Diggs's New Digs

One year: Before and After

2012-02-07T21:50:00.005-05:00

It has been exactly one year since I closed on the house. A lot has changed, both in the house and in my life, blah blah blah. Maybe if I weren't such a hack of a writer, this is where I'd present the case that the house is a metaphor for my ascent into responsible adulthood. Like the house, I was flooded and my walls were dirty, but after lots of hard work, tears, and paint jobs, now we both don't smell like cat pee nearly as much, or something. Maybe I'm bad at metaphors though. Luckily, for your blog-reading pleasure, my atrocious sense of humor remains the same. On that note, here are the before and after photos of all the work I’ve done on my little bachelorette fort.

Dec 25, 2010 (my first time seeing the house):

Jan 05, 2012 (just over one year later)

Now for the inside:

Basement before

Basement after

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Living room/hallway before

hallway after

Living room before

Living room after

Master bedroom before

Master bedroom after

2nd bedroom before

2nd bedroom after

3rd bedroom before

3rd bedroom after (still a mess)

Bathroom before

Bathroom after

(it has a real light now, I just don’t have a more recent photo)

I still have a ton of work to do (the next project on my harebrained radar is to do something with that huge empty wall in my living room), but it’s getting there, if by "getting there," you mean starting to look like an actual living adult lives here. Cheers!

It has been a while

2012-01-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

I know I let this blog fall by the wayside. It’s not because I haven’t been working on the house, but some changes in my life since the last update in June made it too painful to come on here and talk about it. I am stronger for it, however, and this little casa makes me happier than ever.

Anyway, things that I have done in the past 6 or 7 months:

-installed a forced hot air heating system (propane) (aka $$$$$)

-got new exterior doors

-put in a wraparound driveway

-insulated the attic

-new back steps

Here I am all driving the tractor and grading the driveway and stuff:

Here are the doors:

(yes, house needs a paint job in the spring)

(for comparison, these are what the doors looked like before…)

You can see the old front door in this one, just awful!

I have completely lost track of expenses, but between the heating system and doors and other stuff, I’d say we’re well up to $16,000 or $17,000 at this point! NBD… I have to go cry now.

Another two week stretch between postings, but we’re moved in

2011-06-06T21:47:00.003-04:00

As the title says, I’ve now gone another 2 weeks without posting. I am SUCH a bad blogger. At least I have good news to report—we have been moved in and occupying the house for over a week now, which is pretty darn awesome. Unpacking and decorating is another story...

Anyway, we’ve done quite a bit. For starters, we put up a new light in the kitchen. Crazy, I know. And the light is forever ruined for me because a friend mentioned that it looks like a boob, lol!

Here is the kitchen! As you can see we still have a lot of stuff to put away. And Adam is the WORST at shutting the cabinets, haha

Here are our outdoor solar lights, our new grill courtesy of my mom, and our fire pit—which resulted in the cops and fire department being called on us on our 2nd night here (Welcome to the neighborhood!)

Thanks to my mum for the awesome grill!

And here’s the living room. Please forgive the random crap scattered across the couches, coffee table, and floor. We’re still in the “getting there…” phase of unpacking.

The green couch in the last picture was a spur-of-the-moment decision. The couch was my aunt Nancy’s couch that she gave to us, and I found a cover for it and decided to move the loveseat into the living room, and I like it. The room is not very feng shui, and I’m not sure how to remedy that—but we had some friends over the second night we spent here and we were all crammed on the one couch, so we definitely needed something else in the room. And my aunt’s couch is possibly more comfortable than our leather couch!

And, finally, the bathroom! I am super proud of the bathroom because I think it had one of the most major transformations of any room. And adding that shower curtain was instantly gratifying because it hides our ugly shower!

As a comparison, here are the before pictures of the bathroom:

AMAZING, right? I do plan to do a master before/after post, but I need to finish unpacking the bedrooms first.

