Monday, July 16, 2012

An Island To Myself!


Well, it’s been nearly three months since my last post here, and as such, this will be a very, very, very long post. I cannot make any excuses this time except life, a birthday party, preparation for end of school activities and the culmination of those activities, including a fifth grade graduation, and then summer with kids home and us trying to figure out our new routine together with trips to the park and the library while trying to work on my novel and this house with very little success on the house. This is the first year I have been home during the summer in three years, and the children are a little older with different passions than were present so long ago. Now that it is nearly the end of July we are finally settling into a routine and before long, we will be back to our school year routine. I’ve heard that they grow up in the blink of an eye, and that saying sure is proving accurate in my life. While there is a lack of excuses, there are certainly plenty of things that have been happening in our little dump of a home that is feeling more like home and less like a dump every day, although it hasn’t always felt that way over the past three months.

Since I last wrote, the living room has been put on hold in favor of some other projects that are finally coming together. We managed to put a ceiling fan in Little Bit’s room, and that project brought about many challenges. Just before my hubby installed the fan, our neighbor mentioned that he had seen bats flying into the attic through one of the gable vents so my hubby went up into the attic to check it out. Fortunately he saw no indication of bats and he stapled hardware cloth to the inside of the gable vents to ensure the bats couldn’t get in. While he was up there, he discovered that while our oldest daughter’s room had adequate insulation over and around her room, Little Bit had virtually no insulation, and one of the ducts feeding to her room has been crushed. He still needs to contact the heating and a/c guys to get them to come fix that because they told us they had fixed it so that she would have adequate heating and air into her room. Without that particular duct, she only has half the necessary heat or a/c that she needs to keep her room comfortable. We paid them to ensure all ducts were adequate and to fix any that were not, so they were negligent in that aspect. I hope he will have no trouble when he calls them, but I doubt he will. They have been really good to work with so far.

So my hubby crawled out of the attic and informed me of the lack of insulation. He also told me that he found frayed, bare electrical wires up in the attic, a major fire hazard that had to be repaired at once. He went to get the necessary items to fix those and wanted to pick up insulation while he was out. They were completely out at the home improvement place he went to so he ended up buying it from the other one in town later after he had repaired the wiring. He also finally installed the ceiling fan and put the insulation in once the fire hazard had been taken care of. It seems that we have run into problems at every turn in this house, and at some point, I stopped laughing and became downright depressed. I hated the house that I once saw so much potential in.

From January to June, the only things I had gotten done was to put together storage shelves for the living room and a pantry for the kitchen, scrape the garage floor, prime and paint the garage ceiling and walls and finally got around to painting the attic storage adjacent to Little Bit’s room in May. The lack of vision was really getting to me and I just couldn’t figure out what else to do with the house. I had a desire to spackle the living room, and did put spackle on the walls, but I came to a hole in the wall behind the entertainment center and decided that I need more drywall tools to repair that wall. Then I thought about one of the walls in the living room and realized that this is the back side of the wall in the kitchen that I want to cut a huge hole in to open up the kitchen and make it more functional with the rest of the house. I just couldn’t figure out everything I wanted to do in the kitchen, but I knew that if a hole was going to be cut into that wall, I needed to get that done before painting the living room; otherwise, I would have to come back and refinish that wall. Since there is plenty to do, and I don’t want to have to do the same work twice, I put the living room on hold. That’s when I decided to do the attic storage area, and it turned out well. Now I need to put stuff in there to store, and that is something I am going to work on in short order.

In addition to not knowing what to do with the kitchen, we finally got a third quote on the windows and front door because my hubby had to have that third quote. The guy who gave us the quote is a contractor who does just about anything you need, including gutters that we also need so he quoted those as well. The contractor was beyond helpful as he gave us a lot of useful information. I had apologized for the odor in the front entryway, explaining that sometimes it becomes so pungent that it almost makes me sick to my stomach, and my hubby said he usually didn’t smell anything. The contractor then told us that he actually did smell a musty smell and it was probably from a lack of a moisture barrier in the crawl space and then asked if we had one down there. My hubby told him we didn’t and the contractor told us that they could put one down but it was a simple job so we could save money if we did it ourselves. He then went on to tell my hubby what to do. He seemed to understand that we are on a limited budget and quite handy so he wanted to help us out with the more difficult things and offered us some advice on the easier things we are capable of in order to save us money in the long run. I appreciated him not taking advantage of us. My hubby is now planning to put a moisture barrier down at some point.

I have to paint the surface of the eaves before the gutters can be installed. We spent several weeks trying to pick out colors. My hubby likes to mull over things and consider every pro and con out there. I prefer to just make a decision and go with it. After two weeks of hemming and hawing over exterior colors, we went on a drive around town to look at other houses. While we were out, he told me that he thought he might want to get tan or beige gutters, so I told him that if I’m to pick out house colors for the eaves, I need samples of the gutters so I can match the color to the gutters. We must have went back and forth for a while and I finally said, “I’m not going to discuss the house colors any further until I have some gutter samples so I can match colors. I cannot pick out colors until I have those samples, and until then it is pointless to discuss house colors because I’m just getting angry.” We didn’t discuss it any further that day, and for his respecting my need for silence on the subject, I am forever grateful!

After a couple of days, I asked him if he ever got in touch with the contractor to get some gutter samples and he said, “I got to thinking that maybe we should just go with white. It’s an easy color; if we have to sell, it will not turn people away; and we can go ahead and get the work done sooner rather than later. I also got to thinking that we should just go ahead and get the windows installed now and then get the gutters put on after we have a chance to paint the eaves.” I expressed my overwhelming joy that we finally came to a conclusion on the matter and immediately picked out several colors I thought would work for the siding. I put them aside until the other day and I picked out two colors. My hubby and I looked at them together and came to a final decision, one we both agreed on without argument. I’m so excited I can hardly contain my emotions.

In addition to this little victory, I have another even more exciting victory. Remember I mentioned that I eventually quit laughing about all the crazy stuff we were encountering and became downright depressed and almost resentful of the house. Well, I found an island that changed my life. When I first saw the island, I really liked it and wanted to get it once I got the kitchen redone. I mentioned it to my hubby and his response surprised me. He said, “How many styles of islands are out there?” I told him it was a limited number in our price range and he said, “Well, if you like it, why don’t you go ahead and get it. Then you can at least use the storage in it.” Brilliant!

I asked a good friend of mine to go with me to pick it up, and that was because it would not fit in my car. With all of my loathing not being able to accomplish much, this was something I had to do on my own, without my hubby’s help. Of course, I had to ask for help along the way, but doing so did not make me feel weak. It actually empowered me that I didn’t have to rely on my hubby to do everything in this house. I think the reason I felt so discouraged was that everything I intended to do on my own, I ended up having to have help from my hubby. As an aside, there is another story here so I’ll share that briefly now.

I wanted to remove the built-in shoe rack in Little Bit’s closet. There is one in most of the closets in the house, but this being the smallest closet, I thought I’d start there. I couldn’t even figure out how to get it out and my hubby removed it. He then had to finish out the floor and put in trim on the wall. Now I just have to finish the closet with paint and by staining the new floor board. My hubby also finished out the floor in his closet. He decided he would finish all the closets for us over time so I am quite thankful to him, but this thankfulness only came about because of the island: the island I need to finish the story about, the island that revolutionized my life and my home improvement outlook, the island that turned my bitterness to thankfulness.

With my friend’s help, and her big Ram 3500, we managed to go to the store, get the strong guys to load it into the truck and bring it home. My oldest two children (age 13 and 10 with the physique of adults) helped us unload the giant box into the house. My friend had never actually been to my house and she immediately started raving about the beautiful features and the potential and how she wished she could get her hands on a house like this. She didn’t realize she was actually encouraging me, but she was. That had been my attitude when we looked at the house and even after moving in, and I had lost sight of my vision. I felt that vision coming back as she described things she would be able to do with this place. I hadn’t even put my island together and already it was a huge blessing to me.

