Day 478 HOUSE from HELL Update

You know how you have a picture in your mind of how a holiday is going to go?  I did for Valentine’s Day.  I was making Chicken Cacciatore ala Slow Cooker and the perfect Tiramisu cake.  We were going to have a nice bottle of Peach Moscato to go with our salad.  We were going to have an easy day because of the incoming rain, stay in, watch a movie and enjoy each others company.

Well, Mother nature had another plan!

I had just started the slow cooker with dinner and was sitting down to have my second cup of coffee before I went to shower.  The rain started dumping in buckets and the winds picked up beyond belief – so much so that I moved to the other side of the room and away from my favorite windows because the wind was actually a little scary. Tornado warnings started coming across my phone fast and furiously abut that time and then I heard water pouring into my laundry area through the ceiling.  If that wasn’t bad enough, water also started pouring in through the window I had just moved away from.

Wasn’t much we could do besides grab a bunch of towels and wait it out. I did call the roofer to put him on alert.

Once the worst was over, hubby went up into the attic to assess the damage and the roofer showed up almost immediately to replace the shingles and fix the roof.  That was the easy part.

Fortunately we had just recently bought a new box of contractor heavy duty bags. We then spent yesterday in the attic trying to clean up the mess of wet insulation.  Up until now we had pretty much ignored the attic because we didn’t plan on using it, only clearing away around the opening and air conditioning area, but yesterday we found some really odd things up there.  The bricks we found were the oddest things.  We also found some disassembled OLD, and I do mean OLD cabinets, disassembled bookshelves, old paneling as well as a “roll” of 40 year old linoleum.

 

Compared to other areas around town that were hit with the “tornado weather”, we got off easy.  Just a bunch of clean up and repair, but no real substantial loss besides our time. Seven 55 gallon bags later we called it a day and showered BIG time!

We spent today dealing with the window leak. It’s a 40 year old window that was installed into a brick wall 40 years ago without any insulation or flashing.We have completed the inside repairs and after a bit more dry out will also seal everything from the outside.

Fortunately, we were home when this all happened and were able to get the church pew and great grandma’s quilts away from the leak.

On the up side I was able to get the spice cabinets organized and cleaned up.

 

 

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HOUSE FROM HELL day 458 update

I’m still under the weather, but trying to get some things done none the less so I try to pick an inside project each day that I can come close to accomplishing.  Unfortunately I’ve entered the “Full Flare” phase of Systemic Lupus and Fibromyalgia.  These are two really horrible diseases to have to begin with, but together they equal complete misery – every joint and nerve ending are on fire between shooting pains.  The SLE makes you beg for death some days with aching joints and the shooting pain and at the very least think about staying in or going back to bed.  Then the Fibro has you crawling the walls with pain, but ironically that pain feels better if you get up and move.  My motto since I was diagnosed all those years ago has been “GET UP & GET GOING” no matter what!  Eventually I feel better as the day goes on even I do crash by 8PM. I’m doing pretty well for someone who is supposed to be living a stress free life and still dealing with this house the past 14 months.

Last year I did the “turn your hangers around and anything not worn during the year you donate” challenge.  Well, I used to have an office job – the kind that actually required nice dresses and heels. I’ve moved those clothes around with us the last several years thinking they’d be good for church and nice nights out, BUT I don’t need so many of them.  So, I went through them all today (my project for the day) as well as my skirts, blouses and slacks and was able to seriously clean out my closet by 52 gallons, four 13 gallon bags full to be exact. Since I’m continuing the minimizing challenge this year, logging everything has helped A LOT!

Tomorrow I’m thinking about doing the spice cabinet or the desk.

Hubby on the other hand worked outside and  has taken over my digging on the stump trying to get all the small roots out of the way.  It took him several hours, but he made good headway today.

We’re still looking for someone to at least chainsaw off as much as possible though we’d prefer to find someone to grind it out!

 

HOUSE FROM HELL update ~ day 457 ~ going to take a MULLIGAN

Just a quick update on the House from Hell. Hubby has been working diligently to get the backyard and garage under control.

