Progress isn't always pretty

There is a paint post coming soon, but I took the weekend off painting, so there is one final coat to get on before I can do my big reveal of the stripe-less room. Even now with the splotchy first coat of color on it looks like a new space.

I'll also share my color choice for the bedroom that is almost done. I won't know what to do when I'm not sleeping in the living area. Maybe I'll just do it for nostalgia's sake.

Or not.

Aside from painting, we've had quite a few other projects going on here during our extended stay in construction-ville. Obviously, the guys are still working hard on the decks. They got up to the second floor, found extensive rot-- any one else unsurprised by that???-- and are currently reconstructing the entire second floor west wall. I had no idea it was even possible to replace entire walls until this "little" project. Here's what it looked like about 10 minutes ago.

OK, here's all I know about what is going on. You obviously can't just take out a wall and hope the house won't collapse on itself. To prevent that from happening, the builders had to build a temporary wall to support the weight of the house, tear out the rotten wall, and begin constructing the new, improved, un-rotten wall. In the photo the wall nearest us is the temporary and the outer wall being framed will be the permanent wall. Since I'm upstairs writing this and Little Man is (somehow) napping through all the noise, I'm grateful that the house won't collapse into a rotten heap. Since Beau is currently  under the house I'm sure he is grateful as well.

Here's where what that looked like this morning:

See how even the temporary walls look sturdier than what was there?

OK, so that's what's going on with the builders, but we're not just sitting around watching the fun happen. There's the prepping and painting, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

And like that iceberg that sank an unsinkable ship, what looked at the start of the week to be a manageable to-do list turned into something surprisingly daunting.

Rather than devoting a post to each of the projects we have going on, I thought I'd do a little roundup to catch you up to speed.

1) Since the entire west wall on the second floor is going to be ripped out and reconstructed, we needed to fix the bathroom that wasn't associated with that wall. Here's the sad truth: Since closing on this place, oh, I don't know, seven months ago, we haven't had a fully functional full bathroom. We have had the equivalent of one, but not one one with all necessary functions in one place.

Most full bathrooms have the following: a flushing toilet, a working shower or bath, a running sink, lights, and a mirror. If they are fancy they might have towel bars. (We are decidedly un-fancy here. Nary a towel bar in sight.) The westernmost bathroom had the working shower, toilet and sink, but no mirror and no lights. That was the most functional room in which to bathe. Sad, right? Showering in the dark is an interesting event. I won't miss it.

The easternmost bathroom-- (which I will heretofore refer to as the purple bathroom because "easternmost and westernmost" make it sound like we live in some Downton Abbey-esque sprawling estate. We do not. We have two bathrooms on the second floor. Granted, two is a significantly larger number than the number we have in Virginia, so I'm not scoffing at it at all.)

I digress. 

The  purple bathroom has working lights, a nice sink, and a lovely reflective looking glass, but the toilet ran constantly (until we turned off the water supply and ignored it) and the shower leaked into the apartment downstairs. This week I put on my plumber pants (minus the requisite plumber's crack--I hope) which look much like my painting pants.

And I got in there and replaced the guts of the toilet. 

I did this almost all by myself. 

I know. I'm pretty amazing.

(Hint: It isn't hard at all.)

Then, in a crazy burst of industriousness because we could potentially have a bathroom with all of the basics, Beau sealed the leaking pipe under the shower with silicone and voila, everything was fixed! 

Or was it?

Today I showered in said non-leaking shower. It didn't leak into the apartment below, but the drain did leak into the crawl space where Beau was working on the forthcoming roundup item #2. (I know, I know. This is the wordiest roundup ever. Bear with me.)

OK, so Beau was in the bowels of the house and sewage was spewing out. Gross. But at least it was just my shower water. (This time...eeeeew.)

It turns out that a sewage pipe under the house had been torqued at a strange angle and broke. I ran to visit our new BFFs at the local-ish hardware store and got some rubber couplings so Beau could fix the problem.

Now we have one bathroom that has a flushing, non-leaking toilet; a non-leaking shower; a sink; a mirror and lights. Oh, and raw sewage doesn't empty out under the house. Bonus!

