House Diary...
There's been a long gap in updates... we've been so insanely busy!
We closed on the house, and moved in on July 17th... our one year, three month anniversary. ♥ My father came up from Colorado Springs with his moving van and helped us get everything over to the new place.
And as excited as we were to finally be moving into a home of our own, as we started putting our things away we realized just what a huge project we'd just taken on... Shasta's brother lent us his extra stove, and some of his friends gave us an old refrigerator. The over-the-range microwave was completely broken, so we went down to a (rather shady) bargain appliance place I'd found on Craigslist. SCARY place -- I could swear most of its inventory was stolen -- but we did manage to get a gorgeous over-the-range stainless steel microwave for $150.00.
After HOURS of huffing and puffing, dismantling the old microwave setup, assembling the new one, drilling holes to make it fit, and a lot of brute force, we were at last able to put the new microwave in. And it's beautiful. ♥ Of course, the rest of our appliances leave something to be desired... eventually we're going to have an entirely stainless kitchen, I just have to be able to save up the money for what we want.
We went out and raked, weeded, seeded, watered, cut down trees, replaced an old light fixture with a new motion-detector lamp, took down our old light post, etc... and the yard is *finally* starting to look like someone actually lives at the house. There's still many more trees to cut down and a new light post to put up -- and right now we're concentrating just on the front yard, but still, it's coming along nicely.
We cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned. Spent four hours scrubbing the kitchen floor; polished and oiled all the wood cabinets and trim and all my wood furniture, vaccumed (though unfortunately it couldn't do much for the trashed carpet), and scrubbed all the bathrooms. We had to replace most of the toilet valves and hoses, and several leaking faucets; we had one very bad leak in the upstairs bathroom that we didn't discover until it had already soaked the floor and warped it. :( We're going to remodel that bathroom eventually anyway, but when we do we're going to have to take out the plywood flooring itself in order to repair the damage. *sigh* We re-grouted the upstairs shower, too.
On Craigslist I found some American Marazzi ceramic tile in "Imperial Rust" for super cheap (.85 a square foot) and we decided to replace the ugly 80's linoleum and terrifyingly gross carpet in the downstairs bathroom, hall and laundry closet. We did this area first because the carpet in that bathroom was SO disgusting that Shasta pulled it up right away... it was just unbearable. O.o And since we had a bare plywood floor that was naturally the first area we really needed to take care of.
I've never tiled a floor before. Shasta's helped her grandfather on many projects but had never done one by herself... she has a really great book on it, though, and so after pouring over the book's advice and pictures, we rolled up our sleeves, went to Lowe's, bought mortar, grout (Keracolor S in "Mocha") that coordinated with the tile color, and about 6 panels of cement backer board.
Took us almost two days to remove the old linoleum floor, as we had to chip up the plywood it was glued to. There were like 3 million staples holding the plywood down, so as we chipped it up we had to remove those staples with a screwdriver and hammer... ugh. Definitely the most back-breaking part of the work...
This is what it looked like when the floor was finally bare!
The following weekend, we cut all the backer board to fit, mixed up some mortar, and laid it down. We had to make another trip to the hardware store to buy Shasta a more powerful drill so she could get all the cement-board screws in...
What the backer board looked like when it was laid, and the seams sealed with tape and more mortar.
The weekend after that, the mortar was dry, so we laid out all the tiles and cut them with a wet saw. Then it was time to mix up more mortar and lay the tiles down... probably the messiest and most frustrating part of all the work we did, as it really was a huge pain to get the tiles to lay the way we wanted them without sliding around. It turned out okay... there are a few spots in the bathroom that turned out kind of messy, but not bad for our first tiling job ever!
After the tiles were laid with mortar. We had to clean them over and over after each step...
Then, when the mortar dried, we mixed up the grout and applied it. I loved the color when it was wet... but now that it's drying it's a lot lighter than what I really wanted. Humph.