Expenses: this is why I was procrastinating about writing this post. I have receipts everywhere and I can’t remember what I’ve added in and what I haven’t. But I’ll do my best…

To start, Adam and I each spent $50 at Stop & Shop getting stuff to get us “started”—butter, eggs, bread, other household items = $100

Then I spent $38.64 at Walmart on a fan and a throw pillow.

-$27.89 on garbage bags and spray-on something or other

-$6.99 on a silverware organizer

-$31.78 on plumbing supplies

-$85 on stuff from Bed, Bath, and Beyond: chip clips, hand towels, a doormat, a pet drying mitt, a hand bag organizer for the closet, a curtain rod and a curtain for our hall closet, hand soap, a full-length mirror, and picture hangers

-$300 between Adam and I for a weed wacker, a kitchen light, and some other random stuff

-$101.86 at Ocean State Job Lot on a lamp, a reed diffuser, aluminum foil, paper plates, a solar light, love seat cover, 2 spare bath rugs, band aids, almond extract, dish towels, ziploc bags, a plunger, a placemat, oven mitts, dog dish, vanilla extract, another rug

-another bathmat for in front of the sink $25

-a potability test for our well $110

===== $9480.73

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

That’s $800 something dollars since the last time I posted…

I’m going to try not to think about it.

Home renovations are wearing me thin

2011-05-23T22:11:00.005-04:00

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.

Losing steam on home repairs

2011-05-08T21:07:00.002-04:00

Well, it’s safe to say we are losing steam with the home renovations.

Here’s what we did this weekend:

-my dad started fixing our broken shower and replaced some outlet covers

-I cleaned more kitchen cabinet handles

-Adam cut some plywood to use as slats for our new bed frame

-hung the medicine cabinet/mirror in the bathroom and started setting up the bathroom sink

-we moved some furniture into the living room (!!!!)

But, that’s it. We are just waiting on my dad to fix the plumbing and hook up the appliances and we can move in and finish the small stuff later.

Photos:

Here you can see the trim we put up in the bathroom. It was cheap and easy, but I’m not loving how the corners came out.

We discovered that there is a crack in the basin on the vanity top, so I’m hoping that Adam’s talented and handsome brothers over at Surfaces Group can make us a new countertop…

And here is the completed living room:

Oh, and a blurry picture of it with the furniture in (there are two coffee tables because we weren’t sure which was going to stay in the living room, and which was going in the basement. We decided on the darker one, because it matches, even though I prefer the other one):

Expenses:

-returned a door stop: –$2.85

-bought a used washer and dryer for a coworker $200

-bought a bunch of Pex adapters, clamps, a dryer duct, a washer machine drain hose, and plywood for the bed frame $49.42

====$8615.21 spent so far on renovating the house

Also, we discovered that one of the ceilings that cost me $1200 already has a crack in it. The contractor is coming to fix it, but in the meantime we have to put moving stuff into that room on hold until it's done.

Finishing touches

2011-05-01T22:07:00.004-04:00

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…

But I want a real kitchen Geppetto

2011-04-25T22:39:00.002-04:00

The kitchen is coming along beautifully!!!

The fridge was delivered today…albeit with a dent—so I’m calling Lowe’s in the AM to see what we can do about that:

The new fridge looks fabulous indeed, even with its nerdy protective covering still on.

Adam shows off his new beer cooler

We slid the dishwasher into place, but it’s not installed yet.

And the stove, who also practices safe sex.

I’ve spent a crapload of money:

-angle grinder, bullnose tile, water bottles, ceramic tile file, tile cutting blade…$141.85 (-$49.54 because we returned that tile)

-more bullnose tile (the first kind wasn’t tall enough), 2 more cases of Pergo flooring…$90.65 (-18.61 for the case we returned because we didn’t need it after all)

-more underlay for the flooring, cabinet pulls, transition strips, wall plates, mounting bracket, door stop, drawer pull template…$135.23

-pencils, saw for cutting door trim…$29.07

-refrigerator, ice maker kit, ice maker supply hose…$498.88

======

$8447.16 spent on improving the house and making it liveable

I recently heard the term “house poor,” and I totally get it. Now I’m horse poor and house poor.

