Anatomy of a Remodel: Week Twelve and Thirteen.

Sigh. It's been a week of no steps forward, two steps back.

 

Our rental house remodel is again on hold. We had a move-out at the duplex, and all of the work that comes along with that. The old renters need a place closer to work on the other side of town. Us Billings-ites hate having more than a ten minute commute. Our renters have lived here for nearly four years, and have four little rowdy boys. We expected some work, and we weren't disappointed.

 

The renter had painted the front door a bright blue. We will be restoring it to a neutral white.

 The renter had painted the bedroom the same bright blue, but restore it herself to the neutral tan it had been. There are also a number of "oops" bright blue spots on the ceiling. She was kind enough to leave the ceiling for us to do. I love painting ceilings. Not.

All of the closet doors had been broken. Did I tell you they have four active little boys?

We had put up a safety gate for this little family--they had two babies while living here and needed some protection from those steep stairs.

They had managed to over-extend the hinge, and dent the wall corner. This may be a time consuming repair.

There were a few "my kid hung on the cabinet door" ruined hinges in the kitchen.

All of the window coverings are missing,

but they left us some furniture and (as Megan would say) a ghetto tv. These two things are downstairs so that we can develop muscle getting them out of the house.

 

They also put random spots of primer on the family room paneling.

There was a puzzling piece of carpet laying on top of the basement bedroom carpet. Mystery (not) solved: for some reason, they had cut out some carpet and replaced it with a non-matching piece.

This same bedroom had paneling in it that had been (sort of) painted, but it had a few random spots of non-matching paint on the walls,

some not quite done places,

with yet other walls with lovely crayon artwork.

We will be repainting the bedroom and painting the paneling in this downstairs family room. Don't you love those cute little windows with the darling little curtains? They need some help.  Also, the carpet is 20 years old, and it will need replacing.

There were several phone wall connectors that had been taken off the wall, and one plug outlet that had been pulled off. It gave me an unpleasant shock when I brushed by it. These will all need to be repaired or capped.

The fireplace had some real treasures in it, including the missing doorknob from the bedroom and a used diaper.

Stan sledged-hammered out the hearth. This fireplace is not usable (the upstairs has been converted to gas) and yet had been used. We are forever removing temptation by dry walling over the bricks. I always hated that weeping mortar anyway. Please (please!) note the primed wall behind Stan. I primed the entire room, and I've got painter's elbow to prove it. 



The rental has actually been left in decent shape. Upstairs it's clean and needing only minor repairs. We expect the repairs and restores to take two weeks, then we're back on track at the rental house.