Friday, September 11, 2015

Channeling my inner Nicole Curtis

This was after we discovered the fish tank had been leaking down the drywall.



Everybody's on board for tearing up the carpet. It's the easiest part!

 Boo set to removing the staples that held the padding down while The Boyfriend started yanking up all the tack strips around the perimeter of the room. Both kids worked harder than I had all day.

 
 Shortly after removing the carpet, we realized we also had a plumbing leak, which had damaged the subflooring. So instead of just having the simple task of laying flooring, we also now have to figure out how to patch the drywall and call a plumber to fix and find the leak in the wall.


It was somewhere around this point that I went from "I can totally handle this" to "Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? I just wanted a new bed!" Thankfully, we're in a place where we can afford the fixes (watching enough house-flipping shows on HGTV has taught me, if you don't have the budget for things that can go wrong, don't tackle the project in the first place), provided they're not too big. At this stage of the game, they're still manageable.

Yesterday, Hubby and I hit the ReStore shop, Walmart, Lowe's and Menards to pick up the things we need to make the repairs and do the changes we have taken on.  Hauling the usual Walmart purchases (things like cat litter, shampoo & conditioner, and paper towels), four sets of mini-blinds, five boxes of flooring, three  bags of drywall repair stuff, and lamenting about the bait-and-switch faucet we had to buy, everything finally made it in the house by 7pm. Thankfully, a friend of ours was here checking out the water damaged floor, so he helped carry everything in. He also stuck around and helped Nate disassemble our old bed and move it to the office so the new bed can be delivered tomorrow. I ran out of energy somewhere around 10pm. Sleep finally came around 3am after I set in motion an action plan for the rest of these fixes and updates.

Today, though I was tired and in some pain from all the running I did yesterday, I had a lot on my to-do list. Unfortunately, I had a few setbacks. the light bulbs I bought for my bathroom vanity were too big, the blinds for the living room were too narrow, the filters for the furnace were the wrong size, as were the sheets for the new bed. And, because I couldn't figure out this fancy ladder we borrowed from the neighbor, I couldn't reach the peak of the ceiling to scrub the trim. I finally gave up about 2:00, grabbed a Coke, and plopped my ass in front of the TV to watch Sex and the City reruns until my feelings of inferiority subsided.

Eventually, I got back up, put on my big girl panties, and sucked it up. I spent the afternoon patching all the nail and thumbtack holes in office and bedroom, then I got the new new plantation blinds hung in office (including one botched attempt at hanging a support piece that blew out my elbow early in the game). I finished that just in time for the plumbers to show up to give me estimates for the leak in the wall. I hired one and am looking forward to him fixing it on Sunday (without charging me overtime for it being a weekend - go me!). 


After that, I took down the curtain rod in the bedroom, patched those holes and took the Roman shade down too so I can paint around it without dripping on the shade (which I have always loved more than any other window covering). Once that was done, I emptied our nightstands and cleaned them so I can sand them and stain them tomorrow (including removing all the metalwork to be spray-painted). Then I moved all the dressers out from the wall so I could get all the dust bunnies who've taken up residence since we moved in (the last time I cleaned the cobwebs from the corners of the ceiling). I also cleaned the ceiling fan before vacuuming. I was even feeling adventurous enough to wash windows and the trim around them (inside and out, including the gunk in the window tracks). 

I hit a wall of pain and exhaustion about 10pm and rested for a while with some ice on my elbow. Hubby brought me some dinner home and I inhaled that, talked to the girls who were finally home and done with homework. When everybody went to bed, I tackled the bedroom again. 

Almost all our furniture is hand-me-downs or second-hand things we've picked up along the way. This includes a 90's style black lacquer dresser with gold trim. It's functional and in good shape, but it's ugly. Ohhhhhhh, so very ugly. So tonight, I decided to take the outdated mirror off the top, remove all the gold trim, and take off the handles so I can paint those to match the nightstands. I'll leave the dresser black, but the other dresser (which was bought in 1983 by my parents) needs to be painted so it matches the first one. Oh, did I mention in all that I managed to wash and dry 3 loads of laundry?

There's still SO much to do before the bedroom is inhabitable again, today was a success in my book. 

