The 'Fix This House' Project Two: The Outside Bugaloo

Update: The Ant Crisis

2010-05-03T17:57:00.000-07:00

So far the preliminary results are startling. Sugar soaked cotton balls have virtually stopped ants on counter and in cat food bowl. I don't know if that is due to being diverted by peanut butter bait though. When given the choice between sugar/cotton and peanut butter they greatly prefer sugar/cotton. This is good because peanut butter bait seems ineffective, or at least slow acting. They continue to eat it but their numbers aren't diminishing on peanut butter front. Maybe we can declare a truce, peanut butter smeared walls for staying out of my kitchen. No, that will be a last effort resort. For now I'll stick with the cotton balls.

Special Bulletin: The War on Ants

2010-05-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

Now that the weather has broken and heat is upon up (...yay) the kitchen has suddenly become infested with ants. They have become annoying very quickly. And not only are they attacking the human food supply, but the food supply of the animals too. And as my poor kitties look upon me with sad eyes asking 'why, oh why food giver is my kibble crawling' I know that it is time to eliminate the insect menace. Point of attack one: poison bait. Boric acid is supposedly a the chief ingredient in home made pesticide. It kills the ants slowly so they take it back to their nest and feed it to their ant babies. Bwah, ha, ha.

Sugar water and boric acid, applied to cotton balls

Tainted peanut butter, not as effective as tainted love, but it'll due

I am experimenting with liquefying some cat food and adding boric acid to that since they can't see to keep their greedy little ant paws off it. Later we are going to apply Ant Shield outside. Die, fuckers.

My experimental traps

Ha, even as I type the ants are gathering around one of the cotton balls. Yes, feast my tiny friends.

Just me and my bucket of death

2010-04-20T18:43:00.000-07:00

I mixed up this a little concoction today to get rid of the weeds on the driveway:

1 gallon vinegar
1 cup salt
2 tbsp dish soap

It's too potent to the yard. I think this shit will kill just about anything. We'll see the results.

2010-04-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

So this weekend, despite the pitiful amount of work I got done on the yard, I did some research on the cost of a bunch of the work that needs to be done. Tony and I agreed on green siding (when we get the money to get it done) with maroon shutters. Siding costs a mere $1 per sq. foot (not including any supplies for attaching or labor). We have about 1300 sq. feet of siding that needs to be done. We plan on doing the windows at the same time and they cost about $200 a piece. We need ten. A new carport is debatable since they can cost between $1000 to $3000.

I was thinking about doing a brick facade on the lower part of the exterior wall where the foundation was showing. There would be about 510 sq. feet (low estimate) but I've seen estimates that it costs between $5 to $12 per sq. foot. So even at a low end figure it will cost more to do the foundation than to put up new siding. So, I think we'll stick with paint for now. I'm now looking into the feasibility of molding facade bricks on my own. So the plan is seal cracks, paint, put down a new border for the plant beds, then add dirt to the sides.

The yard itself is going to be a lot of work too. I guess I didn't figure that in order to plant seeds I need to loosen the soil, put down some new soil and then plant seeds. That's going to take some work. Go, go mighty muscles! I guess it's all a bit overwhelming. Tony also thinks we should try fixing the fence, for now, and repainting it. I still say knock the thing down.

Anyway, sprayed the last of the weed killer over the weekend. weeds in the front yard are looking very dead. The back isn't looking as good as the front, but it has had less time to work. I am overall pleased with the spray. I didn't get a chance to caulk because Tony was sick and didn't get to show me how. Got part of the front beds tilled.

2010-04-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

Sprayed front yard for the second time today. I was scared a little that the weeds were recovering. They are looking like they are drought stressed. The strange thing is that larger plants shrivel up faster than the smaller ones. It makes me wonder how the weed killer actually works. It must have something to do with surface area, not getting sucked up by the roots.

Four weeks until I can plant new grass on the front yard. I'm planning on doing a second coat on the back this weekend.

Weed Update: Day 5

2010-04-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

Weed Status: shriveling

Most are pretty withered. Even the tougher weeds are feeling the pain. Catnip is starting to shrink. Clover isn't dying, but isn't getting larger either. Going to douse the backyard Monday and then re-apply next week for good measure.

Die weeds, die!

Healthy catnip plants not sprayed

Sprayed catnip

Healthy dandelion plants not sprayed

Sprayed dandelion

Also I finished hanging the towel rack in the bathroom (yay, minor victory). The wall needs a little sanding, but it looks good.

Weed Status: Day 4

2010-04-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

Condition: distressed

Most of the weeds are taking a turn for the worst. The large leafed weeds are curled up and withering. Most of the others have taken a turn for the worst. The only things that haven't shown any real signs of death are clover and dandelions.

I finished spraying the rest of the front yard today. I'll be starting on the back this weekend.

Weed Status: Day 2

2010-04-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

Status update on the weeds, condition: slightly wilted

The large leaf weeds are looking like day old salad. The rest are still kicking. I'm not entirely convinced this isn't due to the heat. We'll see.

Choose Your Poison

2010-04-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

Well I have been (boring) raking the yard the past couple weeks and pulled out a lot of dead weeds and trash. Wish I'd been more exciting than that. And I got part of the side tiled and weeded to plant the hops. Ooooh! Today I finished screwing the toilet paper holder so that it isn't about to fall off the wall.

Anyway, that most exciting part of the day, buying poison to nukes the yard. Wooooo poison! Let me introduce you to my two new helpers.

Contestant #1!

Ortho Weed B Gone. this product guarantees to kill over 250 different kinds of weeds while not killing grass. I doubt that we have any lawn that isn't weeds, so no big loss if we nukes to whole lot of it.

Directions

Spray, watch weeds die, don't roll in the grass or let any critter roll in the grass until after poison has dried.

I would like to take this time to apologize to any little bun-bun's who happen to eat the grass in my yard. I only hope you have the sense to not eat the grass that tastes like poison. Though I would have to eliminates your furry asses when you started crewing up my garden anyway. Moving on...

Contestant #2!

Stump out. I does, well, what they name implies. It gets stumps out by causing whatever it is that hold the layers of stump together to not connect anymore.

Directions

Step 1: Drill holes in stump

Step 2: Pour Stump out on holes. Wait 4 to 6 weeks.

Step 3: Pour gasoline or kerosene in stump. Wait until it has saturated stump.

Step4: Ignite stump to burn into harmless ash.

*romantic sigh* You had me at pour gasoline in stump. But since we didn't have a drill long enough (the holes have to be 10 inches deep) I can't start until later. No playing with power drills and fire today :( I guess size does matter.

Going back, the Weed B Gone says that you should see results in a few days (though I can't plant new grass for four weeks after application). So stay tuned for updates on how the condition of the weeds.

Before

front of house

front of house (only the left third of the grass here has been treated (due to time) and I'm hoping to get a good comparison shot)

side of house

Exterior, The Walk-Thru

2010-03-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

I know I said I wasn't going to start until Spring (which starts officially this weekend, YAY) but it's been so spring-like out recently I decided to get a drop on the whole outside project. I've been combing the yard (raking is a bad word, do you remember when they 'combed' the desert in Spaceballs? Yeah, like that)trying to get up any loose weeds and trash. Over the course of last weekend and this week I've got the front yard done. I would have started earlier if not for the unusual amount of snow we got this winter.

So today I manned up and taken a real look to see what the outside needs.

1) Clean up all the trash

I don't know whether we have our dirty-ass neighbors to thank for this or the former residents, but there is trash, trash, trash everywhere in the back yard. Pictures cannot convey the amount of trash. It's like someone replaced confetti with trash and had a New Years Party and then threw some trash on top of it. I think a good step one would just be to clean the shit up.

2) Fix cracks in basement wall

Yeah, that sounds worse then it actually is. We had a guy look at it last fall. We just need patch it up with some caulk. Which will help immensely with the leaky basement. But, really, we'll get to the basement in The Fix This House Project Three: Basement... something or other.

3) Get rid of the rusty shed
4) Replace pieces of siding that have fallen off

The goal eventually will be to get new siding, but we're broke. The Outside Bugaloo won't be as well funded as the interior. While we're at it we need to clean that shit too.

5) Replace windows

Ideally, this will be done the same time as the siding, but we have those wonderful neighbors to thank again for the BB gun holes in them. At least we can say the windows were old and busted anyway.

6) Replace the fence

You know at first glance the chain-link fence looks like it could be saved with maybe some TCL and some new chain-link stuff, but when you really look at it (especially in back) it'll probably be less of a headache and a much better finished product to scrap it and start anew.

7) Fix the retaining wall

BTW the retaining wall holding up the driveway is getting worse. *sigh* I'm pretty sure all we'll get to this year is killing off the damn stumps. And that bringns us to...

8) Re-pave driveway

And finally (my personal favorite)

9) PLANT SOME PRETTY FLOWERS

The yard desperately needs some landscaping. And as superficial as pretty flowers are, it is the cheapest thing to do and the nicest looking. All of these things aren't going to get done this year (unless some kind soul wants to send us money), but it's something to work towards.

View the entire March 16th album here

2010-02-16T18:11:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, I know. I said back in January that I was going to update weekly. And how many times have I updated since then? A big fat zero.

Well, since we aren't really doing any big projects until spring (when we're going to work on the outside) I've decided to postpone the project until then. Then I can start 'The Fix This House Project Two: The Outside Bugaloo'. See ya' in spring.

2010-01-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

I've been so busy the past couple of weeks. I forgot to update that we moved in on December 23rd. It's just been a blur of days. We've spent most of the time between now and then moving boxes.

What little we've done on the house has mostly been cleaning the basement. We sealed up the holes in the heater, bought it a shiny new air filter and weather stripped the basement door. I have a laundry list of stuff to be done. I guess you see this stuff better when you live in it. But most of the stuff we've been doing is small. I'll probably just be updating weekly from now on.

2009-12-06T17:09:00.000-08:00

I haven't really done a lot in the past few days. I've taken a few boxes over. This morning Tony took a big load over. I tried cleaning up the vent covers, but they were really grimy. I managed to make them 'better'. Two of them got thrown out a long time ago because they were that bad. I tried my best to clean them, though we're going to replace them.

The mattress is still funky. We're going to get a cover for it until we can buy. I also worked up a floor plan for the living and dining room. Unfortunately, I won't have money for new furniture for a year, at least. It's nice to dream.

Still Stinky

2009-12-02T08:18:00.000-08:00

Well, after half a bottle or peroxide and a full bottle of rubbing alcohol, the mattress is less stinky. We're just going to have to get a new mattress ASAP, well as soon as we can afford it (ASAWCAI?).

The boxes are still boxes, but organized now. I went through a few boxes of odd and ends last night and started the great 'moving purge'. Sadly, most of the big furniture is still at Tony's. And, even sadder, with the semester ending and finals around the corner, we probably won't get time to move it for another two weeks *grumps*. If we get a phone and the mattress de-funked, I'll be moving in without it. Who needs a TV if I have the internet?

I've been trying to figure out a decent floor plan this week for the living/dining room. We have a lot of stuff and little space. The huge ferret cage has been the biggest obstacle. I think I finally may have it, and I'm going to sketch it out using graph paper tonight (yeah, I'm anal and a nerd).

Thwarted

2009-11-30T07:02:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I always think I can get a lot done over holiday weekends. With all the celebrating and festivities and what-not, you seem to have even less time than if you were working.

Anyway, we finally got the bed set up and the stove hooked up on Sunday. I also set up a bookcase and my dresser. A lot of the furniture seems to be at Tony's though: the coffee table, several book shelves, desk, dining room table and TV stand. We still don't have a couch :( Some of the furniture got mold on it from the leaking basement, but only a couple small things got ruined. Thankfully, the mold cleaned off easily.

Anyway, back to an earlier thought, the mattress for the bed had that basement mildew smell. Otherwise we may have stayed there last night. I have to find something that will get the smell out. We were looking at Febreeze in the grocery store and saw that it was mostly water and alcohol. So that's what we're trying first to get it out. The only other thing I know that will get the smell out is vinegar, and that would be yucky. I appreciate any suggestions on the matter.

Woot!

2009-11-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

All the touch up painting is done. :D

Tony has a few minor things to do this week, like hook the stove back up and put in the other phone lines. We are going to use the holiday weekend to get everything unpacked.

We're moving in!

Pictures

2009-11-18T18:50:00.000-08:00

Pictures of the living room floor!

I put a coat of touch up paint in the living room, but I'm going to have to do a second coat in some spots because the spots were dark and the paint is light. I'm exhausted, but I want to get everything done. I still have some of the green to touch up, plus doing a final clean on the floors and unpacking. So, I'm really going to push this weekend to get a lot done.

2009-11-17T18:22:00.000-08:00

Floors are done. Pictures tomorrow, real ones too, not this 'cell phone picture' crap.

