Anatomy of a Remodel: Week 28

After putting a sign in the yard at the duplex, we had 23 calls of interest. We rented it to the first people who filled out an application.

 

You know what that means.

Yep.

We're back to our little house remodel.

 

 

And boy oh boy, have we come to a lot of conclusions after our duplex experience!

For one thing, we've hired a friend/worker to speed things along.

 

While we were working at the duplex, we hired someone to reroof the little house. This was made necessary by last year's hailstorm. While they were up there, they pulled out the pipe from the free-standing stove (the one our insurance company nixed) and roofed over the hole.

The cheap inside doors were all heavily damaged from 40 years of use, and they've now all been taken down. We will be replacing all of them. The molding was a one-piece deal, something we've never seen. They're history, too.

All of the nailing strips for carpet have been removed.

The hole left by the old fireplace stove has been patched and is ready for texturing and painting.

After a lot of deliberation, we decided to take out the pony wall, that half-wall between the hall and dining room. I'm loving how the space is now open and looks larger and more modern.

The lower kitchen cabinets have been removed in preparation for flooring.

Here's another view of the destroyed pony wall.



The best thing about this week? Stan and our worker did it all. I just dropped in to take pictures. 

Now I get to spend several days painting during the day so that flooring can be started this weekend.

We are really (really really!) hoping to be done by early March.



Anatomy of a Remodel, Weeks 20-27

As promised, here's the other kind of post I relentlessly do: a bogged down in remodeling post.

 

I'm not going to lie. Between the holidays and Stan's church responsibilities, the duplex progress slowed to a crawl. I did all the projects I could do, but there's just so many things I'm not capable of, like painting over the blue paint on the ceiling. Popcorn ceiling painting takes a surprising amount of shoulder strength and experience has taught me I will be living at the physical therapist if I take it on, so I thoughtfully let Stan do it.

 

Here's the before

 

and after. It looks perfect. It's hard to see in the above picture, but the blue paint was not only spotted on random ceiling spaces, but was also all around the edge of the room.  This was a time-consuming job, but Stan eventually managed to find the time.

He also found time to hang the new curtains

and fix the unflushing toilet by replacing it with a better toilet from ReStore, a shop owned by Habitat for Humanity we love to frequent (we need to get a life). Instead of a $200 toilet from Lowe's, we found a $35 gently used, quality toilet.



Here's another project I can't do: help replace the sliding glass door. Stan is always sure with enough encouragement, I can muscle that 2 ton window into place and hold it while he cements it in. Fortunately, McKay was in town long enough to do that part for me. Thanks, McKay!

The kitchen is done; the missing cabinet knobs, missing kickboard, and two broken shelves replaced.

The dozens of large holes and 5 or 6 random towel racks added by renters have been removed and repaired in bathroom #1, along with more missing kickboard. 



All the closet doors have been replaced, and new, faux wood blinds have replaced the broken and missing blinds.

The living room has new curtains

the storage room has been emptied and swept,

the family room no longer has a non-working, but tempting fireplace, and has been painted and carpeted,

and all of the broken, missing outlets have been fixed and the old telephone connections have been capped.

The garage door now goes up and down on command.

This place was new and pristine when our last renters took over. It's really hard to see how much wear and tear remains. There are a few things we are just not going to be restored this time around: the uber cheap toilet in bathroom #2 that replaced the top-of-the-line toilet that broke when "the bathroom door came off and fell on the toilet and broke it". Our old renter replaced it himself. I'm impressed he was able to find such a spectacularly cheap one. I suspect we will be replacing it sooner rather than later, just not today.

There's the garage floor that has yuck from...  I don't know. I'm guessing it's oil + battery acid, or perhaps the bathroom spot of the-dog-they-weren't-suppose-to have, but it could be where an alien spacecraft landed.

There's extensive floor damage. We will never put laminate flooring in a rental again. It just doesn't hold up. My own kitchen laminate is 16 years old and is just now beginning to show wear and tear, but nothing like this.

There are still a few random crayon/marker decorations. We're ignoring them because

STICK A FORK IN US! WE'RE DONE!!!!!



You understand, of course, "done" is a relative term. We are still mid-remodel in our little house, and with our record-breaking warm temps, yard work at the 4-plex can't be far away.....



Love Is All Around

I commented recently to one of my daughters that my posts consist of "Here's the crafts I did with the grandkids" followed by "See how bogged down we are with the rentals". Just to prove my point, here's a craft/grandkid post which will be followed in a few days with a bogged down/rental post.

 

My life is so exciting. 

 

 We've done enough Valentine's Day themed crafts to last us for awhile. I pretty much create these from the supplies I have in the house or the things that I find on super good sales at the local craft stores. Frequently, I'm not sure when we start what the end product will be.

I found some canvases on sale recently at Walmart, and here's what we did with them:

First, we painted them the color of love black.

These two love to slather on paint an inch deep when a thin coat would do just as well.

Next we took a fake sheet of music I had in my paper supplies, which I carefully ripped around the edges, then Hailey and Makayla mod podged it to the canvas. 

I was gifted a cricut last Christmas, which Ashley kindly taught me to use when she was in town. The girls loved this contraption. I think there's going to be lots of cricut crafts in our future.

After teaching the girls how to figure out the center of the project, we stuck our vinyl letters on.

They each chose their own style of letters and wanted to add hearts. 

 

 

I think they just wanted to watch the cricut cut some more, but hey, it looks cute



Random picture: crafting is messy AND Hailey wants a picture of her new scriptures/carrying case.

Don't ask me to explain the socks.  

Remember these cute rustic boxes Stan made for me a few years ago? The ones we grew wheat grass in and used as centerpieces for our RS broadcast?

I've given this one a new life with the help of Hailey and Makayla. I had these wooden hearts, which I turned over to the girls to decorate with paint anyway they wanted while I painted the box red.  I had some pictures of that process, but I had problems with my computer and they disappeared when I downloaded them. After everything dried, I glued the hearts onto the box.

The hearts go all the way around, and the box looks spiffy on the ledge next to the front door. These boxes hold five 1 pint canning jars perfectly, and when I have a sec, I'll paint the jars white and fill them with either silk flowers or Costco flowers. So, yeah, we'll just enjoy the empty, but decorated box this year.

Finally, we did our third and last Valentine's project of the year.

It involved those three staples of crafting: the popsicle stick, the glue gun, and the empty toilet paper roll.

We glued the pertinent parts together,



painted the base pink,

and the letters red.

I bent the tp roll into a heart shape and the girls stamped 

and stamped. These will be the background for the popsicle part.

In my storage room I have a collection of frames from thrift stores, left behind renter stuff, and days gone by that I've kept, no doubt knowing I'd be framing masterpieces by future grandkids.

I found a couple of frames that actually match and were the right size, so we put things together, and found a space to hang them.

Here's Makayla's creation,

and Hailey's creation.

That's about all the love I can take. Now I'm off to clean and photograph our lovely rental.

Stay tuned!