We still haven’t found anyone that can grind the stump of the old Magnolia tree out because of its proximity to the fence, garage and gate so hubby has been going at it with an axe trying to at least break away the roots from the stump.  The entire thing sticks up horribly into the pathway.  We have a few ideas for building a planter around it, but the roots have to go first to be able to do it efficiently.  I do worry that he will get as sick as I’ve become from messing around in that dirt, but he’s taking precaution and doesn’t ave the same compromised immunity that I have and has promised that he’ll wait a day or two before really getting in there.  Now that he’s “released” the area.

 

Many people don’t realize that many times there are viruses harbored in the soil.  This area in particular was a “cat box” for lack of a better description and though we have been working hard for over a year to treat the area, down deep may still be questionable.  I remember after the 1994 Northridge earthquake when people were getting mysteriously ill and it was later named “Valley Fever” from the dust cloud caused by the force of the earthqauke.  As I remember at least one person died from it.  It was a “THRUST” quake that came from down deep bringing with it everything that had been buried deep for years!  Under my house that was termites and ants from the old orange orchard stumps that had been turned under to build the new tract of houses 40 years before.

On another note, I did find some beautiful artichokes, but didn’t have a steamer big enough to cook them the “normal” way so tried using a new method and it worked really well.  I sliced them in half and laid them in my flat steamer.  I then sprinkled salt, pepper, garlic powder and powdered Parmesan cheese on them and started steaming. Not only were they delicious, but they were also easier to serve individually and took half as long to cook!

I have a new pet peeve.  UPS and FEDEX in our area just throw the boxes on the porch and DO NOT ring the doorbell anymore to let you know they have been there. I was waiting on a box from AMAZON yesterday and kept checking the front door as it was getting late and had yet to be delivered.  Amazon is good about packing and sealing, but when this box arrived after 7 pm last night, it was all beat up, had been opened and VERY poorly re-taped!

Since I’m still under the weather and having trouble getting my energy back I have been taking on only small projects, but have been making headway.  I have the car full again of donations. We’ve decided that since the past 14 months have been so trying and have averaged out to us BOTH working over 50 hours a week for 63 straight weeks in addition to normal life that we are going to take a “MULLIGAN” on many things.  One of which is the totes of items sitting around waiting to be ebayed. It is just not worth the time and effort to take good pictures, list, sell, pack and wait to get rid of many things.  So, we have set a price minimum.  If an item won’t bring that minimum price then it is being donated immediately and eliminated from our sight. I have also given much thought to my “hobbies” (never met a craft I wouldn’t try at least once!) and am paring down my art supplies tremendously. Some lucky person is going to be VERY happy when they are able to find my tools and supplies at the local women’s shelter re-sale store.

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DAY 446 of the HOUSE FROM HELL

Before I begin today’s update let me remind you what this are looked like on Day 8 after we had been clearing a path through it. It took weeks to clear out the rotted doors and furniture as well as all the bits and pieces of broken flower pots etc…

I’m trying to do daily updates to keep my spirits up.  We are back to the point where my cuts have cuts, bruises have bruises and joints swear they are 90 years old.  Once again I say, “This is not what we agreed to or signed up for”.  Anyway, on to today which was grueling with 80 degrees and 90% humidity, but also having to do the digging around the old stump with a salad spoon.  Yep, I said a salad spoon.

The roots were let go for so many years that they are everywhere! On top of that while digging out the area so the boards for the fence would go in properly I also encountered about 200 pounds of volcanic rock, you know the kind that goes in barbecues?  I can’t say why it was there, but can say it was there long enough that the roots had grown around it.

I was able to rake most of the volcanic rock into areas that will be leveled with sand so at least we won’t be having to try and dispose of them and they’ll help make a base under the sand.

Hubby did a wonderful job with pre-drilling all the screw holes so we could install it more easily.

I played the grunt today, cutting boards to length for hubby and holding them in place level so he could do the 6 screws per board more quickly.  Things tend to warp around here because of the rain and humidity so by pre-drilling and installing screws more evenly this fence will last a lot longer than most.

Somehow we ended up a few boards short, but that was just as well because the play-offs were about to start and we were EXHAUSTED so it was a good place to stop for the weekend.  We have not found anyone who will come and grind the stump out because their machines will not fit through the gate and quite honestly we are concerned about rocks etc… that are still intertwined around those roots so we are going to use stump killer on the stump and then build a planting box around it.  Not our first choice, but our best choice.