The Fridge Fiasco, and Finishing Floors

2011-04-24T21:45:00.002-04:00

That’s a lot of Fs! But certainly not the only F words that were uttered this weekend!

The goal of the weekend was to get a refrigerator. I had pretty much written off finding something used when I found out about a 3 year old Kenmore stainless steel side by side for sale for $125 in the next town over. We went and bought it, drove it home in my tiny Nissan pickup, bribed my friend Mark into helping us get it inside the house, and then… discovered that it was too big. Despite the fact that it fit into our space (we learned from the bathroom vanity debacle to always double-check measurements), the left-hand door couldn’t open all the way:

Which really sucked because it looked fabulous in my kitchen:

A testament to the power of craigslist: We realized the fridge was too big at 8 PM, and someone had come and bought it from me for $75 more than I paid by 10 AM the next day. So, it sucked that we couldn’t keep this nice fridge that we got a fabulous deal on…but at least I made some money off the deal.

It was pouring rain all day Saturday, which meant Adam couldn’t make cuts on the Pergo flooring I was planning on installing (the electricity’s still messed up, so we could only use the saw outside), so we went refrigerator shopping. We went to two Home Depot stores, two Lowes stores, Best Buy, and two Sears stores. We finally got one at the last place we went to, the second Lowes. We had decided on a single door fridge at this point—I love the French door fridges but was worried we’d still have trouble opening the left hand door, even on a smaller fridge. So, we got this fridge:

It’s normally $599, but we’d seen it at Best Buy for $559, and Lowe’s said they’d beat the price (and they didn’t even bother to check if we were telling the truth!). But they were also having a 15% off Energy Star sale, which this fridge qualified for, and with my dad’s military discount, we scored the fridge, an ice maker for it, and the hose it needed, for $498, including taxes. I love being a smart shopper (even though $500 is still a LOT of freaking money…ahh!) It’s a great fridge for the price, though, and the price includes free delivery, which Home Depot and Sears don’t offer.

Once we were done fridge shopping, we attempted to put together our new Ikea bed frame…and Adam accidentally broke a critical piece of the frame on the third step because the opposite side was defective. It was a $300 bed frame so we’re pretty upset—going to see if they’ll take it back or if we can repair it somehow…

Today we completed the installation of the floor in the living room and hallway, and let me just say that it looks FABULOUS.

We just need to put the trim back on the walls and touch up some paint and the room will be ready to move stuff into. I need to replace the doors at some point too.

Oh, and I painted the bathroom after work this week. The color is Sherwin Williams Rock Candy:

I’ll do expenses and other miscellany in a separate post, because this one is getting to be longer than Stairway to Heaven.

Bathroom priming and electricity griping

2011-04-18T22:26:00.001-04:00

I actually did something on the house on a weeknight! Went over after work (and after riding) and primed the new sheetrock in the bathroom. Tomorrow the goal is to get the bathroom painted so I can get the sink that’s in the middle of the living room into the bathroom where it belongs.

Expenses and stuff:

pushbroom, 4 outlet covers, spacers, “15” breaker…$28.22 (we used $7.92 in store credit for something we returned)

bag of versabond mortar for the kitchen tiles…$16.97

grout bag (waste of time…we ended up returning it), grout brush, grout saw…$14.60 (used Lowe’s store credit)

junction box, joint tape for the wall…$8.82

tonnage for second dumpster…$209.20

Total…$7619.63

Also forgot to mention the trouble I’ve been having with my electricity. The first bill I got was for 11 days, and Middleboro Gas and Electric charged me $100. This month was my first full month, and I was charged $150. Most people who are living in the their houses with appliances plugged in, heat running, etc, don’t even get $150 electric bills. My dad combed through all the wiring in the house and found several wiring problems, so I’m really hoping that lowers my bill some, because where we’re not currently living in the house, the bill should only be $20-30/month for what we use. It sucks that it took $250 to figure out there was something wrong with the wiring…and potentially more, since when I called the electric company to make a billing inquiry, they said I’d already used like a million kilamajigs this month…

Tiling the kitchen!

