an able door

When we purchased our blessed beast, the door that you see before you was pea puke green and hung at the top of the staircase. The entire second floor had been converted in to and used as an apartment for quite some time before the house went into foreclosure and this door had closed off the upstairs from the downstairs. Restoring the house to a single unit, we knew we were going to remove the doorway. The doorway to our master bedroom, on the other hand, had no door of which to speak. Clearly, the solution was simple: Move the top-of-the-stairs door to the master bedroom.

Only a couple of problems stood in the way to making our solution a reality. 

First, the door was about an inch and a half too wide for the existing doorway to the bedroom. A capable circular saw took care of that problem. Second, there was a big ol' hole above the doorknob where once lived a deadbolt lock. A jigsaw, a scrap of wood, a couple of screws and few globs of wood putty later, it was if said hole had never existed. Never before had two problems relating to a door been so creatively solved.

We finished the job with a coat of espresso minwax ala the floors and a couple of coats of poly. We reused original hardware and hung that sucker in the doorway as if it had been there its whole lifetime.

Boom-shaka-laka.

Door. 

Coming soon...

Closets.

That's right...

Closets.

the purple room, part deux

Last week, you were treated to a peek at the renovation of our master bedroom/former "green room". Now, let us revisit the "purple room" of which we took at peek at earlier in the year. 

Here's the jane gals with our buddy phil who helped us purchase this blessed beast we now call home. This was pretty much how the room looked when we were first wooed by her majesty. The only trace of any color other than purple was the battered plaster hanging from the ceiling. We suspect that there once resided a deeply devoted fan of prince in this room. We respect that. However, the purple had to go. And go far far far far far away.

After we tried our hand at hanging drywall in the green room, we enlisted the help of mom & pop rockey, and again mr. helvie to put a fresh crown atop the purple prince's royal dome. This is shot of the room after the new drywall has been hung. I must say, it really felt like we knew what we were doing this time. After some heavy mudding and sanding, the ceiling was finished. We then repaired some of the bulging plaster walls by drilling holes and shooting liquid nails into the walls. After the liquid nails, we we screwed the plaster tight against the lath and let it dry. A mere hours later, boom-shaka-laka. Almost-like-new walls. The rest of the renovation (i.e. paint, floors, etc.) was pretty similar to the green room. So let's just skip to the "after" pictures...

Voila!

The kids have a new shiny room in which they sleep like darling babies.

I'd like to say that next week we will reveal the final upstairs room: the family bath. However, that will most likely be awhile. 

How about some refinished bedroom doors? 

You know you love pictures of doors.

Stay tuned for those doors.

there are people sleeping upstairs

When our tiny tribe first took a tour of our soon-to-be home/project one year ago, this is how our future master bedroom appeared. Everything but the carpet, ceiling accoutrements, and window panes were painted pea puke green. The ceiling was paved with tiles glued to lath. In the center of the ceiling was an unattractive, improperly installed ceiling fan. I'll spare the description of the non-functioning secondary furnace in the closet. Suffice it to say it no longer resides at this address and has most likely been torn limb from limb to create robots that will one day become sentient and return to our finally renovated home to exact their revenge. But i digress. Let me walk you briefly through the year-long process of transforming the affectionately named "green room" into a place that we can finally designate "mommy & daddy's room".

The first thing we had to do in this future sanctuary was to remove those unfortunate tiles. This proved a rather easy task as they were barely hanging on for dear life as it was. Eventually, we also got around to knocking down that ceiling fan that was merely bolted to a ceiling joist. I don't know if i've mentioned it before, but let me just get this out of the way now before we proceed any further: our home is FULL of things that were done less than properly. Ceiling fan installation should really be the least of our concerns. Remember that furnace in the bedroom closet that i mentioned earlier? Yeah, i know! Carbon monoxide, right? Oh well.

Once the ceiling was stripped to the bones, we were ready to learn how to hang drywall. Fortunately, we had a lift supplied by brother ben and the able hands of ben himself, brother jeremy, mister mike, and the affable ryan helvie (pictured above heavily critiquing our craftsmanship while MJ wonders to herself why i'm just turding around with my camera instead of making myself useful. jk, y'all). By the by, have i mentioned how incredible and generous our friends and family are? That's right; i just did.

Just look at that drywall glisten. Once we muddled our way through this room, we only got better at hanging that stuff throughout the remainder of the house. While the "green room" was the first room in which we hung drywall, it was the second that we finished with mud, tape and sandpaper. MJ and i discovered that we might just have a real knack for finishing drywall. Here's a shot of the finished ceiling, paint and all, with a new fan. We customized a discounted hunter fan by giving a paint job to the blades and fitting the lights with frosted white globes.

