Home renovations are wearing me thin

Well, I haven’t updated for two weeks, partly because I’ve been really busy, and partly because there isn’t much progress to report.

Last weekend, my dad went to Maine for the weekend, so pretty much nothing got accomplished, since everything that’s left to be done is awaiting his expertise. Also, Adam didn’t want to do anything, and I had a hunter pace on Sunday, so…nothing.

I did do a TON of cleaning in the evenings after work last week, though. I wiped the inside of every cabinet and drawer with bleach. That was pretty gnarly. It was like the former occupants spilled oil inside every single cabinet. And had a food fight with spaghetti all over the house...

The newly cleaned and polished handles are back on the cabinets; however, the countertops still remain covered with random tools, paint cans, and trash. UGH!

Also, put up curtains, which need to be hemmed (because nothing can ever just be DONE):

Cleaned the shower with excessive amounts of bleach and installed some fixtures in the bathroom:

This weekend went very much the same way. Saturday Adam was busy, and my dad showed up at the house while I was running an errand (because after 3.5 months of doing nothing but working on the house, god forbid I have to do anything other than work on the house once in a while), so he turned around and went home because I wasn’t there. So, the appliances remain unhooked up, and we still don’t have electricity in the bedrooms.

I did get the kitchen pantry painted, though:

The photo was before the second coat, so it looks even better. The walls were so gross in there. Adam sanded down the shelves to make them shiny and new. I also painted the bathroom shelves since they were also dirty (like every other surface in the house).

I also painted the window frame and door frames in the bathroom since they were scuffed and dirty.

Here’s Adam, hard at work:

There’s crap everywhere, as you can see. I’m sick of it.

Here are the killer zombie weeds which have sprung up all over the damn yard. Also, the lawn got mowed on Saturday, so that’s one thing, at least.

Luckily, my dad did get over on Sunday to mow down the bamboo.

Anyway, I’m seriously losing patience and seriously broke. I am about ready to put the house back on the market. There’s still so much left to do and no money left to do it, everyone’s burnt out, everyone’s got an attitude, everything always goes wrong, and I can’t take it anymore.

Here’s all the crap I’ve been spending money on lately:

-curtain rod, bath fixtures, three floor lamps, clothing hangers…$84.46

-returned a door stop…-$3.78

-bathroom cleaner, shower cleaner, toilet cleaner, felt pads for furniture feet, Mr. Clean Home Pro, screwdriver, door bumper, razor blade scraper, dowel for closet, weed killer, a machete (that was all Adam’s idea)… $37.68 (because I used $44.12 in gift cards)

-a nightstand and a clothes rack from Target…$20

-I got $100 off my fridge because of a small dent in the side! so -$100

=========

$8653.57 spent on renovations (and I haven’t even been adding monthly electric bills and property taxes and home owner’s insurance…wahhhh)

Also bought $300 worth of stuff at Lowe's last night, but I don't have the receipt at the moment, so I'll add it on to the next post.

Finishing touches

As of this moment, all of the major renovations are just about finished!

This weekend in pictures:

Installed a new ceiling fan in the living room (more difficult than it sounds)

Replaced baseboard trim (was more of a project than it sounds, because the trim we had was very dirty, but at this point I didn’t want the added expense and effort of buying, cutting, angling, and staining new trim). For the record, Feed-N-Wax worked wonders for my trim and cabinets:

Installed rubber trim on the cabinets (easy!)

We also replaced all of the outlet/switch covers, but didn’t take photos, because I’m sure you can picture the difference.

I also discovered that my cabinet handles--which I was so excited to replace—are a custom size, which means I’d have to spend a fortune to replace my handles. Which left me with using the ones I have. Which entailed a product called Brasso, and lots of scrubbing:

Here you can see the handles after and before cleaning! Big difference!

Didn’t spend tooooo much this weekend, but I also returned a lot of stuff.

-returned a bunch of wall tile, because we decided to do a rubber trim in the bathroom in the interest of Being Done…-$53.43

-returned some leftover rubber wall base trim that we didn’t need in the kitchen…-$5.64

-returned the cabinet handles I can’t use… –$44.72

-bought rubber base trim, an access panel, drawer slides, wall trim adhesive, Feed-N-Wax for cleaning the wood baseboard trim, cleanser, Brasso, wood putty, Murphy’s Oil Soap, pole sockets, wallplates, 2 in finish nails for putting the trim back on the walls, scrubber, scour pads, breaker…$90.35

-more rubber wall base trim, a mop refill, steel wool, straight edge for when I touch up some paint, putty knife, Windex…$23.66 (we had $9 in store credit which this price doesn’t include)

-returned an angle grinder, a ceramic file, and a tile cutting blade (since we’re not doing a tile trim anymore…)… –$88.74

=====$$$8368.64

Some flowers that are sprouting at the front of the house

What we still have/want to do (the necessities in red):

-new front steps

-repair deck

-fix plumbing

-fix electrical issues

-fix crack in foundation

-lots and lots of landscaping

-fix broken shower

-get appliances hooked up/plumbed in

-pressure wash siding

-paint exterior trim

-put up a fence around perimeter of yard

-pave driveway

-install a more efficient heating system

-new doors

-new countertops and backsplash

-shrubs in front of the house to replace the ones my dad chopped down

-buy washer and dryer

-get a shed

-plumb in bathroom sink

-hang up bathroom mirror

So…yeah, let’s put it this way: it’s not like this blog is going to be relegated to some dark dusty corner of the internet from lack of home improvements to talk about…

More painting, ripping up floors, and cutting windows

Accomplished a lot this weekend!

