It's Magic

Just a quick mid-week update.  Things have been busy this week.  I had my graduate school orientation all day on Wednesday, so that limited my time at the house.  But things are moving along.  We've started painting (with color!), so look for an update soon.  To keep you informed, though, I figured I'd give you a quick update on a simple project I did a week or so ago.

I was needing some instant gratification and the boys were all busy with other things (involving lots of beating and banging if I remember correctly) so I decided to work on the the door coming in from the garage.  It was dirty and nasty and had been bothering me since we closed on the house.

Dirty, dirty door.

 See, the man that owned the house before loved working on cars.  In his garage.  And apparently he never washed his hands before coming inside.  So the door was super nasty, especially right in the middle.

Grease and grime and dirt.  Ewww.

Eventually, we'll probably end up painting it when we do the garage, but for the moment, I wanted to clean it up some.  So I attacked it with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

I wasn't sure when I started if the Magic Eraser was up to the test.  But, it turns out, it really is magic.  I scrubbed and scrubbed and low and behold, it came clean.  There are still a few places where I couldn't get.  And there is a big patch around the door knob where they painted the door at some point, but didn't cut in and didn't take the knob off.  But it looks 100% better than it did.

Much better.

Thank you Mr. Clean.

Monster Garage

I know I've mentioned our lovely garage a few times already, but I though you might appreciate a few pictures.  Warning:  It's not pretty.

First, the termite damage to the wall:

From far away, it doesn't look too bad.

Oh, wait.  It's looking worse.

And worse.

A couple of studs are mostly gone.

And some rot at the bottom.  

An all new baseplate is in order.

And it goes nearly all the way across the wall.

And, there is giant hole in the ceiling near the garage door opener from a roof leak.  That will have to be patched as well.

Oh, and don't forget the bee hive that was hiding in the wall.

But the bees seem to be mostly gone now.  Thank goodness.
This is right by the front door and the door in from the garage.

As you can tell, we're going to be spending a good bit of time putting the garage back together,  but not until we get some of the inside put back together.  And there is going to be a lot of drywall work going on inside as well.  And lots and lots of painting.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

So, I figured I'd post some new photos of the house, including some of places that haven't been posted yet.  Some are from just after we closed, before any work was done, and some show some progress.  I'll let you know which ones are which.

The Front Garden before I went on my weeding purge.

The pool before the deck came down.  Anyone want to go for a swim?

Really, the water is nice, I swear.  

The deck before it came down.

And, where the deck was after a full day of work.

Now we just have to remove the pool.

The Living Room on Closing Day.

And now, after the carpet and trim have been removed.  Still a long way to go.

The garage before the drywall came down.

And the ceiling issues.  

That odd bump out?  It's the master closet.  

And the garage after the wall came down.

When we found our very own bee hive between the fiberboard and the stone.

What is left of the wall after the termites had their way.  

The master bathroom vanity area.

And the master bedroom closet.  

Inside the actual master bathroom. 

And the master shower.  I'm still not allowed to see the nasty floor.

After the shower was taken out.

And where we are now.  Walls have come down and the space is empty.

See, no more drywall.

 So, what are we up to now?  Well, the project of the last couple of nights has been to remove the tile in the entryway.  We finally got it all up last night, but there are still some screws to remove.

Front door and the tile that is now gone.

They must have used a million screws on the concrete board.  It wasn't easy to pull it up, and it isn't easy to get the screws out.  I hope I never have to do it again!  I'll have more progress pictures coming up.

Oh What a Weekend it Was

Normally the first weekend of the Olympic Games would find me parked in front of a television.  This weekend, however, there were more important things going on.  Friday I got my first look inside our new house since April.  I was a bit underwhelmed.  The carpet had been removed (thankfully, or so I've been told), as had the shower stall and toilet in the Master bathroom.

Maybe it was the fact that the house was so empty, or maybe it was just having more time to look around, but everything seemed so much shabbier this go round.  The paint (which we think is from when the house was built in 1979) is so stained up that some walls are nearly black near light switches and doorways.  The wood molding and baseboards were cut so badly that many don't meet in the corners.  The few light fixtures that exist are outdated and many are broken or missing covers.  And the flower beds were so overgrown with weeds and grass that you couldn't see many of the plants that were planted there on purpose.