2011-04-17T22:24:00.002-04:00

Big news in Little Lakeville!

Well, not really.

Basically we tiled the kitchen and then I spent the entire weekend scrubbing grout. Ugh.

Pretty awesome, amirite?

Also, taped/mudded/patched the bathroom wall.
Once the mud dries, it has to be sanded, then I can finally paint and get the bathroom looking like a bathroom.
I’ll tally up some expenses tomorrow—I’ve got to get to bed. One thing I hate, hate, hate about home renos is that by the time I’m done working on the house all weekend, it’s time to go to bed so I can go to work in the morning. I feel more tired after the weekend than I did before it.
Oh by the way, I took a “spring” photo of the house today. We had to cut out the shrubs that were in the front of the house, so that sucks, but we get to put new ones in eventually.

Grout sealing / more tiling

2011-04-10T22:42:00.002-04:00

Didn’t have much time to do anything this weekend. We are house/dog-sitting this week, plus I got a phone call on Saturday that my grandfather was in the hospital, so we went to visit him at South Shore hospital.

Here’s what I did do:

-spent $30 at Home Depot on trash bags and grout sealer

-spent another $66 at Lowe’s (used store credit, though) on: a drop cloth, a drywall trowel, a drywall hawk, a spiral mud mixer, and primer

===

$7356.42 is the new total.

On Saturday I had time to start laying down hardiebacker in the kitchen for the tile that will go in there, and I also sealed the grout in the bathroom with spray-on grout sealer.

Now the grout is (hopefully) sealed against moisture and stains.

Today, I screwed down Hardie Backer in the kitchen so that I can start tiling this week. Despite how many times Adam has showed me how to use the drill, I managed to break 3 Phillips head high-compression driver bits, which is, apparently, quite a feat.

Then I did some raking (our lawn has a pine needle infestation), and then went to Ikea because they were having a sale today. I bought a bed frame with built-in drawers for bonus storage, and I also got two large curtains for the front window for $8 in the “As-Is” section. It’s my first time owning a bed with a frame, so, that’s cool I guess. Ikea was packed with screaming children and slow-moving aisle-blocking-people though. Remind me not to go there on a weekend ever again.

How to tile when you’re a helpless female

2011-04-03T22:24:00.003-04:00

Major accomplishment this week: I tiled!

With Adam’s patient hand-holding (he’s still out of commission with a work-related injury), I tiled and grouted the bathroom. It is completely amazing if I do say so, but honestly all the credit goes to Adam’s experience! He learned how to do all kinds of impressive stuff as a young lad in Minnesota, including how to survive in the woods for a week with only a knife and a metal match, how to raise ducks, how to drive a four-horse-drawn wagon, how to legpress slabs of silestone, and, of course, tiling (which is obviously the least impressive of his skills).

So, this is how you tile (and if I can do it, anyone can do it!):

1. First, I ripped out the ugly linoleum floor.

2. Then I screwed down Hardie Backer to the subfloor. Hardie Backer is a cement board that helps stabilize the tiles so they don’t crack. We were lucky that the floors were nice and level. If the floor wasn’t level, we would have had to use self-leveling concrete as a base instead of Hardie Backer. Hardie Backer is also good because it resists moisture (important in a bathroom!).

3. Then I laid out all the tiles, and Adam cut the ones that needed to be resized with a wet saw. Also, I made sure the floor was swept clean so the mortar would stick.

4. Then I applied mortar with a notched trowel (we used a 1/4” one because the tiles were 12 x 12) and laid the tiles down as I went. I used little plastic jack-shaped things to make the spaces even (1/4”).

5. After all the tiles were down, the mortar had to cure for a couple days.

6. After that, I ground down any uneven spots in between the tiles with a blade. I mixed up some grout, and spread it all over the tiles.

7. After waiting ten minutes or so, I scrubbed the grout off the surface of the tiles with a sponge and water. I had to do this three or four times, and the last couple of times, I mixed in some stuff that’s supposed to help remove grout haze.

