Day 4: Remodeling is Tiring

Up until this point, Andy and I have been pretty much running on adrenaline.  But then it started to hit us.  Yesterday, after waking up early to rain and dashing outside in our pajamas to save the cabinets and sheet rock we had left outside, we fell back asleep for “just a few more minutes” and woke up at 8:45 thoroughly stunned.  We must really have been tired!

Last night I decided to take the time to make a real meal (shrimp pasta…yum!) and also some cookies (my mother-in-law let me borrow their toaster oven), just to make everything feel a little more like home.  And also, we were sick of the hotdogs and other quick things we’ve been eating to save time.  Meanwhile, Andy worked on the framing for the raised ceiling.  He had to cut some of the beams out, which made me a little nervous, but he knows what he’s doing. :)

  

He used regular 2x4s and cut them to size to replace the planks that had been there.

It’s starting to look really good.  He makes it look better though. :)

 

Meanwhile, I’ve been continuing my work cleaning the cabinets.  I use bleach where mice might have been, and then straight vinegar on everything else.  Vinegar is a great way to clean things and cut through grease without the chemicals.

I’ve also been working on sanding down the doors and drawer fronts with steel wool.  Use the 3 gauge to get everything smooth, especially on the cracks and hard-to-reach areas.  It’s a great way to get in all the nooks and crannys and get rid of the gunk.  Be sure to wear gloves, though, because that steel wool really hurts!  For the record, that’s my husband’s arm, not mine…my arms are not that hairy!

It’s a lot of work, but somebody’s got to do it…and since I don’t know much about anything else, that person is me!

Day 3: That’s What Friends are For

So, I’ve been pretty remiss in keeping everyone up to date.  The truth is we were busy most of the weekend and didn’t have much time to work on the house.  We had to repaint the living room in our old rent house, and get it all ready to hand back to the landlord.  We also managed to squeeze in a trip to Conway to go to dinner and a movie with some friends, as well as a trip to Mountain Home for dinner and a movie with Andy’s parents, as well as a stop at Lowe’s and Home Depot.  More about that shopping trip later.

Monday we got back to work, but before we did our friends Joey and Syndal dropped by with a recliner to give us.  I think this will quickly become Andy’s “I’m exhausted from working on the house chair”.

After work Andy was planning to work on putting up sheet rock in the kitchen, but first he had to fix some seriously messed up wiring.  There were so many fire hazards it’s not even funny.  But now they’re fixed and ready to go.

Then Andy and I worked on cutting open the ceiling in the kitchen.  We are planning on having a raised ceiling in the middle to open up the room a little more.  We used a chalk line to mark our cuts.  I’ve never used one of these before, but they’re pretty cool.  All you do is hold the string on both ends of where the cuts will go, and then snap the string.  It leaves a perfectly straight line to cut on.

For future reference, be careful not to touch your face afterwards or you will end up looking like you have red whiskers.  Yes, I know now why my mom always told me to stop touching my face.  No, I didn’t take a picture of that.  Instead, you get a picture of the lovely lines we made.

Then Andy took this scary looking drywall saw and started cutting up the ceiling. 

Then he switched to the powered one, which does the job much quicker.

Next we took down the grimy ceiling fan before it came down with the ceiling. :)

Phew…a lot of work done already!  But then we were blessed by Joey and Syndal coming back over (with pizza!) to help us work on the house.  While Syndal and I watched the kids (and I got stung by a wasp :( ), Andy and Joey ripped out the flooring and ceiling, and got the sheet rock up. 

  

I’m so thankful for wonderful friends like Joey and Syndal, who give up their time to come help us work on our house.  And by others, like Jamie, Taylor, Justin, and my in-laws, who helped us move all of our stuff, even while someone’s wife was waiting for him at the creek with their little boys. :)  Yes, we have such amazing friends…and we are so blessed!

Day 2: Every House Has a Story

As long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to buy an old house.  You know…one with a story.  I always thought you’d have to find a house that was 100 years old, or at least 70, to get that story, that character that I ached for.  Of course, the house would be small and cute and would be in complete shambles. 

Little did I know that, when we purchased this home, we would be getting the house with a story that I had always wanted.  No, this house isn’t small or cute, and it certainly isn’t in shambles, but it has a story and a character all its own.  As Andy and I strip away more and more layers of this kitchen, the story and the mystery starts to take shape.

I had hoped that under the laminate flooring in the house we would find beautiful wood floors.  The beautiful kind that only old houses have.  When Andy pulled up the floor cabinets yesterday and found no wood floor underneath, I was disappointed.  That was, until we started unraveling the story.  Under the cabinets against the oven side of the kitchen was old linoleum…obviously original.  We also found a second layer of linoleum, probably from the 1970s, that was placed right above the original.  And then above that is the present laminate. 

Over against the sink wall we discovered even more to the story.  Under these cabinets there was no linoleum, only beautiful pine planking, which Andy says was the predecessor to plywood.  For being 50 years old it was in amazing shape!  We concluded that the original kitchen must have only had cabinets along the wall with the sink. 