I have you now, floors!

2009-11-15T19:11:00.000-08:00

I finally got to working on the floors. The first coat of polyurethane is done. One more coat to go. I have to get more polyurethane though. I doubt half a can is going be enough.

I didn't unpack any more stuff. The fumes were getting to me and I wasn't in a make-order-out-of-chaos mood. We did move the box spring upstairs, but were too lazy to get he mattress. Going the get the second coat done and more stuff moved in during the week. I'm very optimistic about actually being able to live there by next weekend.

2009-11-11T17:22:00.000-08:00

Phone jack #1 is in!

Buried Treasure

2009-11-10T22:22:00.000-08:00

I didn't write yesterday. We only got a little done. Tony evened up the intake hole-in-the-ground so the duct cleaners could come today and clean the ducts without cutting their hands off. I was going to polyurethane the floor, but (as I fear) the putty didn't stain well. I had to re-stain those spots and needed to give it time to dry.

Today we had to go about the whole messy business of getting the ducts cleaned.

First off, never, ever, ever use Home Best to get your ducts cleaned. they advertise in the Penny Saver a lot. The price on the ad is '$79.95 for unlimited ducts'. Somehow the price escalated to $600 when they got there. 'Oh, because that doesn't cover cleaning the furnace, or the intake or the main ducts, or sanitation.' The guy tried to use double-talk and high pressure sell to get me to pay an outrageous amount of money for a glorified vacuuming (I'll discuss the actual services in a moment). If we didn't need this done to move in I would have told him to 'get out'. They lower the price to a meager $430, an amount I would have still been unwilling to pay (Tony did).

What they actually did was run what looked like an industrial sized duster on the end of a power drill into the vents, spun it (on the drill) and kick up the dust in the vents everywhere. And when I say dust everywhere I mean dust everywhere. Then they vacuumed the ducts out with a regular old shop vac. And, even after we told them that we just did construction and to expect dry wall, they told us that the sheet rock was 'plaster' and it was 'meant to insulate the ducts'.

Look, I know we're stupid for paying you guys that much money to do this crap, but we're not idiots.

Anyway, they did their thing and left. There was dust still in the air so I thought it was a bad idea to put down polyurethane. Eluded me again, have you floors! I did all of the touch up painting for the hall and the bedroom and then had to blow 2 and a half hours waiting for a ride. So I decided to raid the basement.

All my dishes and pots! I haven't seen that shit in years... or months. It kind of feels like years with my living situation. They say that packing is a bitch. But unpacking is fun! I think I got about half of the kitchen unpacked.

Yeah, I haven't taken pictures of the floor yet, but I took pictures of my dishes. Everyone has their priorities, I guess.

Stained

2009-11-05T18:11:00.000-08:00

I've been busy, so it's been a couple of weeks since I've had time to finish the work that needs to be done. The goal is to have it done by the end of next week. What's left to do it finish the touch up painting, finish the living room floors, get the ducts cleaned (scheduled for Tuesday) and install a phone line. Of course there will be more work after we move in, these things just being what is required to move in. The bathroom is the biggest mess.

Today I got the floors stained. It took a lot longer than the other wood I had to stain. This floor was more damaged and I had to fill several places with putty. Unfortunately the putty didn't stain so well and I'm going to have to go over it again with gel stain. I put another coat of the hall floor too, to try to hide the damage Sam did. It looks better. Lets hope it still looks better when its dry. The kitchen has been touch-up-painted. That leaves the hall, living room, bedroom and bathroom, all of which I hope to get done this weekend.

LIGHTS!!!

2009-10-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

Hehehehehehehehehe! We have lights!

We went over last night to see them. You have never seen two full grown adults so amused by turning a bunch of light switches on and off. We didn't want to leave. Soon, very, very soon we'll be living there. *joy-gasm*

The camera battery was dead (I didn't know until I got there) so you'll have to settle with crappy cell phone pictures.

Bathroom Vanity Light, we made a 'slight' measuring error (we didn't measure) and now the sconces overlap the mirror

Living Room Ceiling Fan

Bar Lights

Dinning Room Chandelier

Bedroom Ceiling Fan

2009-10-21T16:44:00.000-07:00

LIGHTS! LIGHTS!!!! HOLY SHIT WE HAVE LIGHTS!!!!
*runs away laughing*

The Light Faeires Were Here

2009-10-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

Yeah, we've become pretty lethargic at this point only going over to the house once a week. I think I'm getting this weird 'it's going to be over soon so prolong it so it won't be over' stupid feeling. Anyway, Saturday we went over and did a little work. Tony scrubbed the bathtub and got a lot of the grout off. I painted the closet and touched up the paint in the hall as well as finished scrubbing the hall floor and got the living room floor mostly ready to be stained (there was dry wall mud in the cracks).

The really exciting part is that there were some lights hung on Saturday, the bathroom, circus room and bedroom. We made a measuring error with the bathroom vanity light. The glass domes overhang the medicine cabinet so it won't open. We can fix it, eventually. We have to fix Sam's shoddy workmanship anyway. Then when we came back on Sunday to check on the basement there were more lights hung, the hall, kitchen, dinning room and bar lights. It was really surprising. If this pace continues the lights will all be done really soon. We have to stop by Home Depot to get a new porch light (the current one is too big). All we have left to do is touch up paint, get the floors stained and have the ducts cleaned and then we can move in. There's still other non-essential stuff to do (clean grout off the bathroom floor, paint the basement stairs, fix the cracks in the basement wall, etc.), but we can do that once we're in.

I didn't bring the camera yesterday to get a pictures of the lights (I didn't expect them to be done) so I take some shots when we stop over today.

2009-10-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

Finished touching up the ceilings and moldings today. And I sanded out the stain spots on the living room floor. I couldn't start staining it though. I need a clean brush. Tony sealed the door and porch with foamy stuff. We're still waiting on the electrician :(

Good News For a Change

2009-10-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

Two good things happened over the weekend. Tony called Mike and he said that he was swamped for the next two weeks. But he was going to be incredibly nice and come over after work to help Tony out. So some time next week we'll have lights. We also had a basement guy come over to look at a few problematic cracks in the basement wall. Lucky us he told us that the cracks don't require anything major, spray foam and caulk. And he gave us a lot of cheap ways to fix up the outside to help keep water out.

Oh, and in the drama department, Sam found out that we were unhappy with his sloppy work. He confronted Tony on Friday and told him that basically it was our fault. 'The grout on the floor shouldn't have taken the finish off. We must not have sealed it properly'. Self-righteous ass. Anyway he offered to fix it *chuckle* if we pay him. Yeah, sure. I don't even want him doing it for free. He asked the next day, after trying to 'borrow' twenty bucks, if he could finish up the electric work since Mike was busy. No way in hell.

Touched up the ceiling and moldings in the living room and hall. And I finally finished the closet door. I scrubbed the hall floor some more but there's still spots on it. Going to continue into the kitchen next time I'm over and continue with the floor.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

2009-09-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

It's still very hard to walk in there. I had to bring myself to it today. Nothing is going to get done by just sitting around and being sad. Though I was shocked again when I saw that all the scrubbing we had done to the hall floor to get the grout up caused the polyurethane and the stain to come up too. We're just going to keep finding stuff. Throw another thing on the pile. It's starting to feel like we're never going to be able to move in.

Went through the bedroom and circus room today. Touched up the moldings, door trims and ceiling paint. The moldings are still pretty messed up. I think I can get the bedroom ones a little better. Despite that, my attitude has been 'do what you can and try not to dwell on it.' If we can figure out a better fix we'll do so after we're moved in and had some time to breath. I felt a little better having left and gotten some work done.

Going to go room to room and continue doing that: clean up floors, touch up door frames, touch up moldings, re-paint any messed up ceiling spots and do a general clean. I plan on doing the hall and living room Saturday and kitchen Sunday. I really want to take care of the floors. It's the biggest blow to me. I put so much effort into those floors. I still haven't fully assessed the bathroom yet. I think I need to get some victories under my belt first.

What We Feared

2009-09-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend has not been good. Further inspection of the house revealed Sam's true impact. The more we looked around the more crazy messed up shit we saw. Both Tony and I have been leaping from being very depressed to very angry. It disturbs us that someone can have so much lack of concern for their craftsmanship. And then to look us in the face and ask for money. The damage we've seen isn't just carelessness, either. It's laziness. He just wanted to get the job done as fast and sloppy as possible and preyed on our ignorance of construction to do so.

We have both put blood, sweat and tears into that house. And he might as well as just taken a dump in the middle of the floor. Everything he's done has been tainted by his neglect and now we have to clean it up. So many of the new things we've bought have been in some way ruined. I cannot express how much it angers me that I have to clean up after another asshole who was allowed in that house and just didn't care. Anyway, here's a list of things we've found wrong so far:

Cabinets

knobs put in the wrong place; not fixable
gouges in two of the panels; fixable: sanding and re-staining
proper bottom molding and drawer pulls not installed; fixable: we have to do it ourselves

Floors

large gouges in the circus room floor from where he used a stand saw; fixable: spot sanding and re-staining
marks from where he stained the trim inside on the floor; fixable: spot sanding and staining as planned
grout and some sort of plumbing poxy tracked through floors in all rooms; fixable: scrubbing

Doors

bedroom frame splintered in more than one place; not fixable: can only cover with wood putty and stain
circus room frame destroyed in several places, wood shattered in two spots on top of the frame, one side disconnected from adjoining frame, other side has circular marks like was hit with a hammer (the door at least still works); not fixable: can only cover with wood putty and stain
bathroom frame has grout all over it; maybe fixable: scrubbing, sanding and re-staining

Front Door

large gouge in face; not fixable: can only hide with stain
door not properly sealed, water damage has already occurred; not fixable: can only seal and paint over damage to hide
threshold not properly installed; fixable

Walls

gouges in dry wall; fixable: putty and re-paint
trim, joints filled with wood putty and just globed on; fixable: sanding and spot staining

Bathroom (we haven't thoroughly looked at the bathroom yet)

caulk is dark grey (because he ran out of the matching grey and couldn't bother to tell anyone), obvious and ugly; maybe fixable: pull off caulk and re-caulk, need to finish caulking anyway
mirror screws are in crooked, needed to be boxed in under dry wall and that wasn't done either; fixable: drilling screws in again

Dishwasher

face kicked in at the corner causing the side to bow and catch on the face of the cabinets so it won't open without scraping; maybe fixable: either by calling the manufacturer and buying a new face or hammering the dent out.

Some of the things he was instructed to do correctly, not half-assed, and he still didn't do right. And other things he just did because he's stupid and lazy. Do you really have to instruct someone not to kick a dishwasher into place? Shouldn't they know better? But the answer to this, and possibly every other question that you can ask about this, is answered by the same four words: Sam is an asshole.

WTF and Its Silver Lining

2009-09-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

Tony and I had a long talk last night about Sam. Well, it turns out that the half a day's work he had left to do on the house still isn't done. And he put the knobs for the kitchen cabinets on wrong. We told he specifically we wanted it in the corners of the doors and his dumb ass decided to put them a few inches up from the corner anyway. He would have put the drawer pulls on wrong the fast and wrong way too, but he had the wrong screws.

We talked a long time. We talked about being so tired of always going over there and having to clean up after him and then to have to come back to the same mess two days later. We talked about all the mistakes we caught him doing and how we're afraid of what mistakes we didn't catch but will have to fix 5 months down the road. We talked about the sloppy job he's done and what we're going to have to do to fix it. We're afraid of what he will screw up next. But, most importantly, we talked about how stressed we were about the situation and that we just want him out. We just want the damn job done, whether its us that has to finish it or not. We agreed last night that if he isn't done by this weekend we're sending him packing.

Well, this morning Tony got proactive, gathered up Sam's tools and told him to have a nice fucking life. We learned a hard lesson about who to trust and who to hire. Even though we have a little more work to do now its still a giant weight off our shoulders. At least now the problem isn't worrying about the job, its just getting it done.

Can He Really Be Finished?!

2009-09-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

..... its so pretty.

I went to the house for the first time in a week over this past weekend. I was trying to stay the hell out of the way so that Sam could get done. And everything is so damn pretty.

Kitchen Sink Counter

Bar

Bathroom Tub Surround

Bathroom Vanity

Bathroom Floor

Sam still has a few odd jobs. we caught a few things during the walk through. There is still a hole in the wall he needs to patch near the sink light. He needs to hand the towel rack and toilet paper holder. And he needs to fix one of the window sills.

After that we still have a few jobs ourselves to get done. The biggest of which is the touch up paint and staining the living room floor. And we have to clean. that place needs to be scrubbed. I am waiting to do both of those until the electricians are done hanging the lights. I need to paint the hall closet and the stair well, but both can really be done after we move in if necessary.