I decided not to work on the island that night because it was July 3rd, and we were planning to watch the fireworks…from our front yard! This was the first time we were able to partake in the city’s festivities from the comfort of our own yard without driving a long ways, parking and having to walk. Next year we will probably plan to go to the park and participate in all the festivities at the park and then walk home in time to watch the fireworks. Anyway, the next day, I didn’t put the island together because my hubby was home, and this was “my” project. I waited until the following day to begin to work on the island. I did well with putting the parts together until I attached the back brace to the left side panel. One of the holes for one of the dowels was not drilled out completely or had a plastic burr covering the hole or something. I could not get the dowel in with my bare hands so I figured I could tap it in gently with a hammer. I tapped it and it went in slightly but not very far so I tapped it again (with very little force behind the hammer) and the entire dowel went through the outside of the end piece. I wanted to cry. My island was ruined, my project had been a failure, and I suddenly felt like I just couldn’t do anything right and this entire house idea was a mistake. I was feeling so down that I finally realized I was beating myself up and prayed that God would help me out of my funk.

Immediately the idea popped into my head to call the 800 number and explain what happened. I was hoping they could send me another piece, especially since the hole had not been drilled properly. If it had, I would have never used a hammer to try to put the dowel in. So I called, and the woman I spoke to was extremely pleasant and understanding, explaining that I shouldn’t have to live with a damaged island and told me she wanted to help me. I was on the phone with her for about 25 minutes. She finally figured out that they couldn’t get parts for the island, but told me I could take it back to the store and she would alert the store that I would be coming in. Otherwise, she could get me in touch with the customer relations department who should be able to get me in touch with the actual manufacturer who could get me the needed pieces. She transferred me to customer relations per my request, and the man who answered sounded like he hailed from the other side of the world, as in India. He barely spoke my language and I was so afraid that this was going to turn into a fiasco quickly so I prayed again and asked God to give me His strength and patience that I didn’t have. There were a couple of times that I didn’t really understand the guy and I actually asked him patiently to repeat himself. After being on the phone with him for about 15 minutes, he finally said that he didn’t have the phone number for the manufacturer but he had the name and I could just Google the name of the manufacturer. I said apprehensively, “Ooookaaaaayyy?” and he told me to hold on a minute. About 30 seconds later, he picked up the phone and had the manufacturer’s name and phone number.

Success! Or so I thought until I tried to contact the manufacturer. I called the number the guy had given me, went through the automated menu and sat on hold for 15 minutes. The phone suddenly went to silent white noise so I knew that my phone had not died but that their automated system had malfunctioned. I knew that was the case when I got the busy signal noise. I hung up and called back only to receive a busy signal. I tried again and went through the automated system once again. Then I was on hold for 5 minutes when the phone cut off again just as it had before. I tried to call back only to receive an automated response stating that they were closed and to call back during normal business hours of 8am to 5pm. I looked at the clock and it was 5:00 pm. They were now closed and I would have to wait until the next day, Friday, to call. Aaarrrrrrggggghhhhhhh!

I called back the next morning and got right through. I may have waited five minutes on hold and then a woman picked up. She asked what part I needed to order, took down my personal information and gave me a confirmation number with no request for payment. She told me it would ship out Monday via Fed-Ex and would take about a week to get here. Well, that Monday she was speaking of was last Monday. I went for a run with my younger two children on Wednesday morning because it had finally cooled down from the 102 degrees we had been experiencing to more normal upper 80s/lower 90s. It was a great run that was cut short when we found a box turtle on the side of the road that we had to return to the creek so it wouldn’t get run over. Over by the creek we found a bright yellow softball that had initials written on it so we returned it to the softball field and finally made it home. As we were running up the road, we saw the Fed-Ex truck in front of the house. Our area has been experiencing a lot of pop-up summer thunderstorms and she was getting ready to put the package into a plastic bag when we got to the top of the hill beside the truck. I told her that she could save her bag and brought my island piece in the house. It had been 2 business days from when I ordered the piece. Impressive.

I worked on the island Wednesday and was putting the finishing touches on it Wednesday night when I encountered a major problem. There was something seriously wrong with one of the drawer slides. I couldn’t get the drawer in all the way in. I decided I was too tired to do anything else, and besides, the company was closed. The next day I got up and planned to call to get another slide sent to us, further delaying putting the island together. All I could do at that point was laugh because if I didn’t, I was going to cry. Instead of calling the company, though, I realized that the old end piece had two slides that were perfectly fine: I already had the extra slide that I needed. I quickly removed the good slide from the defective side piece, removed the defective slide from the good side piece and had it replaced in a matter of minutes. Still, the drawer would not go in. I looked at the other slide, and it was also defective, but lo and behold, there was another good slide on the defective side part, so I switched those slides out and ta-da…the drawer went in and it slides. We had an island.

That day, my oldest daughter helped me put the island into the kitchen and fill it with items that had been stacked on the baker’s rack threatening to fall off at the slightest breeze. The island, "my" island, was beautiful in the kitchen, and we moved the baker’s rack to the foyer almost as if we were ceremonially clearing the room for the island. It was almost as if the island needed to be an island to itself. The baker's rack fit perfectly in the foyer, and we were able to keep just a few pretty items on it to make it look decorative instead of just functional. Once that was done, my daughter decided to organize the pantry since it had become extremely disorganized. She is unbelievable with organization, and I thanked her for her hard work. We went and bought storage boxes to lump together similar items, such as a box for all chocolate and candy items, a box for dry beans and rices, a box for all of the gluten-free flours and gluten-free baking necessities, a box for all the canned fish, a box for all the nuts and dried fruits, etc. When we got home, I helped her organize the entire pantry. That night we both fell into bed exhausted. We had worked hard all day long and it was quite rewarding. The island, “my” project had been a success, I had done it by myself with the resources of a few helpful people along the way.

But that is not the end of the story of the island. By getting the island into the kitchen, I was able to return my microwave and coffee makers (my hubby and I each have one) to the kitchen counters because I now have a food preparation surface in the kitchen that frees up the little bit of counter space I had been using. After I moved the microwave and coffee makers off the laundry room counter where they have been since we moved in, I saw the potential of the laundry room that had been lost in the clutter. I figured out that I can replace the countertop and the cabinet hardware, paint the cabinets and the walls, remove the door to the room that is never shut and has a broken glass panel, and the laundry room will be a beautiful room. The place where the door with the broken glass panel is swung open, there is a wall that is the perfect size for the “pantry” that is really a sturdy plastic cabinet. It looks really nice and I intend to keep using it, especially now that I have put all the food in handy-dandy boxes that can be carried to the kitchen as needed. Eventually, I will be able to relocate those to the kitchen cabinets once I finish remodeling in there.

Envisioning the kitchen without the pantry suddenly became a little easier by getting the baker’s rack out of the kitchen. Suddenly the kitchen has started to take shape. Of course, it all started with the island and borrowing a kitchen remodel book from the library, one of the many treasures associated with our weekly library trips. I now have a great plan for the kitchen. I even took the time to draw it out sans actual measurements to get the basic idea of the plan, and my hubby liked it. He smiled as I told him about it, didn’t voice any real concerns except the part about putting the window between the kitchen and living room, and then only to voice his opinion that we need to be careful to ensure we provide enough support before we remove the studs in the wall since the studs are the support system in that wall. I was a step ahead of him with the plan to install a support beam above the window, which is why I intended to only put in a window rather than knock out the entire wall.
Besides, by only putting in a window, I can put in bottom cabinets with a countertop. Those cabinets can only extend halfway across that wall because the only a/c and heating vent to the room is located on that wall near the corner. By extending the counter past the cabinets over the vent and around the corner, I can create a breakfast bar in the corner with a couple of bar stools that can be stored under the counter when not in use. I plan to put open shelves above the breakfast bar on the short wall. I also plan to put some open shelves on the walls on either side of the windows over the sink. It will give us shelves for our everyday dishes to be displayed and open the small kitchen up. I have a few other ideas for the kitchen that I will share later when I finally get around to that project. I finally am excited about these home improvement projects.