 

We discovered even more secrets when we pulled off the strange mirror that was above the sink. (Who wants to look at themselves in the mirror while they do the dishes, anyway?)  Behind the mirror was a window casing in beautiful red pine planking…the really high quality stuff that they only used a long time ago.  Andy says they probably even had a portable saw mill on site while they were building the house.

On the outside of this planking we found the original wood siding!  So, this house not only had been added onto with a garage and a master suite, but also with the third bedroom.  That means that originally this was just a teeny little farmhouse, and that those two tiny bedrooms in the back were once the only bedrooms!  Boy, how times change.  Nowadays, most people would think those rooms were too small for their children, let alone for themselves!

And then the story started to take shape.  You could just see the family living here.  Building a little home for their family.  Living in a rural area, when the road outside probably wasn’t even paved yet.  And then a few years passed and they added on and changed the flooring.  Other owners came and went, and with them the house changed and grew.  And now it’s our turn…our turn to mold this house.  Our turn to be a part of the story of this house.

Yes, every house has a story.  You just have to find it out.  

Day 1: Grossest Kitchen Ever

Yesterday (Wednesday) was our first real renovation day.  We’d already gotten a few things done, like Andy took a backhoe to the drive (which had a giant pothole), and he also weed eated the overgrown grass.  However, today we started getting down to business inside the house.

The first order of business was taking down all the cabinets in the kitchen.  Since we’re simply repainting them, we had to do this carefully and take them down without ruining any of them.  We really weren’t prepared for how nasty the kitchen would be.  The layout and cabinets aren’t that bad, but whoever lived here last really had some sanitary issues.  We found old candy in drawers that had obviously become a nest for our lovely mouse friends.  However, we overcame our gags and just pretended that we were on HGTV.  Although gross, it was really quite fun!

If you’re not getting rid of cabinets, or are hoping to sell them later, then you have to be careful how you take them down.  First, unscrew all of the doors and take them out.’

Next pull out all the drawers.  Once the doors and drawers are out, you can pull off the counter tops.  Usually, you will want to use some sort of crow bar to pry them up.  Or, if you’re lucky like us and find that the counter was never installed properly, you can simply pick them up!

Next, you will probably want to remove the oven and any appliances.  We are saving the oven in our kitchen, which is actually fairly new.  However, the range hood is so caked with nasty grease that we aren’t even going to try to clean it.  Not to mention it was basically hanging on the wall by a nail.  Talk about hanging by a thread!

For the record, there were so many mouse droppings and things that made you barf that I was pretty much pouring bleach on everything.  (Bleach is a safe way to remove mouse droppings).  I pulled up the contact paper in the drawers while bleaching them.  Then I took them outside and sprayed them with straight white vinegar, in order to get some of the grime off.

We discovered that somebody had mudded right over wall paper.  Weird.  There was also paint under some of the drywall we pulled off.  Avocado green.  Oh joy!

 

By the time we finished this, it was time to hit the sack.  It looks better already!

 

Setting up Camp

Well, the house became ours Monday and the past few days have been quite the experience.  It seems like every night we fall into bed exhausted! 

Monday we closed at 11 am, took our realtors out to lunch, and then immediately hit the ground running.  By 9 pm we had almost everything moved into the new house.  Since our first project is redoing the kitchen, we decided to set up a temporary camp in the family room, complete with all our kitchen things, as well as our new fridge. :)

It’s a bit cramped, but it works.

 

Other than that, our only real useable room is the master suite.  Things are starting to take shape in there too.

I’m so excited about having two walk in closets.  I love, love, love organized closets, so this is a dream come true.

We’re starting to get some of our personal items and decorations up as well.  And yes, I know there’s a big ugly hole…still working on that one. 

Slowly but surely it’s starting to feel like home.  Now on to the dirty work of renovating.  We’ve been a bit delayed in that because there’s been some things that need to get done first.  Namely, some serious cleaning, as well as taking care of a mouse problem.  Yes, a mouse problem.  Since I absolutely detest mice, that’s a HUGE problem.  Our first night here, one of the little buggers dared enter my bedroom.  In case you didn’t read that, he entered MY BEDROOM!  While the light was on and we were standing there talking, no less.  The next day I kept hearing them in a back closet of the master suite, and while cleaning I happened to glance over at the jacuzzi bathtub and see another little bugger climbing up the inside of it.  So gross!  Thankfully Andy was sweet enough to come right over (while I sat precariously on the sink counter).  I guess the mouse had been in there all night and I hadn’t noticed because coats had been stacked around the rim.

In our makeshift pantry, it was even worse…there were droppings all over my food cans and they had even nibbled on a pudding packet.  So, cleaning up that area was urgent as well.  I set a billion traps and caught several little ones, as well as one behemoth in the pantry area.  Haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since, so I think we scared the little critters away…at least for now. 

So, now it’s down to the nitty gritty.  It’s going to be a tiring, long, and sometimes frustrating road.  But we are ready.  SO ready!  Welcome to our home.