Now we've gotten some tile cleaner and grout sealer, and scrubbed the tiles down, then sealed the grout. What a LOT of work... and it was only about 70 sq ft of space that we were working on. We have a lot more tiling to do in the house... though I'm hoping it will be easier as we'll be working in much more open spaces, with much bigger tiles, and fewer funky things we have to work around (plumbing, etc.)
The finished product at last!!
Our next tiling project will be the floor of the family room and kitchen. The family room is currently covered with a carpet that is in almost as bad shape as what was in that bathroom. O.o And the kitchen has a parquet flooring that's really not too bad... it's just that I want the kitchen to flow seamlessly into the family room, and if you're going to replace one you kind of have to do both at the same time. So... When I next have money and can afford the materials we're going to get started on that. I'm estimating I'll need about 300 square feet of tile. I want bigger tiles this time, too... 18 x 18, and preferably in some sort of stone-looking ivory color that will coordinate both with the rust tiles in the adjoining hallway, and the blue/brown granite we want to eventually put in for our kitchen countertops...
Next up we're going to paint the laundry closet and hallway. Nothing terribly exciting, just a fresh coat of off-white paint that is badly needed. We'll put our washer and dryer back, and we need to buy some new bi-fold doors as the ones we took off have a hole in them from someone banging the garage door into them too many times. O.o (When we get new ones, I'm putting a doorstop where the garage door strikes them. No more holes.) Then, we need to paint the bathroom before we re-install the toilet. I'm hoping for a nice, soft, medium shade of sage green. Something earthy and fresh that will go well with the wood and rusty earthy tones of the tile. :)
Then we'll put the toilet back in and update the light fixture. At that point all that will be left is to eventually put in a granite countertop (probably something in warm gold/brown tones) and decorate! It will be a while before we can afford the granite though...
The house still needs a new roof and furnace, both very expensive items. And, I'm still trying to figure out how to get that second HELOC loan so I can pay my dad back the money he lent us to get into the house to begin with. *sigh*
Lots of work, but there's still something so nice about having a house that's yours, that you can do whatever you want with, that you can really make your own. :) And, of course, all our little babies love having so much space to run around in!!
EDIT: Now updated with pictures! :) ♥
We closed on the house, and moved in on July 17th... our one year, three month anniversary. ♥ My father came up from Colorado Springs with his moving van and helped us get everything over to the new place.
And as excited as we were to finally be moving into a home of our own, as we started putting our things away we realized just what a huge project we'd just taken on... Shasta's brother lent us his extra stove, and some of his friends gave us an old refrigerator. The over-the-range microwave was completely broken, so we went down to a (rather shady) bargain appliance place I'd found on Craigslist. SCARY place -- I could swear most of its inventory was stolen -- but we did manage to get a gorgeous over-the-range stainless steel microwave for $150.00.
After HOURS of huffing and puffing, dismantling the old microwave setup, assembling the new one, drilling holes to make it fit, and a lot of brute force, we were at last able to put the new microwave in. And it's beautiful. ♥ Of course, the rest of our appliances leave something to be desired... eventually we're going to have an entirely stainless kitchen, I just have to be able to save up the money for what we want.
We went out and raked, weeded, seeded, watered, cut down trees, replaced an old light fixture with a new motion-detector lamp, took down our old light post, etc... and the yard is *finally* starting to look like someone actually lives at the house. There's still many more trees to cut down and a new light post to put up -- and right now we're concentrating just on the front yard, but still, it's coming along nicely.
We cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned. Spent four hours scrubbing the kitchen floor; polished and oiled all the wood cabinets and trim and all my wood furniture, vaccumed (though unfortunately it couldn't do much for the trashed carpet), and scrubbed all the bathrooms. We had to replace most of the toilet valves and hoses, and several leaking faucets; we had one very bad leak in the upstairs bathroom that we didn't discover until it had already soaked the floor and warped it. :( We're going to remodel that bathroom eventually anyway, but when we do we're going to have to take out the plywood flooring itself in order to repair the damage. *sigh* We re-grouted the upstairs shower, too.
