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.

Another day of working: cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning

Despite Adam and I spending all day working on the house today, with help from Adam’s friend Tristan, I felt like we didn’t accomplish much.

Adam and Tristan cleaned the basement some more and took screws out of the ceiling. They also cleaned out the sump well and ripped down some framing. “The basement’s completely done now,” says Adam.

Meanwhile, I was upstairs scrubbing the cabinets in the kitchen and bleaching the walls in the kitchen. I also spent a lot of time pulling staples out of the floor. Then I scrubbed the wood trim, and the rafters, which had gotten some ceiling “stuff” on them from our ceiling-fixy guy.

Not the most productive day, but it all had to be done.

This was the kitchen yesterday. There is crap everywhere, obviously. There are no other surfaces to put stuff on.

And this is the kitchen after an extreme scrubbing today:

Not sure if you can tell the difference in the photos, but I thought it looked a lot better.

Here is the freshly-scrubbed, freshly-ceilinged, freshly-patched living room:

For reference, here is what it looked like when we first bought it:

As you can see (or maybe you can’t, it’s hard to tell in photos), it is looking better. All we need is a bit of paint and some laminate flooring and the living room will be set.

Hopefully the painting will commence this week and we will be one step closer to move-in!

Prepping for Paint

Well, we got some stuff accomplished yesterday.

First, we scrubbed the walls with bleach, and then with TriSodium Phosphate, to clean and prepare the surface for painting.

Before:

After:

Master bedroom before:

Grooooossssssss.

So armed with masks and gloves, I scrubbed down those suckers. Here is the result:

Not perfect, but definitely better, and ready to be painted over.

In the meantime, my dad, Kim, Alex, and Erica had a fire going outside.

They were clearing the brush out of the yard. This yard needs tons of landscaping, as you can see:

Mulligan patrols the perimeter

Hopefully we will be more productive today. I am housesitting, which means I’m not really able to post from my blog, and I almost threw in the towel with blogging last night when I discovered that Google disabled my AdSense account and took back my $80 in earnings from advertisers. As you can see, I have signed up with several new ad providers, but I am still fist-shakingly angry with Google. Grrrr!