Friday was spent mostly looking around and deciding on a plan for the rest of the weekend.  We had gotten a late start since a round of severe storms rolled in about the time I got to Cincinnati.  The power went out almost immediately, and Landon and I watched from the basement as the trees behind the house were nearly laid over flat.  With no electricity, we went out to eat with Landon's parents.  Afterwards we headed to the house to have a look around.  Landon and his Dad started pulling down drywall in the garage to assess the extent of the termite damage there.  It doesn't look good with several of our studs being nearly gone from insects, rodents, and the constant flow of water into the garage due to improper grading of the driveway.

Taking down walls in the garage.

And finding that what's behind the walls isn't all that good.

Saturday started with a trip to a local home supply store to have a look at their selection of cabinets, countertops, vanities, doors, and moldings.  We also popped into the local Habitat ReStore just to see what we could find.  We didn't buy anything, but I'm sure there will be many trips back now that we've had a chance to see what we're lacking.  By 11:30 we were at the house where Landon's Dad Alan was already at work with a couple of friends pulling molding.  I got to work pulling up the staples left from the carpet padding while the boys went to work in the backyard to start dismantling the deck.

At noon, a structural engineer arrived to help us figure out what we can do with the front part of our house.  He had just started his analysis when our friends Brad, Ann, and Alex arrived.  I did a walkthrough with them while Landon worked with the engineer.  Ann is a designer and will be helping me figure out what to do with this house, so I was excited for her to get to see it in person.  We talked about different ideas for how to open up the rooms as well as how to arrange furniture while Brad went out back to work with the other boys on the deck.

We had several other friends arrive over the next few hours, which was good since before the boys could totally dismantle the deck, they had to move the hot tub out of the way.  It took 8 men, 4 metal pipes, 2 wooden pallets, and two women to get the tub off the deck and onto the pallets on the ground.  It seemed easy; except for my spill on the slick deck boards there were no mishaps.  After the hot tub was on the ground, the boys proceeded to dismantle the rest of the deck.

Inside, Ann and I talked paint colors and what walls to take down.  I worked some more on the staples and then, since it was a nice day, we moved outside to tackle some of the weeds.  When we started, the bed next to the driveway looked like this:

Sorry for no "after" picture.  The bees made it hard to take photos.

It wasn't a pretty sight.  There were weeds nearly four feet tall in places as well as some small trees growing up in the beds.  Not to mention the grass.  There was almost as much grass in the beds as there was in the lawn.  But it wasn't all bad.  There were some nice flowers in there, they just needed to be liberated.  We worked on the beds until it was time to quit, and boy were we dirty.  After a quick trip back to Landon's Parents' house where we all showered and changed, we took everyone out to dinner at Silver Springs House.  The food was delicious, but we were all tired.  I had intended to write up a post last night, but once we got back to the house, it was all I could do to stay awake long enough to watch some of the Olympics before crashing into bed.

Today was more low key.  We slept in a bit and got to the house a few minutes after Landon's folks.  The boys started in the garage, working to remove the rest of the drywall, while I picked up the weeds from yesterday's weed pulling festival and then worked on cleaning up a few of the other beds.  I finished the bed next the the front of the house under the front windows before deciding to tackle the small bed around the mailbox.  I was hard at work there when Alan came running out of the garage.  He had found a bee hive between our stone and the fiberboard.  The bees were upset at having their house destroyed, so they chased him out of the garage into the yard.  After he got stung a couple of time in the yard, we both retreated into the house via the back door (using a ladder) since the garage and front door were now swarmed by bees.

Alan ready to do battle with the bees.

Since finishing the yard work was now out of the question, I went to work removing nails from the trim taken down the day before (since we're planning on saving it to use in the basement later).  The men started work removing the rest of the master bathroom, while Valerie (Landon's Mom) worked on more staples.  The two vanities were removed and placed in the master bedroom, and then the drywall between the "vanity room" and the master bath proper was taken out.  Landon also removed the walls and shelves from the master closet.

My master bedroom.  Complete with vanities.  It's a good look.

The room formerly known as the master closet.  Empty.  

Landon and Alan finishing up the vanity removal.

The empty master bath.  All the subfloor in here has to be replaced.
Right now it's nearly an elevator to the basement.

Later, I got into the act a bit and got my first taste of removing some drywall.   While I didn't get to smash it with a sledge hammer like you see on so many of the tv shows, I still found it very fulfilling taking down some walls.  It was certainly more fun that pulling up staples.  All too soon, however, it was time for me to head back to Lexington so I could finish out my last two days of work.  I'll be back on Wednesday, but for now, I'm back in Kentucky (and ready for some sleep).