Hopefully I can figure out how to upload pictures on here by the time I get around to doing these projects because I would love to share before and after photos throughout the projects. I would also like to have photos to back up explanations of the work. For now, I’m enjoying my kitchen with its minor improvement, the island! After all, the island has taught me that even when I encounter challenges, I can overcome them and do not have to be destroyed. I know that at first, it was really strange being able to use my coffee maker and the microwave without having to walk around the corner to the laundry room. They are right there in the kitchen, all within reach of the refrigerator and sink. Oh the little joys my island have brought. This island, while an island to itself, knows how to share joy, and if my island can do that, so can I. I suppose, in some way, I've always been an island to myself. But my island has taught me to find joy and share it. In that sense, I am an island to myself. But for now I have to go take the kids to the library since it’s Monday.

Happy Home Improvement!

Monday, April 30, 2012

Time for Living Room Spackle


I am finally ready to start working on the living room in this dump. Over the last couple of weeks, I have been working hard on the garage when I haven’t been running kids here and there, cooking, cleaning or writing my novel. Let’s also not forget to add sleep into the equation as well as planning a birthday party for my little soon-to-be seven year old princess.

So I got the garage walls primed (with the help of my two older kids) and painted, and then my hubby helped me prime the ceiling and I painted it with ceiling white. While my hubby and I were putting the primer on the ceiling, my little princess came out there and said, “Wow, Mama, I didn’t know they had yellow ceilings!” I had to laugh because the difference between the yellowed ceilings from a room that had been smoked in and the bluish-gray tint of the primer was quite drastic. I was amazed at how white the ceiling turned out when I finally finished painting it.

So at some point in there, it was time to prime the baseboards and the crown moulding. I filled my paint cup and started to put primer on the baseboards in the corner. I stopped suddenly when, oh crap, I realized that I had forgotten a very important step. I needed to vacuum the floor under the baseboards so I wouldn’t get foreign paint chips, lint, dust, etc. in the primer on the baseboards. I went and got the shop-vac and set to work. Not long into the process, I realized that the vacuum could only suction so much from under the baseboards, so I pulled out my handy-dandy little hand broom and started to brush with enough force to inflict injury while holding the end of the shop-vac tube next to the broom to suction up anything that came out. That worked for the first half of the room where there was mostly paint chips and dust, but when I got to the back of the room where the people before us had their furniture, I had to brush and then suction back and forth because there was so much stuff under the baseboards.

Now I would like to add a disclaimer here: if you have a weak stomach, I suggest you skip this paragraph because the stuff I brushed out from under those baseboards was disgusting. I found cigarette butts; two dimes; old, rusty nails; dead bugs; live bugs; a shriveled up worm coated in some sticky, tarry substance that looked and smelled like old feces; tons of carpet fibers and lint also covered in that nasty substance; glass shards of all shapes, sizes and colors; splinter of wood; and a paperclip. Most of the items had at least some of that sticky, tarry substance on them. And yes, for precautionary purposes, I was wearing a pair of nitrile gloves.

So an hour and a half later, I finally finished this brushing and vacuuming process, and it was time to prime the trim. The only problem was I felt like I needed a shower so I could actually put the primer on. I do not have a weak stomach, but that almost did me in. So I took a shower and finished putting the primer on. By the time I finished priming and painting the entire room, I felt so accomplished that I wanted to celebrate. But that feeling of accomplishment waned when I realized that I had forgotten to finish painting the door! The original paint on it was really bad not to mention the cigarette smell so I had already primed it. I finally finished painting it Saturday morning.

And now it’s time to start to spackle the living room. This ought to be fun!

Happy Home Improvement!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

What's This Thing Called Life?

Luck didn't seem to be in our favor lately. It seems that I must've forgotten that we have to actually live when we bought this house to fix up. So it still smells a little, the wall are definitely not in the best shape and ..... Well, I think ..... describes the house quite well. I could go on and on and still not finish with all of the stuff we have encountered since my last post. It's been a month, and I wish I could say it hadn't been that long. Sometimes we plan to do something and forget that life has a way of getting in the way.

Our children have been adjusting to school, we have been adjusting to a new community, it takes a lot of time to shop for a family of five, the kids have doctor and orthodontist appointments, I like to provide my family with healthy home-cooked meals, I am writing occasional devotionals, a Bible study as well as a novel (I'm on page 176 handwritten because I'm a paper and pen kinda gal!) and my husband is working a little more than he had been, so that leaves a lot of responsibility to me. Needless to say, I haven't gotten as much done on the house as I would like to say I had, but I am certainly starting to get a feel for what I want this house to be when we are done.

So, I finally finished scraping the "garage" floor and enlisted the help of my children so we could wash down all of the walls out there. The neighbor told us that the woman who lived here before us smoked like a freight-train out there. If you are a smoker, this is not a big deal, but since we do not smoke, it was very strong and we didn't really want to use it without cleaning the walls and painting it with that stuff to kill the smell. So with the help of three of the best kids in the world (I'm partial!), we got the walls cleaned, with the exception of the baseboards on two walls. We've had a busy few weeks with spring break, lots of appointments, my writing and the like. Oh, did I forget to mention we also figured out that our cat is pregnant so we can't take her for her rabies shot, and we've had to set up a place in the breezeway for her to stay until the kittens are born. So with everything going on, I haven't had the chance to get out there. I finally went out there today, and my small mission was accomplished. I managed to finish washing the baseboards on the last two walls.


Now, I just need to add spackle, sand the spackle flat, and paint and I'll be finished. I will spackle and sand tomorrow, paint on Saturday and be done! Yay! I am so excited to finally be about to finish a project that has been hanging over my head for over a month. So during that month, we have done more than just scrape the floor out there, although that was a grueling job. On March 19, we had three trees cut down, two trees topped and three stumps ground. One tree was a humongous oak at the front corner of the house that hung over the top of the house with a trunk that was leaning significantly toward the house. The neighbor told us that it used to have a twin that leaned the other direction and landed on his house during a storm. He had to rebuild his entire house because the tree destroyed the old house. In some ways, maybe we could have used a windstorm to take that one out when no one was home so we could have rebuilt...

Nah, this home improvement project is so much more fun. That would just be sad. Anyway, the guys arrived early in the day (maybe 9 or 9:30 a.m.) and they worked ALL day. I didn't have to do much for that project, but I didn't get much done around the house because I wanted to oversee what was happening, and once the kids got home from school there was a lot of activity. The tree in the backyard was extremely close to the house and half-rotten. Speaking of half-rotten, we discovered once the humongous tree in the front was down that part of the inside of the trunk was beginning to rot. It really was a matter of time until it fell on its own, so we were glad we took it down.

The kids really enjoyed that project. We also have been working on getting the kids to clean up their rooms to no avail with the exception of our oldest who decided to tackle her closet on her own! I was proud of her even though I had to help her remove the nasty carpet in the bottom and bang out and remove the tack strips. Once the pad was pulled up, there were umpteen (is that even a word???) staples all over the bottom of the closet floor that were used to hold the carpet pad down. Now I understand that carpet pads need to be stapled down, but this closet floor is maybe 12" X 40" or so and there must've been a dozen or more staples per square 4 inches. Now I know that is not a technical term, but that is just about the concentration of the staples. She was not able to finish them that day so she came back to it after her Daddy showed her an easier way to get the staples out than the way I showed her to do it because I've never pulled staples or anything else out. Eventually I may have figured that out, but I'm glad he knew the little tip and showed her.