Oh, and, funny story, I had a can of 'white' paint for the built-in cabinet and stairs. I tried touching up the ceiling in the living room with it and it was a little... off. So, on a whim because I need to touch up the walls anyway, I painted a splotch on the yellow living room walls and when it dried it matched. I don't know how this can of unopened white paint magically became yellow. Tony swears the lid got switch, but we used all of the original yellow paint and the can of touch up paint we bought is also unopened and hasn't been moved since we bought it. I know in that house I shouldn't ask questions when weird things happen, but.... *sigh* I guess I haven't learned.

Running out of things to do

2009-09-13T20:01:00.000-07:00

Sam has spent the better part of the week working on the plumbing. I think we've made a dozen trips to Home Depot for parts. Phew. But it appears to be done today. The wall is sealed and the tile is in place. I just needs grouting now. Tomorrow he's going to take out the toilet and start the floor tile. I think the original finish date of last Friday is out the window (unless we can time travel). I think we're looking more at next Friday. At least Sam is working steadily.

We are going to have to make another trip to Home Depot. Sam put the water proof polyurethane on the bar brackets without staining it first. He decided that it was my job to stain the already sealed brackets since I wasn't doing anything (AKA eating lunch).

I'm happy that I don't have much essential stuff left to do before we can move in. I cleaned three more windows today (three to go), finished the door frames, cleaned the fridge and put the first layer of wood sealer on the counter tops. Still need to stain the living room floors, touch up paint and clean up after tornado Sam, but none of those things can be done until Sam is out of there.

Now More Than Ever

2009-09-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

Hit the house hard today. Going to be spending as much time there as possible. Lets just say I'm inspired now more than ever to move in for reasons I won't discuss here.

I cleaned four of the windows today. It took an amazing 30 minutes per window. They were so caked in dirt. One of them could have easily been mistaken for a flower bed. They must have left the windows open in the rain repeatedly. I'm reminded of how things were a few months ago when we were cleaning. And, like things were back then, I don't think anything in the house will ever truly be clean without being replaced. Other than that I put another coat on the door frames. By that time it was dark. I plan to have the frames finished this weekend so we can hang the doors back up.

Sam was supposedly there today. I saw little evidence though. He patch the incorrect part of the bar counter, cut the molding to hide the patch and cut a hole in the dry wall for the medicine cabinet in the window. I don't think that could have taken more than an hour. He complained that he couldn't find the faucet for the bathroom sink, even though it was sitting out about 10 feet from the vanity. I'm not sure how he really finds anything. I spent a good 45 minutes just cleaning up boxes and empty bags he's left laying on the floor. I know I've said this before, but I'm tired of being his maid.

2009-09-06T21:40:00.000-07:00

Everything is really starting to come together. The sink and the dishwasher are both in now. All the counters are in too. Because of the warped wall, though the counter for the bar doesn't sit quite flush with the wall. We're going to cover that with quarter round molding. I personally feel that if the wall were crooked the counter should have been cut crooked too. Guess we can't help that now, though. Not unless we want to buy another counter.

Sam is nearly done the living room and kitchen. He has one more window to frame and the back splashes to put up. He's going to focus on the bathroom next.

The doors are finished now. I just have to finish the door trims to match. I put a coat on both, cleaned up the stove and called it a day. I was feeling lazy. And I accomplished everything I really wanted to for this week. Getting closer to move in day. I can't wait.

Down to the Nitty Gritty

2009-09-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

I am amazed that Sam worked again today. All of the trim is done, except for one window (which we need to buy more of) and the upper molding in the hall (which we also need to buy more of). He really just has the bathroom, finishing up the stairs and the kitchen back splashes. I hope he doesn't putter out.

He have to make a stop at Home Depot tomorrow for some odd stuff: sink stuff, wood seal for the kitchen counters, more tile for the kitchen back splash, more moldings. We need to return the bathroom cabinet we bought. The one we bought was supposed to be recessed into the wall and we didn't plant for that when we did the dry wall.

I put the second coat on the doors and the door trim and a coat polyurethane on the vanity. Exciting I know. At least I'm getting everything done that I have planned. Doors will be done by this weekend and I'll start the other trim as soon as I get more tape. Baby steps now. We're so close to being done.

Good and Bad

2009-09-01T18:27:00.000-07:00

We came back from the weekend and amazingly Sam had worked over the weekend. Yay. We bumped into him yesterday. He started tiling the bathroom wall. Most of the molding is up. It doesn't look as dark on the walls as I thought it would, which is a plus. And he installed the counter we have and the sink and faucet. The counter looks really good actually, especially to say it was only supposed to be temporary. I'm in no hurry to replace it.

Sam told us he'd finish the moldings today and then begged for money. Ugh. And what a surprise he did no work today. How dumb of us to give it to him. I just hope he works again this week.

Anyway, I went over myself today. I got more stain work done. I did the first coat on the other side of the doors two of the door frames. I would have done the rest, but I ran out of tape. I also put a coat of stain on the bathroom vanity. I'm going to see if it needs another coat when its dry.

Molding around door, yeah a little dark, but not too bad

Kitchen cabinet, stained too, walls still need paint

Counter and faucet, counter is butcher block. Pretty damn nice for Ikea stock counter.

The start of the bathroom tile

Working on the vanity

Morning Rant

2009-08-27T04:01:00.000-07:00

With everything going on, neither of us probably won't get to the house until Monday. Sam started on the moldings, regardless of the paint. I guess that's better than not working at all. We have to touch up the paint anyway. May as well do it all at once. I wish he'd start on the bathroom though.

I was looking at the moldings last night (we had to go buy polyurethane because Sam said there was no more, even though I magically found three cans sitting around in a Home Depot bag) and they are rather dark. Why so dark? Because Sam took the liberty of putting a double coat of stain on them. He didn't ask. He didn't need to. He just did it. He wasted time and material, and ended up doing it wrong. We think we can fix it, eventually. We plan on putting down Pergo floors in the future. When we do that we have to take off the moldings anyway. We'll strip them and re-stain them then if possible. *sigh*

So much stupid stuff keeps adding up. Just tired of it. Want the bumbling idiot out of the house. If I knew he was going to be such a dumb ass I would have stained the moldings myself. Would have done a lot myself. I don't get it. He's supposed to be the one who does this stuff. He has experience. Yet we makes stupid mistake after stupid mistake. I've never stained anything before in my life. But my stuff turned out fine. Its not brain surgery. But I guess the difference is I care and he doesn't. And it really makes me sick that someone like that is working on the house. How many mistakes has he made that we don't even know about?

To think, once upon a time we were going to trust him to pull the support beams out of the ceiling. The house probably would have come tumbling down.

Shouldn't blame the messenger, but....

2009-08-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

The good news: Sam finally went over to the house today to start on the moldings.

The bad news: We painted too short, so you can see the bare wall above the base molding and below the crown.

Instead of moving forward we have to take steps backward. I am so mad. So fucking mad. If he had started the moldings last week instead of sitting on his fucking ass we could have used last weekend to fix the paint. But he picked this week. And this weekend we're going to be away. So everything gets delayed, yet again, because Sam is a fuck-nut! I don't know when we're going to have time to even get down there again since we're both busy Wednesday. Tony's busy Thursday, so I have no ride to the house. And add this to my already high stress level, I'm practically about ready to break something.

Supposedly he's going to do the bathroom this weekend. But I'm worried that, since he has the intelligence of a 5-year-old child, he will screw that up while he's away. Sam has the nasty tendency to do what he's thinks would be best, instead of asking questions. And sometimes his decisions are the opposite of what we want.

Tonight Tony fixed the bathroom. I fixed the circus room and sealed the first side of the doors. I started cleaning the kitchen sink, one of the few parts of the house we thought savable. But that was fucked too. We had to get another one when we went to Lowes for the bathroom vanity. Plus more paint, since we ran out of yellow and blue for the bedroom.

Its been a hard day. Tomorrow I'm going to write down explicit instructions for the remainder of what Sam has to get done, just so I've done my part of him not fucking up anymore. At least if he does, which I'm sure he will since he's already fucked up with written instructions, I'll have piece of mind that I did my part.

Door Success

2009-08-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

The doors look much better after a second coat. They look like real wood now. *pats self on back* Took me a couple hours to get them to look decent. I wanted to start priming the moldings tonight too, but it was dark by the time I got them done. Going to polyurethane tomorrow then start on the second side the day after.

Tony got the bathroom primed. But both of us were feeling sluggish and we didn't get to Lowes to pick up the new sink. There's always tomorrow. The floors are still slightly sticky from polyurethane today. They need to be sanded too. they're a little rough. But done for the most part.

I guess it was no surprise that Sam didn't work again today, even after he said yesterday he was going to work today. I guess he's feeling spiteful because we didn't pay him for sitting on his lazy ass.

Side by side comparrison of the two coats

Sticky Fingers

2009-08-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

Day two of finishing the floors. Today's mission, polyurethane. I assumed it would be easier than the stain: brush it on, wait 4 hours then brush on another coat. What I failed to plan is that the polyurethane is a sticky mess. Paired with the door stain (I'll get to that) I feel like I rolled around in a big vat of super glue.

While I was waiting for coat one of the polyurethane to dry (oh, and that was BS too, because when I went to do the second coat the floor was still really sticky) I wrestled the doors into the basement to start staining them. I wisely took them out the front door and in through the back, but still failed (again) to take one thing into account: normal sized doors, short basement ceiling. So when I say I wrestled the doors into the basement, I mean it. The gel stain we needed to sue on the doors was nothing like the silky liquid we used on the floors. It was more like painting with ketchup. The first coat looked too light to give a convincing effect of stained wood. It looks more like raw pine right more. So I'm hoping that a coat of two more will get the effect we want.

We ended up having to take the sink back. It was too big. They had a similar one on display wasn't in stock and is apparently discontinued. They had the same one at Lowes, so we're going to look there tomorrow. We're giong to have to stain it, though, to match everything else. That's okay. I've become a regular staining pro.

We went to Ikea afterwards to buy the counter tops. They only had one in stock that we needed (the long one for the sink). So we asked them to call us when the other ones (the ones for the bar) were in.

Can you help us identify the mystery vine?

We found this growing in the back yard when we were mowing the yard. We don't know what it is, but its huge. We thinks its either butternut squash or pumpkin. Figures the yard that can barely produce grass (that isn't weeds) can support that.

BTW, ran into Sam. His lame excuse for not working is that the rest off the stain to finish the moldings wasn't is yet. As if he doesn't have a pile of tile to lay or moldings to put up or the wood to fix the basement steps. That didn't stop him from asking for money though. Typically when you work you get paid.

The Bitch Session

2009-08-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well, firstly, pictures of the cabinets, and other things. *Ooooh* *Ahhhh*

Moldings, the darker ones are the finished ones, the others need another coat of stain and polyurethane

The left is the tile for the floor and the right is the color of the tile for the tub surround. The actual tile is in the heavy-ass boxes under it.

.... they almost match. I guess we know what we like.

The between the stove and fridge cabinet

The sink base, so far

Bar, living room side

Bar, kitchen side

Sometimes I wonder if Sam has ever heard of a trashcan. Geez. The first half an hour of the morning was just spent cleaning up after him. He left soda cans everywhere and packages from building supplies everywhere else. And screws. Screws! He left them all over the damn floors. You know, the floors we just sanded and the linoleum we just put down. Ag!

The second half an hour we spent bitching about Sam (and moving stuff around so the delivery men had a place to put the dishwasher). It looks like he hasn't done a thing since Tuesday. And coincidentally Tony gave him money Tuesday night. We can only 'speculate' why he hasn't been in. But I have my doubts about him making the deadline of the end of August, like he told us. And, yes, I'm really pissed off about it.

I'm also pissed off at the sloppy ass work he's been doing. Besides for leaving trash and screws everywhere, he's also made quite a mess on the walls, smudges and glue marks and shit. He made a sizable gouge into the front door, a mark we're not sure if we can fix. And he used the pre-stain conditioner we bought for the floor even though we left out the stuff he needed for the moldings and pointed it out to him.

Luckily he only used one can of the shit (he claimed the stuff didn't work, well no wonder genius if you're using the wrong one) so I had enough to do the bedroom, circus room and hall floors. The living room isn't going to get done for a while, what with all the molding covering it that should have been on the walls already.

Anyway...

The floors staining went more easily than expected. I thought the stain would be gross, but it wasn't. It went down easy and cleaned up easy too. It was, dare I say, fun. Tony spent most the day cleaning. The bathtub and the basement are less gross now. We waited around until the delivery men came with the dish washer. Yay dishwasher! Then we moved onto chores part two:

SHOPPING TRIP!

