Thursday, October 22, 2009

A little update

Its finally in (and its awesome)!!!!!






Today I felt like actually accomplishing something and getting a room finished so I focused on the office. Its the only room in the house I do not want to paint for a while so I hung things on the walls and unpacked everything I could find that goes in the office. Here are a few pictures.





This is going to be my craft area once I buy a table this weekend.


Sunday, October 18, 2009

Progress....kinda

So it has been a little over a week since we started this mess we call home rennovation and from the outside looking in, it doesnt look like we have done anything but create huge messes all over the house.

Bathroom update:

We are still working on the bathroom of course because no project is ever an easy one. I only have one more wall to finish scrubbing the glue off of so that is promising. However, now we have a huge hole in the wall where my husband ripped out the bad repair job. We were unable to buy drywall last week to repair it because it rained most of the week and we all know that wet drywall is just a huge mess. Now we have the drywall but other projects have taken precedence this weekend. I am bound and determined to at least have The bathroom ready to paint by next weekend. That means all the drywall repaired, the rewiring for the lights and the primer put on the drywall. This is of course a very optimistic goal. Below is a picture of the hole in the wall.



Project 2: Dishwasher

The old 1960's era dishwasher that was in the kitchen when we moved in went out. It had standing water in the bottom of it that would not drain and it smelled BAD. We went to our local Lowe's last Monday who happened to be having a great sale on dishwashers! So we bought one thinking that we would have nice clean dishes that night. WRONG! After removing the old dinosaur we discovered all sorts of great suprises. First, there was no shut off valve to the old dishwasher, second, the subfloor was rotten, third, the pipes and fittings were so ancient they dont even make adapters for them anymore! Also, this project brought about several other little projects like making my faucet not leak anymore and patching a hole in the floor where there used to be an ice machine drain. This "easy" project has taken up my husbands time for the whole week, caused us to not have hot water in the kitchen for several days, and caused me to have to do dishes in the laundry room all week.

Needless to say, I'm not liking the house much right now. The status on this project right now is that we have running water in the kitchen, the pipes for the dishwasher have been stripped out, and a shut off valve has been installed. All of this was accomplished after a lot of cussing and many trips to Lowe's on my husbands part. As I type this right now, he is outside salvaging wood off the handicap ramp (yes I said handicap ramp)for the flooring for the new dishwasher.

Here is a picture of the dinosaur. Notice the push buttons on it. This thing was ancient. Now its at the city dump. RIP old man.



This is the hole that's in my kitchen now. Notice the ultra expensive hole filler that's there right now (Dos Equis bottle).



And finally, my new lonely dishwasher sitting by itself in the breakfast nook all bundled up in plastic (*tear).




Project 3: Handicapped ramp


This runs along the back of the house off one of the back doors. The husband wanted to salvage some of the wood to make some saw horses with so that he could cut wood for the subflooring for the dishwasher. Now the ramp has no railing which means its that much closer to being GONE. I might take out some agression on the rest of it this week and knock this off the list of things to finish!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Its all ours and its a hell of a lot of work!

After a couple of months of waiting, every inch of this house is finally ours!!! We closed on the house Thursday afternoon.

Needless to say, as soon as we got home, I created a mess in our guest bathroom.  This is the pattern of wallpaper that this room was covered in. Isnt it lovely. I mean, who the hell chooses black wallpaper in a tiny ass bathroom. It even had matching roman blinds on the window so not one stitch of light got into the room.


 I did not get a before pic because I didnt get my camera until after I started. This is what I had to deal with Friday morning.







All of the paper is stripped because it came right off the wall. However, the wall is now coverd in brown streaks where the glue residue is. I went to the trusty internet to see about how to remove this glue. That was my first mistake. I tried fabric softner and hot water, vinegar and hot water, and Dawn and hot water. All these products did was make my bathroom smell like fabric softner and vinegar and get the walls wet. I set off for Wal Mart in desperation determined to find something to srub this crap off. I ended up buying something called DIF gel spray and some fine grit sandpaper sponges. THIS WORKS!! Its a ton of elbow grease but there's some white on my walls. This is going to be a painfully slow process.

Underneath the wallpaper and behind the mirror, I found some nice work for my husband to do:








The first picture is where the former resident decided to just cover an old outlet hole with the mirror rather than patch the drywall. And the second pic is where they replaced the drywall after a leak in the shower but they did a TERRIBLE job of it. The brown on the wall is the glue I'm scrubbing off. Note the white spot in the corner and the white wall next to it!! That's what my elbow grease is getting me!!!!!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The closing date is near!!!

Its now official! Our closing date is set for October 8 at 4:00pm. I could not be more excited about finally getting this finished. I've been climbing the walls for weeks wanting to rip down the hideous wallpaper in this house and now the final countdown is here. Four days!!

We purchased our first official piece of furniture for the house last weekend. Of all things, its a patio set but I must say that I'm in LOVE with it. We got a really good deal at the local Sears that is going out of business and could not pass up the 50%! I have used the patio set every day this week, I've eaten every meal outside, drank every glass of wine outside and read out there every afternoon. If its possible to be in love with a patio set, I guess you could say I am. Being outside is one of those simple pleasures in life that I enjoy. If the weather would cooperate, I would live outside. Here's some pictures of said patio set since its cold and rainy today and I wont be able to go out and enjoy the yard.