8. Then I let the grout dry overnight, washed it down twice more, and voila, a tiled floor!

Inspector Mully checks things out

Come on, how cool is that? And what a huge improvement to the aesthetics of the house.

The rest of today was occupied with the following:

-lugging the dirt out of the basement that was a result of deepening the sump pump hole

-finishing painting the bathroom doors

-raking the yard

-replacing the sheetrock we had to cut out of the bathroom walls:

-my dad did lots of plumbing (more on that in a second)

-and, lots of playing with Mulligan:

As far as the plumbing: my dad is kind enough to redo all of our plumbing since a lot of the pipes were very corroded. Unfortunately, after an entire day of plumbing work, he discovered that several of the copper Shark Bite clinchers were defective, and whenever the water is turned on, it rains in the basement. Not good at all.

Big bummer. It all has to be redone.

Expenses:

-a tank bolt kit for fixing our toilet, another 4 sheets of Hardie Backer, a doormat (!!!) = $49.73

-returned tank bolt kit= –$4.45

-wax gasket for bottom of toilet $2.09

-(not adding these items since I paid with store credit for the dehumidifier I returned, but I’ll list them) 26 oz grout admix, grout haze remover, a ShopVac, and 25# of Smoke Grey grout= $71.98 (got $10 off with a coupon I had, score!)

Total $$$ spent so far on renovating: $7326.42

Could have gotten a nice truck and horse trailer with living quarters instead!

Bedroom completion, and bathroom beginnings

2011-03-28T22:25:00.003-04:00

Well, hello, my faithful blogfriends! Here are some photos of my beautiful freshly-painted, recently-carpeted, and newly-window-shaded bedrooms to reward you for clicking over to my page:

This past weekend was spent working on the bathroom (click here to see “before” photos).

First we ripped up the linoleum floor.

Then we ripped out the ugly vanity.

I had to scrub all the mold off the wall that had grown behind the old vanity.

Then, when we took off the trim along the floor, we realized the sheetrock was moldy and disintegrating, so we had to cut out 16” of sheetrock from the floor up.

Oh yeah, and we pulled out the toilet:

Ummmm, yeah.

I also painted the bathroom doors. They were heinous. This is the before:

I painted them all white, but don’t have any after pictures. I’m a bad blogger.

This is what happens to bad vanities, by the way, so all you vanities best be behavin’:

My dad and stepmom did some yard work:

And here is the bathroom, swept and eagerly awaiting tiles to call its own:

I also put a second coat of paint on the kitchen walls, and that was pretty much it for the weekend. Le sigh.

Stuff I’ve bought this week:

-a level, kneepads, 5 gallon Lowe’s bucket, cement board, chalk reel marker, speedlite, steel square, chisel set: $83.93

-cement board tape, dovetail saw: $24.94

-dehumidifier $152.98 (had a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon…returned the first dehumidifier we got, but, they gave me store credit so I can’t deduct it from my expenses since it’s not real money back)

-we returned $70 of ThinSet mortar, so durovent, versabond, stainblock, 2- 25 lb bags of grout, mixer, sponge, tile spacers, board knife, and grout saw cost me $36.56

-a sheet of green board, a leaf rake, and a box of drywall screws ($30 of stuff, but won’t add it since we used Lowe’s store credit from returning the dehumidifier)

Soooo, add that to the $50 for carpet tacks and I have myself a merry little $7279.05 to cry myself to sleep over. Oh, homeownership.

Carpet installation

2011-03-21T22:19:00.002-04:00

The carpets went into the bedrooms today, which means the office and the two bedrooms are officially complete and ready to move into! Hooray!!!

Here are the photos. Carpets courtesy of Carpets Plus and buttcrack courtesy of Steve the carpet installing guy:

Before

Carpet pad

All rolled out

aaand the finished floors! Ready to move into (and ready for my cat to destroy)!

Hooray! This must be some kind of milestone as far as home renovating goes. We finally have 3 livable rooms. We may replace the windows down the line, and will be adding curtains and/or blinds soon, but for the most part...DONE. I’m going to start moving a few things in this week!