Tomorrow, I tackle the drywall repair in the office and master bath, I will sand the nightstands and dresser, and pick up the paint, a few supplies for that, and the lumber and hardware to make the new headboard. I have to stop at Walmart and exchange the stuff I bought in the wrong size, too. Oh...and I have a doctor's appointment at noon, I have to pick Bethany up from school at 1:45, come home and pick Shelby up after she gets out of school, drop her off downtown at 4:30 and be home by 6pm so I am here when they come to deliver the new bed. I was hoping I would get the bedroom painted tomorrow night, but I think it's gonna have to wait.

For those wondering what crawled up my ass with this Fixer-Upper-Home-Reno-What-the-Hell-do-I-think-I'm-doing thing --- it all started with a bed.

Did I take on too much? Yes.
Is this typical of me? Yes.
Will it all get done? Yes.
Will I spend a month bedridden when all is said and done? Yes.
So why am I doing it? Well, because if I'm going to spend a month in bed, I want it to be the prettiest little place of retreat I've ever seen. It's been the last thing in the house to get updated and it's long overdue. But hey...if you feel like sending me chocolate and hot apple cider, who am I to stop you? *hint hint*

Monday, September 7, 2015

How a new bed leads to total renovation

Most people, when they need a new bed, they just go out and buy a new bed. The process is done once the bed is delivered and setup.

That's not us.

No, see. When we decide to get a new bed, it winds up being a total renovation of half the rooms in our house. How does this happen? Let me walk you through the process. I'll give you a hint: it starts with Pinterest.

  1. Buy new mattress and box springs. Opt to go from the current Queen size to a King so you have more room in bed. (This? This is where the trouble began.)
  2. Decide to move current bed to office, including the beautiful head/footboard you just bought a year ago.
  3. Move office bed to the girls' room to replace the mattress on the floor that one of them has been sleeping on for almost a year.
  4. Decide that since the office is sans bed and it's mostly empty, you should paint it as you've talked about doing for ten years when you moved in to the house.
  5. Realize that your bedroom with its brand new bed on the way also needs a fresh coat of paint. Again, because you've talked about it for ten years and it's high time you get it done.
  6. Since you're painting the bedroom, you should probably buy a new bed so the fresh walls don't get dirty without a headboard behind it.
  7. "Man, king-sized beds are expensive! Let's build a headboard instead!" Begin pricing building materials and realize that you're saving a small fortune by making it yourself.
  8. "You know, if we're not spending all that money on a bed, we can put the new flooring in the office. I mean, it'll be empty. We might as well." You know, because you've been talking about yanking up that gross, dingy carpet for years.
  9. "If we're buying the flooring for the office, we probably should do the bedroom hallway. Oh, and we should also redo the bathroom so it matches the rest of the floors." By the way, this endeavor includes the kitchen, laundry room and master bath. "Even if we don't have the energy to do it all at once, at least we'll have the flooring so we can tackle it when we are able to and won't have to track down matching flooring."
  10. "Awesome! Let's get started!"
  11. Start moving things in office. Realize the fish tank has ruined part of the wall because the filter spilled over the back of the tank.
  12. Spend the afternoon peeling wet drywall and make a note to look up "patching torn drywall" on YouTube later.
  13. Begin tearing up carpet and padding in office and hallway.
  14. Realize there is a plumbing leak in the wall between the office and bathroom that has ruined part of the subfloor.
  15. Shit. "Well, so much for getting all the flooring at once. We've got to throw some money at this repair now. Guess we'll get enough flooring to just do the office, hallway, and bathroom." Note to self: save the packaging and purchase information so we can match the rest of the flooring later.
  16. Let the teenagers tear up the carpet tack strips and staples from the padding while you look up cost of new plumbing parts, drywall spackle, and subfloor pieces. Be grateful the teenagers are powerhouse workhorses who aren't afraid of hard work. Remember to feed said workhorses later.
  17. Have a meltdown.
  18. Curse the bastards on Pinterest.
  19. Be grateful the bastards on Pinterest posted links to fix the stuff that needs to be fixed.
  20. Dry your eyes and realize this is TOTALLY doable and could have been a LOT worse.
  21. Realize that the wall repair you've been intending to do in the master bathroom can be done now that you know how to patch the torn drywall. Go crazy chipping away the warped paint from the water damage in said bathroom.
  22.  Get excited that yes, your house is total disaster, but hey, you get a new bed delivered Friday and you're gonna sleep like a baby...eventually.