First, our ceilings are finally finished being re-taped and mudded:

Now we have to paint the ceiling white, obvs.

Spare bedroom with finished walls and ceiling, getting carpeted this week:

Then, we cut a hole in the wall between the kitchen and living room. The goal is to make a window/breakfast nook. Here is how you make an interior window on a load-bearing wall:

Step 1: Cut a hole in the wall.

Step 2: Reroute any wiring.

Step 3: Insert a header

Step 4: Insert 2x4s on the sides

And voila! You have a window. It is being sheetrocked and framed in tomorrow! Will give you an update when I have one.

We also put a new ceiling in the bathroom. It is mildew/moisture resistant. This is not the finished ceiling, of course.

We also ripped up the linoleum floor out of the kitchen. It was hard.

Now we have lovely subfloor, ready for tiling:

Then, we painted the walls of our small bedroom/office with primer.

Finally, we primered the walls, closet, and floor of the master bedroom. Both rooms are now ready to be painted:

Here is the living room with its fresh paint:

Did a little spending this weekend.

-electrical supplies (receptacles, plates, lightswitches), bathroom ceiling vent fan, hanger boxes, corner bead for the interior window $87.54

-drywall screws and door stops $46.53

-4 gallons of primer $54.76

-charge for the 2 1/2 tons of debris we put in the dumpster: $162.85

-first month’s electric bill: $94.62 (I’m including it because we’re not living there/it was a necessary expense to finish the place)

So basically I’m in it for $4634.39. Good times!

I was trying to clean the ceiling fan this afternoon and snapped a blade off, so now I need to buy a new one of those. Blah.

We did get a nice leather couch this weekend, though. Yay!

Removing wallpaper borders and painting ceilings

Not a hugely productive day today, but I did get some important things done, with the help of my mom.

We painted the ceilings of the living room, and it looks really nice!

There were cracks in the ceiling, so they had to be mudded and retaped, and then we primed the ceilings and painted them white. It looks beautiful now.

Then I ripped down the pig border from the kitchen. It was a long, frustrating process, but we found that the best method was:

1) spray with Dif

2) scrape with a paint scraper/putty knife to get the top layer off

3)spray with water and peel off remaining glue

And now the kitchen looks like this:

I call it “Kitchen Without Borders.” It used to look like this:

And the other wall, before:

Same wall, after:

Goodbye, pigs!

Seriously, WHY would you put that in your house?

And here is the progress on the guest room:

Adam made a good point-- that the pictures on the blog don't convey one of the biggest changes in the house, the smell. When we first bought it, you could barely stand to be in it, but now thanks to lots of cleaning and painting the floors with Kilz, it's starting to smell like a house!



As far as expenses go, I had to spend $51.14 on more painting supplies today, which means I've spent $4231.19 so my far. Eff my effing L.

So, that’s everything we got done today. I’m really, really looking forward to getting some color on the wall next weekend. I wish I didn’t have to work all week! I just want to paint!

Speaking of working, I’m starting a second job tomorrow, which means blogging and doing work on the house will be few and far between. But such is life.

Onward!

Day 2 of the Basement Battle

So today was our second day of battle against the basement. It went pretty well. My friends Rachael and Bob came to lend a hand, since Adam injured his ankle at work a couple weeks ago and still isn’t up to doing much. We have a very motley crew, between Adam’s ankle, my dad’s broken ribs, and my being a midget (being 4’11” is a handicap, not only physically but mentally. You have no idea how many “Lollipop Guild” jokes I have to endure daily).

But anyway, despite the Mötley-ness of our Crüe, we accomplished a lot. Bob was tearing out walls and ripping down ceilings like King Kong, and Rachael jumped right in and grabbed a sledgehammer and started swingin’ like a pro while I lugged trash barrels full of basement out to the dumpster.

So you saw what the basement looked like “before”:

And this is what it looked like after a few hours of work yesterday:

As you can see, we got about 1/3rd of the basement cleared.

And this is how it looked after working for a few hours today:

We got all of the floor ripped up, buuuut the dumpster company only dropped off a 10 yard when they were supposed to bring us a 30 yard. So this was what happened:

Not cool. We could have gotten it all done-- especially with our awesome helpers there being all helpful and stuff—but we had no more dumpster left for rubbish disposal. Big bummer! So now we have to get another dumpster (um, hopefully at no charge since it was their screw-up), and then spend another few hours picking up the last of the debris and putting it into said dumpster.

By the way, here are some of the pigs that adorn the border of the kitchen:

Definitely, definitely, need to get rid of the pigs. Sorry little pigs.

The only expenses today were:

-lunch for the crew

-paper towels

-toilet paper

which brought our running total to $1795.

Oh, but Adam found a new Budweiser pool stick in the basement, so that's gotta count for something.