Anyway, the same day that she tackled that project, she had been complaining to her Daddy that her ceiling fan wasn't working. The light worked but not the ceiling fan. He figured it wouldn't be that big of a deal so he cut off the breaker and set to work pulling it apart figuring maybe a wire had been missed being connected during the installation. Well, that was the understatement of the century. The wires had been connected with duct tape??!!!??? (who uses duct tape in an electrical connection?) and some of them were connected incorrectly. Can you say "major fire hazard"? Wow. So my hubby had to completely reinstall that fixture, which took ten times longer than it should have, but our teen girl now has a ceiling fan, and my hubby has decided that it is just not a good idea to tackle any project in this house unless there is someplace open for business where we could get replacement parts, if necessary.

Now about that ceiling fan. Last night it was rather cold and my daughter was complaining that she was cold. When I went to her room, she still had her fan running on high. I asked her why she hadn't turned it off and she said she tried but it was still going even when it sounded like it was off. She said she even tried to stop it with her fingers, but as soon as she let it go, it started going again. I proceeded to turn it off, step up on the bed and stop it manually. It stayed stopped and she was singing my praises.... Well, at least Mama has one point for the team!

So not a lot of home improvement has been going on, but we are definitely still plugging away at this home improvement project. I think there will be periods of productivity and lulls that come and go, and that's okay with me because this is a life project for us that will certainly help our children become more understanding of others, less me-focused and be less likely to exhibit silver-spoon syndrome. I think they are already realizing that we are not greater than anyone else. And I like that because it helps all of us remember what's important in life: enjoying living and relationships!

Happy Home Improvement!

Monday, March 5, 2012

Broken Switches, Tack Nails and Chipped Concrete

My husband and I have been working on the "garage" to get it ready to empty our storage unit. Saturday my hubby worked diligently out there. He was going to help me hang the vertical blinds, but upon opening the box, we discovered that the top bar was bent. Wow, as if... He had some other things he needed to do, but he had to run to the local home improvement warehouse to get the parts first. Once he got back, I went to exchange the blinds only to have to stand in the return line for about 30 minutes along with about five other customers. I stood there smilin' to keep from getting angry. As the line inched toward the service desk, someone showed up. I thought she was going to help get the line down but instead she looked at a TV that was being returned and told the lady running customer service that it was okay to give the woman her money back. So now all of us in line had been knocked back another person since we had to wait for that return to be completed. Finally I was getting closer when a lady came sauntering back toward the customer service desk in no hurry whatsoever. Once she got back there, she was twice as fast as the lady who had been running the desk by herself, and that's not saying much so you can imagine how slow the first lady was. By the time I got up to the desk, there were at least eight to ten more customers behind me. That store was a complete madhouse, and I finally returned home about two hours later since I also needed to get some other items. Of course, upon my return home I immediately realized I had forgotten some things, but they'll just have to wait until the next time I go by there.

It was late when I got home, and my dear hubby had fixed us some supper. Nothing fancy, but it was something to eat. While I had been gone, he informed me, he replaced the switch that operated the ceiling fan/light in the garage. It had been working intermittently until Friday night when my youngest girl somehow got the light to work. After replacing the switch, the light no longer worked. That's just great! So our diligent efforts to hang the vertical blinds, replace the light switch and get the garage completely vacuumed and mopped left us wanting. No vertical blinds were hanging, the light wasn't working (although there was a new switch on the wall) and nothing had been mopped - well nothing except the breezeway and the kitchen that my boy and youngest girl helped me accomplish earlier in the day even though I wasn't planning on doing those jobs.

Well, in addition to the failed repairs in the garage, my hubby decided to fix the outlet in the bathroom while I was gone because it was missing part of the cover plate, and he figured it would be a good idea to put the new GFI outlet in and make sure it had a cover plate, you know, to avoid electric shock! While he did that, he discovered the switch beside the outlet was cracked all the way from one end to the other. So he shared this with me while we ate our supper and all I could do was shake my head and laugh at how sad the whole situation in this house is.

On Sunday we stopped at the home improvement warehouse on our way to church. My hubby picked up a new switch and a light kit (no small task as my hubby investigated every option and discussed it with the sales associate) while my kids and I investigated light bars for the bathrooms, light fixtures for the kitchen, ceiling fans for the house and the like. We also discovered a nice "lamp post" for the front yard to replace the existing one that is in disrepair so badly that I do not believe it is salvageable.

After church and lunch we set to work on the garage. My hubby began by reattaching the baseboard heater to the wall, and then he hung the vertical blind top bar by himself while I began to vacuum the edge of the floor only to discover...drum roll please....tack nails from old carpeting in the room and carpet fibers stuck to the floor and the underside of the baseboards that had been painted over! After trying to pull out the tack nails myself and struggling to get them out of the concrete (I looked like a little kid wielding a crow bar), my hubby helped me finish pulling them out from around the half of the room that did not have stuff piled against the walls. He left a myriad of chipped concrete in the wake of the removed tack nails. I felt like such a weakling right about then, so I decided to put up the vanes to the vertical blind with success! Yay! Then I began to scrape up and pull out the carpet fibers from the edges with pliers.

My hubby began to remove the light fixture only to discover that it was working intermittently because it was barely hanging on by a wire that had been taped together. His comment: "It doesn't surprise me that this thing wouldn't work." He then had to go get some wire nuts from his electrical supply box to install the light fixture because it didn't come with any even though it had light bulbs!?! We now have a light out there, working baseboard heat, operable vertical blinds and a bunch of chipped concrete not to mention the sticky substance in several different places around the room. One of those colorful piles of sticky goo had a popsicle stick in the middle of it. I believe someone was eating a popsicle, set it down and forgot it. I guess they didn't see any reason to clean it up when they moved out????

Remember I said that the carpet fibers that remained at the edge of the floor had been painted over? When in doubt, paint it seems to be the going theme in this house. I have now discovered that the wallpaper in the kitchen, the bathroom and now the dining room had been painted over leaving me to wonder what else has been painted over in this house, aside from the electrical outlets, switches and the thermostat for the baseboard heating in the garage.

Today I am planning to finish the vacuuming and mopping job in the garage and get the stuff already out there organized so that we can fit the rest of the stuff from the storage unit in there. But wait! I can't unpack the storage unit yet because I am also going to have to paint the walls with some primer that will kill the cigarette smoke-permeated walls. Getting the curtains out of there has improved the odor level about 50%, but those walls will not let go of that odor. So I guess I'll be painting out there now that the baseboard heat has been fixed. At least I'll be able to get it warmed up enough so the paint will cure. Wish me luck!

Happy Home Improvement!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Sorry for the Hiatus!

Warning: Be prepared. It's been over a week since I last posted so this blog is a mini-book!

It's amazing how easy it is to get lost in the middle of a project while trying to live. Since my last post over a week ago, we have been busy trying to set up house and home and getting the "garage" ready to use all to no avail due to being sick, dealing with a sick child and dealing with my inherited kitty cat who was injured in a cat fight. We had a goal of having the house ready so we could unload the storage unit by the end of February. After all, a month should be plenty of time to set up a home, right?