Oh, also, I have to add another $50 my last total, because we had to buy carpet tack strips...

Bathroom vanities are a source of stress

2011-03-20T23:00:00.002-04:00

Saturday was painfully unproductive.

We purchased a beautiful bathroom set on craigslist. It included the cabinet, a corian countertop, a sink, faucet, 2 towel racks and a toilet paper holder, and a mirror medicine cabinet with four sconces. The people told us the measurements, and we didn’t think to doublecheck them, since it looked right. Then we got it all the way home, after helping the people detach it from their plumbing and electricity, and it didn’t fit in our bathroom! Waaahhhhh! Luckily, the people were super cool about it and came back and got it today and gave us our money back—wow! There are nice people in the world.

This is what the vanity looked like…I was sad to see it go because it was sooo nice:

After the whole bathroom vanity debacle, I had to go pick up some couches down the Cape. By the time I was done with that, it was early evening. I put the first coat of paint on the kitchen and called it a night.

The color is Sherwin Williams’ Sprout. It’s hard to see in the picture, but it’s a pale green color. I love it.

So that was all I accomplished 0n Saturday, aside from wasting a half tank of gas running around all day…ugggggh.

Today we spent a long time shopping at Home Depot.

I got:

-a ceiling fan to replace the one I broke

-underlay for pergo flooring

-pergo flooring for living room and hallway

-handrails for the stairway

-DWV pipe

-tile for the kitchen

-Thinset (for tiling, but we’re returning it and doing it a different way)

-mortar

-fittings

-PVC bushings

-Rock on 800 (don’t remember what that is)

-Trowel for tiling

All of this cost me $605.36.

After I was done spending a boatload of money, we went back to the house and did some things.

My dad did some yardwork, aka playing with his chainsaw:

The yard is seriously overgrown, and needs major landscaping before it’ll stop looking like Pinkeye Village.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon digging a trench to put a drainpipe in for the sump pump:

After that, Adam took a ride with me to Plymouth to pick up another vanity I’d found on craigslist. We ended up getting it for $50, which was $200 cheaper than the first one that was too big. Plus the people threw in a medicine cabinet with mirrors and lights, two faucets, and two barstools! Not a bad deal for $50, and the people were really cool—they knew some of my coworkers—it’s a small Plymouth after all! Here is the cell phone picture of the new cabinet and sink:

Also, the carpet was delivered on Friday, and that is going to be $400 including the installation. It is getting installed tomorrow. Thank you, Carpets Plus!

So, all of this, plus roughly the $30 I spent on gas with all the running around I did, plus the $1200 I had to pay the contractor that my dad hired, I have now sunk $6930.64 into fixing up this house on top of what I paid for it. Fun times.

Yet more painting, and starting on the bathroom

2011-03-13T19:18:00.002-04:00

So much has gotten done this week!

Let’s hit the ground running with some photos:

The interior window/breakfast bar is done being sheetrocked:

Looks sweet, amirite?

The master bedroom is done being painted. The color is a peach-y color; it’s Sherwin Williams Captivating Cream. It’s very warm and inviting without being loud.

The “office” room is also complete. We were a bit worried about the color at first. Either it was mixed incorrectly, or I underestimated the color on the chip. When it went on the wall, it looked like day-glo green—VERY neon. But now that the paint has dried, I kind of like it. It’s called Sherwin Williams Springtime, and it definitely evokes feelings of springtime (aided by the fact that frozen New England has been thawing out as of late!).

I spent today painting the closets of the bedrooms:

And, the “coat closet”:

(Coat closet is in quotes because we’re not quite sure what to do with this little nook in the hallway)

I spent the rest of the afternoon priming the ceiling and walls of the bathroom.

Here are the “before” photos:

And here it is primed:

The wine/burgundy/mauve/maroon/whatever color simply had to go. It was much too dark and gloomy for a such a small room without much natural light. I’m looking forward to seeing the bathroom completed. If all goes as planned, I will get some actual paint on the walls in there tomorrow.

