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!
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
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!
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!
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!!! :-)
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!!! :-)
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!!! :-)
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