Well, obviously not here since we are at the last day of February! In my last post I think I mentioned that I bought a cabinet to put all the food in and finally got it all set up. The kids had a teacher workday and it snowed on Monday of last week so we had a snow day for all of us! It was just a little bit of snow, but we were able to scrape enough snow off the top layer that had settled on my car (leaving the dirty underlayer attached to the car) and made snow cream. We usually have at least one good snow per winter and always make snow cream when this happens. We really thought since February was winding down that we would not have the chance to enjoy it this winter, but we were thanking God for the blessing that day! The next day, my hubby came home not feeling well. The kids and I had gone to the high school to meet the staff and get more information to help my oldest daughter register for the fall. Eeeeek, she's going to high school in the fall!!!! Wednesday night we had to go to the new Career and Technical Education Center where they provide classes for high school students to get a jump start into their careers. Due to having to go out two nights in a row all while my hubby and I both being down with this virus, I didn't get much done around the house last week except for the regular upkeep of living. It has been over a week and we are both not feeling back to 100% yet, although I started getting tired of it over the weekend and decided to push through to hang some mini-blinds on Monday.

Before I get to the mini-blinds, though, I'll share my lack of getting anything done over the weekend. Friday into Saturday morning, my hubby and I woke up around 1:30a to a cat fight only to find our cat had been injured. We finally fell back to sleep only to be awoken by our son about 2:30a in the bathroom throwing up. I ended up on the couch with him while he ran back and forth until about 5:30a when he wanted to go back to his bed. From there he continued to run back and forth to the bathroom all morning. I dozed off and on until we all finally got up around 7:30a. That was a rough night and I was thankful that I had went to sleep around 9:30p Friday. By 11:00a, my son was feeling better so he and his sisters went to their grandmother's house in Raleigh. She had planned to take them all and when the boy got sick, we revised the plan to only bring the girls, and revised the plan again when the boy was feeling better. We were a little concerned but by 4:30p when we met at the half-way point between here and there, the boy was all better!

My hubby and I didn't get a lot done over the weekend, but he did manage to install our new dishwasher including reworking the plumbing for it and installing the new basket in the sink. Now we have a fully functional kitchen sans the kitchen cabinets that we will eventually get replaced. Right now we need to get our storage unit cleaned out so we can save that rental fee every month. Anyway, my hubby and I rented a movie on Saturday night and bought some ice cream at the store. We then got up Sunday, went to church, stopped at Lowes to pick up a few more plumbing parts for him to finish the plumbing for the dishwasher and then went out to eat for lunch. That was our big date and it was great!

As I said before, by the end of the weekend, I was getting tired of this virus and pushed through so on Monday, I managed to spend only (sarcasm alert!) about four hours hanging two mini blinds. I spent over two hours on the first one including the time I spent looking for the drill bits that were sitting right in front of me in my hubby's tool box ! It wasn't until I called him after about fifteen minutes of searching that he pointed me right to them where they were hiding in plain sight. After I finally got one blind hung, it was almost time to go get the kids from school, so I went outside to pet and love on the cat and feed her since we can't leave her food out lest the other cat be drawn to our yard and attack her again trying to steal her food. Once I got back from getting the kids, I set to work putting up the other mini blind confident that I would get it hung in less than thirty minutes since I now knew the mistakes I made hanging the first one and was sure that I wouldn't have any problems with the next one. On the first one, I had drilled the holes and hung the brackets only to find I had forgotten to allow the extra clearance for the edge of each of the brackets, and I knew I had measured well (full of sarcasm today!). So after about an hour and a half plus a little extra time for climbing up and down the ladder to go check on the kids and make sure they were actually doing their homework I was finally finished hanging the second blind. I allowed for extra clearance this time, but I oriented the brackets incorrectly.

I felt completely stupid by the time I finished hanging the second set of blinds, and I was beginning to get a headache. I had a bunch of meat in the refrigerator I bought the night before that needed to be repackaged for freezing since I buy in bulk because there are five of us, and they all eat as much as an army. So my oldest daughter helped me open all the bags to put the meat in and then I cooked supper and we ate. By the time we finished eating, I was about to pass out and fell asleep early (by 9p). I rarely fall asleep that early, so I knew this virus had gotten the best of me.

Now I am at the point that I need to finish the "garage". In order to do so, I need to hang the vertical blinds for the sliding glass door. The "garage" is the space at the back of our house that used to be a detached garage but was finished in along with the old carport and breezeway to complete an addition to the house. It will be really nice when we get it finished, but since we do not smoke, and the previous owner smoked like a freight-train back there (so we heard), it smells very strongly of cigarette smoke and gives me a headache if I am out there very long. I cannot work out there until I get the old curtain over the sliding door pulled down, but I cannot pull that down until I can put up the vertical blind. I cannot put up the vertical blind because I am so short that I cannot support the blind and put it up all by myself. So as you can see, I am in a bit of a pickle. My hubby will have to help me with it, and he agreed to do so, but with neither of us feeling better, it just isn't going to happen until this weekend probably!

In addition to needing to get the "garage" ready to empty the storage unit, it also needs to be set up so my hubby can put the table saw together. We need it in order to fix the bottom of my closet. There is a built-in shoe rack that needs to be removed, but cannot be until I have a board to put down since it is open to the crawl space underneath it. The board on the top of the built-in shoe rack is angled, so it will be too wide to lay down there, hence the need for the saw to rip the board to the correct width. Until I am able to get out there to the "garage" I have to figure out something else to do. So I was thinking about it while writing my other blog, Balanced in His Grace yesterday. At lunchtime, my hubby came home and we met with the tree people who gave us a quote to get rid of or trim back some dangerous trees in our yard. We now have to figure out what to do with them. I think we need to get rid of them, and I think my hubby does, too, but since one of them is actually partly on the neighbor's actual property, I think we need to get his permission and see if he would like to contribute to the cost. We also need to ask him to take out a section of his fence that butts up next to the tree.

So after my hubby left, I started unloading the DVDs, books and cookbooks because my hubby helped me find the shelves for our little DVD shelf and also the pins to hold the shelves of the bookcases of the entertainment center where I keep the books. I put together our standing lamp, mopped the living room floor and put the rocking chair in there. It had been sitting beside the steps to the dining room since we moved in. Today I plan to unroll the rug in the living to complete the ensemble.

My hubby commented last night while sitting there watching TV that it sure does look nice not having all of the boxes sitting around in the living room. Yep, it sure does, and the rug will make it look even better! I now intend to go get some decent looking shelves to hold all of our cleaners, towels, washcloths and the like until we get all of the closets prepared to use. I am planning to paint the inside of the closets with some primer that will kill the smell, so I cannot use them until I get them painted and it dries. I cannot paint the closets until I get the shoe rack disabled, caulk in the crevices to seal out the odor of the crawl space and the like, which all goes back to the "garage". So the shelves to hold all of this stuff will help get us a home that is at least somewhat liveable while we do all of these projects. It feels good to have a plan, but I know that will change as I come across more issues in this dump that I now call home. My only hope: this dump is slowly looking better, and I know it will be great when we get done.

Happy Home Improvement!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Discouragement

This weekend I succumbed to a little bit of discouragement. I have spent so much time scraping and using paint stripper and scraping and using paint stripper and scraping..... the kitchen cabinets. I have spent upwards of twenty hours with very little result to show for it. There is about a three-to-four foot section of cabinetry that is finished scraping and about three to four times that amount left to scrape, and then I will have to sand all of the cabinets smooth before finally applying one to two coats of paint to them in order to use them . Now I am not opposed to hard work, but I am opposed to wasting time. (Note to self: speaking of wasting time, make sure you save this thing after each paragraph so you don't lose it again!)

So I was calculating all of the time spent along with the remaining time needed to finish this job. It seems that I have another 60-80 hours of work left just to use these cabinets that I can't stand and had already been planning to change out in a year or two anyway. I had originally expressed to my hubby that I thought going ahead with putting in new kitchen cabinets would be a value-added service, but I did not explain the amount of time I thought it would take to get them into usable condition because I really wasn't sure about the number of hours it would take. He really wanted to just get everything unpacked so we could actually be moved in so I decided to try to make these cabinets work. After hours of cleaning with a vinegar/detergent solution to try to get rid of the dirtiness and the stench inside the cabinets, finding out that the stench was still present and then all the scraping and paint stripper just led to complete discouragement for me.

