Getting Bids on the Bathroom and Kitchen

Today we had a lot of workers checking out the house.

The basement foundation guy came to get paperwork signed (and downpayment taken), and moved some things around with the basement bracings. He also gave us some ideas for the basement and the outside (getting window wells, for one).

We had two companies come and look at the kitchen and bathroom. We'll get bids from each in the next week or two, but the best thing was just talking to each of them and bouncing ideas off of them. Whether or not we go with either one, it's started us thinking about some things that we hadn't considered earlier (like the fact that there's no good place to put the refrigerator in the current kitchen due to the placement of the kitchen door!).

And I finished painting all the trim (first coat) and got a second coat on the trim in the master bedroom and the hallway. One coat:
Two coats:
Then (with a lot of help from our wonderful neighbors) we took out the last six stumps--which was much harder than you'd think. Each of them were HUGE, and required snipping a LOT of roots to get them loose. In addition, the burlap wrap was still around each root ball, holding in a ton of heavy dirt (which had to be removed or the Village won't take them). After all that, we raked what we could into the giant holes left behind. We still will need to (somehow) loosen up the whole back yard, and get a truckload of dirt to even it out and grade, but I think it's looking quite a bit better:

We also measured and there will be enough room in Mom's garage for all our tools that are currently stored in our shed (on the right in the picture above) so we can tear it down, and have somewhere to put the grill and garbage/recycling --which used to be against the fence.

More trim painting

Not much time for new work today, but I was able to squeeze in a few hours' worth of painting.

I finished the trim in the master bedroom, painted all the trim in the hallway and smallest bedroom, a tiny bit in the middle bedroom (all the doors are currently in there, blocking my way!) and a bit of trim in the living room. Hopefully one more day of painting and then I'll just have to go back and touch up (some of the trim is still showing the dark brown through the white).

No pictures because it's nothing exciting ;)

Little bits...

It was another busy day other-than-house-wise, so we didn't have a lot of time to do anything.

We did touch up the ceilings and closets.

And I got started painting the trim (door frames and baseboards and window frames) in the master bedroom:
After supper, when it cooled down, G. took down the rest of the fence posts and cleaned off the dirt from six of the root balls. Now there are six BIG holes in the back yard! ;)

There probably won't be time for much tomorrow--although Mom comes back from her trip, so it'll be fun to show her everything we've worked on. And Thursday we have a lot of contractors coming to give bids.

Some painting "finished"!

This afternoon G. and I planned to get some painting done on the house, but it was SO hot and humid that I decided to run the air conditioner before we started. I could NOT get the thermostat to even turn on! We'd previously had issues with getting it to work--it was set on really hot (like 85) for heat, or really cold (59) for the AC. Our neighbors had an extra thermostat that they weren't using, so G. installed it:
(it's a bit smaller than the other one, so I had to paint around it--when we paint the walls, that'll blend in better!)

Then we started painting the ceilings. We got the ceilings painted in all three bedrooms as well as the living room/dining room (we won't do the kitchen or bathroom as we're not sure what will eventually happen in those rooms). See?
(the walls are still just primed--the ceiling used to look as sloppy as the walls did)

Since we had so much more ceiling paint (and it's cheaper than "regular" paint), we used it to paint the inside of every closet (that's 4 bedroom closets and the big hall closet). They need to be touched up a bit, but look pretty good:

I think tomorrow we'll have to take the day off since we have a lot of running around to do. And Mom will be back on Wednesday, I hope. I can't wait for her to see everything!

Busy Sunday

It feels so good to get a lot done in a day when we had nothing else planned and nowhere else to be!

We started the day with another run to Home Depot for more paint and supplies. Then we returned and finished priming the whole house. We even did the ceilings in the kitchen and bathroom and the walls in the kitchen--just in case! I think it looks awful, but have been reassured that it's PRIMER and therefore not meant to look good.
After that, we cleaned up and rested a bit before heading out for ANOTHER trip to Home Depot (to get some more painting supplies for tomorrow and to pick up some heating vent covers in case the duct cleaner needs them)

After supper G. pounded some nails into each of the 12 remaining stumps, and wrapped a towing chain around the nails. He then connected the chain to:
Yep. Mom's CRV. It's probably just as well that she's in California now and didn't see what we did with her car. (in all honesty, we'd have used one of our vehicles, but since they're not SUV's, they didn't have the towing loop thing).

G. dug out the stumps as best he could, snipping side roots along the way. He attached the chain, and then I drove the car (wise thinking on his part in case anything happened to Mom's car, I guess). In between time, I did some weeding:
G. is brilliant--it worked like a charm:

We still have to clean up the stumps before the village will take them. I'll post pics when they're out of the back yard. They look so odd--they still have the burlap sack around the root balls from when they were put in!