In other news, we have another bar in the basement! So, you know, if we get tired of one bar, we can go to the other? Yeeeeah. Here it is:

Expenses:

-$10.89 for EZ Sand = $4645.28 spent thus far

Without consulting me or getting a quote, my dad also hired a contractor to mud and tape our ceilings. Everything looks good, but the bill was $1200. aka more than I make in a month. So I’m not going to include that in the expenses yet because I don’t know how I’m going to pay the guy!!! Ahhh!

No work accomplished today (Sunday) because I have been feeling under the weather all day, which is EXTREMELY frustrating. I can’t stand wasting an entire weekend day. I would have liked to ride my horse on this beautiful day too, but what can you do…

More painting, ripping up floors, and cutting windows

2011-03-06T21:33:00.004-05:00

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!

Basement bar and some paint on the walls

2011-03-03T22:10:00.002-05:00

First things first: Expenses.

-9 inch roller, 2 inch roller, 4 pack of disposable rollers, ten pack of disposable trays: $21

-Returned toilet: –131.96

-Motion sensor flood lights $13.00

-Toilet Seat 9.97

-light bulbs 5.97 + tax $1.81

-3 sheets of sheetrock (got a discount because 2 were damaged), and E-Z Sand 45= $37.11= $4188.09

Now for pictures of the progress so far:

Here is the guest bedroom, freshly painted. The color is Sherwin Williams’s Sleepy Blue.

Adam got a bar set for the basement for $50:

The bar needs to be painted but it’s the first step toward the Ultimate Mancave.

And here is the living room, freshly painted with Sherwin Williams’ Kilim Beige.

And here’s the third wall. The fourth wall, which I don’t have a photo of here, is going to be a shade lighter.

A million thanks to Sara D. for helping paint! If anyone needs a professional painter, Sara does a great job.

Removing wallpaper borders and painting ceilings

2011-02-27T21:48:00.004-05:00

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!

Busy week of remodeling

2011-02-26T20:46:00.004-05:00

Well, it has been a busy week, not only in my personal life but also with house-things.

First, my dad cut a hole in the wall of my kitchen.

It’s going to be a bar-style kitchen table, once it’s done, and I think it’ll really open up the space.

Mid-week, I selected all my paint colors, and purchased the colors from Sherwin Williams. The cost was $382.39 for all the paint needed for the interior of the house.

We also had an additional key made up for the house ($2.65), plus a Flex Joint Knife, painter’s tape, and Stain Killer ($49.89).

However, I returned the heat gun and paint scraper I bought from Walmart last weekend because they didn’t work (-$30.78).

But then while I was at Walmart to return the stuff, I bought a bunch of painting supplies ($40.00).

Last night I went to Home Depot to pick up a hot water heater ($232), a new toilet ($138), a water filter ($66.48), smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detector ($13.35 and $17.78, respectively), a hose for the washer and dryer or something ($14.49), and a “Cop Vac Tee,” whatever that is ($8.57).

Now here’s the doozy. I went over to Lowe’s after that, and found a nice dishwasher in the “Scratch and Dent” section. I have been wanting to go to the local scratch and dent place, as I’ve heard great things, but the stupid place is never open when I’m not at work. And this was a $700 Bosch dishwasher on sale for $419, not including my dad’s military discount.

SO I decided to get the dishwasher, and since I was already spending a bunch, I decided I wanted this beautiful Whirlpool Stainless Steel range, which was priced at $499.

Except the cashier made a mistake when ringing me out, and I only ended up paying $830.50 for the pair, which was 20% off. Sweeeeet. Except Adam’s really mad at me because he thinks I should get lower-end appliances to stretch my budget further, so I’m sort of torn. And I have to spend an entire week being torn before I can check out the scratch and dent place in town next Saturday.

As for work done: Today I taped for painting, then primed the walls and ceilings of the living room and hallway, and also painted the floors of two of the bedrooms with Kilz to block the delightful cat urine odor that perfumes the house.

Here I am painting.