I expressed my discouragement to my hubby yesterday and explained that I really think we would be better off going ahead and putting in new kitchen cabinets. He was frustrated by my ideas, and we just seemed to be starting to get into an argument. After some heated words, he expressed to me that if we do decide to do the kitchen cabinets we will have to redo the window first. The way he said it made it sound like it was an astronomically big job that we just couldn't get into. I got upset because it seemed that he was saying that we couldn't do it, but I was thinking that we should just jump right in and start the big projects. His reasoning for his comments was that we needed to figure out our finances to make sure we could afford everything along with the fact that if we put the kitchen cabinets in first but there is not a replacement window the same size as the existing, non-functional window, then we will only be able to put a smaller window in and will have to patch the area around the window. He reminded me that the end result wouldn't look good. I agreed with him! Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone and had to comment that his attitude toward the whole project just seemed negative and that was what was discouraging me. Later that day he came up and just held me. That simple act did so much to smooth over any amount of discouragement I had been feeling.

When I explained the sheer amount of time wasted on the existing cabinetry and compared that to the amount of time it would take to put in new cabinets, he actually agreed that we should go forward with the kitchen first and then get the bathrooms remodeled next. We both agree that having the kitchen and bathrooms remodeled will go a long way toward reselling the house in the future, and if we stay here, it will be more enjoyable to have a nice kitchen and bath. In the meantime, while I am working on researching the kitchen remodel, he is going to investigate the upstairs bathroom plumbing that needs repaired so we can actually use the upstairs shower. We need to let the downstairs tub dry out so that we can caulk it. If we don't do this pronto, we could end up with some water damage behind the tub, which could lead to more costly repairs we would rather avoid. Long story short: eventually we both came to the conclusion that we actually agree with each other but we have different ways of expressing ourselves.

I honestly think that my hubby's real issue with going forward with the kitchen was because he was getting a little squirrelly living out of boxes. He had expressed that it was really starting to get to him toward the end of last week, so I regrouped and came up with another plan that hopefully will help us to actually get "moved in" and make this house our home. On Saturday I picked out a "pantry" cabinet for all of our food that has been scattered all over our dining room/office (it's a big room) including on top of the computer armoire, on the desk and on the book case as well as some items that remained in two boxes in the kitchen. I put the cabinet together Saturday afternoon/evening with my hubby's help in getting the handles installed, and then yesterday I put all of the food into the "pantry". Today I am planning to unpack all of the dishes onto the bookcase in the office and on the baker's rack in the kitchen. I also am planning to get the desk boxes and the boxes of stuff for the entertainment center and the living room unpacked in the next couple of days so we don't have to live out of boxes.

My plan is to set this house up, including installing the remainder of the window treatments this week. I will then research the kitchen remodel, including having someone out to quote the windows we want to replace, and then will get to work. I want our house to be our home while we are doing the remodel projects, and this situation seems to have pushed us into these plans. Sometimes it's hard to know what to do first until you live somewhere for a few weeks and really get a sense of what needs doing the most and first. Then you can come up with a plan. It seems that I had to live this experiment in order to understand this concept.

But we sure have had some excitement along the way (uh, the stench, the dirtiness, the disarray, the broken ice maker, the fire, the gas stove, the rat turds on top of and behind the dishwasher and the nasty floor underneath it and that's just some of the wild adventures we've had). And now that I have beat discouragement, I must move forward with a plan, the kind of plan that actually gets something done. Hey, if nothing else, I have faith that will move mountains, even if I don't have the ability to do everything at once.

Happy Home Improvement!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Fire in the What?


Yes, I said Fire! That is exactly what I yelled to my hubby Wednesday night while he was engrossed in fixing the ice maker. When he had gotten home from work, he pulled the ice maker out of the freezer so he could install the new parts. Once he had hooked up the water line, the ice maker was actually making ice just fine, but it would only dispense crushed ice because the solenoid had seized up preventing the dispenser from switching over to cubes even though the display said “Cubed”. Since we have a dispenser in the door, we’d like to be able to use it for cubed ice without pulling out the ice tray every time we need a few cubes.

So he was putting the parts in the ice maker while I finished cleaning up the paint chips from all of my kitchen cabinet paint scraping endeavors. He had put some french fries in the oven (since we were having one of our healthy meals, ha ha), and they were almost done. Our plan was that he would finish the ice maker, I’d start some broccoli on the stove-top and he would then grill the hot dogs. I figured the broccoli would add some healthy benefit to our disgusting meal plan for the night since we had decided on hot dogs as a quick meal option. Perfect plan since we were short on time….or so we thought!

As I put up the shop vac after sucking up all the paint chips off the counter, the floor and every surface on me, I turned on the stove top and put a tablespoon of butter in the pan. Since this is an electric stove, I had to wait on the stove top and the pan to heat up. Of course if I had my new gas stove installed, I could have just started the broccoli almost immediately. Oh yea, I haven’t even mentioned the new gas stove.

I love gas stoves because that is what I originally learned to cook on. When I was a little girl, my grandma taught me how to cook some basic foods on a gas stove. I had always struggled with cooking on top of an electric stove so when we first moved to Raleigh six years ago, and the house had a gas stove, I was super excited. I thoroughly enjoyed it to the point that the ability to install a gas stove was a very important feature in a house for me. This house has an electric stove, but lo and behold, behind the stove is a gas line hook-up, and since we have gas heat, we figured it would work, too.

So when we first got in the house and discovered what bad shape the electric stove was in, we decided to get a gas stove earlier than we had planned, and what luck we had finding one. We actually found a floor display model that had been marked down tremendously because they couldn’t sell it. It had been returned to the store because all of the knobs were a little bit off the marks, but we figured we could try to fix it or live with it since the stove was such a great deal. We had it delivered the next week, and that weekend, my hubby set about hooking up the gas stove, turning the gas on at the pipe behind the stove and realizing that there was no gas coming through the gas line because the stove top would not light at all. Great! Plan B.

We put the electric back into commission while my hubby decided he would research how to get the gas stove hooked up. We weren’t sure if there was something wrong with the gas line or the stove, but with so many other pressing projects and an operable stove, he decided to put the stove research on the back burner. So as I was saying, Wednesday night I turned on the burner, put the butter in pan and walked into the living room where all of my utensils are sitting in a bowl on my kitchen table (since that’s the only place in this house for the table), and I started smelling something burning. As I walked back into the kitchen I muttered under my breath, “Oh crap, I think the butter’s burning. That’s strange since I just turned it on.” Immediately I noticed something was amiss. I saw smoke rolling out of the vent of the stove and thought, “Why on earth is there smoke coming from the oven?” I went over and opened the oven door only to find, much to my surprise, that there was no fire in there. Further investigation led me to the back of the stove only to notice a fire down in the area where the electrical wires are located behind the cover plate. I screamed, “There’s a fire in here!”

Chaos ensued, I turned off the stove top, my hubby turned off the breaker switch, my son started yelling something to his daddy who walked past the stove and into the hallway to argue with my son as I was freaking out because there was a fire in the back of the stove while my hubby acted all nonchalant about it. I was about to look for the fire extinguisher when I thought, “Maybe my hubby knows an easier and less messy way to put out this fire.” Then my son said, “We need a fire extinguisher,” with my hubby replying, “Then we’ll have an even bigger mess on our hands,” while I was thinking, “But at least our house won’t be burned down.”

