Cleaning, The Second

I've been thinking that I need a plan to get the cleaning done more efficiently: start a room and finish a room, not work on all rooms at once. And I need to set goals for what I want to get done in a session. So today's goal is to get the trash out of the small bedroom, organize and stack all of the boxes of stuff we are saving for the former residents in the small bedroom and clean all of the trash out of the bathroom.

I started the small bedroom first. There wasn't a lot left in there once I sorted through everything and stacked it neatly. It really started to add up once I started moving the boxes from the main bedroom in there. There's still plenty of room for storing for now. I left out the boxes that are Tony's niece's. She's moving back to Maryland in January and I'll let her sort those out.

The bathroom mess came up easily. It was mostly clothes, dirty clothes. Nothing savable. While I was moving the cooler out of the bathtub I found an unpleasant surprise. The wall behind the tub is crumbling behind the vinyl tub siding because the idiots didn't caulk the bottom. So now the wall is going to get fixed, and quick. The only problem with that is the expense it brings. Once we re-dry wall the bathroom wall we're going to need to put up something to protect it from water. Which means we need to sink money in tile. But the wall tile and the floor tile need to match, so we'll need to buy both at the same time. Tony and I agreed that for now we'll just caulk the remaining wall as best as we can until we can assemble the funds to fix it properly.

Tony worked on the kitchen today. He got most of it done, all the cabinets boxed up except for the one over the stove. We found a 'treat' left for us in the fridge. I cringe thinking about cleaning that thing out.

Trash update: from the looks of it we now have enough trash to fill a swimming pool. Wasn't there one collecting mosquito larva in the back yard? I think so.

View the December 30th Album here.

Let the Cleaning Begin!

Tony and his mother went over to the house this morning. I would have joined them, but I had to work. Bleh. I only had a half day so I joined them at noon-ish. Tony and I went to Home Depot and got the supplies needed to fix the toilet. Luckily, Tony said we only needed a flapper and a seat. He said we may need the parts from the full repair kit in the future, but only the flapper was needed to make it operational. You'd be amazed how many toilet seat options they had. Tony and I picked the cheapy special which cost less than the flapper.

When we got over there, I have to admit, I was overwhelmed. Tony and his mom started on the main bedroom and got a lot of the trash up. The bedroom floor had this weird sticker that looked like a carpet on the floor. That combined with the layer of grit from the dirty boxes made the floor really slippery. But the better question was, why did they cover such beautiful hard wood floors with... that?! Anyway, Tony and his mom had been saving stuff that the former residents had boxed up and meant to take. I didn't really know where to start. It was really hard to pick out the trash from the stuff to save. I got some work done in the kitchen while T fixed the toilet. Good new, the toilet is fixed but then promptly clogged again on the cleaning wipes Tony used to clean the bowl. We'll need a plunger now.

Tony scrubbed part of the kitchen floor while I did some work in the living room. He said he felt better having the floor at least partially clean. The work we did today wasn't really dramatic, but made me think I need a better game plan to tackle this place.

View the December 26th Album here.

The 'To Do' List

So, how I see it is the house project will come in 3 phases; the 'make it livable' phase, the 'make it bearable' phase and the 'make it nice' phase. The 'make it livable' phase will be just that. It may not be pretty, but we'll be able to function living there. So we'll have to fix all of the crap that makes the house a nightmare, like the trash and the dirt and the trash. In the 'make it bearable' phase we'll fix all of the things that are glaring eyesores, like the floors and the walls. You know the things that will make it look less like a serial killer lives there. And finally in the 'make it nice' phase we'll install our own little non-vital add-ons.



The first step, a check list of the 'make it livable' phase.

1. Clean out all of the trash on the first floor: Pretty self explanatory. Bag it all up and ship it on out. We may need a dumpster if the good old boys from the city won't haul it all away.


2. Clean out all of the moldy clothes in the basement: I've made this a separate step because the procedure will be totally different. T wants to erect a tent around the debris and spray it all down with bleach before we start. And, like any sane people, we are going to require protective gear so that that shit doesn't get anywhere near us.


3. Clean and clean and clean: ... and then when we think its clean, clean again. Seriously that place is disgusting.


4. Fix the toilet: It needs a new seat and some new guts.


5. Change the locks: I don't want the dead beats that lived there before us to try to come in and steal any of our stuff out from under us, and, oh yes, they would. But that's a-whole-nother story.


6. Get blinds: I'm not sure what colors the rooms will be yet so I don't want to get curtains. But we need something to cover the windows.


7. Replace the wall in the main bedroom: Re-dry wall the walls in the larger bedroom. While the walls are down check/rewire the electrical wire (we heard the wiring was aluminum and likes to short out) and put up insulation. I consider this more a part of the 'make it bearable phase' but we need at least one nice room and it would be nice to get done before we move all our furniture in.


8. While the walls are down, refinish the floor: Sand it down and re-stain it. Do the hallway and the living room while we have the rental. May as well get that done before we have furniture everywhere.
9. Paint said walls: We're thinking blue or green. Or both. If time permits add some crowing to the walls.
10. Move stuff in

Here's some of the stuff we want to do in the 'make it bearable phase':

1. Put up new dry wall in all the rooms: We don't know what the water damage did to the walls. And we're adding insulation and checking the wiring as we go.
2. Pain all new walls
3. Redo the floors and walls to the kitchen and bathroom
4. Fix the ceiling
5. Add insulation to the ceiling
6. Refinish the kitchen cabinets
7. Landscaping
8. Get new or refinish all of the door, including the front door

The Inspection

Okay, lets start with a little background on the house. Sometime this year I'm going to be moving into a house with my boyfriend, Tony. This house belongs to Tony's mother and used to be Tony's grandparent's house. Previously it had been occupied by Tony's sister and her family. However they didn't take very good care of it. And by didn't take very good care of it I mean practically rolled around in a pile of their own trash. You'll see what I mean in the pictures.

Anyway, Tony's mom agreed to let us live there for the insignificant price of the cost of the taxes on the property, about $200 a month. The majority of our leftover income (after bills, food, gas and the cost of having a little fun) will be spent on fixing this house.
We did a walk through of the house and its pretty trashed.

The good news is that the roof is new, the foundation is good and most of the major appliances work. So most of the work will be making it pretty and functional. Daunting, I know, but it will hopefully be a fun challenge.

Photobucket Album

Welcome to The 'Fix This House' Project

Welcome everyone to The 'Fix This House' Project. I'm going to be keeping a log of all the trials and tribulations that go into our house renovation. So sit back, relax and enjoy the mayhem that goes into renovating a house.

... next to come, the 'before' pictures.