This is what progress looks like, people. And it happens to be just in time for the builders to rip out the wall of the other semi-functional bathroom. While that would have remedied the darkness problem, I don't think I'm ready to shower in a bathroom that is missing a wall... 

2) In addition to having moisture in the walls of the house, we also had a lot of moisture under the house. (Probably in part thanks to the showers emptying out under the house...) All of the insulation was moldy and sopping. Beau spent the better part of two days in the bowels of the house removing the old and securing itchy, awful insulation to the house.

This was his workspace.

Creepy, right?

You totally wouldn't catch me under there.

I bought him a work light on one of my trips to the hardware store. I think that qualifies me for the most thoughtful wife of the year award.

My husband is so brave.

And damn sexy when he's in his workin' clothes.

Sorry, ladies. He's all  mine.

3) In addition to the moisture under the house causing the insulation to become wet, moldy and generally nasty, there was also a nice puddle of water the accumulated against the west wall. I choose to think that the water is not shower water, but is ground water from the abnormally wet year we've had here. 

Just go with it.

Beau didn't want the water to remain there and compromise the foundation, so he donned his sexy work clothes and started digging a trench to encourage the water to flow away from the house.

It's ugly, but soon enough that rich soil will start filling in with grass and other assorted mountain growth and it won't look as much like a mud pile. 

I hope.

Because little boys are magnetically attracted to mud piles and I don't really want my kiddo playing there anytime soon...

So, there you have it. Those are the big non-painting projects we have had going on here. I know it seems suspiciously like Beau did all of the backbreaking/disgusting/creepy work, which might be true, but someone needs to watch the Little Man. And, in my defense, I did a lot of painting and running to the hardware store. That counts for something, right?

Which of these projects would you least like to do? Don't you think Beau deserves a prize of some sort for doing all of these gross tasks on his vacation? Maybe a new set of coveralls? You can never have too many, you know.

How to paint over circus tent stripes--the prep work

If you've spent any amount of time reading this blog, and specifically the West Virginia posts, you're well aware that this particular feature was not a selling point for us.

 Not only were there stripes, but there were also the "complimentary" accents.

Be forewarned, this post has lots and lots of images of the stripes. It won't be pretty. Also, they were all taken from my iPhone at different times of day. What does that mean? It means there will be all kinds of  variations in the colors. It'll be awesome. Prepare your eyes.

To go so far as to say I abhor this paint job would not be a stretch. At all. It makes me think I'm at a circus. Not in a good way, either. Not like lions doing tricks, elephants being ridden by sparkly ladies and cotton candy. More so in the creepy killer clown way. I knew the second we decided we were going to put an offer in on the money pit house that the paint would have to go.

I thought it would go more quickly.

Like the day we closed.

The more I looked at it, though, the more I realized that a coat of paint wouldn't do the trick. There'd need to be some actual effort exerted to make all remnants of the stripes go away. See, there was one spot on the left-hand side of the big striped wall that the previous owner had painted. Maybe she had a narrow pink stripe to the end of the wall and decided it looked funny or something. Anyway, the burgundy had been painted over a pre-exisiting stripe and the ridge from the stripe was very obvious.

I didn't want a wall of reminder ridges.

I went to a paint store in Virginia. It shall remain nameless because I think I was given bad advice. The paint expert told me it should be fine to just paint over it. I had hoped that was the case, but there was that one tell-tale-line that made me seriously doubt her advice.

I purchased a paint sample and decided to paint a test strip. I also purchased this super-handy sanding sponge . I thought maybe taking a little bit off of the ridge would help.

I sanded a portion of one stripe and painted my sample color over it and a little bit beyond. The ridge was still there where I hadn't sanded (duh), but it was almost completely gone where I had sanded. I formulated a plan that made me very grateful that I had purchased the handle to go with the sponge. I was going to sand all the lines.

Before doing that, I also got out the spackle and filled in all the holes in the walls. Then I got to sanding.

To say it was fun would be a overstatement. It wasn't awful, though. I sanded just enough for the ridge to be less noticeable to the touch. I figured if I sanded them off completely then I'd just have smooth stripes on the textured wall and I'd just have smooth reminders of the circus tent wall.

Little Man is in the super cute mimicking stage, so whenever I'd put my sanding sponge down he'd pick it up and "help."