My dad dragged me kicking and screaming back to Lowe’s, where I bought another $24.47 worth of stuff, which included light bulbs, a ceiling box, a solder adapter, a plastic sump check (because our previous one was the wrong size, and a flex-a-spout. Then I returned the old sump check ($-6.21), and it was back to work with me.

We pulled the old range out, and found some fun stuff lurking underneath it.

And here is what the guest room looks like with the subfloor painted. We did that to block the odor before we install carpet.

And, a before and an after of the living room

Tomorrow I have to paint the ceiling in the living room white (it’s only primed so far), and prime the office/small bedroom, and hoooopefully I can start painting the living room the final color.

Whew! I got up at 7 AM to go to the gym, too, so that explains why it’s 8:45 PM and I’m ready for bed!

Oh, and my expenses have now ballooned up to $4180.05, leaving me with less than $900 left to finish the house. I'm pretty much screwed.

Odds and Ends

2011-02-21T21:03:00.003-05:00

I neglected to tally up my expenses from the weekend in my last post, so I figured I'd do that now.

First, I bought a work jacket ($29.99):

and a nail puller($4.99):

The nail puller was invaluable for removing the staples that the previous owner of the house used to tack the carpet to the floor.

Then, it was off to Walmart, where we purchased sponges, mops, cleaning agents, a paint scraper, a heat gun,

scented candles, a sander, and a Brita water filter. The total was $99.37...eeep!

Aaannd today my dad picked up some 2x4 studs and a "flexspout" from Home Depot. I'm not even sure what the latter is, but these things cost me another $31.24.

$2396.47 is the new dent in my budget.

After work today I rushed over to Sherwin Williams. Those stores close at 6, and when I came in at 5:45, the clerk was pretty rude. I told him I was picking out some colors, and he said, "You know we close in 15 minutes, right?"
"Yes," I told him. "Your hours are inconvenient for people who work. But don't worry, I'll be fast."
I chose some chips, just in time for the clerk to say, "Ma'am, you know we close in 1 minute?"
"Yes," I responded. "I'll buy these elsewhere tomorrow," and whisked myself and my paint chips out the door triumphantly.

I took the paint chips home, and agonized for close to two hours over different shades of tan, green, and blue (I'm going for neutral earth tones). I'm terrible at making decisions (as I write this I'm debating swapping "Sleepy Blue" for "White Truffle" for the guest room), and I often rely on input from others for such decisions. Unfortunately, Adam is one of those "Whatever you think, honey" decision-makers, which I was NOT finding helpful. His only real input was "Nothing purple or yellow. Oh, and nothing girly." Great.

Anyway, after much deliberation, we did finally choose some lovely (albeit innocuous) colors, and we are ordering them from Sherwin Williams tomorrow.

I really, really hope they look okay up on the walls.

By the way, because a couple people have requested that I do so, I'm adding a Donation button to the blog. Every penny counts and will go towards improving the house and making it livable. :)

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

2011-02-20T18:45:00.002-05:00

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

2011-02-20T18:04:00.002-05:00

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!

Making Progress: Basement Completion

2011-02-19T17:03:00.002-05:00

Well, our friends Rachael and Justin came by on Wednesday and we officially finished the basement.

Ta-da!

As a reminder, this is what it looked like just a week ago:

Adam has a big plan for a Man Cave in the new space in the basement. It will include a pool table, a dart board, a poker table, couches, a TV, a refrigerator that is only allowed to have beer in it, a well-stocked bar, and a mannequin named Ken to be the bartender.

2 bags dry compound mix $20.50

TriSodium Phosphate $9.96

5 Gallon Pail of Joint Compound $13.26

1 Gallon Pail of Paint $19.98

Mesh drywall tape $6.85

Goggles $3.29

Mop $11.99

Floor scrubbing brush $17.49

Sponges $4.29

Propane $14

Plumbing supplies, painting supplies, electrical supplies, more joint compound $314.27

Money into the house so far: $2230.88

Day 2 of the Basement Battle

2011-02-13T21:39:00.005-05:00

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.