AMPs

The first winter in Pittsburgh was hard but we had made progress with Mercy Haus and I was content having a new project, new challenges. The second winter found us not much farther than the first year and it is here that I lost my patience. Jack and I could not come to any agreements regarding the next stage of the renovation and our close living quarters made it difficult to compromise.

In the spring of 2010 we split on very good terms, despite my impatience. Jack left the house in my hands the ownership be reevaluated at a later date. I spent the summer filling up 2 dumpsters and freaking out about the next stage of the project. All the walls save the small bedroom and half of the bathroom were down to the studs.

There was still no electricity so I began to look for a certified electrician to upgrade the 100 amp service panel and then sign off on the paperwork for the electric company to turn on the power. A friend recommended a company and so I scheduled a walk through. Gus showed up late, which was to be expected. Our walk though was focused in the basement since that is where all of the work needed to be done. He (con)vinced me that I would need a 200 amp service, even though a 150 would have been more than adequate (With a 200 amp service I can practically run each outlet on a separate breaker).

I wanted to be able to work with him so that I could learn and to cut down on some of the labor. He agreed and said that he would sign off on my work after he had inspected it so that I could comply with the city code. He agreed to a reduced labor rate, though I am sure he made up for this “discount” it in his material costs. After the walk through, he was in need of a place to shit, which Mercy Haus did not have so we ended up having to go back to my apartment so he could relieve himself. He came out and sat at my kitchen table and proceeded to bid the job.

His bid:

$1460 for a 200 Amp service

Including (6) 20 Amp breakers

4 temp Lights

4 Temp outlets

Terraces

 

Fig & flowers in the garden 2013

The garden at Mercy Haus is on a Southern slope. Three streets border the North, East and South sides allowing maximum light and movement for the land. Hackberries, Sliver Maples and Mulberries create natural fencing and a bit of privacy, though, because of the hills everyone looks into their neighbors lot.

There is a gradual slope of the land, perfect for terracing which is what I set about doing in the spring of 2009. Building terraces prevents erosion, conserves water and increases your growing space considerably. Designing the terraces was a bit easier than the actual act of creating them but eventually I made them work. See pattern 169 “Terraced Slope”

Since I was working on my own, with only hand tools I kept the project small and close to the top of the lot. I began by digging a trench and building up the north side of the trench, using old chair backs as retainers. Once this had been properly defined I was lucky enough to have a friend with a soil connection and we spent an afternoon filling the bed with rich soil, putting it almost at the level of the highest point in the yard. I echoed this on the east side of the house.

This makeshift terrace worked for the last 3 years giving the most bountiful space to our herbs and catching rainwater for our Plum tree, see pattern 170 “Fruit Tree.” Happily this past summer, Seth, our sometimes contractor had second go of it, this time with a tiller and Belgian block and finally put to good use all the bricks that were left over from the two fireplaces to create a lovely pathway. See Pattern 120 “Paths and Goals” and Pattern 121 “Path Shape.”

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Flurries

Pittsburgh is understood best in the winter. The weather suits its gritty moodiness and gives the residents a reason to stay inside, to complain and to be generally crabby. The winter of 2008-09 was endless. I had resigned myself to drawing and planning for the house and Jack slowed his work there to a bare minimum.

We were still at odds on priorities for move in. There had been no resolution in regard to disposal of trash and we had the added challenge of needing a licensed electrician to ok the main line in so that we could have power. It seemed any suggestion I made was met with criticism and I began to doubt I was capable of contributing to such a big project. This was compounded by the doubts of all our family and friends who looked at us as if we were crazy when we took them on our house tour.  

That spring I did everything I could to stay out of Mercy Haus. I focused on the garden and nurtured our plants. Jack was taken with Bill Mollison and Sepp Holzer and so we tried to design what I hoped to be a carefree permaculture grazing garden. That first year I am certain we spend more money on the garden and the plants than we did on the house itself. 

Despite all the work I did in the yard we were getting turned in by the neighbors for the tall grass. See pattern 172 “Garden Growing Wild” This was to be expected since this was one of the only ways they had of complaining about a vacant house, and we had yet to assure them that we were not going to flip the property, that we wanted to improve the building and the lot and be good neighbors.  

 Fence before Summer 2008 & after Summer 2013 (four years old)

That being said, we decided to rebuild build our fence. I had gotten a bunch of reused fencing from work and we began the task of digging post holes by hand. Renting a post digger would have been the smart thing to do, but we were too stubborn and set off to work with what we had. This took us weeks, but the end result was quite nice, and 4 years later there is not much repair that needs to happen. We flipped the pickets on their sides so that we could match the contours of the hill, and that from the street it looks friendly and cared for.

Rehab

The floorplan of Mercy Haus was close and dark. The kitchen was in one of the smallest rooms and the living room situated at the darkest point in the house. The second floor was broken up into 4 small bedrooms, each with small windows at chin height. They felt like cells, and in fact one of the rooms had a padlock on the outside of the door. Creepy. I have been told that this room was used for their Rottweilers, in which case it is less? Creepy? It was clear to us that gutting the entire house was the only way to turn it into the best home it could be.

Christopher Alexanders “A Pattern Language” was instrumental in the design. It transformed the way we thought about creating a home and focused our attention on the influence design has on human behavior. The book is broken up into 251 different patterns for creating space with more life. You can read more about them here

http://www.patternlanguage.com/

Since we were limited in cash and time and materials our tentative plan was to fix up the original structure so that we could move in to fix up the two additions. This meant designing the house with the core essentials in 800 square feet. We opened the second floor plan to include a larger bathroom and bedroom letting each room breathe a bit.

The bathroom had been stuck under layers of vinyl tile and plastic tub surrounds. The fixtures themselves were not the worst, in fact the tub and sink were reused in the current bathroom. It was mostly the layout that effected the feeling of the space. The door opened onto a small window above the toilet, and you had to shut the door to see the tub or the sink. If the door was left ajar you were greeted with the view of the toilet, and the windows light did not reach the sink or tub where it would have been most useful. The final design left the sink under the window and a tiled tub that hid the toliet*. 

The demo slowed, it was now winter. Once the initial gut was done we spent too much time pushing garbage around and collecting more of it to use at some later date. Reality had set in. I was working part-time in an unheated warehouse earning just above minimum wage. We were living in a two room studio**and struggling to keep our sense of individuality. I tired easily and often took naps in our tub between house projects, bundled in my thermals, hats and gloves, dust mask on. We had done the easiest thing, breaking everything down, and now we had to impossibly fix everything we had torn apart.

*The final bathroom, was not completed until 2011. Ashby, my sister tiled right before we moved in!

**The winter of 2008 was spent at Jacks parents while we tried to figure out where to move, what to buy and if we were able to. After a unimpressive stay in Braddock in February of 2008 we sought out a friends sister in Pittsburgh and she was kind enough to let us stay with them for June and July while we sorted out our affairs and finally found a studio close to Mercy Haus where we could live while we worked on our fixer-upper.