 

So, so, so cute. He even got the idea that I was doing it to the stripes. Unfortunately with child labor laws being what they are, I sent him off with dad rather than keeping him on for the job. Though the house was built well after lead paint laws took effect, I figured all those microscopic paint particles in little lungs can't be a good thing.

I know, mom of the year award.

While I was sanding stripes I also sanded the spackled patches. I was starting to grow optimistic that this was going to work.

By the way, calendars should not be tacked directly to the wall. These tiny pin holes going up the wall are annoying. PSA of the day. These are just two instances of the many instances of this.

Once upon a time, this house had a land-line. We no longer have one, but the DSL is tied in to the phone. The phone jack was once probably very conveniently placed on this central wall. Now that it just has a modem attached to it, it is an awkward eyesore. Also, notice in the above photo of Little Man sanding that the plug for the modem is temptingly placed where little hands want to reach for it.

Little Man is getting the motor skills required to put little things in little holes and I really wanted this particular temptation out of his reach. I asked Beau if we could move it. Since the refrigerator is on the other side of the wall, we figured the phone jack could just be moved to the other side of the wall, the modem plugged in to the same outlet as the refrigerator and left sitting atop the refrigerator. Beau said it would be a pretty easy job.

For once, a project in this house was as straightforward as it should have been. Praise God.

Beau turned off the modem,  removed the faceplate to expose the phone wires and receptacle, unhooked the wires from the phone jack and pulled out the receptacle box.

Isn't it pretty?

Next he cut a hole in the opposite side of the wall. We opted to move the phone jack higher, but didn't move it horizontally along the wall so we didn't have to move through any studs. I handed the cord up through the old hole to the new one, Beau fed it through and installed the new receptacle, hooked up the wires and we had internet again. (It probably was a little tougher than that, but I was playing with Little Man while daddy worked.)

Next we had to patch that gaping hole.

Beau put a small board in the hole and secured it to the stud on the right-hand side so that the patch wouldn't be a weak spot in the wall. Next, he screwed in a piece of drywall to the support he had just installed and it was almost as good as new.

We put a little mud over the patch and sanded it even with the rest of the wall.

The last thing I needed to do to get the wall ready to be primed and painted was to wipe down all of the walls with Mineral Spirits. I did this because there was so much dust from the paint and drywall sanding. I really wanted the paint to adhere nicely to the wall.

It's not much to look at, but you can see that the walls are cleaner and (ugh) brighter. (And still damp from the Mineral Spirits.)

We used Klean-Strip Odorless Mineral Spirits from Home Depot. Obviously, odorless is best when there are little people around, but I also did this step when Beau had the Little Man out and about. Even though it is odorless, it is still a pretty potent chemical--despite sounding like it can make a potent cocktail.

The next steps are priming and painting. You'll have to wait a bit on that. I've got one coat on and another is in the works. Today is the Wine and Jazz festival here in Snowshoe, so this girl is taking a day off!!

Oh, and did you notice I gave the trim a nice crisp coat of white? More on that when I deal with the paint. It'll be a paint-tastic post. I can't wait to show you how great it looks!

Have you ever had to paint over a feature that required extra steps? How'd you do it?

Progress is sometimes as slow as molasses

So, remember here where I touted my skills as a deck designer?

Funny story about that. While my deck design was pretty amazing, and it was exactly what the ARC (a.k.a. my arch nemesis) asked for, it wasn't good enough for them. Let's recap: They said, "we need deck designs." Our contractor hand delivered his rough sketches with important information like how the decks will be attached to the house and what materials will be used. They said, "Uh, we need professional drawings. Lowe's does them. Those will work." I immediately found the deck design program and designed the 3-D drawings on the program using the sketch our contractor gave us and some additional specifics I harassed him for. I submitted those drawings and got a response that said something to the effect of: hey, this is nice, but the footer depth is not deep enough (this was the one default on the design program. Our existing footers are 40 feet deep and plenty deep to support the decks, but I couldn't show that and the committee had to see it in writing) and we need the drawings to say that your contractor is going to follow code. Among other things.