We knocked, what I'm hoping will be, the last of the big purchases: shower head, faucets for both the bathroom and kitchen, bathroom vanity, under cabinet light, bathroom threshold and more staining stuff. I am slightly worried that it'll be too big. I guess we can return it, if it is. We didn't get to Ikea to get the counter top on account of the rain. We have to strap the counter to the roof.

Floor stain before/during/after comparison

Circus Room, after

Bedroom, after

Bleh

2009-08-19T19:44:00.001-07:00

Didn't get over to the house today. I'll get to it this weekend. *grumps*

The heaviest shopping cart ever

2009-08-18T21:50:00.000-07:00

Been away for a few days. Wanted to do a quick update. We bought tiles last night. How many tiles did we buy? Well, lets just say if we would have put a full grown adult in the cart it probably would have weighed less. Probably would have cost less too. They weren't the tile I had in mind. Originally I thought we'd get stone-like porcelain tiles for the floor and buy blue glass tiles separate and mix them in. But that turned out to be very pricey to do that, in the ball park of $15 per square foot. So instead we got to really pretty stone-like tiles that look like roughly tumbled river rocks. They're mixed colors, beige's and cool grays. It goes really well with the blue paint. We got enough of that to do the floor, and beige ceramic tiles for the bottom wall border and tub surround. We saw some pretty tiles for back splash on the bar and got them too. We're still unsure on the sink back splash.

Lots of work has been done while we were gone. Going over later to stain either the floors or doors and I'll put up a more detailed post when I get home.

Cabinets, finally

2009-08-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

We finally picked up the cabinets from the store. For all the bad luck we've had getting over there, it went amazingly smooth. I almost believe it didn't happen.

I would have taken pictures, but they would have just been pictures of plain brown boxes. I'm excited to see them put up. Sam and Tony are going to install them on Thursday.

I can see the floor!

2009-08-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

Poor Tony took off to brave the heat and humidity to sand the floors today. I met him after work to help finish up. The machine was odd, not hard to use, but odd. It was like using a giant air hockey paddle to sand the floors. It wouldn't have been that strenuous, except for the fact that the air was thick enough to swim through today.

By the time I got there they already looked good. By the end they had cleaned up amazingly well, especially in the bedroom and circus room. The living room still isn't that great, but much better than it started. We did the best we could with floors that were already beat to shit.

We picked up stain and sealer when we returned the machine. I thick we stood there squinty-eyed trying to figure out what the dozens of wood staining products actually were longer than picking out a color. 'Whats the difference between shellac and polyurethane?' 'Oh, this one is gel based. What does that mean?' 'This one's nice, but its not meant for floors even though a floor is pictured on the can.' Slightly complicated for two blondes. The stain we got is called 'Ipswich Pine' and yes, we may have chose that one over the 'Golden Oak' because it sounds like it may have come from a Lovecraftian town. We are easily amused.

Getting cabinets tomorrow come hell or high water (meaning without without Sam... yes that was melodic in my head, too). Probably getting high on floor stain by Wednesday.

Now in color wink

2009-08-08T16:47:00.001-07:00

I'm sure most everyone who is going to read this was part of the painting crew today, but, ah hell, I'll say it anyway. The house is painted! *jigs*

The closet and basement stairs (the dry wall on the stairs still needs to be sanded) still need to be done along with touch up spots. I am so relieved we got it all done today. Thanks to everyone who helped. We couldn't have done it without you.

Its really hard to take pictures of painted walls, but I tried.

The living/dinning room and one sexy man *rawr*

The kitchen and a corner of the living room. Kitchen is green and living room is pale yellow.

The new circus room, with less circus. That color actually looks... tasty. Does it taste like cappuccino?

The bedroom

And finally, the bathroom.

It was a long day. I am tired and very achy and I feel like a Jackson Pollock painting. But we're one ginat step closer to moving in. Thanks again everyone!

Well thats just prime

2009-08-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

The only thing that could be more exciting than new floors is new cabinets. Yeah, but that didn't happen.

The plan was to go to the cabinet store and pick up the cabinets with Sam and to get the supplies at Home Depot needed to fix up the stairs. Unfortunately at 5:30, well after Sam was supposed to show up, there was no sign of Sam. The cabinet store closes at 6:00. *grumble*

So, without Sam, we went over to get as much priming done as possible. Of course the first half an hour we spent cleaning up floor scraps and Coke cans Sam had left laying around. And just as soon as we got momentum to start priming we heard from Mr. Sam. He was waiting for a bus. And since it had taken too long he didn't show up. And since he was still waiting he wanted to know if Tony could go fetch him. *double grumbles*

Despite all the complications we got a bunch done. We even christened the new floor with some paint. I'm pretty sure it will come up with a slightly abrasive cloth. It came up pretty well just with my thumb. Both of the back rooms and the hall are primed, ceiling and all. the bathroom is mostly done. Still have to hit the ceiling and behind the toilet. We haven't finished the closet, the stair well or that little bit left in the living room (there's stuff stacked there now).

Going to give it the old college try to get everything primed and painted on Saturday so we can sand the floors on Sunday. We won't have another weekend to sand until the 22nd.

New floor

That wooden structure will one day be a bar

Kitchen Floor!

2009-08-06T08:02:00.000-07:00

The kitchen floor is down! I would have taken pictures but it was pretty dark when we got there last night. I'll take some when we go over to paint later.

More painting

2009-08-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

Painted as long as we could tonight. The sun went down and we ran out of primer. Most of the living room is done now, ceiling too. Just have a spot left to do in the corner. We got more primer afterwards. Going back over on Wednesday.

Let the painting begin!

2009-08-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

Got up early this morning to get lots of work done. Got the floor glue up. The hall and living are ready to be sanded. Sam is going to start the kitchen floor tomorrow. I'm so glad that's done with. The floor glue was disgusting.

And now onto the fun part. We got somewhere between a third and half of the walls primed. The kitchen is primed (ceiling and all) plus part of the living room and most of the bedroom. Tony did the corners and Nate and I maned the rollers (thanks, Nate again). I tried using the mighty ceiling stick, but it was too unwieldy for me. Tony did a better job at that. We worked as long as we could. Today was a scorcher. I'm surprised we all didn't wilt earlier.

It was so nice to see the walls becoming all one color. Its going to look like a respectable house soon. There's still plenty of painting left to do if anyone wants to help *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

Ugh

2009-07-28T21:56:00.000-07:00

Kitchen glue is up. Sam can start putting down the new floor. Still have to finish hall and the bit of kitchen that is going to be in the living room. Tired. This stuff is so gross.

Ding Dong the Tiles are Dead

2009-07-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

All the tiles are off the kitchen floor now. The glue is not. We've still got a few more spots of that stinky black stuff on the floor in the kitchen and a little in the hall. If all goes to plan it will get done tomorrow. But we've underestimated that floor before. So if it doesn't get done then we'll get it done Wednesday. One way or another, we're going to start painting this weekend.

Sam is still working strong. he would have done the kitchen floor today, but we needed more time to get it done. He's caulked the windows today and between today and tomorrow will finish the trap door for the attic and finish the dry wall on the stairs.

Basement Clutter

2009-07-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

We had planned to get the kitchen floor done today. But since Sam was working, we let him do his thing without getting in his way. Let him work while he's motivated. Instead we started cleaning out the basement.

Tony and I are at the polar opposite on what to keep and what not to keep. He's a pack rat and looks at things as 'we might use it someday.' I am not. If its old, rusty and unused I would rather throw it out. We never fought over things but a lot of day was him saying 'we should keep it. It might come in handy.' Then me saying 'are we really going to use it? Really?' Some things were kept and other things (most things) were put in the 'if we don't use it in a year it gets thrown out' pile. Even though we spent 3 hours there we barely budged the basement clutter. A lot of stuff down there is either mine or building supplies (paint, lights, etc.). It'll be easier to organize once that stuff is gone.

Sam got a bunch of the dry wall sanded. So as soon as we are done with the floor we're going to start painting.

The Decision: Ugly for Cheap or Pretty for Bend-Over-And-Take-It Prices

2009-07-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight's adventure was buying a whole house full of moldings. First we went to the Home Depot closest to us and found out that they didn't have anymore truck to rent out. Because it was getting late so we went, undaunted, to another Home Depot. This Home Depot didn't have Tony's information in their system (driver's license, proof of insurance, etc.) so Tony had to make a run back home to get that while I picked out the trim with Sam.

This time we had actually thought in advance and picked out what we wanted. Unfortunately we grossly under estimated how much we needed and how much it would cost. Plus our educated minds forgot to read the fine print. What we thought was dirt cheap at $5 or so for a 12 foot piece of molding was actually $5 a foot.

You can see where this might be a problem.

So the next 45 minutes or so I'm on and off the phone with Tony how much he wants to spend on 'pretty'. And we killed some time while waiting and got some stuff we needed for the floor, a garbage disposal and a hood for the stove. When Tony finally got back we added up how much it would cost to do it either way. At first we wanted to put cheap crap on and replace it later. But then Tony decided just to do it right the first time. So we pretty much wiped all of the molding they had in the particular design we wanted (which only ended up being about $1.50 per square foot for the base, we haven't gotten the crown yet).

The drive back was interesting. A 16 foot piece of wood in a 10 foot or so truck bed doesn't exactly work right. The pieces wiggled all around. We had to drive extra slow over the bumps when the pieces started flapping up and down. We had to stop twice to make sure they weren't sliding out. we still need to get crown, but that comes in 7 foot pieces and can be transported in Tony's car.

We also decided, over teh last few days, to do the countes on the cheap for now. we're just going to get an oiled wood or laminate from Ikea and get better ones later. Counters are easier to replace than other things, so the money should go there. And we'd be saving like $2500 in the meanwhile.

Tough Decisions

2009-07-20T19:43:00.000-07:00

Well, we ran into Sam last night and told him he has to move the board. He didn't like that much. Can't sympathizes much. He should have waited for measurements. He knew the cabinets and grate would overlap though. So I'm wondering why he wanted to proceed with it there.

Anyway, Tony talked to Sam about the rest of the stuff that needs to get done. Sam wants to do most of the rest of the job, the wall moldings, install cabinets, finish the bathroom, put in the floors and install a new set of stairs for $3000. Its a lot of money. And a lot to think about. It would almost remove us entirely from the project. Well, the essential stuff really. We'd still have to paint and refinish the floors. And we'd get to do the fun stuff like landscaping. But things would get done faster and more professionally (provided there aren't anymore strokes, muggings or flu's). We're both getting to the point that we just want it done.

Besides that, and we picked up some more floor glue remover, we decided to take today off. Probably going out to order counters tomorrow.

This Weekend

2009-07-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't think we got everything done on the 'to-do' list, but we gave it the old college try.

Yesterday we went over to the house early to meet the plumber to get the gas line moved. We went through Len the Plumber. The guy was really friendly and got the job done pretty quick. Meanwhile I worked on taking out the old shower stall and Tony worked on the shed. I tried playing nice with the shower and unscrewing it, but it ultimately came down to (like most things in the house) smacking it with a sledge hammer. The shower stall in now done, except for the base which did not respond to sledge hammer smacking.

Between yesterday and today Tony got most of the crap out of the shed. We ran out of room in the dumpster, unfortunately. So there are a few big things in the back yard, including the rusty shed, which will have to go in the next one when we get the basement sorted. At least we got the brunt on the trash in there, including the cast iron heater, which also was smacked by a sledge hammer into bite-sized dumpster pieces.

We couldn't prime the walls this weekend. Turns out we've gone another week with Sam not doing his part. And now its time for:

Sam's Excuse for the Week

This week's excuse: Sam had a stroke. Yeah, he said he went out one day and then woke up in the hospital. I guess I believe him, because Tony gave him a ride to the store to get pills, but its getting old.

We also ordered the floor. I wish I would have taken a picture of it because I can't find a picture online. Oh well. After sweat, tears and a little confusion, we finally (and accurately) got the measurements we needed. So that should arrive in about a week. The tears came up because we discovered that the board Sam put in incorrectly can't be used. Its a few inches short. If he put it in there The cabinets would cover one of the air vents. It was a the perfect end of a long, frustrating day really.

This morning we made a trip to Home Depot to get some stuff for the tile glue remover. Just standard stuff, push broom, mop, face masks, meat smoker/charcoal grill.... Okay, so we may have made an impulsive buy. Anyway, after spending the last few hours pulling up more tiles and using a few gallons of elbow (really shoulder) grease most of the floor tiles are up. There are only a few small spots left. The glue remover worked sub-par. If took up a bit in the kitchen, but will need at least 2 or 3 more applications. I used most of it already though :( It came up better in the hall, but I think that's cause I gave it more time there. Guess I shouldn't have followed the directions and gave it two hours to work instead of one. Silly me. That floor has been a long, hard, painful process.