My hubby came back over to the stove, which I had quickly pulled away from the wall during all the chaos, and he stood there watching the flames inside the cover on the back of the stove as they died down. About that time, my daughter walks out of the bathroom in a towel. Yes, I had forgotten that she was taking a shower so I began thanking God that our house had not caught on fire! Once my hubby had waited until the cover plate cooled a little, he removed it and discovered that he was going to have to make a trip to Lowes Home Improvement to get the parts he would need to fix it. Meanwhile, I was thinking, “Great! Now I have two stoves and can’t use either one!” Of course, my hubby lightened the moment by saying that maybe we could replace the melted terminal block with a hot dog and just paint it. I had to laugh because I think every surface in this house has been painted, and the paint jobs are not very high quality!

What a day we had! So my hubby was up a little later than he had planned to be fixing the stove. We decided we would keep the breaker turned off unless we actually need to cook something with plans to stay close-by if we do have to use the stove. I think this little fiasco caused my hubby to think a little harder about getting the gas stove installed a little sooner because he came home armed with information, researched the gas stove installation a little more thoroughly, and I am happy to say that we are in business. I can now cook on my beautiful, sparkly, new gas stove – except it is almost too pretty to use. Ah, who cares! I think I need to plan a nice home-cooked meal for my family tonight. I think they will appreciate.

Until then, I have some cabinets to scrape.

Happy Home Improvement!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Okay, New Plan!

If silence speaks, it appears that I have forgotten about my home improvement blog. Unfortunately, sometimes our best intentions are not enough to make the time available to do what we really want to do. Over the past couple of weeks, my emotions have been up and down. Mostly down, but things are finally looking up!

I spent almost two weeks cleaning the kitchen cabinets only to open up some of the first cabinets I cleaned and almost get knocked over by the stench! Okay, new plan. That seems to be the running theme in this house. I've heard people say when buying an older home to fix up that it seems that they are constantly running up against new challenges, and I knew it would be that way with our house, but it has been frustrating, nonetheless.

So now I am scraping paint off of cabinets like a mad woman to prepare the cabinets for a new coat of paint! They are wood, but I think there are ten coats of paint on them. My husband came in the kitchen last night and said he needed to come up with a new nickname for me as I sat on the counter covered in paint chips. After getting the kids in bed, my husband decided to take on a project that shouldn't have taken more than about 20-30 minutes tops. Saturday night, I had walked past the bathroom and noticed a huge puddle of seeping water coming toward me. I thought maybe my son had overshot the potty, so I yelled at him in the other room asking, "Did you miss, son?" He said, "What?" So I called my hubby in, and we discovered that the toilet tank was leaking all over the floor. He bought a kit to replace all of the tank innards. That was the project he undertook. Of course, he's replaced many toilet tank parts before, but after an hour and a half, he looked at me and stated, "This is supposed to be easy, right?"

Well, I stuck with him as long as I could trying to help him interpret the lovely directions that came with the tank innards, but after a couple of hours, I had to go to bed. I was about to fall asleep standing up, literally! But that was only after we had many moments of laughter. When he pulled the tank off, I said, "What is thaaaat?" He said, "Oh, you know, those make-up removal pads." There were a few of them stuck to the wall behind the tank. There were also pieces of wallpaper remaining so he pulled off as much of it as he could without the assistance of wallpaper removing chemicals, which I have to go buy for the kitchen.

While cleaning the kitchen cabinets I had thought that the part above the cabinets had been painted over top of wallpaper. Last night I decided to investigate and discovered that I had been right. I pulled off as much as I could, but there are still many pieces stuck to the wall. So after my hubby mentioned that he thought they tried to remove the wallpaper before painting in the bathroom, I commented, "That's some purrty wallpaper, there, I tell ya!" Then I discovered that my hubby's statement was only true for the lower portion of the wall underneath the chair-rail that had been put up at about the half-way point on the wall because you know in such a small bathroom we need to protect the walls from the chairs?!? I discovered that the upper portion of the wall had indeed been painted over wallpaper.

So we started joking that if we have a problem we should just paint it. I believe my hubby's comment was, "Got a problem? Grab a bucket and a brush and just paint it. Don't have a bucket and a brush, get you a can of spray paint and just paint it." Well, that led to more comments, including the fact that maybe we could seal that two inch gap at the bottom of the front door by stuffing a bunch of paint in there. And since the storm door has a huge gap at the top that is letting in a bunch of cold air (it is winter, after all), we could just paint it shut at the top as well. That ought to seal it good. Well, as it is, we sealed it with a towel shoved in the gap at the bottom and we just taped it at the top since we have left over moving tape.

Okay, so our situation is so sad that we have to find the humor to keep from crying. But it will get better and now I'm off to go buy some wallpaper removing chemicals and a spray bottle so I can get back to work and get rid of the wallpaper and at least nine layers of paint from the cabinets!

Happy Home Improvement!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Perspective

Each day I am finding more perspective. This is especially helpful when I look around and do not see much hope. My father-in-law came to help us clean, and we were talking yesterday. I explained that it had taken me about three hours to clean a very small area in the kitchen, and yes, the kitchen is just that nasty that none of my dishes are yet in cabinets even though my mother-in-law came Sunday and helped clean out the cabinets. Anyway, I digress. As I explained how long it took to clean such a small area, I commented, "And just think how many surfaces of that size there are in this entire house." My f-i-l said, "I try not to think about that," and I explained that it really helps me. He said, "Oh, you check 'em off?" My response was, "Of course!"

That is perspective worth keeping when trying to renovate or fix up an old home. As I reflected on this, I was reminded of my six year old daughter's perspective on the first night here. As I said in my last post, I wanted to cry that night because it was so disgusting. Instead of seeing the nastiness, my little bit was running around looking at all the curtains and features of the home saying, "Oh, the curtains in the living room are so beautiful," and "I love this shower curtain. I'm so glad we bought this house," and "Thank you, Daddy, for getting us this great house. I love the pretty door knobs," and other such comments. Now, this sounds so cute, but let's get true perspective on the cute little comments she was making. The curtains in the living room were white lace that had been stained by cigarette smoke and did not reach all the way across the window. The rod they were hanging on was half bent in the middle and looked like it was in the house in 1972 when I was born. The shower curtain in the main floor bathroom was black with a ruffled split up the middle and a ruffle across the top. Where the split went up, the dirty, opaque liner was visible, and there were many, large spots where the curtain had been stained by paint. To top off these items, the doorknobs are the old, clear doorknobs meant to look like crystal, but they are loose and only half-way work. It's amazing how a six-year-old perceives features in a home, even when they are worn out, or in this case, nasty! So my hubby and I really enjoyed a good laugh over that because this has continued since we got here. She keep seeing things around the house and talks about how great these things are in spite of the fact that this house is really gross. She just can't see it. But perspective is everything when it comes to our attitudes.

The challenge at this point is keeping a good perspective in the midst of the nastiness. As I was finishing the deep cleaning last night, I kept thinking, this is starting to look better. Sure, it may only be a 5-foot wide section that is looking (and smelling) better, but 5 feet done at a time is 5 feet less I have to finish!

A common element in home renovation is thinking some existing element can be reused only to discover it is not in good enough shape to reuse. As I was cleaning I was finding more things that need to be fixed or replaced because they would not be able to be reused. I am planning to reuse the kitchen cabinets, but as I was cleaning I noticed that the top of the cabinets had been boxed in. Now I never understood boxing in the top of the cabinets, but it seemed to be common back in the 50s, 60s and even the 70s. While cleaning the cabinet above the refrigerator, I discovered that while there was an apparent boxing above the cabinets, that area is hollow and accessible from inside the top shelf of the cabinets. So now I'm faced with a dilemma: how do I reuse the cabinets and maximize the existing space? I suppose I will figure it out, but it seems that the boxed in area needs to be removed, meaning I will need to remove the crown molding by the ceiling, put up new cabinets, repair the ceiling (which has a popcorn texture), and ..... I was beginning to feel overwhelmed and then it hit me. Instead of worrying about taking on another project within the house now, I can clean everything and use the existing infrastructure of the house, get all of our stuff out of boxes and into cabinets, repaint the interior and exterior of the home, and then I can slowly begin to tackle the kitchen cabinets amongst other cabinets and closets. My hubby and I were talking this morning about our closets and he came to the same conclusion: get our closets clean, our clothes hung in there (so we do not have boxes in the middle of the room), move all the furniture away from the walls, paint, move everything back and then pull out all of the clothes from one closet at a time and paint the interior of the closet. The perspective we both gained is: One thing at a time!