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DAY 445 UPDATE ~ HOUSE FROM HELL

We are anxious to get the backyard done in time to enjoy it for a bit before the weather gets any hotter which won’t be long here.

This is today’s rock and brick find.  My fingers will NEVER be the same. Even with gloves on and using tools to dig everything has been buried deep and the roots from the overgrown Magnolia tree we had to take out. It is also slow going because of the roots and the clay base. At one point I was using a serving spoon to try and get into some tight areas.

When the last repair was made here, it was a serious crap job sloped and mounded and made of low quality cement. It was a serious accident waiting to happen. Hubby is installing everything to code and keeping it level to create a regular step that is safe. Because of the humidity and moisture here he did a little overkill on the bolts to keep all the pieces together.

He has the step framed and I was able to use most of today’s brick and stone finds to help hold the brace board (the board we will be leveling up to from the rest of the yard) in place. We’ll order the sand this next week.  We think it will take even more sand than we originally thought so will be doing this like an archaeological dig and cordon the area off in sections.

Tomorrow’s job is to start getting the fence planks below into place for the “inside” “PRETTY” side of the fence.

 

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DAY 442 UPDATE of the HOUSE FROM HELL

We began the work on the backyard this past week.  It seemed like it was going to be a straight forward project, but alas this too is a HORRIBLE pain in the butt. As with everything in the house nothing outside is square or level either.

We knew it would need some serious leveling, but we have spent days just digging up these pieces of broken block, concrete and pavers that were sticking up everywhere!  These are just what we dug up in an hour setting the base for the new gate. Unfortunately you are not allowed to throw these away in the trash and so we are are having to “break” them all apart into much smaller pieces and then use them under the sand layer we are putting down. It appears 6900 pounds of sand is not going to be enough even with using all the odd pieces of broken concrete blocks to properly level everything.

After we get it leveled with the sand we will still need a couple pallets full of pavers and sod before we can even sit and enjoy a glass of wine on the new patio. This is before the “PRETTY” side goes up.

Fencing is “supposed” to be part of the HOA fees, but we’ve been on the list for over 10 months with no hope for it getting done any time soon and figured the termites don’t care about the list so we just needed to get it done.  This is one of the better looking boards.  A good wind would knock this fence down.

I secretly believe the HOA makes everyone wait hoping they’ll do it themselves so the HOA won’t have to foot the bill. Since we are footing the bill we are building an “internal” “PRETTY” side to the fence so that in the future whoever lives here won’t be inconvenienced when the outer fence needs done again. It will also help with the leveling and paver process as we try to “square” up this mess.

Hubby did have wonderful progress on the gate.  I was able to paint the old hardware to reinstall it and we will be picking up the boards tomorrow to finish the inside of the fence before leveling the sand up against it. It does need a bit of tweaking and leveling, but we need to pick up longer bolts tomorrow before we can do that.

There are several things we would do different if we were staying, but all in all it looks like it will turn out well and at the very least be “turnkey” for the buyer.

I just pray that the vision in my head comes close to the reality when this is all said and done. I figure at the rate this is going with having to dig up all the broken bits and the fact that our backs are KILLING us from all the manual labor and sledge hammer swinging, we should be able to sit and have that first of wine sometime in late February or March.

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BEFORE AND AFTER UPDATE ~ AKA WHAT DID WE GET OURSELVES INTO?????

Our original thought as we walked through the door (after braving the jungle of a backyard) 431 days ago was WTF did we get ourselves into here.  We were weary and tired, the dogs and cat were miserable after 6 days on the road.  We honestly considered turning around and going straight back to Oregon for about 10 minutes, but that made us even more tired when we thought about it. ALSO, we had moving trucks from where we had things stored in two different states already on the way and had already spent a fortune to get here.  PLUS this was to help family so we stayed to see it through and have been working REALLY hard ever since.  I know grams is no longer turning in her grave at what her house became and is resting peacefully seeing it restored.

