Trash - Always Ask What Is Covered In The Bill.

It so nice to have terrific neighbors.  On both sides of the house, the neighbors are super nice and have been great about answering my silly questions about the neighborhood and where to find things.  They also have both offered to allow me to put my food type trash out with their trash pickup pile every week so I don’t have to start up trash service for the house.  So for a couple of months now, I have been going out late at night and putting out a bag of trash with each of the neighbors every week before trash pickup day.

The big stuff that the trash truck won’t take or that is harder to hide in the neighbors cans has been piled into the garage.  And now there is a large pile of stuff like all of the toilets, carpet, tree limbs and a bathtub that needs to go to the dump.

My small car is just not going to fit a bathtub in the back, much less everything else.  Next best thing is a rental truck.  Rented a small enclosed moving truck from the local lot and brought it home.  Backed it up the driveway and starting loading the thing.  I didn’t think there was enough junk to fill the truck, but it was full to the top.  Took me all night, but it was loaded up and ready go.

About half way through filling the truck, one of my neighbors came over to say hi.  We were chatting for a little and then he said, “you know, it just dawned on me since your loading all this junk onto the truck, your water bill also covers trash pickup service….”.

Apparently, since the water bill was going to my primary residence,  I never saw the paperwork that stated that trash service was included in the water bill.  All this time I was sneaking out late at night to dump small bags of trash when I could have just been putting it out to the curb.

Needless to say, we both had a big belly laugh over that one.  A dump run would still need to be done for the large items, but the truck would have been a lot lighter.  Moral of the story, always ask what is covered in the bill.

The next morning I drove the truck out to the dump and dumped all of those large items. It only took about an hour to unload, but at least it was done.

The Carpet Disaster

I made a huge mistake.  When we purchased the house, the carpets were a mess.  With steam cleaner in hand, I had this crazy idea that all of the stains would come right out.  There were black, red, green, and blue spots scattered sporadically throughout the home.  Not to mention the usually dirt and traffic foot patterns.  So though all of the painting, I kept the floor covered, thinking I could save the carpet, and also thousands of dollars.

When the painting was all done, and all of the plastic remove, the cleaning began.  Tried everything.  Every spot removal treatment, every home remedy, every suggestion I could find online.  Went to every home store and asked everyone.  No luck.  Wasted literally days working on trying to save it, not to mention the waste of time covering the carpet for painting.

Finally, after lots of elbow grease, sore hands and knees, a ton of soap and cleaners, sweat, and even tears, I gave up.  The carpet had seen its day and now it was time for it to go.

Sadly, I wondered down to the carpet store to order up new carpet for the entire house as there was not a room in the place that did not have some sort of stain somewhere.  The carpet store could not get anything installed for 8 weeks.  I had made a horrible mistake.  Never in my wildest dreams did I realize that carpet now days would take that long to install and I can’t wait that long.

 

So I went to the big box store.  It cost me about five hundred dollars more, but they could get it installed in a week.  I saved a couple of hundred bucks by pulling out the old carpet myself.  They would send a measuring person the next day.

So that night I start ripping carpet.  It was cut into manageable pieces, rolling it up, and hauling it to the garage with all of the other items to go to the dump.  To save money, the tack strips were left so they could be reused.

While I was rolling up the carpet, I kept finding things under it.  This was especially true in the stair way.  Things like ink pens and toys.  It looked like the kids who used to live here where hiding pens and toys under the carpet.  It explains all of the different color spots throughout the house.

A gentleman measured the house for the new carpet.  He put everything into the computer and sent it off to the installers.

The installers where great and did a wonderful Job.  First thing they did was throw out the computer instructions.  The computer did not take into account traffic patterns.  Instead, they installed all of the carpet based on traffic patterns so as not to have seams in the wrong places, and they ended up using less carpet.

The house is starting to come together.

Kitchen is done... finally

The kitchen is done, finally.  Man oh mighty that was a tough job.  I started out on one side of the kitchen on a small wall.  The one wall I choose to start on the former owner thankfully painted before they put up the wall paper.  But that is where the thankfulness stopped.

None of the other walls where painted before putting up the wallpaper.  Seriously. None of them.  And the stuff was put up everywhere.  On the back of every shelf outside a cabinet.  Above the cabinets.  Along every edge.  Everywhere.  Plus the stuff is textured so I can’t just paint over it without the flower overlay on top of the plaid to show through.  (Yes, I tried on a small spot, but no luck.)

