The Secret Garden

I've decided it's time for the secret garden to come out of my laundry room. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: wallpaper was invented by the Devil. I love it so much that I was lucky enough to inherit yet another room of wallpaper on wallpaper, yesssssss.

You know renovation has become routine when...

The dog doesn't even flinch at sawing, banging, clanking, or hammering.

In Awe of DIY Senseis

So obviously our TV is constantly set to either HGTV or the DIY Network.  At some point this weekend, there was a show on DIY where a homeowner was installing his own heater.  And I'm not talking just about the heater itself, I'm talking about the whole venting system that goes along with the heater.  For a very pregnant minute, I thought to myself, "Woooow, that's DIY on steroids.  I'm in total awe."  I have such an appreciation for this man, whoever he was, but also feel quite liberated in knowing that the pressure to do our own venting / heating is a non-issue.  We would never attempt to do that.  Never.  Instead, we have 2 guys here all week installing our new heating / venting for a sum of money that I'm positive the DIY Sensei did not spend.  But well done to the gurus out there who have far more courage and skills than I could ever hope or dream to possess.

Scrubbing Walls

I had very lofty ambitions tonight of painting the back bedroom.  I need an office, and that's as good a place as any to put it.  The problem is that the back bedroom has horrible lighting, unfinished wood panelling, awful hand-made "crown molding" (think pine trim on the top with hand sawed half moons in a pattern underneath).  At the very least, it needs a coat of paint, some light, and some general sprucing up before I feel like I might desire to spend hours upon hours in there.

I thought for sure I could tear down the molding and put up primer tonight.  "Yes!" I thought to myself, "Finally, something that I can accomplish in one go."

Not so.  Upon taking out the molding, I discovered 60 years of dirt, dust, and cobwebs (and, I may have found a couple of cocoons, but I'm telling myself they were merely accumulated dust balls).  So the need to physically clean the walls became quite clear.  And that's basically where my story - along with my night - ends.

I've never cleaned so many damn walls and ceilings in my life as I have in this house.  My hands are shrivelled and have adopted a sandpaper-like consistency.  I'm covered in cobwebs and smell like Pine-Sol. (I figure it was only appropriate to use Pine-Sol in wood paneled walls... right?)  I petered out before I got to scrubbing the ceiling, as close inspection revealed that cobwebs have also accumulated on that surface.  Soooo.  Maybe I can get a coat of paint on those walls by the end of the weekend.  Maybe.  In the meantime, I'm thinking I can probably shave my legs with my bare hands, that's how rough they are.

Out with the old, in with the new!

New Mantra: Fake it till you make it

Soooo, for those of you who have visited our house, you might recall the noticeable absence of a working shower. When we first moved in, we were a bit nervous about that, but were willing to keep an open mind to the romanticism of being forced to take luxurious baths instead. After 4 weeks, what we have learned that baths are no luxury when it's 6:30am on a Monday, you've slept through your alarm, the dog needs a walk, and you have meetings starting at 8am. And, my neck muscles have grown infinitely because constantly lifting the weight of my wet hair from a horizontal position in said bathtub has caused me to look as though I'm a football player on steroids. This bath situation had to be rectified.

The problem is that we're not ready to put in a shower. The vision is to install a new bathtub oppositive of where the current one is, and then knock out the current bathtub, along with the closet behind it, and create a big, happy, bathtub-free walk-in shower. Despite actually having the new bathtub, we still need to do the plumbing for it. Ergo, old bathtub can't be removed yet, ergo, we can't put in the dream shower. What's a couple to do?

The answer lies in a $44 fixtures kit, a $56 plastic shower enclosure, and some elbow grease (which apparently includes hammering, torching, taping, and cursing) to create a make-do shower situation. Sidenote: I do appreciate the Home Depot for having these options available, but it really is criminal for them to charge $56 on the crappy plastic shower enclosure. I hope their shareholders are happy, because I as a consumer am slightly gobsmacked.



This is clearly not the ideal showering experience, but it'll do for now. As ladies have been rumored to say for centuries, sometimes it just makes sense to fake it.

Progressive Progress

I was informed tonight by my mother that I have been "horrible" at keeping up with my blog. It's not that I haven't thought about it. The issue is that Blogger told me I can't upload any more photos. So, you'll have to deal with just text until I can figure out this slight snafu.

We've done a lot. A full 1/3 of the bathroom is tiled with slate (note - it's a bad, bad idea to start with slate if you've never laid flooring before. Not exactly an easy learning curve), new bathtub has been purchased, new vanity is being restored by moi, and today we can triumphantly state that we have mastered one of the sexiest things that had to go into this house: asbestos removal. And by "mastered", I mean that we paid someone to come in and take it all out. Ooh la la. I already feel like I can breathe better.

Tonight, what I'd like to talk about is project management. There's an added layer of complexity when you're doing a big house renovation with your spouse through your own labor. So far, we've managed to work through it fairly well - he does his jobs and I do mine. Occasionally our paths cross and we work in tandem on something, and it's fun. But this afternoon felt altogether different. Let me set the stage: with the asbestos-laden venting now removed, the last and final obstacle to us placing our new bathtub in its final resting spot has been lifted. I'm very excited about this, but I also feel like, tonight, I'd like to take the night off. So I casually suggest to Luke that perhaps we (i.e., "he") can just remove the posts that had surrounded the vent (those which were in the way of me and my bathtub vision), and we call it a night.