Coming here was supposed to accomplish three things.  The first being a place for us to settle and re-group our life after the Cancer, multiple surgeries, years of care giving for multiple people and have time to deal with the VA claim from hell.  Well, that has YET to happen as we have spent every waking hour just making this place livable. The second was to be near family – the same family that now that we’re here can’t seem to take time to spend together unless there’s an emergency. The third was to help out my aunt and uncle after my cousin’s death.  My uncle had his hands FULL since my aunt’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.  We were glad we could be here to help him especially after the fall that shattered her knee, the surgery for that along with the hospitalization and skilled nursing for the infection that ultimately took her life.  We did NOT expect him to decide two weeks later he was getting re-married and moving 5 states away.

You know how people say you’ll never use algebra after you get out of school? Well, I’m here to prove them wrong.  I loved word problems and algebraic equations and find I really do use them all the time.  This house is a perfect example.

X (minimum cash outlay) + Y (reasonable sweat labor done at a reasonable pace) + Z (fair price) = (PLACE TO SETTLE at a reasonable cost while helping family)

Seems like a simple equation right? That was before when my uncle said all the fixtures, appliances and flooring were good.  He did say the garage and backyard needed some cleanup as well as the house needing cleaned up and painted. He did NOT say that the garage leaked like a sieve and would also need major work.

So now factor in the ALL the things he DIDN’T tell us about “correctly” – like ALL fixtures, appliances, flooring, windows and doors, electrical and plumbing needing to be replaced, city and county code infractions, major drywall repair, bug and rodent infestation, as well as the fact that my cousin was a pack rat/hoarder who didn’t clean and that it would take 2 1/2 months of 12+ hour days, 7 days a week JUST to clear out ALL her trash and potential donations, not to mention the $900 or so of beer and soda to keep the trash guys happy so they would take everything each trash day (which is twice a week fortunately) and that she was a chain smoker that left everything covered in a layer of tar and nicotine. So now the equation looks something like:

5X+ (maximum cash outlay) + 20Y+ (maximum sweat labor done at a breakneck pace just to make it livable) + 5Z+ (no longer a fair or reasonable price because uncle wants same amount he did originally = (PLACE TO FLIP because it has become a money pit) AND (leaving us completely upside down in time and financial means, but at least we helped family whether they appreciate it or not)

So on to the before and after pictures. Hubby is upset that the before pictures don’t truly show how HORRIBLY DISGUSTING this place really was. I just hope the after pictures show how truly GREAT it is now – it really is turn key now!

MASTER BEDROOM & BATHROOM BEFORE

There was “STUFF” everywhere!  The walls where all stained from who knows what and the carpeting was full of melted wax and cigarette burns even in the closet.  I have to say that my cousin was evidently suffering from some form of mental illness because this is NOT how she was raised!

The picture above is what I got out of the bedroom carpet on the first pass of available floor with my Rainbow Water Vacuum. Disgusting does not begin to describe how it looked or felt.  Below was just one of the cracks to be repaired that was caused by the foundation issues.

The master bathroom didn’t look too bad until you looked close or opened a door and saw all the mold in the wood. So, it ended up getting gutted too. It took me 2 weeks, but I did get the tile clean in the shower, but we still need to find someone to professionally refinish the tile.


MASTER BEDROOM & BATHROOM NOW 

Finally a new window and completed bedroom. We used wainscotting floor to ceiling for the new bathroom walls.

SPARE BEDROOM BEFORE

The spare bedroom was stacked to the ceiling with junk!  It also housed much of her “business” food products.  What was the city thinking when they gave her a food license to operate out of this house? Not to mention it is completely against the H.O.A. rules and regulations for this neighborhood. In the photo below the bottom left hand corner was mouse droppings. YUCK!!

SPARE BEDROOM NOW

KITCHEN/DINING/LAUNDRY AREA BEFORE
THERE WAS “STUFF” EVERYWHERE.  NOT ONE CABINET WAS CLEAN OR ORGANIZED .
THE CABINET HANDLES THAT WHERE THERE WERE GREASE AND DUST COATED. THE CABINET DOORS WERE HANGING BY A THREAD.