Kitchen Floor Before

Kitchen Floor After

Hall Floor Before

Hall Floor After

Fashion vs. Function

2009-07-15T18:52:00.000-07:00

I don't know why we thought we could just walk into a store and make a decision on what to get for the kitchen floor.

Okay, yeah, back up a little. When Tony got home from work tonight he talked to Sam. Sam said he put another layer of dry wall mud in the corners of the upstairs, so it would be best if we worked downstairs. I wasn't really up for another night of work. So I had the idea that we would buy the tile instead. I thought we would just stroll in, since I had a pretty good idea of the exact tile I wanted, order and be done with it.

Yeah, fat chance of that. Not when you could take two steps in a showroom with dozens of samples and find yet another pattern that was really pretty and went with both the wall color and cabinets. The biggest problem now is that there are too many choices for the kitchen and not enough for the bathroom. Both the floors I picked out online were not on display. And, since the floors are un-level, getting laminate tiles, which are jointed, is impossible. We need a sheet of vinyl which we can roll out. The website which I picked the floor out on originally is very unclear which the one I had wanted is.

Anyway, back to the kitchen, the salesman allowed us to take a couple of sample books home. We've narrowed it down to two (I think). One is made of a thicker material which is noticeably cushier to stand on. Its pretty but the other one we're considering looks really, really like actual stone tile and is beautiful. The problem is its thinner and less cushioned. Both are pretty even price-wise.

We have until this weekend to return the sample books. Lets hope by then we decide.

Can This House Get Any Weirder?

2009-07-14T20:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, so more news from the 'fun and quirky' department. Sam went over to the place today to work on the walls. I don't know how he stumbled across this but he said that putting in the molding was going to be a real pain in the ass. Why? Because the floors aren't level. And I mean really un-level. He said that each corner of the house was at a slightly different elevation. Once again I have to ask myself what joker built this house.

Sam also went over impulsively and decided that even though we didn't give him the measurements for the bar yet and even though he didn't have the plans the cabinet-store-man gave him he was going to cut a hole in the dry wall and put in the support for the counter. He put it in about 2 inches back from where he really needed it. It can still be used, but we're going to be screwing it in to the edge of the beam. Guess I'm annoyed that he could have finished the kitchen shelf or the closet door or any number of things, but he decided to do that instead. Anyway...

We have a new list of things that need to get done in order to get the cabinets in. Lists on top of lists. Sheesh. We need the new kitchen floor down, the walls primed (at least) and the gas line moved. The plumber has already been scheduled for Saturday and we're planning on getting tiles some time this weekend.

We did more cleaning today. I got up more floor tiles. The rest of them are really plastered on. And Tony took off the old screen door cleaned out more of the shed until the wasps decided enough was enough.

Back to the Grind

2009-07-13T22:46:00.000-07:00

Well, a few updates. Firstly the counters are in at the counter store. They aren't in the house yet, because Sam (surprise!!) hasn't finished the dry wall yet. We went over last week so the counter-store-man could explain how the bar was supposed to be built. Tony and he went to Home Depot Saturday to pick up the stuff he'd need to build the wall. The slightly bad news is that there's no stud where we need it. So Sam's going to have to do some handy work (cutting off a piece of wall to put in a board) to mount the cabinets on.

This week we've decided to hit the house as much as possible to get the trash out so the dumpster can be taken away. We need to get the following done in order to get rid of the dumpster:

Finish cleaning out the shed and take down the rusty old thing
Trash the back screen door
Get rid of all the floor coverings
Take out the shower stall in the basement
Throw away the loose clothes hanging pole in the backyard
Get rid of the old electric heater-stove-fire-thing (really we'd love to keep it, but we don't know if all of the parts are there or how to put it together)
Clean up all the large rubble from the floor
With any left over time, start sorting out old boxes in the basement

We went over tonight with not much time before sunset. With what little time we had I got up the vinyl coverings in the bedrooms, the old pantry and scraped up a couple more kitchen tiles. The wood under the coverings in the bedrooms is gorgeous. I am convinced more than ever that we're going to restore the floor in the living room. We're going to go over tomorrow when we have more daylight to work.

Long Time No See

2009-07-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, its been a while since I've posted o.o

I was hesitant to go over to the house today (I've been spoiled with free time these past couple of weeks). But then I remembered how neat it feels to demolish things. And tiring too. Most of the kitchen floor is up. It was a struggle too. Those little bastard tiles can cling. We got the old dishwasher loaded into the dumpster too.

Tony took care of the jungle outside. Guess we should be mowing it more often considering how much rain we've had. He had to use a machete on the driveway overgrowth when the string trimmer quit. I got to play with *erm* use the machete too.

Sam's nearly done all his work now. The doors are all up. The kitchen shelf is nearly complete. He has to put up more layers of dry wall goo. How many layers does it need? The floor is covered in that stuff now. I can't wait to mop it. Anyway, next week he's going to make the wall for the bar.

AC a-no-go

2009-06-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

Today was a waste of my time. I took off work to meet with a guy to fix the air conditioner. I waited around for two hours in the hot ass house and there was nothing he could do. Why? because the power was off. The breaker had been turned off and none of them were labelled. And I couldn't just ask him to start flipping switches, not with exposed wire land upstairs. We already had one fire. There was nothing he could do so he left. And I couldn't get in touch with Tony to try to figure out how to turn it back on. FRUSTRATION! I hate wasting my time.

I at least got the yard mowed and cleaned up part of the leftover mess from the pile that was in the backyard. But I really didn't have to take off work for that. *grumble*

Doors

2009-06-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

We went on another 'shopping spree' today. This time we got all the interior doors. Happily Sam's part is almost over.

Tuesday I made an appointment with someone to check out the air conditioning. I'm afraid of how much its going to cost :(

Not Much Done

2009-06-15T08:29:00.000-07:00

We didn't have a lot of time to work this weekend. Too much running around >.<

We decided to use the light we were previously going to use in the dinning room and use it in the hall. We're going for a chandelier in the dinning room now. We picked up the one that matches the kitchen series.

We got a vanity light for the bathroom and a light for the computer room too. Nothing too remarkable. Sam hasn't gotten much more done, but he's at least been working. The bedrooms are just about finished. Tony talked to him and sometime this weekend we're going to get doors. Once he's cleared out we can get some real work done.

I've been debating what kind of counters to get. I investigated the Formica the rep. was talking about. Turns out its cheap, but doesn't handle heat or chips as well as other more expensive surfaces. You get what you pay for. So now I'm thinking about Zodiaq (and other materials of that natures, such as Silestone) and granite. Granite is classic and nice, but requires more maintenance. If its not too much of a budget blower I think the Zodiaq will be a very good choice.

Hopefully we'll make some progress this weekend. I'm hoping to get the floors done.

Snake, snake, it's a snake

2009-06-08T22:01:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I forgot about the snake!

While doing yard work Tony, to my surprise, found that a bag of grass seed I'd bought had been nibbled at by mice. Having cats, I don't normally think about keeping things out of the way of mice. But I thought that the dried food that I had been storing in the basement from the move had best be moved before the mice attacked it. While doing the yard work and talking to the kitchen guy Tony and I must have run up and down the basement stairs half a dozen times. Our last trip up, carrying that groceries, I saw out of the corner of my eye something black sitting on the top step. Since the house is a hot mess and pieces of construction brick-a-brack are laying everywhere it didn't quite register until I was right on top of it that what I was looking at was a snake. I didn't get a picture of the culprit, but it looked a little something like this:

It was only a black snake and it retreated under the step without so much as a fight. But I had one of those holy-crap-there's-a-snake-staring-right-at-me-and-its-loose-in-my-house moments. I hope it'll eat the mice.

A New Wrinkle

2009-06-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

Today we went over to do more yard work. Tony continued cleaning the shed and I mowed the lawn (I know, totally gender backwards). We couldn't really do anything else because Sam still hasn't worked on the dry wall!

We went over there mostly because we made an appointment with another kitchen guy to get an estimate on the kitchen (this was before we bought cabinets (an we get a free gift card to Target for listening to his schpeel)). He said a lot of pretty stuff and told us 'kitchen renovation is expensive but he was the cheapest guy in town'. Don't they all say that? He went on saying how even cabinet refacing costs at least $14,000. That's funny because just a few days ago we bought new cabinets for $4200. He thinks we're suckers, lol. He took some measurements, made some suggestions and did a little act like he was crunching numbers. He didn't actually tell us a cost but spied and I saw him write $37,000 on his note pad. Now, I agree that's expensive, but this is for cabinets, counters and labor.

The good things about these free estimates is that the people give you ideas that you can incorporate for cheaper. He told us that Formica counters were a cost effective way to get nice counter tops that we can get in practically any shade and not have to pay out the ass like we would granite. And he told us do not get granite at Home Depot, if we went that route, because they don't ensure that there's no cracks in the middle of it. He also suggested a slim counter & cabinet between the stove and the fridge. Both really good ideas that we'll be doing later for not $37,000. Thank you, sir.

I've spent the rest of the night thinking what kind of cabinet I'd like there, as well as over the fridge. I think one of those vertical baking sheet holder cabinets would be nice, but drawers would be more useful next to the stove. And an open bookshelf would be nifty up top. I'm also torn between having a lattice wine wrack over the fridge or a plain cabinet or nothing at all. How often do people really use those things? They're so hard to get to, especially with my cereal and snackie food blocking it. I'm also trying to figure out how the measurements for that built in shelf. Nothing comes to mind yet, because I'm mentally arranging where I want all the kitchen stuff to be.

Progress

2009-06-06T20:43:00.000-07:00

Cabinets and paint all in one day. Oh my!

We met this morning with a man from Yorktown Cabinets. I can happily say he was much more competent than the woman we met with at Just Cabinets. He actually did a lot to help us design the cabinets in a cost efficient and more useful layout. And the price was right. Just Cabinets wanted nearly $3000 for just the cabinets by the sink (well $1800 if we wanted them less than pretty). We got the whole kitchen done there for $4200. And that includes all wood drawers with full extension and with the no-slam feature, plus the door pulls and handles. We could have ungraded to all wood doors for an extra $1000, but I'm happy with the style we picked. The doors were pretty solid, all wood maple frame and maple laminate inside door panel.

On top of everything else he was helpful. He made it clean that if we decide to do something crafty and add wood embellishes or something spiffy he could supply us with stain to match. He wants to meet with Sam to give him instructions on how to build the bar part of the cabinet. I was impressed. They have to order the cabinets so they will be in in a month.

Sink Cabinets

Bar Cabinets

Cabinet Face Design

Cabinet Wood Color

Later we went to Lowes to get paint. I had a coupon for 10% off and I intended to use it wisely. We got primer, paint and rollers to do the entire house and we ended up saving a whopping $45 dollars. The whole order was less than I expected.

Yay! Colors!

BTW, we ran into Sam. He's been sick this week. But not sick enough not to beg us for another advance in payment *groan* Tony told him he'd better get the dry wall and doors done this week.

Yard Work

2009-05-31T08:14:00.000-07:00

We've really been dragging ass this weekend. We went to buy paint and couldn't really decide colors or how much we needed. We went around to different retailers seeing what brand we wanted and who had the best price. We checked out two other cabinet places. One was closed (though according to their sign they should have been open) and the other we needed an appointment for. We're going back next weekend.

Instead of going down to the house today (since all we can do it work outside until that jerk Sam gets some work done) I stayed home and started planting my garden. Tony went down by himself to do some work.

He started cleaning some of the useless crap out of the yard. The rusted broken swing set now has a new home in the dumpster. He started the clean out the equally rusty shed, but the wasps that were making their home there didn't appreciate his presence. We're going back later this week to take care of it while we still have a dumpster. Sometime this week we're really going to plan this shit out too, what we want and how much in supplies we need. I started doing this at the beginning, but it was so long ago and so disjointed that I think we should just start from scratch.

Grumble

2009-05-30T17:39:00.000-07:00

Sam hasn't done any work on the dry wall at all. Its been like two weeks since he's worked on it. All he's done this week is loaded the trash into the dumpster. I am getting pissed.

The story of how we didn't order cabinets

2009-05-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

You know its bad when you have to explain to someone how to do their job when you have never done it before.

We went to the cabinet store today to order cabinets. The last time we went to get an estimate we talked to a very friendly competent man who created a hypothetical order and saved it for us to come back to later when we were ready to order. So we thought going in today would be a breeze. We'd update some measurements and the order would be fairly simple to do since it was mostly done. We were even feeling industrious enough to go there straight after work, stomachs a-grumbling, to order that and the bar cabinets.

I don't want to sound racist when I say this, but.... if you come from the back hills of *ahem* some foreign neighboring country (hell, if you come from the back hills of this country) where you've never even heard of computers before you might not want to consider a job that revolves around them. Or you might want to ease into them a little slower.

