Ruston Farm: Remodel

We've been busy at Ruston house this week working in the yard and getting everything ready for our new electrical installation.

Dubious fusebox

The current overhead hookup to the house (rain immanent!)

The string marks the spot! Of our trench digging needs.

Right now we have an FPE breaker box that is apparently considered very sketchy. I guess the fuses don't trip when they should. Eeek! Big big fire hazard! So you can see those wires coming in up above in that picture - we've got an overhead service from the pole at the Southeast corner of the lot, across the alley. For the new electrical service we're going to do an underground conversion from the pole at the Northeast corner, and then we'll stick the panel in the basement (instead of over there at the back outside of the house). It is pretty exciting to be making this step! Once we've got a new power source we can start ripping out all of that ancient knob-and-tube that everything's running on now and get this (partial) demolition (don't worry) going in earnest.

Meanwhile, I have been working away at our knotweed problem and Mike has been uprooting (difficult!) our laurels one after another. Very soon we'll be upgrading our retaining wall from a collection of broken concrete (former patio?) and disintegrating railroad ties to something nice and new. Neither of us has ever formed and poured concrete, so there's plenty of learning to be had along the way! Then once that's in place we'll put up a fence and keep those neighborhood dogs from pooping everywhere.

My trip to Ruston yesterday was less successful. I took Bugsy with me to plant some of my purchases from the Flower and Garden Show in Seattle (a Goji Berry bush and a Lingonberry bush!) as well as work on that obnoxious knotweed again. Bugsy romped briefly around the yard while I planted the seedlings and talked to our neighbor. Then it started to rain and Bugsy became quite grumpy. At first he tried standing next to me, looking sad and dejected while I pulled up our lonely last scotch broom that Mike wanted to keep. When I headed back towards the truck to grab something, he ran ahead of me excitedly, making dramatic jumps and leaps as he circled the truck. When I didn't open the door, he went back into sad dog mode. Clearly I wasn't getting the message. I tried to pull up some knotweed at the front of the house, but that was when it started really pouring and Bugsy still wasn't doing anything to boost morale. After standing next to me whimpering slightly, he gave up and decided to wait under the cover of the front porch. I finally left the knotweed - my old leaky rain jacket had started to soak through! He was of course thrilled and made another exuberant run to the truck, this time taking a satisfying jump onto the warm seat.

Hopefully next week will bring weather that cooperates a bit better.

Sad, wet Bugsy (in favorite gold chair!)

New book and a local seed catalog

Seed starts! This time I'm making it easy on myself with a nice start tray

Garden/Site Plan.
Contour lines thanks to the EPA lead/arsenic remediation map,
architecture work thanks to Mike's dad!

Newest garden incarnation, looking a bit worse for wear

Ann and Mike

Mike and I recently became proud new homeowners! We have a house in Ruston, WA, a small town in North Tacoma (with its own wikipedia entry). It was once a company town for the ASARCO smelter (defunct as of 1985). Ruston is a pretty amazing, unique place surrounded by North Tacoma on 3 sides and the Sound on another. You can see a helpful google map here: Ruston, WA

The house...well it needs a lot of work. However, it makes up for its shortcomings with a view of the Sound and a rambling yard that slopes down towards the north (part of the same slope that once made up "Stack Hill", where the smelter's smokestack, the tallest in the world back in 1917, once resided). The yard is amazing. It is a quarter acre with a couple old fruit trees and some crumbling railroad ties. It's a total blank slate. I'm very excited to plan a large garden and get cracking on the yard while we are waiting for permitting and other things to get in motion.

The inside of the house is gutted. It was a bank foreclosure that was in the process of being remodeled when the work stopped partway. The good news is that we are saved from doing a big chunk of demolition, and since we'll end up tearing down to the studs and starting almost from scratch, what we do with the layout and structure of the house is largely up to us. The bad news how much work this leaves us with. This includes all the electrical (goodbye knob and tube!), plumbing, heating, building a possible addition, restructuring the second floor and roof (for a high vaulted ceiling!), plenty more windows, siding - really everything. There is so much to do that our biggest challenge is going to be picking and choosing what to do, staying on top of it all and not getting bogged down in details.

We will have many house updates and plans to follow. Enjoy!

Ann