THE REFRIGERATOR WAS FULL OF SPOILED AND SPILLED FOOD, MILDEW AND MOLD – A SERIOUS SCIENCE PROJECT IN THE MAKING AND ONE THAT THIS IMMUNITY CHALLENGED GIRL WAS HAVING NO PART OF.  THE SEAL ON THE REFRIGERATOR DID NOT WORK AND HAD BEEN LEAKING OUT FOR SOME TIME. THE FREEZER WAS ANOTHER ISSUE TRYING TO GET THINGS OUT SINCE THEY HAD FROZEN INTO ONE BIG GLOB BECAUSE OF THE LEAKING SEAL.
This is the pantry floor as clean as it would get!  We scraped off all the linoleum and sanitized the foundation before re-flooring.
BEHIND THESE DOORS (which are off their hinges and just propped there) IS THE LAUNDRY AREA AND ONE OF THE SCARIEST LOOKING AREAS.  THERE WAS A RATS NEST UNDER THE COLLAPSING, NOT TO CODE WATER HEATER base.  THE DRYER WAS NOT VENTED TO THE OUTSIDE AND HAD NOT BEEN FOR SOME TIME AS THE LINT WAS EVERYWHERE AND THE WASHER LEAKED LIKE A SIEVE!

This 10 pound bag of sugar was spilled ALL over a pantry shelf and was one of the biggest sources for the ants, cockroaches and mice.

KITCHEN/DINING/LAUNDRY NOW
STUDIO BEFORE
STUDIO NOW
ATRIUM BEFORE
ATRIUM NOW

 

FOYER BEFORE

The door would no longer open due to the foundation issues and she used this 24 square feet (8×3) as a “CAT BOX” area.  I hate to admit that this was the MOST disgusting of ALL the house and required several bottles of hydrogen peroxide etcher after we removed the toxic 2 layers of tiles.

FOYER AFTER

New floor, new door and new paint are done and looking good. I LOVE how much light the new door lets in.

LIVING ROOM BEFORE

These are cracks, tears and stains in the atrium/living room carpeting.

It took weeks/months to get the living room to this organized point LOL.  Notice the crack near the vent?  It went all the way to the floor and was 3 inches wide.  It is also why we waited over 3 months for the highly recommended dry wall guy that turned out to be a HUGE joke. The picture below is the living room after we finally got it emptied and ready to start painting.

This is one of 3 sections of the living room carpet that had melted candle wax all over it.  She had just arranged the furniture over it.

 

LIVING ROOM NOW
We made built in cabinets in the living room to hold things like the DVD player, WiiU, movies and games, etc…

I could not get Whiskey to move so she’s in the picture! There are still many Christmas things sitting around as I get them pack up to put away, but all in all it’s looking good.

SPARE BATH  BEFORE

There was a funky built in area above the tub for linens that needed to be removed and the walls had to be re-done after the 2 layers of wall paper were removed and the wall board was peeling away. 

SPARE BATH NOW
GARAGE  BEFORE

This was after hubby spent 4 weeks cleaning and and making a path for donation and trash.

GARAGE NOW

Hubby has done wonders at creating a neat and organized garage!

It took months to get to this freezer and then weeks to get into it.  The key wouldn’t work!  Turns out the seal had failed and there was a HUGE layer of ice sealing it shut.  It then took hubby days to chip away ALL the ice and bag the food that was there. 

We are SO thankful for our trash guys.  For a case of beer and soda twice a week they took ALL we gave them.  Way more than they were supposed to or should have.  We thank them for going ABOVE and BEYOND!

ATTIC
From this point in the attic you can turn 3 directions, but they all look about the same.  We got as much stuff out of the attic as the house it seemed. It is now ALMOST empty except for some insulation that needs bagged and the storage boxes I added just around the opening for when we move.
I tried to salvage these globes covered in nicotine and dirt, but in the end it was a lost cause.
JUST A TYPICAL TRASH DAY.  It looked like this, sometimes double this EVERY! trash day (2 times a week) for 9 months!
The wiring had to be all re-done as gramps and possibly Beth’s boyfriend, Tom had done some really scary Mickey Mouse jobs that left us thankful the place hadn’t been burnt to the ground.  We found an awesome Electrician and while Tommy was expensive, he is a Master Electrician and left us with a safe feeling allowing us to sleep at night.

This was the path hubby created through to the back gate. We are anxious to get this area done next month.  Right now it is empty, but very uneven so we will begin with 100 bags of leveling sand and see where it goes from there.