The woman we talked to decided that since we had slightly new measurements that we needed to strat over from scratch. Not only was she terribly slow at using the computer, having stop to look up what I thought should be fairly normal product codes, but we had to explain to her several times what we wanted the cabinets to look like. She, the professional cabinet designer, should really be giving us advice on how to design the cabinets, not vice versa. several times she had to call over her supervisor, co-worker, whatever, to show her how to do something, and I was thankful every time she did because when the other woman was around we actually made some head way. After over an hour we were about where we were when we started. After question of whether to change the cabinet faces (plain, okay-ish faces $1800, fancier slightly more than okay-ish faces $2600) we just decided to save the project to 'come back later'. That experience has convinced us to at least explore other options.

I came out of it wishing I could say that we ordered cabinets today despite the stupid ordeal we had to go through. But that woman was tripping over just about everything she did. And I don't want my $1800+ order to be her 'learning mistake'.

Oh, and in other bad news we can't get a dumpster until we get the PODS picked up. Not enough room.

Tall, Tall Grass

2009-05-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

Well we had to do the whole yard with a weed whacker, but its all down to normal size.

Never again.

There were some grasses I didn't even know grew like that. Seriously, this really regular looking grass that you see everywhere, we found a patch that had grown about hip height and had really neat looking purple flowers. Purple catnip and wild strawberry was matted in the backyard. And sumac trees are rooted in the driveway. There was a poor, tiny, forgotten rose bush was hiding under some tall grasses on the side of the house. That yard is going to need a lot more work (just like the rest of the house really). I've really wanted a garden for a long time now, and I've been inspired by watching all sorts of home improvement shows. So I guess a totally screwed up landscape is as good as any to start on.

After measuring out the space we want for the cabinets and the bar, we took a quick trip to Lowes to look at dishwashers. Truthfully, we meant to order cabinets too, but we got distracted by cheeseburgers and sitting on our butts after Lowes. We actually didn't like their lighting selection too much, but we did pick up this tasty little number for the bedroom:

Pla-dow!

It will join the ranks of such noble light fixtures such as these, that we bought earlier at Home Depot:

For the kitchen

For the bar

And a couple of other illusive bastards I can't find pictures of online. BTW that plant theme you're probably sensing, that's for real. Going to order cabinets tomorrow. They'll take a month to get in, so can't put it off much longer.

Walls!

2009-05-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

I was really excited to finally get back over to the house today because Tony told me the dry wall was up (mostly). We spent this morning buying as many lights as the car could fit and a lawn mower, ran some other errands and then went over.

I was so happy! It almost looked like a real house. I could picture what it would be like to live there.

The floor was still a terrible mess. There were pieces of cut dry wall everywhere. So working inside of the house is going to be impossible until its done. Tomorrow we're probably going to do more shopping (now that's renovation I get get behind :D). We still need more lights, paint and to order cabinets. And we need to do something about the grass. Its about up to my chest in the back. Sam also volunteered (for a few bucks) to clear the trash out of the back yard when the dumpster comes on Monday.

I took pictures of the new walls but it hard to take pictures of just plain white walls *shrug*:

View the May 16th Album here.

I know you are going to think I'm doing something stupidly dangerous....

2009-04-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

Asbestos is not as dangerous as people hype it up to be. Normally people get nasty diseases from it from being exposed to it for long periods of time (plus I was wearing an inhaler).

That being said, don't freak out when I say that I started taking up the asbestos tiles from the kitchen floor. Despite the fact they were very old, they were still very solid. I know now why people used them. I could get under some of the tiles easier than others. But that glue they use is a bitch to get up. I quit after pitifully scraping a 5 x 5 foot square.

After some investigating online I found a couple things. They sell products to dissolve the glue. I think this will help greatly in tile removal and getting that black goo that is left on the floor. And, people recommend just covering them in they are in good condition. So, the revised plan is try the glue remover to get them up (its called mastic remover, remember that) and if all else fails just cover it.

Anyway, I wish I'd had a camera when I went over today. Sam had a lot of the insulation up. Its really moving along. Pretty soon we'll have walls and shit :D There is a minor problem though. The wall where we planned on having the bathroom closet has a light switch in the middle of it (and now insulation). So we think we're going to have the put the closet door going into the hall instead of the rooms.

I got most of the board down Sam needed us to remove. I left the two at the tippy top because I need a saw to cut them where the wall ends. So today was much less productive than planned.

Some Long Awaited Work

2009-04-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

What a morning. We got up early to go get the insulation for the entire house. Sam is going to start on installing that his week. Oh yeah....

Yay! The electricians are done (for now). They need to finish putting up the switches and crap after the dry wall is back up.

Anyway, I was shocked that Tony rolled out not one, but two of those huge Home Depot flat-bed-of-carts full of insulation. I guess I should have figured it would be that much. But man was it big. I could have built a fort out of it (if only we'd had the camera :( ). I also got some gardening tools and grass seed to start to fix the whacked-out yard. I can't wait to start planting stuff.

We unloaded the insulation at the house and Sam went home. He said we need to knock out some of the boards on the back wall, that part that used to be the outside wall, to make the sheet rock lay right. But it doesn't look that hard and we have time. It was so hot and he didn't want to mess with insulation in the heat (understandable IMO). Tony came back and we finally, finally, finally got that damn bathroom sink out. And I got the rest of the nails out of the kitchen ceiling. Success!

I really want to get the floor tiles done this week but I don't know if I'll have time. It must get done before the sheet rock is put up. I hope it won't be as hot as it was today the rest of the week because I have to wear a full body suit and mask.

Flood

2009-04-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I was sick, really, really sick. So the plans to get the rest of the work done (which has been going on for a few weeks now) didn't happen again. *grumble*

Saturday Tony and Sam went to get more wood. Everyone wanted Sam to start on the insulation (Sam included) but he couldn't because the electricity still isn't done. He fixed up the frame around the chimney and told Tony that the roof near he chimney and the window with the funky wood underneath were leaking. There are plans to fix that.

Sunday we went over quickly to get things out of the way for the electric guys to work Monday. Its a good thing we stopped over because sometime during the weekend someone moved the fridge and put a hole in the water line for the ice maker on the fridge. There was a lake in the kitchen leaking down to the basement. We clamped the hose and spent more time cleaning up the mess. Whether there is any lasting damage to the floor I don't know yet. I'm hoping not.

So, with any luck, I'll be able to do something this weekend with the little stuff I need to finish up.

A Good Surprise

2009-04-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

I know Sam wanted to start putting up the insulation soon (probably this weekend) so I wanted to get a head start of a few things that must get done before that's started. I wanted to get all of the dry wall out of the gutters around the floor and I wanted to spray down the walls with bleach water, just in case there is any mold growing there. I was pleasantly surprised when I got there. The remainder of the closet in the hall and the doorways for the bedroom and the kitchen had been taken down (by Sam on Monday or Tuesday). Plus the basement door was gone too. Yay! Three things off the list and I didn't even have to lift a finger. My opinion of Sam is improving.

Update on thing other people have been doing: the electricians are steadily working towards power. There are boxes on the walls where outlets will be and boxes in the rafters where lights will be. Hopefully power should be back soon. Sam has put in the basement door, taken out some of the bad wood, replaced it and reinforced the living room ceiling. He also took apart parts of the bathtub/shower and took down the dry wall there. Its all starting to come along.

Tony's mom and I did some work. She cleaned those weird gutter spaces around the walls and I sprayed down the walls with bleach water to kill any sneaky hiding nold that might be in the walls. I hate the smell of bleach. Its like death by clean. Ick. We didn't work long but I felt so satisfied with the work that had been done it didn't matter.

I'm feeling a little better than I am the other day. Guess I was just feeling a little down and stressed. It gets us all sometimes. I need to get done up to number 7 on the list below this weekend. If I have time I also need to get the tiles up. I need to get that done before the walls go up for sure.

Tired

2009-04-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

Today I went over to the house with Tony's mom to (you guessed it) pull more nails out of the walls. Friggin' exciting I know. I checked out the bedrooms and living room for any stragglers. Apparently I missed some because later Tony mentioned some left in the living room ceiling that I completely missed.

So I started on the bathroom. Most of the walls are done, except for the wall with the sink vanity (which Tony's mom wouldn't let me move by myself) so i went for the ceiling. And it was a bitch. Because whoever put up the bathroom ceiling used screws instead of nails. So in the time it took me to get the screws out of the ceiling Tony's mom got a large part of the kitchen ceiling and a few walls done.

But I really wasn't in such a great mood today. It was cold and gloomy. All of the stupid little things that need to get done start to overwhelm you. It was different when I had someone else to lean on. We supported each other. But now it feels like all my burden. I know its not fair of me to think this way since I told Tony that I would take care of everything. But I guess its still sad and kind of lonely when a project goes from something we started to something I will be working on.

List of Stuff That Needs to be Done:

Make sure all nails are out of kitchen walls
Take out door to the basement
Take out hall archway
Take out remaining pieces of doorways between kitchen/hall and bedroom/hall
Take out bathroom vanity and wall behind
Take out drywall around tub
Clean the gutter space between outside walls and floor (it goes right down to the basement)
Patch all holes in the wood floors
Remove kitchen and hall tiles and vinyl floor in bedrooms and ex-pantry
Sand, stain and varnish hard wood
Clean everything with a shop vacuum to get up grit
Start cleaning the hell out of that house

All Clear

2009-04-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

We met with the carpenter today. I was very nervous going in, thinking crazy thoughts like we wouldn't be able to fix the house up after we've done all this work already. It didn't put me in a more optimistic mood that one of the two guys we scheduled to look at the house cancelled at the last second. It seemed like the bad luck streak was continuing. Good thing we had a backup.

The guy looked at the house and saw no problem with it. The stud beams would support. The only thing he said really was we would need to do is to provide extra support to the ceiling above the living room since it was an open floor plan and there wouldn't be any walls to help keep it up. And we can't store stuff up there, which we weren't planing on doing anyway.

We are still going to put sills on the bottom for good measure. But everything else is good. Mike will be starting back up work either Thursday or Friday. So this weekend I want to get everything ready to be dry walled.

Update on the Studs

2009-04-01T22:34:00.000-07:00

I must have been a little confused talking to Tony earlier (I was on the bus using my cell phone). The wall situation can probably be fixed, not easily but we don't need an expert either. All we have to do really is cut boards and line the tops and bottoms of the walls between the studs with them. That will help the weak walls. Tedious, I know, but better than paying thousands of dollars. The ceiling joints, well we still have to talk to a pro about them. Most likely we will have to reinforce those with cross-way boards. We'll know next week.

Bad News Comes in Three's.... or Multiples of Three

2009-04-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

This week is just going horrible. I think I need a drink.

More good news. Last night I found out one of Mike's crew was in a motorcycle accident. He walked away (or was taken away to the hospital) pretty lucky to say he was just in a motorcycle accident: no broken bones, no paralysis. Just... what did Tony call it... road burn. Kind of like rug burn, but speeding down a fucking road. So, he'll be okay, but not okay enough to work.

Today Tony got another call from Mike. Let me see if I understood and can explain this right. So, if you open up a wall there are studs in the wall holding the sheet rock on. Usually, by modern construction standards, these studs are a foot and a half apart and 6 inches deep. The ceiling has similar studs, but they aren't connected on the back, just around the edge at the top. This may not be new to some people. Since the house was built in the 1920's these standards weren't made yet. So the studs are actually 2 feet apart and.... some number less than 6 inches deep. So the house isn't as structurally sound as a modern house. Mike pointed this out today since he'll need to drill holes through the studs for the wires. He is most concerned about the studs in the ceiling. Now, the house hasn't fallen down yet. So this could be nothing. Or, worse case scenario, we have to replace all the ceiling studs, or maybe all the studs. I don't know. We won't know until next week when the carpenter comes.

I'm thinking, at this point, we can just kiss the cathedral ceiling goodbye. Its becoming more trouble than its worth. Right now I just want a ceiling and walls and electricity with no more fucking problems.

Note to Self

2009-03-31T09:49:00.000-07:00

Cool website:
http://colorschemedesigner.com/
Color Scheme Generator

Contractors

2009-03-30T22:28:00.000-07:00

Today at work I found a few guys that we can have dome over next Tuesday. So while that relieves the stress slightly, I still worry that Sam was wrong and we will have to do something more complicated and expensive for the ceiling.

I've told Tony to try to take as much time off as possible. This project is wearing him down and he needs some time to recover. There's no time to do anything when all of your free time is spent working.

The plan was to move boxes yesterday to the PODS that Tony's mother got to store the left over stuff from Tony's sister's family. The thing is huge BTW. Its almost as tall as the house. But while I was coming home I thought of a flaw with this plan: no sunlight + no electricity + stairs = dead Alissa. The good news is that Tony's mother had already assembled a crew of big strong men to work through the day tomorrow. So they are going to get as much stuff out of the basement as possible for the electricians to start work on Wednesday. Hoo-rah.

