-
A Fig Tree in New York
What The Fig?
I have a big ass fig tree in my yard. I don’t know much about fig trees (I don’t even like figs), but people who do know about fig trees have seen mine and have told me it’s the biggest figging one they’ve seen in New York. They want to know my secret. How did my tree get so big and healthy in this climate? How does it produce so many figs? Here’s what I do…
Nothing!
I’ve heard that little old Italian men grow fig trees in the northeast and they’re small and fragile (the trees are – and maybe the little old men too) and they lovingly wrap them to protect them from the wind and cold of winter and then hope that they survive and then actually bear fruit in the spring.
My tree gets no blanket. No warm milk. No bedtime story. My tree is on its own. My tree is a bad ass. It scoffs at winter. It looks the cold square in the eye and gives it the middle branch. It thrives amidst adversity. In the winter, it looks like this:
-
I Turned a Spare Bedroom into a Dressing Room
It’s More Than a Closet. It’s a Sanctuary.
What do you do when you’re somehow amazingly able to find an affordable house with three bedrooms and you really only need two? Well, duh! You turn that superfluous bedroom into a dream closet, of course! A dressing room. How many people actually get to have their own dressing room? Celebrities. Rich people. And me!
-
Removing Load Bearing Walls
Wallectomy: The Surgical Removal of Load Bearing Walls
I moved into my crappy house in July of 2011. By January of 2012 I had made little progress on the east wing due to the fact that removing load bearing walls is neither easy nor free. Who knew? (Only just everyone.) Performing a wallectomy isn’t like removing any old wall. You do it wrong and your house basically falls down. It dies. No one wants a dead house, so I had to leave it to the professionals. Luckily, my cousin (Tommy) is one of those, and he likes me, so he eventually made some time to help me out. On the last day of January, I got the call. His exact words? “I’m coming tomorrow. Get the f*ck out.” So Egor and I did.
-
Literally Hundreds of Scary Wasps Hiding in My Wall!
OK, maybe I exaggerated a little bit to get your attention. First of all, this picture is not a wasp, it’s a scary hornet. And second of all, the wasps were in the walls. At some point. A while ago. Then they packed up their crap and moved out. This house was too crappy, even for them.
And maybe it wasn’t hundreds. Probably not.
-
My Chandelier Makeover
I love chandeliers. They’re ridiculously trendy now, but about 5 years ago, when I needed a black one for my bedroom, the only reasonably priced ones I could find were from stores in the UK. (That happens to me all the time. Damn you, England, and your cute shops with awesome stuff that won’t ship to me.) The cheapest one I could find in the US was like $300. It wasn’t in the budget. So I started trying to come up with alternatives. I found a plain, old, brass chandelier frame on E-Bay with the wiring intact for like $20. I bought it.
-
My Crappy Basement
Don’t go down the stairs! Just trust me…
-
I ♥ My Bathroom
Ironically, my bathroom was the first room in my house to stop being crappy. (Get it? Bathroom…? Crappy…? Oh, never mind.) It was fully renovated before I moved in and it didn’t cost me anything. I know! What??
-
Torn Apart and Reassembled
I got the keys to my crappy house on Wednesday, May 18, 2011. On Saturday, I showed up with my pry bar and hammer, ready to kick some ass and do some demo. As I mentioned before, I was very delusional at this point and I fully expected to be able to tear a whole house apart, remodel it, and then put it back together again. In 2 months. By myself. Just me. You would think I was high, but no. Drugs are stupid. And unnecessary. I come by my delusions naturally.
The demo was uneventful. I didn’t uncover any antique jewelry boxes stuffed in the walls or a sack of money or human bones. I did uncover one interesting find though. This was behind the paneling in the first room I tore apart.
-
My Crappy Yard: I Planted a Lawn
Welcome to the Jungle
Not only is my house crappy, but my yard is extra crappy with a side of crap. Supersized. This past weekend, I planted a lawn. (Well, it remains to be seen if it will be an actual lawn, but I put down seed and I’m crossing my fingers.) I bought the lazy girl seed that’s specially coated to keep in extra moisture in case I forget (I will) to water.
While the baby lawn struggles to grow, I thought now would be a good time to catch you up on the story of my backyard from the beginning.
-
Before and After Floor Plans
What’s the Plan?
I have so much I want to share with you, but let’s start at the very beginning. (A very good place to start.) When I first saw My Crappy House, I could tell it had so much potential. Like a diamond in the rough. (OK, maybe not a diamond. Maybe like… a high quality cubic zirconia. In the rough.) It just needed a makeover. Keep reading to see the before and after floor plans of My Crappy House remodel.
I closed on My Crappy House in mid May and planned to move in mid July, leaving me ample time to renovate. Yes, I seriously thought that the major structural changes I’m about to share with you could be accomplished in two months.
By me.
Just… me.
Because, you know, how hard could it be? Watch a few YouTube videos… Buy some tools… Knock down a couple of walls… Easy peasy.
This was the first of many delusions.