Finally Ours and Moving In

So, we finally closed on the house on Monday! Then we immediately jumped into moving everything from our rent house into our new house. Set up kitchen in the family room while we redo the real kitchen. Getting everything organized and put away. Oh, and are currently dealing with a really bad mouse problem. As in, they keep running around in my bedroom and got in all my food. But more about that later.

Auction Day

So, I have found a new found love…auctions.  About a month and a half ago, Andy told me that there was going to be a big auction the following day in front of the home supply store in town…they had windows, doors, and a lot of things we would be needing for the new house.  So Saturday morning we got up early and went over to the new house to measure the windows and doors we needed, as well as make a list of anything else we should look for.  Then we drove over to the auction.

Boy was that a new experience!  I felt pretty lost, as I desperately tried to figure out the auctioneers were even saying.  What exactly did “did-dly-uh” mean?  And how were you supposed to know how much your bid was when numbers were flying around like crazy?  Andy told me later that “did-dly-uh” didn’t mean anything, it was just something they say.  He sure knew a lot more about this whole auction thing than I did.  So, I left the bidding to him, who barely nodded his head like a pro.  Meanwhile I kept my hands stiffly at my side, afraid to even scratch my nose for fear I would be bidding $100 on a rusty nail.

As the day went on, however, I found myself flung full force into the process of bidding.  Andy wanted to bid on some lumber, and a box of drawer pulls that we had been eyeing came up for auction at another auction circle.  He told me how high to bid on them and I sauntered over to wait for the drawer pulls to come up.  While I waited, I watched all the other bidders to see what they were doing.  They all seemed so calm and collected…and all had a straight face.  I was just sure that I would never be able to do that…I must have looked like a chicken with its head cut off!

Finally the drawer pulls came up and I jumped in.  I honestly have no idea what amount I bid for them…all I know is that the numbers went very high, and I was suddenly out. I was somewhat relieved that I didn’t accidentally pay $500 for some drawer pulls, but kind of bummed that I didn’t get them.  So, like a dog with its tail between its legs, I quietly slunk back over to Andy, glad that he was much better at this whole auction business than I was.

We were there almost all day, of which Andy’s bright red skin could attest to. In the end, however, it was very much worth it. Here’s a list of what we got and what we paid:

· 5 white paneled interior doors, $10 a piece or $50 total

· 1 large arch window, $42.50

· 3 regular windows, $27.50 a piece or $82.50 total

· 3 bundles of lumber, $170 total

· Stack of plywood, $95

· Privacy fence rails, $55

· Makita saw, $75

· 2 boxes with door knobs and other random items, $40

· 3 boxes of random items (including can lights!), $4 a piece or $12 total

So the grand total was $622! What a great deal, huh?

If I ever find free time again, I think it would be awesome to buy things at auctions and sell them on ebay or at a flea market.  You could seriously make a lot of money!  Either that, or get stuck with a strange collection of useless items.  On second thoughts, maybe I should leave that to people who actually know what they’re doing!

As a note, Andy and I went to another auction this past weekend.  Stay tuned for what happened at that!

Progress

We might just have a final closing date…next Monday, the 20th!  I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally be SO close, and boy am I ready.  Back in May when I thought we were going to close, I was nervous…I wasn’t quite ready to leave our little rent house.  Now, I am.  I’ll miss this dear little place, but I’m ready to move on to the adventure that will be our new home! 

A lot of people we know have thought we’re crazy for moving into a house that we’re going to be doing massive renovations on.  I say, hey, we’re young with no kids yet.  Why not take on a challenge like this?  Yes, I’m going to be living without a kitchen for a little while…but I love camping!  And while we tear out the nasty old stuff in the house, I’ll be able to soak in a nice jacuzzi bathtub every night. (This house is very eclectic…hehe!)  So, bring on the hard work and the sweat, we’re ready to ROCK THIS HOUSE! 

Lesson 57 All Over Again

So, we're not closing tomorrow after all. This time the loan company messed us up, even though they've had two months to figure this whole thing out. Someday...SOMEDAY...we WILL be in this house! Until then, we're camping out at the rent house, with almost everything packed, and mice trying to ruin the last few days we have there.

On a better note, we were able to get a smokin' deal on a brand new refrigerator and dishwasher! The fridge is stainless steel, french door style with a bottom freezer, and water in the door. It's exactly what we wanted, but didn't think we could afford. However, thanks to my wonderful mom, we found this awesome deal. My mom had seen Matt Lauer on The Today Show talk about the different Memorial Day weekend sales going on. At Sears, all of their fridges were 30% off, but one of them was 50% off. Guess which one we got, yeah, the 50% one. :)

We were away on our trip at the time, but while we were in the airport waiting to fly back home Andy called around to different Sears, and finally found one near us that had that fridge in stock. So, Monday morning, after not getting in until 1:30 am, we drove 45 min. to get this fridge and I'm SO glad we did! While we were at it, we got a matching dishwasher to go with it. Yay, yay, YAY!

Now, if only we had a home to put it in...:)