This weekend I'm going to try to get the place in shape to start dry walling. There isn't much left of the walls, some nail cleanup (mostly in the kitchen) and a few pieces of stray dry wall. You'd be surprised just how long it takes to get all of those odd little things done. After that I can start on the floors. And then the interesting stuff starts happening :D

Stressed

2009-03-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

We met with Mike today, which was both good and bad.

Over the week we did measurements on paper for outlets and lights and laid them out on nice pretty graph paper for Mike (he was actually impressed by my blue print making skills for someone who is untrained :D). The crew is going to start Wednesday. He told us what needed to get done before he started. The bathroom vanity (and the wall behind it) need to be taken out, along with the bathroom ceiling. The shelves in the kitchen need to be taken down and new shelf measurements are needed for outlets on the inside. The last of the walls in the kitchen need to be taken down. And the cabinets need to be taken out.

Mike, however, did make us aware of something. Sam said that he could take out the boards in the living room ceiling to make it a cathedral ceiling, Mike questions it. He is an electrician by trade, but has renovated several houses. He thinks that if there is any doubt of Sam's skill, which there is, that we should get a second opinion with a carpenter.

Problems, problems, problems....

The problem with the electricity will soon be solved but the construction is now a problem. *sigh* This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that we are running out of time and that Sam is being paid weekly (until he is paid in full), because that was what was agreed upon, whether he works or not.

Despite the fact that we left a small mess, all the work Mike needs done is done. So the electric is a go. Tomorrow I have to stack Tony's sister's boxes in a pod and get the last of the dry wall up. The house looks more skeleton than ever. At least the time for re-construction is near, even if there are bumps in the road.

So Close

2009-03-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

It seems like we're so close to being done, but there is just so much little stuff to wrap up.

I wonder how we picked the coldest, dreariest day to work in a house with no power (and no heat :(). I think its just our luck. I did a few things. I reorganized the living room so that workers can get to the walls to put in electric wires. I got all the trash outside to give us more room. And I helped Tony take out some of the outlets and lights. Why these people put outlets in the floor I don't know. More wood to patch later on.

Tony worked downstairs to try to pull out as much wiring as possible. He said it was hard to work down there with so much of his sister's stuff piled up. We want to get rid of it. But his mother wants to put it in storage. Either way is fine, as long as its out of the way. Of course trashing it would be cheaper. And I don't think they'll come back for it, ever.

One really good thing did come out of today, though. Tony knocked down the retaining wall that used to divide the pantry and the living room. The house looks so much different now. I can almost imagine what it'll be like when we're complete.

And I got to body slam my way through a wall. EEEEEEE!

As I was pulling of some of the remaining bathroom wall (bane of my existence) (so tired of pulling down dry wall). Tony wanted to call it quits. We spent another hour measuring out walls and planning out where lights are going to go. It was so cold in there and getting dark, so we left without fully planning out where the outlets would go. We can do it later on paper since we have measurements.

On Sunday Mike is going to come over and check the place out. He said he can start working as early as Monday if all the demo work is done. We might have power by next week. Yosh!

Fire!

2009-03-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

Well, we were all up at 10 today, but there was no sign of Sam. Tony, having previously stated, was not going over, so I was just going to be me, Tony's mom and Sam. We were ready at 10, but when we knocked on Sam's door, there was no answer. We waiting until 11:30, but there was still no sign of him. So, we decided to go without him.

On the drive over I told Tony's mom that Sam had a key and she didn't like that. She didn't want Sam over at the house alone, so she's going to ask for it back later.

When we got there I decided to finish up those damn cabinets that had be bothering me. The main thing that had kept me from getting them out sooner is that the genius who put them in actually ran electric wire through the shelves and bottom of the cabinet above the sink. It had been supported by the cabinets beside it, but was now dangling. I asked Tony to get it out yesterday, but he must have gotten distracted.

Anyway, figuring it had been dangling there for a while now It wouldn't hurt to just cut it out myself. I found Sam's jigsaw and decided to pry the molding off the face of the shelf to save myself some cutting. And that's when it happened. I yanked on the thing and spark flew out of the box.

Remember when I said I came face to face with the hornets pulling the wall apart? I didn't think I could retreat any faster than that. Today I proved myself wrong.

After the sparks stopped the wire caught on fire. And, trying not to panic, I did the first thing they tell you to do when a fire breaks out, call the fire department. And, after a very nerve wracking conversation, ( I didn't know that I actually knew the address of the house until a moment of crystal clarity on the phone (I probably couldn't tell you it now)). I found the fire extinguisher, that I had a feeling shouldn't be stored away when we were moving boxes a few days earlier, and put the thing out. Yeah, I know stupid of me to go messing with electric wire when the electricity was still on. That ugly stupid-little-girl feeling from yesterday came back.

The fire men came and shut the power off. The wires were frayed and likely to cause another fire if left untreated. No power until we get an electrician in. I called Tony and let him know. He said he'd come down and take a look. There was no patching it up. It was just going to have to come down. He spent the rest of the day pulling wires out of the ceiling so that we can get Mike in to do the re-wiring ASAP. I spent the day pulling down bathroom wall. And I got the upper cabinets down after all. I didn't have the will to mess with the lower ones. We have to turn the water off for that.

Sam actually did show up around 2 PM. But since there was no power he couldn't do any work. Guess he shouldn't have been hung over and late.

Oh and did I mention that Tony fell through the ceiling twice getting all the wires out? He caught himself both times, so luckily no hospital trips. We're going back one day this week to finish up pulling out the wires so we can get Mike in. At least the new door looks pretty.

Meet Sam

2009-03-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

Today was a test of wills.

We got up early at the request of Sam, Tony's neighbor who will be doing the bulk of the reconstruction. Sam wanted to get up early to get to Home Depot to pick up a front and back door for the house, along with all the supplies needed to get those doors in. I hadn't officially met Sam yet. But I knew I'd like him when we all piled into the car and one of the first things he said was 'are you going to drop her off somewhere?'

First impressions are lasting, buddy.

Despite all that Sam seems, well, he seems sketchy to me. We picked up the doors and a new set of locks. To get the work done in a timely manner, Tony gave Sam one of the keys. I'm not very happy about that. We agreed that when he was done we're going to change the locks. The front door we picked out os really pretty. And I'm overwhelmingly happy that we are going to have something in the house that isn't trashed and ugly.

As if my body decided to play some cruel joke on me, I wasn't feeling at all like working. I really wanted to get those cabinets out, but I was feeling so sore and tired that I didn't want to work. And I was pissed at Sam for being arrogant too. So I went home, feeling like a stupid weak little girl.

Anyway, Tony stayed and he said the new door looks very nice. I'll put up a picture when I get back over. We're getting up at 10 AM tomorrow to put in the basement door. Yay, another early day.

Living Room Ceiling

2009-03-16T18:43:00.000-07:00

The first goal of the week has been accomplished. We got the living room ceiling de-nailed tonight. The bad news (seems like we get a lot of it) is that it looks like at least two of the cross beams will need to be replaced. They are pretty rotted. Not, we're-worried-about-the-beams-falling-on-our-head rotten, but they should be replaced while everything is down.

While we were working Tony leaned against the retaining wall in the living room and it shook a lot. The thing is pretty loose. One good whack with a sledge hammer should take it down. All the better for us. I guess that leaves this weekend to get the cabinets out and the map drawn. Shouldn't be too hard.

Two Rooms Complete

2009-03-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a short day. I started to take out the kitchen cabinets but had to stop. Some genius ran electric wires right through two of the cabinet shelves. And I mean, drilled a hole in the shelf and there's electric lines running right through the wood. So I had to stop because I had no jigsaw to cut it out. The rest of the short day I took down slightly more bathroom wall. But I ran into a snag there too. The majority of the remaining wall is right behind the sink. We need to disconnect it to get the vanity and the wall out.

Though yesterday was a good day. We finally finally figured out a floor plan that we can both agree on. We've had a few people now tell us that doing a great room would be a good idea, so the living room, kitchen and dinning room would just be one big room. I didn't like the idea at first, mainly because there would be a big goofy chimney in the middle of the room. But once I started thinking about the idea it grew on me. The house is going to look smaller once we put walls back up. So why make the already small house seem smaller. Plus, with a great room we can have a bar. Yay! Here's the new layout.

So the areas would all be pretty much the same, but no walls and no pantry. I think we'll put in a pantry area in the basement with the freezer. We're going to brick up the chimney so the ugly cinder blocks aren't showing. And the front part of the house is going to be cathedral ceiling. The bar back will be regular height.

Today we took down the ceiling in the bedrooms and the hall completely. Now the bedrooms are done. And I mean done. 'What's left to demo in the bedroom?' 'Nothing, because they're done, baby!'

During the week I re-discovered a valuable tool for this project, the library. I checked about a few books on house design. Some of them have some really good ideas on projects. I'll post them as I go along.

We don't have that much demolition left: finishing the bathroom, taking down the hall closet frame, taking out the nails from the ceiling of the kitchen and living room, taking down the cabinets and taking down the retaining wall on the living room. We are estimating about two weeks of demolition left. Then we can actually start building. Happiness. Tony's going to call Mike this week about the electric work and show the house to Sam, the guy we are going to get to put the dry wall up. I'm very excited about making the place pretty!

Puzzling Plans

2009-03-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

Today I worked alone since Tony had school work to do. I took down some of the walls in the bathroom because I didn't feel like crawling around in the ceiling alone. I didn't get to the wall behind the toilet because it looked complicated with all the plumbing. But the rest of the walls, that won't leave the bathroom totally exposed, are down. BTW for those keeping count there were 4 layers of wall covering in the bathroom: black & white tile, pink/yellow paint, (then a sheet of dry wall), vinyl faux pink tile and finally flower wall paper.

We discussed the new hypothetical floor plan suggested yesterday and decided that though the kitchen would be very nice there, the living room would be too long, narrow and hall like. We spent a hour or so throwing out crazy ideas. So far we've come up with nothing concrete, a few maybe's. Its frustrating. I know I want to fix that funky window and have standard sized counters. And the chimney is in the middle of everything, screwing it up. I just want the problem solved.

If we are taking down wall frames, we are going to need another dumpster for old lumber and to take out the cabinets. So that'll happen eventually. I'm going to spend tomorrow trying to think of a floor plan. This puzzle has kept me awake trying to figure out a solution.

Feel free to sketch any ideas, if you feel like it. Here's a diagram of the unmovable walls:

My Scary Day With the Ceiling

2009-03-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

Have you ever played that game 'Don't Break the Ice'? That was my day today.

The mission of the day, get the ceiling down. At first we started picking up the insulation from the attic (this stuff was not the pink roll, btw, it was like stuffed animal fluff). There was a slight problem with this plan, though. The attic doesn't even have enough room for even little old me to stand in at its tallest and tapers smaller. So we were crawling on potentially unstable boards, hitting our heads ever other second so scoop the insulation up. Oh, and there was a double whammy to the insulation too. It was hot out that day, so short sleeve shirts were the most comfortable. But the stuff was itchy to the point of irritating. Uncomfortable one way or another.

It didn't take us long crawling another and causing ourselves brain damage for us to form another plan: just knock the ceiling down with insulation and pick it up on the floor. Now imagine yourself sitting on piece of ply wood suspended on boards that are ten feet in the air. You then do the smart thing and start hammering at the dry wall beneath you, the only thing that may keep you from falling if you accidentally slip or the ply wood breaks. As you watch the ceiling fall out from under you, you do what all experts tell you not to do in this situation, look down. Fun times. Btw, for those of you wondering, the climb up to the stair-less attic, not very fun either (well you get used to it after the first few times).

On the way back from lunch we encountered (by encounter I mean he was driving by and saw us renovating and thought to offer his services) a guy named Bill. Bill is a kitchen guy, but from the way he was talking he was a whole house guy. He threw out a bunch of crazy idea, basically changing things for the sake of changing them. He wanted to add two more sets of doors and move windows. I didn't care for it much. but he did come up with a good floor plan, which I will illustrate below:

The black lines are unmovable, blue are the current walls/fixtures and red would be the future walls.

After a day of work we got the living room and the kitchen ceilings done. We still have a third of the house to go. I don't know if we are going to be able to fit it into the dumpster or if we will have time to get it done.

View the March 8th Album here.

Clean Up

2009-03-01T19:12:00.000-08:00

Today we had very little time so we just cleaned up the living room. We took the nails out of the living room walls and dumped a half a dozen more trash cans of dry wall into the dumpster. We got all of the walls down except for one little piece of living room dry wall above one of the windows. It mocks me.