That was an hour ago. He removed the posts, fine. But then he started to get concerned that there was too much weight in the ceiling without those posts, and that the ceiling would tragically come down. Not caring too much about the ceiling, but caring greatly for the wellbeing of my new toilet and bathtub, I take an active role in brainstorming how to fix this. And by active role... well, he, in his work boots and work goggles, with hammer in hand, is cleverly figuring all of this out, while I am sitting on the floor in flip flops enjoying a glass of red wine, writing this blog, and providing critical moral support. I think I better go make him dinner, something involving lots of meat and very little tofu, before he twigs on to this evening's interpretation of "project management" and gets angry at me.

Who needs contractors when you have parents?

My parents - the best parents on Earth - took a week of their vacation time to come all the way out to California and work on the house. Their good ol' midwestern attitude towards work meant that the two of them got more done in 5 days than Luke and I could hope to achieve in a whole week (it does help that they didn't have the little issue of having to work getting in the way). Mom artfully stripped the kitchen of all wallpaper and (the 4 layers of) glue, got rid of the wood panelled wainscoating, and painted out all of the dark, dreary mustard and aqua paint with a refreshing shade of white. Dad did what he does best and played in the yard by tearing out most of the stone clad "gardens" that lined the house and removing creepy, spindly bonzais. Dad and Luke got to swing hammers into walls as we knocked out the master closet to enlarge the bathroom, while I painstakingly took out the 3rd bedroom carpet and dried-out, crusted, and flaking padding under said carpet. Home Depot also came to replace windows at the front of the house. All in all, it was quite a productive week! Before and after pictures forthcoming.

Let there be light

What a busy weekend! Luke successfully took down the shed that was attached to the garage, effectively expanding the backyard by 1/3. Meanwhile, I was hard at work gardening, ridding the neighbors of their front row view of dead bushes, flowers, and weeds. What I learned this weekend: having a lemon tree, 3 orange trees, a cherry tree, a fig tree, a plumb tree, and 2 black / red raspberry bushes is all fine n' good in theory, but they drop a lot of fruit. I am forever sworn off of oranges after rooting through, picking up, and discarding rotten oranges fallen from grace and lounging on our lawn. My new form of torture is orange-scented... anything.

Be gone, ugly awning

Mold, mold, moldedy mold

I wasn't sure what kind of relationsihp I'd have with mold, but as suspected, I discovered tonight that it is, indeed, gross. Sink and tub in the bathroom turned out to be fine and not a problem to tear out (with the exception that the tub weighs a metric ton... how on Earth do you go about lifting that??), but the toilet leaked. Heavily. So the mold was everywhere. The good news is that it's all now nicely prepared to have the mold guys come in an get rid of it. The bad news is that we haven't decided on a design for the bathroom so it will remain in demo state until we can.

The Bathroom Has Begun

Sound the horns - tonight we got to start on the renovation! First up: the main bathroom. While it was basking in a glow of glory with avocado green, yellow, and chocolate brown, we decided it was the perfect candidate for our first project. Highest priority is fixing the floor, which is damp from leaks. Note to DIY'ers - linoleum is just as much fun to take up as you imagine it to be (which, for most of you, would be "not very"). I had my first proud moment when I - not Luke, ahem - figured out a clever way to unstick 60-year old linolum from a very glue happy base. Mwahahahah. I would tell you what that tactic is, but then I'd be required to know the name of the tool that I used, which I don't.

What I learned tonight: linoleum can be cut with an Exacto knife, not all things that look like tile actually ARE tile (we had some strange plastic imitation instead... which turned out to be exceedingly easy to remove), there is a layer of floor between linoleum and sub-floor that isn't particularly high on the "easy to remove" list, and to prevent lots of creaking in floors, one can choose to use lots of staples in laying the floor. Which, consequently, means that renovating a floor requires one to remove lots of staples.

Our project manager Lucy the Dog drove us hard, but there's still more to do. Tomorrow's project: finish removing the Purgatory of flooring (that layer of floor between linoleum and sub-floor), remove toilet and sink, try not to sit on any staples we missed, remember to bring the ShopVac, and come up with a better plan for dinner. Stay tuned!

One step closer...

What they don't tell you about buying a house (especially in the current economy...) is how HARD it is to get through the loan process. Despite the pain, we have FINALLY submitted our downpayment today! If all goes well, we may even be ripping out bathroom floors by next week - get ready!

Our Willow Glen Ranch Renovation!

We are starting this blog to detail the journey we will be undertaking in buying our first home, which just happens to be a fixer-upper. We chose location over all else, and we got a real basket case of a house, but in a great neighborhood. We look forward to sharing our stories and adventures on the house's history, and our exploits at attempting to do most of the restoration and "modernization" ourselves. That's right, we are all about the DIY!