Here is where I started to get more than a little frustrated. First, they told me to go to Lowe's. Then, they said the Lowe's product wasn't good enough and they wanted a computer program to say that the contractor was going to do x,y, and z.  Let me remind you: they had his original sketches on file. Said sketches already outlined the requested information. And besides, isn't that what permits and inspections are for?!?

While I wanted to cry/throw things at the computer/scream/use profuse profanity, I did the more logical thing. I went to Lowe's with my printouts--all 15 pages--and explained to the design expert what I needed. He looked at me like I was insane. I explained the ARC and showed him the email outlining what they needed. He basically told me that it couldn't be done on their program (which is the same as the in-store program the expert will use, fyi) and he wished me luck dealing with the committee. Because I'd need it.

He actually said that.

To make a long story short, our contractor went to a structural engineer in Elkins, WV who designed what the committee really wanted. I had no problems hiring someone to do this, I just wish I hadn't been sent on a wild goose chase first. (And, I wish I hadn't looked like such a clueless blonde in Lowe's...)

Ok, yeah, they're a little more specific than the Lowe's decks. I get that.

Finally, our decks were approved. Everything was set to go and then, guess what? God laughed at us a little. He decided that it would be a really, really rainy two weeks in West Virginia.

The guys were able to get a bit of the work done between storms, but the building has been almost as slow as the approval process.

The decks, siding, windows and rot repair are not the only things we will do to the exterior of the house. We have quite a few projects planned. Here's the rub: Everything we do to the exterior of the house will need to be approved by the ARC. The thought makes me cringe. I'm trying to be optimistic that now that I know the level of detail they are looking for so I can meet and exceed those expectations for quick(er) approval.

Unless, of course, they read this rant. In which case we will be blackballed and will face an eternity of the ugly red DENIED stamp.

I'm trying to be optimistic.

And if you're from the ARC and reading this, I was totally kidding when I called you my arch nemesis. I really, really like you. Want a hug?

One of those days

Our house is pretty little. Not tiny, but compact. I like it. There's not that much to clean.

My biggest gripe about the house is that it has one bathroom. Who in their right mind builds that house? Remember when I wrote about it here? (Apparently I've had that little bathroom on my mind a lot lately.)

My second biggest gripe is that there is no closet space. But, since we have four bedrooms, I have just commandeered one as a closet.

That solves the closet problem.

Despite my griping, the bathroom problem isn't even really a problem yet. I mean, sharing a bathroom with one other person isn't bad. Little Man is in diapers and I determine bath time, so he doesn't count.

But on days like today...

(Yeah, that kind of day.)

A second bathroom would be nice. Let's just say I didn't enjoy any beverages for quite a few hours. And I may have done the pee-pee dance.

Fortunately, the plumber came and fixed this mess that Beau made (since the problem was a little bigger than he initially thought--I'll spare you the details) and the toilet is right back where it belongs--on top of that patch of grime on the floor. Just kidding. I cleaned that up. While gagging. That's probably like 67 years of scum. Eeew.

I still have a few little details (faceplate, trashcan, cleaning brush and cabinet handles in Oil Rubbed Bronze) to finish up before the final bathroom reveal, but here's a shot of the new faucet and the little medicine cabinet we were waiting on.

The bad lighting is to keep you from seeing the little loo in all its glory until the reveal. Tricky, huh?

What is the one thing that could break in your life that would really make your day go downhill quickly?

The little bathroom that could (because it had to...)

Our house is a cute little thing. And when I say little, I mean eensy-teensy. Don't get me wrong, I think it is plenty big for the three of us. And, really, if (ahem, when, Beau) we add a fourth, it'll probably be big enough for all of us*. A big house means big housework, and ain't nobody got time for that. (Come on, you all saw that coming, right?) 

We do, however, have one majorly irritating small-house problem.

One bathroom.

One very small bathroom.

Wait, that doesn't look that small.

No? Here's an aerial shot of the whole thing.

Some of you gasped. I heard it. Can you imagine not having your counter space/double sink/soaking tub/full length mirror in the bathroom you and your entire family use every-single day? We have none of that. We have a pedestal sink, a toilet and a standard cast iron tub. It's pretty small and way basic. Notice how the door hits the sink instead of opening all the way. The house was built in a time when large and numerous bathrooms weren't the norm. (Nor, apparently, were closets, but I'll get to that some other day.) I'm guessing people didn't brush their teeth at the same time back then.