The wood under said window is rotten. It looks like someone left the window opened in a storm (or twelve) and water got in. Its going to need to be replaced. Thankfully its the only piece of rotten wood we've found so far.

So what we have left is to get the ceilings down and finish the bathroom. We're hoping to at least get the ceilings this weekend while we still have the dumpster.

Lots of Help

2009-02-28T23:47:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to start by thanking everyone who helped today (and yesterday, of course). I thought we would have too little help, but we, in fact, had too much. All of the trash was taken out in an instant. Before I knew it the ceiling tiles were coming down and the large dressers were getting smashed down into little tiny dumpster sized pieces by people very enthusiastic about breaking things. The living room was cleared and I was running out of duties before I knew it.

We spent the rest of the day taking down walls. A few people took down the wood paneling and a few people came up behind them to smash walls (everyone was very into smashing). The majority of the walls are down in the living room now. All that we left was one little piece of wood paneling (which we ran out of time to take down).

There was also a crew working on the bathroom at the same time. They peeled off the existing wall and found another layer of wall and faux tile under the current wall. It was very strange IMO. The tub surround (which we hoped to save until we can afford to re-tile) was unsavable and ripped apart as it came down. The bathroom is still a mess. But its probably best to keep the walls up in the bathroom until last so we can have some privacy.

We got so much done today and I am so grateful to everyone who came out. The dumpster is mostly full. I don't know if we are going to need to get it emptied before next weekend. Hopefully we can fit everything in it to avoid an extra charge.

View the February 27th Album here.

The Dumpster Fairie Was Here

2009-02-27T22:38:00.000-08:00

We got the dumpster today. But since it came in the morning and I had to work I didn't get to participate in the trash dumping 'fun'. Tony went over with two friends, Ray and Nate. They got a surprising amount done. All the trash in the yard got dumped. That was a huge pile. We expected that to take the whole weekend. They also got a few odd jobs done, including taking down part of a broken wall outside and removing part of the fence. The wall left them some presents too. But I guess the walls like me better because the presents they got were broken bottles. Maybe inside walls are nicer.

Before

View the February 27th Album here.

Getting Ready for This Weekend

2009-02-23T21:41:00.000-08:00

Today is a grumpy day. Its cold and I'm tired :/

Since we are getting the dumpster this weekend I spent today picking as much big stuff off the walls as possible. Dry wall can be bagged but pointy, naily boards can't. I started with the bathroom getting the mirrors, shower curtain and moldings off. Tony and I pried that metal closet out of the wall. It took a couple of swift kicks since it was wedged in real good and left a giant rectangle hole in the wall. We now have a bathroom with a view.

The rest of the night I pried as many leftover pieces of door frame as I could stand. Those moldings are nothing compared to the door frames. There must have been a few dozen nails in each. And they were wedged together pretty seamlessly so they were hard to get under.

Tony spent most of his night prying nails and bits of dry wall off the living room walls he could reached. He took down some of the living room ceiling too.

This weekend we are going to have a couple of long days. Tony thinks it will take the entire weekend to get the trash out of the back yard. I don't know. It depends on how many people we can get to help us. We've had a couple of volunteers so far on Saturday.

No new wall presents today. I did get fridge presents, but I don't know if it counts if you left them there yourself.

Not in the face!

2009-02-21T19:28:00.000-08:00

Today was pretty fun. The day started out on a good foot. Tony's friend Turtle came over. While horsing around he pulled Tony through a wall by his arm. Do not underestimate the power of Tony's-through-walls as a demolition tool. It worked very well. The wall came tumbling down.
I finished up what was left in the kitchen. We decided to leave the wall on the outside of the staircase up so no one would fall down (that would be bad(and it would most likely be me)). The walls gave us more presents today :) When I was taking down the wall by the built in shelf I found a paper doll house.

Tony took down most of the wall dividing the pantry and the kitchen. Its just a big open space now. When we put the walls back up we are going to extend the cabinets already there and put only one entrance into the pantry instead of the thirty that were there. In the process of taking down the pantry it took down a piece of Tony's face. He hit himself with a crowbar. It left a nice little mark, no stitches needed though.

Turtle threw out an interesting idea for the living room. Maybe we could have cathedral ceilings instead of a flat ceiling. It would make it feel bigger. I really like the idea and I hope we can do it.

The place is crowded with trash now. We need to get a dumpster or we will have no more room to work. The rest of the living room is choked off by trash bags and packed up stuff.

View the February 21st Album here.

Kitchen

2009-02-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

Today we started on the kitchen. Tony started on the pantry alone, being as its so small and only one person can really work on it comfortably.

Tony tore through the walls and ceiling, all of it being rotten. He had torn practically all of the walls down in the pantry in the time it took me to take down one kitchen wall. The kitchen walls were a pain though. They are covered in this faux tile latex covering. So I had to tear through that and then the walls.

We found no new presents in the walls today. But we are plotting to leave some. Bwa, ha, ha.

Oh, and I forgot to mention in my last post, many of the ceilings, despite the fact they are going to be a pain in the ass, are going to have to be replaced. Most of them are covered in dried up mold from when the ceiling leaked. Anyway, nothing terribly exciting this weekend, just knocking down more walls.

VD

2009-02-14T10:28:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines Day. No work.

Goodbye Circus Wallpaper

2009-02-12T08:19:00.000-08:00

I've had a very busy week and hadn't gotten anytime to update my blog. Gah! Anyway, since I'm posting so late I'm just going to go over what happened last weekend all in one post.

When we got to the house on Saturday Tony's mom was there. She stayed and helped clean up the mess we were making for a little bit. We spent the day tearing down the walls in the small bedroom. It all went pretty smoothly except for the fact that there were weird... things in the walls. Tony found an old can of bug spray (the really old ones like in cartoons with the pump handles) and a bottle that looked like it may have had Pepto Bismol in it. That was a lot better than the presents the walls gave me. A family of paper wasps. At one point yanking one to the window frames off the window my face was about six inches from were half a dozen wasps were chilling. Fortunately since the weather was still cold out the were lethargic and didn't sting me mercilessly for waking them up. Tony smashed them after I strategically retreated behind him. Hey, you would have panicked too it you'd almost gotten a face full of wasp stingers. After day one the small bedroom was conquered. Goodbye strange circus wallpaper.

Sunday we worked on the larger bedroom. We were working with limited time (I had a party to go to) and we thought that since we defeated the other bedroom the day before the other bedroom would be a snitch. But we didn't count on the closet.

The closet occupied most of Tony's time on Sunday. It was constructed with, somewhere in the neighborhood of, 50,000 nails. Calling it excessive is an understatement. In the middle of the day Tony practically gave it the finger and took a sledgehammer to it. That humbled the closet a little bit more. But we didn't get the room completely done. I guess everyday can't be victory.

On Monday we came back, finished the bedroom and cleaned up the dry wall. The living room in full of trash bags of dry wall. I don't think the garbage men will take them all. We decided to start on the kitchen next. Tony's friend Turtle said he will help this weekend, so hopefully we can knock that whle room out.

View the February 8th Album here.

Real Life Sims

2009-02-02T18:57:00.000-08:00

This week's goal is to take down the sheet rock in the small bedroom. Tony I continued what Tony started yesterday. He already took down several of the moldings for the room so I have a head start. Huzzah. With all the walls coming down, the house is starting to look quite skeletal.

Tony and I discussed possible floor plan changes to accommodate both a decent bathroom and a standard-sized counter kitchen. Possible ideas were to make the bathroom longer by taking out the pantry and putting the bathroom door where the counters end. That would mean no pantry though. Plus there is a very odd window that had been cut off by the back wall of the pantry that would be in the bathroom, not hidden in the pantry. Double plus, the pantry floor is a mess and we don't know how well it will clean up. The second thought was take out the hall, make the two bedrooms one big room and put the entrance to the bathroom where the hall opens to the second bedroom. That would make the bathroom longer, but I still don't know if we can fit the counters in. Plus I wanted Tony's birds in a separate room, because if they keep me up all night when we move in I may end up eating them one night. We were stumped, at least for last night. I'm kind of resigned to the same floor plan but having it clean and nice looking.

I think I'm going to try to use The Sims to figure out a decent floor plan. I love practical uses for video game addictions.

We also decided to save getting the insulation in the attic for last. Having it up there isn't doing any harm, in fact its helping keep the place warm. So we're going to concentrate on removing sheet rock first.

Hulk

2009-02-01T20:30:00.000-08:00

Today was very productive. Tony and I got all of the boxes from the bedroom into the basement. So now that room is cleared out. He also started tearing down the walls between the bedrooms. I say 'tearing' but it was more like a skinny, paler, red headed Hulk with a crowbar smashing through the walls. He said he envisioned himself as a giant 80's cartoon character smashing through buildings.

I got most of the hall done. When I got to the arch separating the rooms (the part with the cabinet) it turned out to be much more complex than the rest. I decided to save it for later since my arms were killing me and Tony wanted to go.

The trash in the back yard is becoming overwhelming. We are going to have to get it taken away, either by dumpster or Got Junk people. We need to get rates on dumpsters.

We saw Mike later at a Super Bowl party (yay football!) and he told us that ceilings were a pain in the butt. He said to save as many as possible, because we'll either be lifting heavy ass sheet rock above our heads or we'll have to rent a lift (and that's still a pain in the butt). Good thing he told us because we planned on tearing them all down. Tony also asked him how much it would cost for his electric crew to re-wire the house. He said between $1500 to $2000 and it would be done in two days. If we have the money i think we should do it. I don't want to muddle through it and end up killing ourselves or burning the house down.

So the plan is 1) get all walls down 2) get insulation out of the attic 3) have house re-wired 4) fix ceilings or put up new ceilings where needed 5) put new insulation in the ceiling 6) put up new walls with wall insulation

View the February 1st Album here.

My Aching Back

2009-01-31T18:19:00.000-08:00

My back hurts so bad today. I fell on the ice that was coating the steps on Wednesday and then I was dumb enough to exercise the day after. Today I was dumb enough to lift boxes and pry of dry wall. Ouchies.

I got about half of the room emptied of boxes. I'm really running out of room in the basement. Its back to being cluttered, but at least it isn't uninhabitable like it was when we started. And sorting out boxes and organizing the basement is something we can do after we're moved in. It just sucks that all that hard work we did is being used to store more clutter.

Tony started working on the attic. There was a bunch of broken stuff being stored up there from his grandparents. It was funny seeing random stuff falling out of holes in the ceiling, like there was some kind of attic goblin cleaning up there. He says that the insulation in the ceiling now is white fluff, like the stuff you fill stuffed animals with. Cleaning it up is going to be an adventure.

I also did a bunch of work on the hall. I found out today that taking down dry wall is more involved than just busting up the wall with something heavy (AKA fun). You have to pry off the doorways and molding to really get the stuff off. And that takes a bit of muscle. I had to haul a door off at one point.The majority of the hall dry wall is done today. I'm hoping tomorrow will be easier.

The 'Fix This House' Project Two: The Outside Bugaloo

Update: The Ant Crisis

Special Bulletin: The War on Ants

Just me and my bucket of death

Weed Update: Day 5

Weed Status: Day 4

Weed Status: Day 2

Choose Your Poison

Exterior, The Walk-Thru

Still Stinky

Thwarted

Woot!

Pictures

I have you now, floors!

Buried Treasure

Stained

LIGHTS!!!

The Light Faeires Were Here

Good News For a Change

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

What We Feared

WTF and Its Silver Lining

Can He Really Be Finished?!

Running out of things to do

Now More Than Ever

Down to the Nitty Gritty

Good and Bad

Morning Rant

Shouldn't blame the messenger, but....

Door Success

Sticky Fingers

The Bitch Session

Bleh

The heaviest shopping cart ever

Cabinets, finally

I can see the floor!

Now in color *wink*

Well thats just prime

Kitchen Floor!

More painting

Let the painting begin!

Ugh

Ding Dong the Tiles are Dead

Basement Clutter

The Decision: Ugly for Cheap or Pretty for Bend-Over-And-Take-It Prices

Tough Decisions

This Weekend

Fashion vs. Function

Can This House Get Any Weirder?

Back to the Grind

Long Time No See

AC a-no-go

Doors

Not Much Done

Snake, snake, it's a snake

A New Wrinkle

Progress

Yard Work

Grumble

The story of how we didn't order cabinets

Tall, Tall Grass

Walls!

I know you are going to think I'm doing something stupidly dangerous....

Some Long Awaited Work

Flood

A Good Surprise

Tired

All Clear

Update on the Studs

Bad News Comes in Three's.... or Multiples of Three

Note to Self

Contractors

Stressed

So Close

Fire!

Meet Sam

Living Room Ceiling

Two Rooms Complete

Puzzling Plans

My Scary Day With the Ceiling

Now in color wink