Did I ever mention that the neighbor next door in a 2 story tried to buy this place because he loved the floor plan, but my uncle wouldn’t sell until the foundation work was done? In ALL honestly this house would still be sitting here in the same condition we found it if we hadn’t come long when we did.  Unfortunately for us it appears my uncle does NOT appreciate any of this. He still wants more money than it was worth and said if he’d realized it’s condition, he would have just dumped it.  If that is the case I have to wonder why he didn’t sell to the next door neighbor to begin with and honestly if he’s going to “DUMP” it why not do so to the people who spent the money for the parts and labor AND did the back breaking work for over a year?

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DAY 400 of the HOUSE FROM HELL

I’m still working on the before and after update that I hope to have done tomorrow or Friday, but we are elated today, day 400 of the House from Hell as we finally got carpeting!  It’s been a REALLY long haul and we are exhausted, but I couldn’t wait to get a few pictures and a brief update posted.

It was supposed to be installed on the 5th which I was dreading because it was supposed to be raining, but the phone rang yesterday mid morning and they said there was a cancellation for today and did we want it?  Hell yes we wanted it.  So we spent yesterday moving everything and stacking it anywhere it would fit to be ready for this.

While we were moving furniture out of the room to be carpeted, we “installed” sliders onto the bottoms of the heavier furniture. These are on the oak church pew. I have to say that it was an ingenious idea that we really appreciated today while putting the room back together.
We piled it as high as we could!
Empty to the slab and completely ready!
YAY! I love purple LOL don’t worry this is just the padding.
I’d never actually seen the seaming process take place – it was really interesting and the most time consuming part.
ALL done and ready to be put back together.
This is actually the table that usually sits in the atrium, but we removed the legs and tucked them underneath to use the table as a supportive base for the Christmas tree.
Working on getting it all put together.
EVERYBODY seems ALL settled in now.

NEW LIFE to an old KITCHENAID

Back in 1994 we lived in Northridge, California. On January 16, 1994 I spent the day setting up banquet tables in my dining room and living room so I could empty out EVERY kitchen cabinet and drawer of dishes, food (including 6 dozen freshly made jars of jam) and cooking utensils onto those tables to prepare for a complete kitchen overhaul.  It was a tough job and in all honesty some things were stacked a bit precariously, but I made it ALL fit onto the tables.

After I accomplished that tiresome job I removed all the cabinet doors and had them stacked and ready for stripping and painting the next day.  I was exhausted, but I was ready for the next day full of painting. Or so I thought.

What I didn’t know when I planned that project was that the 6.9 Northridge earthquake was going to strike at 4:31 the next morning, only a few short hours after I called it a day from the prep work for the kitchen the previous day.  Long story short we lost 95% of EVERYTHING in the house and garage including my car.

It took a FULL month plus to pick up, bag up, box up and haul everything out to the curb to throw away the broken pieces of our life including furniture, walls and the jam mashed into the carpet.  We had no food except what was in the freezer.  We had a 2 week long block party with the neighbors all taking turns at cooking on BBQ’s in the street.   No electricity, no stores, no banks, no phones (the days before everyone having a cell phone)… life came to a grinding halt.

But, when the dust had settled, the insurance inventories had been submitted, insurance checks began to arrive and when we had caught our breath we began rebuilding.

One of the first things I bought was a new mixer.  I had decided that I was going to splurge and so I bought a top of the line (for the time) 6 qt. professional Kitchenaid.  At the time you couldn’t get all the designer colors so I got a simple white.

In early 2007 I couldn’t stand how it looked after so many years of use, but it is a work horse and I love it so I decided to paint it.  No since in spending money just for a prettier mixer so I chose a hammered copper paint which was popular for the time. 

Now, lmost 10 years later it was time again.  This time I chose a teal color to keep with the color theme I have chosen for this house.  Teal is my new favorite color since it’s the awareness color for Ovarian Cancer.  A day doesn’t go by that I don’t thank God for surviving Ovarian Cancer so choosing the teal is a happy reminder that I’m here and healthy. I got a little carried away and started painted a lot of things.