Tomorrow, if all else goes well, we'll start to paint the ceilings with actual ceiling paint and the trim with trim paint.

Painting prep--and some painting

This morning we finished all the painting prep work--all floors were taped, and we laid newspaper on top of the tape and then drop-cloths (shower curtain liners and tarps) in the middle of the floors.
We also lined up all the doors in the dining room area to be primed:Since we finished before lunch, we decided to go ahead and start painting this afternoon--especially since the weather was dry and not too warm!

The primer we're using is called Zinsser's BIN Shellac-based primer, and it was recommended by several friends to cover up the smoker/nicotine smell and stains, as well as to cover the oil-based painted trim. But it's pretty strong stuff--or so we read online. When we bought the primer last night, we also picked up a bunch of "safety" equipment. Here's G. and me--all ready to paint:
We followed our usual painting routine where I cut the walls and trim with a brush and G. comes after me with the roller. I started off wearing the face mask, but it made me so warm and claustrophobic, that I soon took it off and just took breaks from painting if the smell bothered me (it's not terrible--smells a lot like an open bottle of rubbing alcohol).

We got 2 1/2 bedrooms and most of the hallway primed before we ran out of paint (that was 5 gallons of the primer). It looks awful (primer does...), but it seems to work well and the alcohol-type smell left when the primer dried. I'll post pics tomorrow when we (hopefully) have the whole house primed. We have to run out and buy more primer tomorrow morning.

Is this breaking child labor laws?

Today was filled with painting prep. I taped the whole house (except for the kitchen and bathroom) and removed all the doors (including closet doors) from the rooms. T. and M. did a fantastic job of removing the hardware from the doors and door frames. Here's M, showing her screwdriver handling:

G. sanded all the spackle I'd done, and finished up the doors. We're going to run to Menard's to buy the primer (Zinsser BIN shellac-based primer--to cover both the oil- and latex-based paint as well as seal in stains and odors) and pick up a few more things tonight.

I love spackling!

Not a lot done today at the house, but I did get to do my favorite maintenance job--SPACKLING! I spackled all the holes in all the walls (and there were a LOT) and window frames. I hope spackle works on window frames...

Then I swept and vacuumed all the floors and Swiffered the bedroom and hallway floors. GROSS! I can usually do my entire first floor with one Swiffer pad, and then I also use it to do my basement steps and laundry room floor. I was planning one Swiffer pad per room, but the master bedroom alone took THREE pads. bleeechhh....

Finally, a friend of ours, who is an electrician, came and scoped out the house to see what needed to be done in order to update the electrical panel and bring things up to code. He said it shouldn't be too bad and he can hopefully do it in a few weeks.

No pictures because spackled walls aren't that exciting. :)

Cleaning Up the Place

Not much done today. We had decided to take the day off with all the running around we had to do, but did actually get a few hours to squeeze in some things.

G. hauled all the tree debris around front so the village will pick it up. He also counted and we took out SIXTEEN evergreen tree/bushes. Egads!Here's how the back of the house looks now:


I decided to finish up washing the walls and ceilings with bleach water. After all, I "only" had the living/dining room to do. Well, I had the hallway and closets (no biggie) and the GIANT combo living/dining area. I'm pretty sure that the living/dining area is where these people did the majority of their smoking, because I washed everything *three* times and it still isn't totally clean. Gross that when I made a single swipe across the ceiling, it became a white stripe across a disgusting yellow/brownish background. omg... No pictures because it didn't do it justice, but when G. came in, he said, "wow! it looks brighter in here". While I was at it, I decided to wash the kitchen ceiling and walls, too. We're having the kitchen completely re-done, but after seeing how bad the dining area was, I thought the kitchen might be harboring some stinkiness, too. Imagine my surprise to find that the kitchen walls and ceiling are white, too!

Our Neighbors Rock!

Despite all the stuff that G. and I had to do this morning, we were still able to get some things done this afternoon and evening.

All the carpet, vinyl flooring, and other BIG crud from in the house was hauled out to the curb and we paid the special pick up fee, so it should be gone by tomorrow.

G. spread mulch on top of the yucky graded dirt we hauled yesterday, and connected the extendable downspouts to the gutters:
I removed all the rest of the staples and carpet tack strips from the hardwood floors.

With help from my sweet neighbor, I scrubbed the ceilings, walls, and trim in all three bedrooms with bleach water, in preparation for painting. I also finished taking down the light switch and outlet plates and removed the (filthy) heating vent covers.