Also notice that the pea puke green is slowly dissolving beneath layers of paint primer. I believe the carpet has been ripped up and tossed out the windows by this point as well. Something is definitely taking shape. I haven't even mentioned all of backstage work. There are hours and hours of electric rewiring, insulation removal, and ductwork installation behind those walls and ceiling. 

Finally, we sanded down those floors to the grain. We stained them with minwax espresso and coated them with four rounds of polyurethane. The walls got a touch of grey as a final treatment and all of the trim painted white as snow.

Now, for the moment you've been holding your breath for...

Go ahead, breathe...

It's just one room in a whole house that needs a whole lot of love...

However, it is a HUGE victory for us...

So here it is...

TA-EFFING-DA!

If one looks rather closely, one will notice that the window sashes alone retain the pea puke green. We've been saving those for our final decision about keeping or replacing all of the original windows throughout the house. Also, the undepicted doors are presently being stripped and sanded to be refinished similar to the floors. However, i think you get the idea.

Here's a shot of the window across from our bed where our old library desk now has a functional place of residence in our home. The poor thing has been relegated to a closet for far too long. It's time for her to shine like the shiny diamond she was always meant to be.

Here we are.

One year later. 

We're finally upstairs.

It feels pretty great.

illustrations for life

 Our efforts in restoring our home continue to excite us and frustrate us simultaneously. I've been hoping to post some before/afters of the upstairs when we've reached the point of finally being able to use it as living space. It's definitely getting there, but difficulties with giant floor-sanding machines have left us in a holding pattern once more.

Drawing inspiration from newspapers continues to push me to seek the weird among the bizarre. No doubt, one day we will all find a home.

pet sounds

Tis the season for applying bunny ears to your canine pals. 

Enjoy this magic moment.

groove crews

We at the rockey home are just coming down from our weeklong recuperation from our weeklong vacation from working on ye olde homestead. It's been difficult to get back into the groove, but if we're going to prove our love we're going to have to get up on our feet and step to the beat. Boy, that's what it will be. 

In other news, the sun is shining and the mammoth icicles hanging from our home are melting and falling and making terrifying yet glorious noises. They fall with an unsuspecting rhythm that would make lovers of street dancing hoodlums. It feels enough like spring that miranda is cleaning house whilst i draw and scan images for a secret forthcoming collaboration. The introspective couple that you see illustrated here have nothing to do with any of that. Dig it, you wild and free bohemians.

timeline fotos

the purple room

We started setting goals for completing the bedrooms upstairs. They may have been a bit difficult to meet on time, but they've kept us hammering away. We started with the purple room. The drywall went up on the ceiling like hot-buttered soul which led us to believe that finishing it would be easy breezy one two threezy. I will mos def declare that after layers of patient mudding and hours of sanding, the ceiling looks spectacular. Miranda definitely took the award for most valuable player on this one. 

After the ceiling was primed and painted, we made some repairs on some cracks and bulges in the original plaster walls. We hung a customized hunter fan. We ripped up the purple carpet to expose the hardwood floors. We primed and painted the walls. The room isn't one hundred percent complete yet, but it's getting remarkably close. The transformation has inspired us greatly. Voila!

We've already started moving on to work on the green room which should look something like this in a couple more weeks. Hopefully before spring we'll be actually using the upstairs for living space.

Slowly, our broken house is becoming a home.

i am bleeding, hear me rawr

Collaboration is the name of the game. For thirteen years now, i've given home-recorded and assembled gifts to family and friends during the holiday season. Some of these collections of song were assembled over a period of time. Some were written and recorded within the two months leading up to christmas eve. Some have been collaborations with family and friends. One particular project was a collaboration with my four-year-old daughter. This year, i asked the people of the internets to flood my inbox with song requests. I then asked folks to vote on the songs that they would most like for me to record. 