Then, when I took down the blinds to paint in the breakfast nook (because they even wallpapered that horrible stuff on the ceiling of the breakfast nook) I found that the screws holding up the blinds where also holding up the entire back side of drywall on the ceiling.  (Grrrr)

Four Coats of One-Coat Paint

So, here is what happened to fix it.  First thing to do was to secure the ceiling in place so it doesn’t come down.  The entire room and all of the cabinets and floor got covered in plastic because this is going to be a mess.  Every inch of wall has to be covered and scraped in drywall mud to fill in the texture.  The mud goes on super thin, so not too worried about cracking.  However, it took me three times of doing the process to get everything super smooth to my satisfaction.  This means that every inch of wall had to be mud-ed, dried, sanded, wiped down to get rid of the drywall dust, and then done again two more times.  All this just to hide the texture and make sure it lasts.

Six Coats of One-Coat Paint

Then everything had to be painted.  The wallpaper was so loud that it took six, yes, that’s right, six, coats of one-coat paint to cover it up so it doesn’t show through anymore. 

To get the plastic off, a knife had to be used to cut away the dried paint because this room took so long to do.  Cleaned everything up and called it a done.

Now on to the next project.

Starting the Kitchen

Now to start on the kitchen.  The cabinets’ are not all that bad.  A little banged up and dirty maybe, but not horrible.  Will call it a rustic country kitchen when it’s all clean.  It’s really the walls that have me worried more than anything.  All of the walls have a multicolored plaid wallpaper that has a translucent flower overlay.  It’s really hard to capture in photos, but either way, it has to go.

Started with the cleaning everything first.  There is spaghetti sauce splatters everywhere.  No kidding.  It’s even under the cabinets at the kick plate.  Looks like the former owners had a spaghetti fight in there before they left.

Pulled out the stove and there was a ton of icky gunk underneath it, behind it, and running down all four sides of it.  No sign of mice, thank goodness, because if they found this spot, the little fur balls would be there forever and live fat dumb and happy without anyone ever knowing they where there.

All of the old shelf paper was removed from the cabinets and everything got a good cleaning inside and out with lots of soap, water, and elbow grease.

There is a water filter under the sink that was turned off because apparently one of the valves leaked.  It was a five dollar fix and it’s good as new.  Replaced the water filter and it’s ready to go.

The dishwasher seems to be working ok.  The stove is very old.  Have had bad luck with an old gas stove blowing up in the past, so before doing anything with it, the gas company was called out to look at it.  They ran gas through all the lines and tested the stove.  It seems to be working just fine.  So since it’s working, cleaned that up inside and out as well.

The ceiling fan was just as dirty as the rest.  When it was dirty, it looked really old and nasty to the point it was about to be thrown out.  But all cleaned up, it looks great and is ready to go.

The windows had some badly placed tinting on them so all the glass had to be taken out, the tint film removed, and then cleaned with Goo Gone to remove the sticky stuff.  Then a good cleaning with soap and water to remove the Goo Gone and then a final cleaning with window cleaner and it's good to go.

Now to peel off that nasty wall paper.

The Master Bedroom

The Master bedroom is done.  All of that Red Paint.  What were they thinking?  And the silver sponge effect.  I know, I know, it must have looked great with their furniture right???  Nobody taped any of the trim so there are paint brush swipe marks all over the trim.  At least they didn’t hurt the doors, windows, lights, or most of the hardware.

Before

The blinds in the window had splashes of red on the top rail where they where mounted.  So the blinds had to come out.  I was able to save the blinds by cleaning them up with soap and water then cleaning/scraping off paint from the top mounting rod.  However, the mounting brackets where completely caked in the red paint.  Pulled them all off and repaired the drywall holes.  Then took one of the brackets to the hardware store to match the size.  Unfortunately this is a custom size and all of us (literally, there were 3 store associates helping me look) could not find the exact match.  However, we did find one that was slightly larger.  And with a little wood modification to fill in the gap, it worked like a charm.  After the room was painted and dried, the blinds where hung back up and they look as good as new.

Washed/scrubbed all of the walls with TSP.  Then started the paint.  It took about 5 coats of the one-coat-paint, but finally got it so the red can’t be seen anymore.  Everything is a nice and creamy white semi-gloss so it will be easy to clean later on down the line.

After

The closet looks great and with a little soap, water, and elbow grease, it cleaned up nicely.  There was no cover for the hole in the wall that leads to the plumbing in the master bath, so a plastic utility cover was picked up.  And with a little cutting on the drywall to make it look nice and level and square and it’s all covered up.

The ceiling fan is beautiful and quite functional.  However, it looks like nobody has ever cleaned it.  And I mean ever.  The blades were covered in dust and the glass on the lights was filthy.  None of the bulbs worked anyways, so all of the light bulbs got removed.  Then the glass was taken down and thoroughly washed with hot soapy water.  They were so caked with dirt that when cleaned, they look like new glass.  The blades and housing where dusted and pledged.  The housing was cleaned and vacuumed.  Then it all got put back together and looks terrific (and new).