On Craigslist I found some American Marazzi ceramic tile in "Imperial Rust" for super cheap (.85 a square foot) and we decided to replace the ugly 80's linoleum and terrifyingly gross carpet in the downstairs bathroom, hall and laundry closet. We did this area first because the carpet in that bathroom was SO disgusting that Shasta pulled it up right away... it was just unbearable. O.o And since we had a bare plywood floor that was naturally the first area we really needed to take care of.
I've never tiled a floor before. Shasta's helped her grandfather on many projects but had never done one by herself... she has a really great book on it, though, and so after pouring over the book's advice and pictures, we rolled up our sleeves, went to Lowe's, bought mortar, grout (Keracolor S in "Mocha") that coordinated with the tile color, and about 6 panels of cement backer board.
Took us almost two days to remove the old linoleum floor, as we had to chip up the plywood it was glued to. There were like 3 million staples holding the plywood down, so as we chipped it up we had to remove those staples with a screwdriver and hammer... ugh. Definitely the most back-breaking part of the work...
This is what it looked like when the floor was finally bare!
The following weekend, we cut all the backer board to fit, mixed up some mortar, and laid it down. We had to make another trip to the hardware store to buy Shasta a more powerful drill so she could get all the cement-board screws in...
What the backer board looked like when it was laid, and the seams sealed with tape and more mortar.
The weekend after that, the mortar was dry, so we laid out all the tiles and cut them with a wet saw. Then it was time to mix up more mortar and lay the tiles down... probably the messiest and most frustrating part of all the work we did, as it really was a huge pain to get the tiles to lay the way we wanted them without sliding around. It turned out okay... there are a few spots in the bathroom that turned out kind of messy, but not bad for our first tiling job ever!
After the tiles were laid with mortar. We had to clean them over and over after each step...
Then, when the mortar dried, we mixed up the grout and applied it. I loved the color when it was wet... but now that it's drying it's a lot lighter than what I really wanted. Humph.
Now we've gotten some tile cleaner and grout sealer, and scrubbed the tiles down, then sealed the grout. What a LOT of work... and it was only about 70 sq ft of space that we were working on. We have a lot more tiling to do in the house... though I'm hoping it will be easier as we'll be working in much more open spaces, with much bigger tiles, and fewer funky things we have to work around (plumbing, etc.)
The finished product at last!!
Our next tiling project will be the floor of the family room and kitchen. The family room is currently covered with a carpet that is in almost as bad shape as what was in that bathroom. O.o And the kitchen has a parquet flooring that's really not too bad... it's just that I want the kitchen to flow seamlessly into the family room, and if you're going to replace one you kind of have to do both at the same time. So... When I next have money and can afford the materials we're going to get started on that. I'm estimating I'll need about 300 square feet of tile. I want bigger tiles this time, too... 18 x 18, and preferably in some sort of stone-looking ivory color that will coordinate both with the rust tiles in the adjoining hallway, and the blue/brown granite we want to eventually put in for our kitchen countertops...
Next up we're going to paint the laundry closet and hallway. Nothing terribly exciting, just a fresh coat of off-white paint that is badly needed. We'll put our washer and dryer back, and we need to buy some new bi-fold doors as the ones we took off have a hole in them from someone banging the garage door into them too many times. O.o (When we get new ones, I'm putting a doorstop where the garage door strikes them. No more holes.) Then, we need to paint the bathroom before we re-install the toilet. I'm hoping for a nice, soft, medium shade of sage green. Something earthy and fresh that will go well with the wood and rusty earthy tones of the tile. :)
Then we'll put the toilet back in and update the light fixture. At that point all that will be left is to eventually put in a granite countertop (probably something in warm gold/brown tones) and decorate! It will be a while before we can afford the granite though...
The house still needs a new roof and furnace, both very expensive items. And, I'm still trying to figure out how to get that second HELOC loan so I can pay my dad back the money he lent us to get into the house to begin with. *sigh*
Lots of work, but there's still something so nice about having a house that's yours, that you can do whatever you want with, that you can really make your own. :) And, of course, all our little babies love having so much space to run around in!!
EDIT: Now updated with pictures! :) ♥