After the voting ended, my wife and kids and i migrated north to settle into a century-old house in need of a whole lot of love. Eventually, the list of songs elected by the people of the internets began reminding me of the project that i'd promised to deliver. Late nights and early mornings became prime time for recording these modern day standards until lo and behold i gave birth to a short stack of compact discs. I'm thankful for all those who took the time to participate in this project. It was challenging, inspiring, and a whole lot of fun to make after spending so much time hammering away at this old house. Enjoy this aural monstrosity RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

Welcome to the new year, beautiful broken people!

salvaging, part one

The family recently discovered Franklin Heritage, Inc. in downtown Franklin just a hop, skip and a pancake down the way from our monstrosity of a home. We happened upon them whilst searching for skeleton keys on ye olde craigslist and thought it might be a trove of treasure just waiting for our grubby little paws to sift through. After spending a great deal of time staring at schoolhouse lights on the internets, Miranda Jane was delighted to find a salvaged globe and fixture that i purchased for a few bones. "Happy birthday."

We then decided to spend the afternoon touring several antique shoppes along Jefferson Street right in the heart of downtown Franklin. We're still living amongst quite a bit of chaos in the house which makes it difficult to know what might go where. Also, having two curious, can't-look-without-touching youngsters along makes antique shopping slightly trickier than a run to the grocery store. Though we weren't ready to commit to any big ticket items, we did grab a few flashcards bearing the kids initials and some avian-inspired illustrations. 

Purchased for fifty pennies each at Salvage Sisters' Antique Market. 

Suitable for framing.

happy thanks, y'all

Celebrating with family the Rockey family during the holidays has always been a daylong event brimming with a whole lot of food, a whole lot of people, a whole lot of noise, a whole lot of laughing. This thanksgiving, we sat around an amazing meal with grandparents and great grandparents at the home in which i spent my high school days. We heard my grandfather tell stories that my dad had never even heard before. We added a new moniker to his already long list of nicknames: Grampa Junie. It was such a quiet, joyous affair that eventually turned into creative wonderland. 

Just when it looked as though the evening would be drawing to a close, we were joined by my uncle Conrad, cousin Becca and some new friends who immediately found themselves lending voices to a surprise recording session taking place in the family room. After warming up our guests with a sing-along, i passed the baton to Olivia Jane who passed out paper and crayons to everyone and invited us all to make drawings.

Here's one of Olivia's incredible drawings paired with a lyric sheet that she requested of me.

My contribution to the collection of drawings. Old friends being thankful.

Olivia's great grandfather delighted us all with his masterful rendering of a horse.

Olivia then had everyone who contributed drawings (and vocals, by the way) sign this cover sheet for the collection. We continued to laugh and eat chocolate-covered delicacies while dreaming up nativity-inspired colors for an idea-pitch to Crayola. Possible crayon colors include "soft manger", "star of bethlehem", "donkey grey", "gold", "virgin white" and "becca's favorite".  It's difficult to imagine that this idea won't make millions of somethings.

Holiday traditions have come and gone over the years, but i'm thankful for children who inspire me and invite their family to create colorful memories together.

satellite's gone

About twenty years ago, as a young college sapling, i discovered a misplaced cassette tape in a parking lot. Printed on the plastic casing of the tape were the words “Walk On The Wild Side - The best of Lou Reed”. At the time, my familiarity with Reed’s work may or may not have begun and ended with the words of that title. Regardless, I took that tape home and quickly secured it into the winding wheels of my sony walkman. I spun the wheels backward until the tape ran out, pressed play, and heard the words, “Satellite’s gone up to the skies. Things like that drive me out of my mind…” Everything that followed melted my mind.

The music was a little weird, a little gritty, a little funky, a little sweet.

It was poetry. It was honest. It was rock. It was roll.

The following is the first proper recording from the new far-from-renovated studio of The Mustard Room. It is a precursor to a forthcoming album of cover songs democratically selected by friends. It is a disheveled yet affectionate tribute. Dig it.

housewarming

Let's be honest, folks - it's supposed to be chilly in autumn. We're a good week into october and thus far the weather has been unseasonably warm as we've been counting down the days until the new furnace is installed at the rockey home (or as i'm now calling it: The Madness). This week, the climate turned on a dime. After wearing shorts all day sunday whilst installing more ductwork, we all woke up monday morning and immediately pulled on the cosby sweaters and knit caps. While preparing breakfast, Miranda and i even enjoyed a romantic moment by warming our hands over a boiling pot of oatmeal. These are the days.

If i may say so, we're getting pretty good at running ductwork. Our friend mike (whose friendship, skills, and generosity have been invaluable to us in our home renovation endeavors) helped us construct a piece of ductwork to run through a pesky ceiling joist. I've discovered a hidden tin-snip proficiency that has proven very useful in these duct-running days. Peep this collar installation on this near-perfect circle that i fashioned in a scrap piece of sheet metal.