You're thinking I'm going to write about our amazing redo where I get this amazing bathroom space, right?

Sorry, Charlie, this is amateur hour, not Young House Love.

Beau has talked about a complete gut, but to be quite honest, I like the original tile from 1946. It is charming. It's also in way better shape than I would be if I was from 1946. Since extending the house out to accommodate my dream bathroom is out of the picture, and gutting our only bathroom is impractical, we have taken some baby steps to create a more lovely space.

Namely, we got rid of the peeling and probably lead-filled ceiling paint and the rusty, outdated fixtures.

Look at those chunks of paint just waiting to fall into Little Man's bath water. And that fixture. Ugh.

I chose a soothing gray color for the walls (Sherwin-Williams "Aloof Gray")  and ceiling to give the illusion of a bigger space. The ceiling fixture is the Hampton Bay 2-Light Flush-Mount Restoration Bronze Light From The Home Depot, and the wall fixture below is the Perfect Home 2-Light Oil Rubbed Bronze Vanity, also from The Depot. They aren't the exact same bronze, but I liked the ceiling mount fixture because it felt a smidge art deco and fit with the retro tile. Oh,  and it didn't look like a boob in the middle of the ceiling.

The gray is very, very subtle and very, very hard to photograph. (Especially when the day is the exact same shade of gray as the walls...) I think I probably could have gone a little darker, but I played it safe because it is such a small space. I didn't want it to feel more claustrophobic than it actually is.

As for the actual process of scraping and re-plastering the ceiling, I can't tell you how that went. We hired a very nice man to do that and I took Little Man out of the house. It just seemed easier and safer to have someone who knew what he was doing since it had the potential to be pretty dangerous.

We've still got work to do, obviously: The medicine cabinet had to be special ordered because, like everything else in the bathroom, it is tiny. Beau grabbed a chrome shower curtain rod instead of an oil rubbed bronze one. (And then looked adorably confused when I tried to explain that it does actually matter.) We need switch plates, and Beau needs to hang the cabinet that will go behind the toilet. It'll all get done soon. (Pending the delivery of the medicine cabinet.)

It is a start, but I'm way excited for the little changes we've made to our little bathroom in our little house.

Now, I just wish the paint would dry on this day with 100% humidity so I could take a shower...

What little (or big) projects have you tackled that have made a big difference? Or, how do you feel about my decision to keep the tile and preserve the old feel of the space?

* Disclaimer: I reserve the right to redact that statement at any point in time.

April Update- West Virginia

Not much is going on in West Virginia in terms of home improvement. March brought a ton of snow, which was awesome for the ski season, but not awesome for the outdoor construction we have planned.

While Beau and I were there last we did a tiny bit of work on the inside of the house. (And by "we" I suppose I really mean Beau, because when I think about it I didn't actually have any part in this aside from perhaps making suggestions and sweeping up after him.)

In this post I showed you some of the finer selling points of the house. This picture was included.

I know. You're jealous of the wall and probably wondering if I'll provide you with the number of the previous owner's decorator. Sorry, no can do. Oddly, this is not a trendy striped wall you'll find on Pinterest. Crazy it isn't there yet. You should pin it.

The wall makes me want to barf. The great thing about the stripes is that the two levels of paint make bumps that will need to be sanded instead of just primed. Cool. Because the house wasn't going to be enough work already.

We brought a sander, but didn't get around to sanding. Instead, I had Beau pull the runner up on the stairs so I could think about starting to sand them. Why, you ask? Well, the previous "decorator" painted them the darker shade of burgundy from the wall and I wanted to see if the gross runner being removed would make them less hideous or if I could stain them on top of the burgundy after a rough sand or something to avoid sanding them down completely.

Guess what?

Someone only painted as far as the runner covered.

 

Who does that?

I'm not sure I can sand enough of that pink/burgundy/mauve/ whatever off to make the stairs uniform enough to stain to a normal color.

That's got to be one of the laziest home "improvement" projects ever. See previous comment about this being more work than originally expected.

While Beau was pulling up carpet he decided to tackle the disgusting Berber in one of the bedrooms downstairs. Remember this room?