G. (with help from our other sweet neighbor) cut down all the rest of the arbor vitae in back, and knocked down some more fence panels. Now I can see something other than green when I look out my kitchen window! The yard is huge without that stuff.

Outside Work

The temps were reasonable today (about 75), but unfortunately, it was INSANELY humid. Oh, well--G. and I figured we went on a rapid weight loss program with the combination of physical labor and sweat today!

We hadn't planned to do things in this order, but after yesterday's rains, we found that a lot of water was leaking into the basement and we *knew* that the foundation needed to be graded. Luckily, they're tearing up the road for a massive sewer/water project, so I asked one of the workers yesterday if we could take some of the fill that they were just hauling away in dump trucks. (He said we could have all we wanted)

The front of the house was the worst, but before we could even get to the foundation, we had to remove four big arbor vitae and two small, pokey evergreen shrubs. G. did most of that! Then we hauled fill from the road, and leveled some places in the yard as well, and graded it all away from the front of the house and the west side. Tonight we'll pick up some cheap mulch to hide the ugly plain dirt and keep it in place for now, too. Either this fall or next spring, we'll make raised flower beds and get better dirt to put on top of the clay/gravel mix we got from the road construction.

Then G. climbed up on the roof and cleaned out the gutters (we'd realized during the rain yesterday that nothing was coming out of the downspouts). We need to get some parts to attach the downspouts so they stay attached, and will get some less-obvious pipe to carry the water away from the foundation, too.

Finally, we took down the hideous blue canopies and washed the outside of the windows.

So here's how it looks:

Day Two--lots done!

The main thing accomplished today was removal of ALL the carpeting from all the rooms except the kitchen and bathroom. This involved not only pulling up the carpet and pad, but pulling out a million little staples used to hold down the pad, and the carpet tack strip, which was nailed every half inch. We still have a tiny bit of tack strip left to get rid of, but everything else is done.

The dining room, which is in the worst shape--wear/water-marked spots and TONS of nails (to prevent squeaks?):
The hall was also under attack by someone with a nail gun:
But some (like the bedrooms) looked pretty darn good!

We also removed the ugly vinyl floor in the kitchen to find:

Yep. MORE ugly vinyl floor! But this is so ugly that it's quaint, I think. And, better yet, it's not torn, so we can put pergo or vinyl or tile or whatever right on top of it.

G. replaced the locks in the front door as well.

Then we tore the wallpaper off the bathroom walls. We tried to remove the carpet, but it's glued down with some gross, gummy stuff, so that'll have to wait for another day.
And we vacuumed the entire basement--top to bottom. There's still some water leaking and the floor is SO peely that it's not possible to do very much down there right now, but at least it feels cleaner.

It's Official!

Welcome to my blog chronicling the process of my mom becoming my neighbor.


The closing actually happened today, and mom owns the house next door to us! For those of you who haven't followed the story all along, this house is RIGHT next to our house, and it is a foreclosed property in a village that we didn't think would be affordable. As you'll soon see by the pictures, there's a reason this house was affordable...

Feel free to follow the saga of home improvements along with us.


The first thing we did was take lots of "before" pictures.

Here's the front of Mom's house, as seen across our front yard (that's our play structure on the left):Looking at the front, head-on (lovely awnings, no?):

All the hideous evergreens in front:


A glimpse of the porch:
More evergreens (and awnings):
the East side of the house (where there are foundation issues):
The back of the house:

Facing west--Mom's house on the left and our house on the other side of the hedge:
The back fence and part of the lovely garage (and a bit of our house on the left, too):
Head-on shot of the garage. Yes, it's really that warped!
Front of the garage:
Inside of the garage:
Basement--due to water in the basement, all the drywall had to be torn out, but the studs are left behind.
Basement corner with a mess of electrical "stuff" and one of the two sump pumps:
The bomb shelter (seriously!):
The master bedroom, with two closets:
More master bedroom--two of the three windows currently blocked by evergreens:
The littlest bedroom:
The medium bedroom:
More medium bedroom with lovely artwork on the walls:
The bathroom, which no one even wants to go INTO:
Yes, that would be carpet on the floor:
The beautiful kitchen (ha ha):
Lovely cabinets and yellow countertops:
Looking through the dining room to the livingroom:
Entryway--same livingroom window:
After taking all the pictures, we immediately got working.

G. started taking down fence sections and arbor vitae.

We got a dehumidifier and two fans to dry out the basement.

G. changed the lock on the back door

It was a busy first day--especially since the closing wasn't done until 3:00!