One Sixty: October 2005

Getting High In My House

Wait, no. That title is misleading isn't it? Well, probably got your attention. Again, Mike and I talked to a friend who's dad is friends with our house mover. He told him to tell us that he thought we should call the house mover again and let him know we have the money in our bank account.

So, I gave him a call, expecting to leave a message. Of course, the one time I want to leave a message, he answers the phone. (I feel like I'm being super annoying because I've called him so much... although once a month shouldn't be considered super annoying...) Anyway, he said he would be in the office Wednesday evening and could talk to me then. He also said he had a job he was doing near my house, sooo, he could do my house at the same time.

It's all very good news... except for the fact that my Halloween party is in less than 3 weeks. THE BIGGEST BASH O DA YEAR peepholes. I'm scared that my house will be in the air on the date of the party. I don't want to cancel, because I haven't been able to hold this party in two years! I'd be very sad. But I know if Bob says he has time to do the job - I need to jump on the opportunity.

Ooops #1,982,345

Everyday this house foils me. Once I complete one task - there they are, 10 others unfinished. I begged and pleaded and Mike finally gave himself to the house last weekend.

Our first task was trimming out the closets for doors. In the laundry/mudroom, we discovered that we hadn't counted on trim when we built the closet door opening. So the finished opening wasn't wide enough for the doors we had originally planned on. Now we have to go with one larger bi-fold and one smaller one instead of two large ones. Ooops #1.

Then we discovered that we had trimmed the inside of the guest room closet before it had been drywalled. So, we had to cut the drywall, get the old trim out of there, and nail on the correct trim boards. Ooops #2.

Next, we headed upstairs and trimmed the two closets there relatively painlessly. However, when we went to put on the one set of closet doors we had, we discovered that they were the short doors and not the tall doors the closet opening had been built for. Ooops #3. And we can't return these doors because they've already been opened and have sat in our garage for 4-6 months. AND and, they won't fit anywhere else either. Ooops #1,982,345. Nothing is ever easy!

We also installed the curtain rods on the second floor. That went well, no oops there, thank goodness. It's finally good to get the curtains I bought 2 months ago up in the bedroom. Privacy sweet privacy, if you know what I mean.

But then it was on to the kitchen and the super-sale cabinet pulls I bought online to replace the ugly knobs that were on all the cabinet doors and drawers earlier. You know, the ones that have also been sitting there a good 2-3 months or more. Well, turns out the supplied hardware is impossible to work with. I can't even tell you why, it would boggle your mind. Imagine screws that you have to cut and there's no template to tell you where to drill the 2nd hole for the pull and you can't screw in the screws all the way because of their weird blank space in the middle of the threads design ahhhhhhhh. We finally had to go to the Depot and buy washers so that the pulls could be installed correctly. I'm not sure if all the headache was worth the money I saved on the pulls themselves. And they're still not done yet. Fatigue set in after we finished the upper cabinets.

Rumors of Good News

I've been at work all night, watching random TV and ripping DVDs. Don't ask. I was thinking about our house. How much I want it up in the air. How much I hate waiting and waiting and not hearing. I looked back on blogs past to find out when it was the last time I'd heard from our contractor... it was a month ago, nearly to the day. What did he say then? That he was finishing up on several jobs and would mail us out a letter with a start date asap.

I really hoped I would have this job done before I made the first payment on our equity loan, but no such luck. I mailed it at the end of last week with a heavy heart. If we could just get the basement poured, I could get the appraisal done and get this damned PMI off my mortgage payment and pay this loan a lot easier, a lot faster.

Mike's friend Chad whos dad is friends with our contractor told Mike who told me that the contractor is the type of guy who makes you wait and wait and wait until you've nearly given up hope (Like I have) AND THEN, and only then, he shows up at your house and wants to do the job that very day! Only, when will our day come? If he wants to be crazay like that, fine, but I wish he'd let me know when he's randomly going to show up.

Meanwhile Mike and I put up curtains and vacuum the rugs and buy little red toaster ovens while we wait. I'd rather be tackling the basement.

Pics

Blog Story

My now husband Mike and I purchased this quaint home back in spring of 2004 - our first home - and, being the handy folks we are, expected to have the entire thing renovated in about a year or so.

And here we still are... renovating away.

This house needed a complete overhaul. Its plaster walls were uninsulated, its attic floor covered in 2" of bat guano, its basement - dirt and snakes, its exterior - asbestos siding, and lead paint windows in every room. The electric had not been updated and light sockets hung bare from the ceiling. Plumbing featured cast iron radiators - and only one for the entire upstairs.

We began by gutting almost the entire house from top to bottom. (sans bathroom - we needed to pee) We rebuilt the entire upstairs, with a new floor (not new carpet or wood - the once unstable framing underneath) and turned 3 small rooms into two. We reinvented the downstairs by turning a closet into a hallway and eliminating interior exterior windows and doors from old half-assed additions.

New insulation, windows, electrical wiring (including phone and CAT-5 internet), plumbing and baseboards, and drywall were all added.

We purchased kitchen cabinets from a yard sale. (None existed previously.) Our families helped us replace and purchase new appliances including the once also missing washer & dryer.

Then we had the entire house lifted - straight into the air - dug out the dirt, and had a real basement foundation poured. We updated our oil tank and burner and created heating zones.

Outside, we took down trees and planted grass. We dug out an awkward hill to create a 2nd part to the driveway and used the rocks our house once sat on as a retaining wall. We electrified and repainted the garage.

And of course, we spent many an hour on finish work like paint, trim, closet doors, lighting fixtures, hardwood floors, curtain rods, dimmer switches, and many other things everyone else takes for granted. We are still working to complete all this final finishing, but happy to report that we are FINALLY nearing completion of all little things in all rooms!

In 2008 we began overhauling the exterior by creating a new french door entryway and building a farmer's porch and garage addition. We replaced our roof and then stripped off our siding and replaced with new clapboards. We then planted two new flowering trees and a maple in the front yard - our first major landscape purchases. I'm happy to report that here in 2011, the porch is nearing completion and the back yard is on the road to recovery with some new loam and grass. More plantings soon to come!

In 2012 we plan to attack the last MAJOR (emphasis on major) job in the house - the dreaded BATHROOM! We plan to first add a second bathroom in the basement. Then, demolish our current bathroom and rebuild it, adding a second bathroom on top for the upstairs.

And that pretty much brings you up to date. The battle continues day to day as we try and complete everything.