 Of course it began to thunder and sprinkle then rain so I had to move everything inside to finish drying.

All finished! A great 22 1/2 year old KitchenAid professional workhorse in a new custom color.

DAY 276 – LIFE IN REMODEL UPDATE – 2 BIG PROJECTS DONE

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a good update.  We’ve been working hard to get things done, I mean completely done, but the molding, caulking and painting are taking forever since we had to start from scratch and have been working with old substandard beginnings.  Honestly it would have been easier to build from scratch!

We decided to hire out 2 of our most dreaded jobs – jobs that we hate doing and decided our sanity was worth the cost of hiring out these 2 jobs.  That said, we still have to do the finish work on both jobs. The old door was solid wood – so extremely heavy and completely warped with the foundation issues.  From what we could tell my cousin had not used the front door in close to 20 years because it would not open.  It took us several weeks to even get to it and the several more to get it to open after the foundation work was done.  After they completed the foundation work they told us NOT to change any doors or windows for 3-6 months because the house would continue to settle.  Living with this situation has been a eyesore and pain in the butt, but is finally corrected!

 OLD DOOR – EXTERIOR
 OLD DOOR – INTERIOR
 NEW DOOR & FRAME PIECES
  • NEW DOOR INSTALLED & HUBBY WORKING ON INTERIOR MOLDING
  • TOMORROW I WILL DO EXTERIOR CAULKING
  • THURSDAY I WILL DO EXTERIOR PAINT TOUCH UP EARLY IN THE MORNING AND THEN START ON THE FOYER MOLDING CAULKING AND PAINT.
The window was broken when we got here.  We added the tape for a small measure of security.  I CANNOT tell you how happy this one simple thing makes me! But I bet you can guess!
Daniel and Jose made short work of the old window and installing the new one – much quicker than trying to do the front door yesterday!
After Daniel and Jose left I installed the new sill and the finish molding, caulked and painted it an voile’ I feel so much better!

ONE WATER CLOSET AT A TIME – DAY 253

When we decided to come here and take on this project it was supposed to be some paint, a little remodel and updating and A LOT of sweat labor for a couple months. We were told the carpet was salvageable and the appliances worked. NONE of which was actually true.  Unfortunately it took us almost 10 weeks of cleaning out the trash and donations to even be able to properly assess the situation.

Had we been told the REAL story with the condition of this house we would NEVER have come here!  Now, we just can’t wait to be done!!  Day 253 and we just pray we will be done by day 365 with this nightmare.

This week is about FINALLY bringing the laundry area into the 21st century and up to code. When we arrived the laundry area contained my grandmother’s OLD washing machine, an almost as old dryer that was not vented to the outside despite an opening cut through the wall, and a fairly new water heater that had been installed NOT UP TO CODE on top of the original base that was now rotting through and home to all sorts of critters.  First of all I’m quite appalled that SEARS would install something so poorly and wary of ever using them in the future.

Above is the before pictures AFTER we cleaned out all the crap short of the actual base and wall behind it. We were able to get the actual floor for the water closet portion laid down and the insulation for the outside wall and the inside closet walls.

Above is AFTER our “normally”wonderful plumbers were here, but before we installed the interior walls, ceiling, light and the cabinet above the washer and dryer. I did get the cabinet stained to match the kitchen cabinets over the weekend. We did get the remaining floor laid after they left for the day.

I say “normally” wonderful plumbers because Henry, the estimator was here two weeks ago and we planned this whole project out and booked for the 1st of July.  Then after being rescheduled two separate times due to their workload I expected perfection. Unfortunately perfection was not their forte’ today.  They did not have ALL the parts they needed to accomplish this project according to the original plan so in our opinion they half-assed it and “changed” our original plans for us and we will now be going to Lowe’s or Home Depot tomorrow to purchase the parts needed to change the things they did not do properly to get OUR plan back on track:

  • elbow and long enough gas line so the line doesn’t cut through the middle of the broom closet.
  • Elbows and NEW PVC so the discharge line for the pan hugs the pan and wall and doesn’t prevent the door from closing as it does today.

On Friday we will be putting the washer and dryer on “SLIDERS” also and starting to work on the walls, ceiling, cabinet, new LED light and the actual water closet door and broom closet.