Remember to keep a good perspective and you'll be able to accomplish your goals!
Happy Home Improvement!!! :-)



Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Welcome Home. . .

We finally closed on our home yesterday. Yes, I said FINALLY. After our closing, my husband and I went to lunch. We were able to get four tacos for $4.00, so we decided to enjoy some really good ice cream out by the fountain at the shopping center. Sure, it was January 31st, but it was about 68 degrees and the sun was shining. While we were sitting there enjoying our ice cream, I looked over and said, "Congratulations, we now own a giant piece of crap." I wish that were an understatement, but that pretty much describes this home.

We moved in last week because we attached an addendum to allow us possession prior to closing. Under normal circumstances, this type of arrangement would not be necessary; however, given the condition of this home, we couldn't have moved in here any other way. When we first looked at the house, we didn't notice much smell, and although things looked old, we figured it was because the house was built in 1953. We knew up front that the HVAC needed a new heat exchanger, but my husband and I are both handy around the house, and we figured it was not a big deal to repaint and fix it up, so we decided to put an offer on it after looking at it again. The day we looked at it a second time we noticed cigarette smoke smell, but since we were planning to paint the entire inside of the house and it didn't have carpet, we still didn't see this as a show stopper. We were in for a lot of surprises along the way, and that was the beginning of the journey.

We came out to the house the day that the inspector came and followed him around. He confirmed a lot of our suspicions about the house, but structurally the house was mostly sound. There was one prior repair from a previous infestation of termites that needed to be redone at some point in the future, but nothing that would be dangerous in the short-term. The same day as the inspection, we had the HVAC company come out and look at the gas pack. He checked it out and determined that the heat exchanger was cracked and the fan motor was seized up. He said with the unit being as old as it was, his recommendation was for a new unit.

My husband decided to go back to look at the house the day before we were supposed to take possession when he had to meet the gas company to have the gas turned on so that we could have the brand new gas pack put in. The prior owner's family was living here with no heat. They were using space heaters and during that particularly cold spell when my hubby came out to meet the gas guy, the prior owner's had nailed - yes nailed - blankets to the door frames! They were all huddled back in the garage turned rec room and had blankets on door frames so they could all huddle in one room at a time. He came home and told me about it, but for some reason the emphasis on how bad the situation was and how bad the condition of the house was did not sink in. So call me dense....

My husband got the keys to the house and got the HVAC work started on Tuesday, January 24, 2012. We had the movers come and move all of our heavy furniture and the few boxes of personal stuff we had left in our old home on Thursday, January 26, 2012 and we closed on our old house on Friday, January 27, 2012. I picked up our three kids from school on the 27th and drove the hour to our new community and our new home! Wow, was I in for a surprise. The first thing I noticed was the stench walking up to the house. As I went inside I noticed the lack of light in the place, and then I started noticing other things. You know how it is: you visit a home and miss all those little things, but they suddenly jump out at you when you have to live in it.

It was late, I was getting tired, and anyone who knows me knows what that means! I was punchy.....and not just a little bit. I was walking around the house with my oldest daughter, who is 13, and we were pointing out everything that was wrong and laughing hysterically. She opened the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and called out, "Hey, Mama!" I walked in the bathroom to see her pointing at the opened medicine cabinet with a wrinkled up nose, and I almost had to walk out because the smell was so strong. There were all kinds of open bottles of perfumes, colognes and who knows what else. She was shaking her head and I ran to the kitchen to get her a cheap garbage bag. She threw everything in there away except "The bunny rabbit ears." I walked back in there, and she was holding this robe hook on top of her head while saying, "I'm a bunny rabbit". I started laughing and almost peed my pants.

We had many funny moments that I cannot recount at this moment, but my favorite was the next day when I walked in to use the bathroom, sat down and looked out the door (yes, I confess I didn't shut the bathroom door - I was almost afraid to touch it!!!!). As I looked out the door, I noticed the vent cover to the air intake had been painted golden yellow, just like the hallway, but it wasn't a pretty golden yellow. It was a dirty golden yellow that looked dingy and grungy. I started laughing, and my hubby was wondering what I was howling about this time. I went in the bedroom and told him to come look at the intake vent. He said, "I know, it's painted." I responded, "That's not painted; that's ghetto." Suddenly, everything in this house was "ghetto". What I mean by that is dirty, grungy, dingy, and in disrepair. And that describes this house from top to bottom.

As such, this house needs cleaning from top to bottom. So what am I doing on here blogging? I need a creative outlet as I get ready to go back to my never-ending cleaning job! I have been cleaning since we got here, but I have taken time to leave and go run errands. My mother-in-law came Sunday and cleaned in the kitchen. She was here for about 5 hours, and she and my oldest daughter only got the top cabinets cleaned out and the outsides washed. I have spent my time removing every cloth item from this house including the shower curtain. Last night I finally finished putting up a new shower curtain and my kids all commented on it. My youngest little bit said, "Mama, you put up a new shower curtain? It's beautiful." The boy said, "Mama, I didn't know you got a new shower curtain. I really like it." and my oldest sweet pea said, "I love the bathroom. It looks 100% better already." I still need to get the curtains down from my girls' rooms, but since their rooms are upstairs, the curtains do not smell like the rest of the house. As a matter of fact, I keep threatening to camp out with them until I get this house in order. It is that bad. Fortunately, the smell-factor is going progressively downward. We do not smoke, and I cannot use air fresheners so we notice every odor that is in the house. It also makes getting rid of odors very difficult, but I think I have a solution!

My cleaner of choice right now is detergent and water mixed with plain white vinegar. I have been using a cup of vinegar in each load of laundry for quite some time now because of the deodorizing nature of vinegar, but I had an aversion to using vinegar to clean with. When I was in my second year of college, I lived with my grandma for a while. She cleaned with a spray bottle filled with pure vinegar. She sprayed it in the carpet to deodorize the carpets because she had a dog. She also sprayed it on every surface and wiped it. That vinegar smell would linger long into the night, and I quickly obtained an aversion to the smell. About two or three years ago, I decided to try to make a glass cleaner and I actually added vinegar to the bottle after finding a natural glass cleaner recipe. It worked wonders so I decided that if I can use that homemade glass cleaner with vinegar, then I can mix up an all-purpose cleaner with vinegar and accomplish a lot. Not only is vinegar deodorizing but it is also anti-bacterial, so this is perfect in this house where I was almost afraid to sit on my own toilet seat. We have since changed the toilet seats (thank goodness), and we are on our way to improving this home, although it is going to be quite the journey. I'll keep sharing, especially the ups and downs of fixing up a home.

The other reason I'm on the computer blogging right now is it took until today to be able to get back online. There are so many things that I have not been able to figure out because I have no way to research the community now that everything is online rather than in a phone book. So I'm on here to check email and do a little research so I figured what better time than now to start my blog. Now I can hopefully blog regularly whenever I get enough material to blog about. And since I now have a way to keep up with everything that is happening as it is happening (a word processor file saved is a great thing), I hopefully won't forget what I want to share! I really hope this blog will be a useful tool for anyone in the middle of, or considering taking on, a renovation project!

Happy Home Improvement!!! :-)