that they don’t always love screws and nails. A tiny hole in plaster can eventually turn into this if you’re not careful!
As someone who LOOOOVES Christmas (and tends to go overboard during the season), this could pose a very big problem. I mean, we have eight (yes, EIGHT!) mantels to decorate! So naturally I was excited to find this post on how to hang garland, wreaths, and other decorations without using nails. Lots of great tips!
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Here are a few other sources that might be helpful if you find yourself in the same pickle:
This doorway garland could come in handy.
Hanging lights on a wall without nails.
More tips for decorating without leaving marks.
A few nail-free decorating tools.
Do you have any special ways of decorating? How do you keep your walls from getting lots of holes and marks?