Can't you just smell those stains from where you're sitting? Ugh.

Well, here's Beau hard at work. (And yes, I was tempted to burn the clothes he was wearing after he was crawling all over the carpeting.)

 

Now we have three bedrooms with sub floor exposed. One more room to go.

 

So, while I don't have any actual progress to show you, I'm excited to say we are getting closer to being able to make some fun improvements that will make a big difference in the look of the house.

 

And by "make a difference in the look of the house" I mean we'll start to work on making it look inhabitable. You know, like, with floors and stuff. Odds are it won't happen in the near future because I have tons of other projects I'd like to tackle while the floors are yucky.

 

Painting the purple room something other than purple is one of those projects. Nothing says mountain cabin like a pale purple room. Am I right, or am I right?

 

Pop quiz: What would you do to make those stairs look like normal stairs? Beau says replace them. I think that sounds expensive.  

Finally!! Our top-secret secret is secret no more

About a million years ago I mentioned some exciting, top-secret news that revolved around our frequent trips to West Virginia (here).  I wasn't trying to be coy or anything, we just weren't sure that our exciting news was going to pan out. I'm glad I didn't say anything then, because it almost didn't. I mean, that was almost five months ago. You'd probably forgotten.

So much for a much anticipated reveal!

But, I can now let you in on our exciting news because everything is finalized and wonderful.

We bought a house!!

(By the way, never, ever, ever attempt to finance a home with Amerisave. They are the reason it took almost five months to close. They were hard to work with, inefficient and generally terrible. We ended up working with a local lender and the process was amazingly simple. Again, just say no to Amerisave. Your life will be much less stressful. Ours was, anyway.)

In case you are wondering, we aren't moving to Snowshoe full time, but we do plan on spending quite a bit of time there. Wouldn't you with views like this?

 

Or this?

 



 

Or a sunset like this?

 

 

If you can't tell, I'm absolutely in love with the view.

 

Before you get all jealous of our swanky vacation home/rental property/investment for Little Man's education, let me show you a few elements that might make you wonder if we are insane.

 

See, we bought a bit of a fixer-upper.

 

 

It might need a coat of paint or two.

 

Yes, those are pink and burgundy stripes as a focal point of the room and in the dining room.

 

Barf. (But a really cute baby peeking from the corner. He's standing up!)

 

There has been a bit of settling that needs attention.

 

 

 

The floors have seen much better days.

 

 

We think those stains are from the two dogs that lived there. Eeeew. The finish is also almost completely worn away in most high-traffic areas. Also probably because of the doggies.

 

 

The second level floors are worse. And that's being nice. 









Yep, those are subfloors. Stained ones. Apparently the carpet was too gross to leave in the room. As opposed to the two rooms that do have carpeting:

 



Gross city. Fortunately, the carpeting doesn't stink. But it will need to go. I imagine it will be taken out with gloves on. And perhaps while wearing masks.

But wait, there's more.

This door is sealed with tape instead of an actual seal. That's awesome for heating when the temperature is negative two degrees as it was when we were there last week.

 

 

There is actually quite a bit more about this house that needs work, but you get the idea. I don't want to depress myself.

 

Lest you think we are absolutely bonkers for spending actual money on this dump, let me point out a few of the selling points. (Besides the obvious view I have already bragged about thrice.)

 

 

The house has charming details that make it feel like a fun and cozy place to get away.

 

 

 

If you take a moment to look down instead of out when on the deck you can see that there is a nice little yard that happened to have five little visitors when I went out to snap a photo. The yard is complete with a grassy area with a fire pit.

 

And there is the space. From the rear view photo, you can see it is three levels. The bottom level is an apartment and the top two levels will be our living area. The top floor is wide open with general areas for dining and living areas as well as a good sized kitchen, a small half bath, and a bar area. The middle floor has four modest bedrooms and two bathrooms.

 

I'll take you on a tour soon.

 

We figure it will take us the better part of ten years to get the house to the condition it should be in. Unfortunately for me, there are some structural and efficiency issues (windows and that taped door) that need to be fixed before we get down to business making a cozy mountain getaway. I'm going to bring you along with us on this new adventure. Some of it might be ugly, but we're planning on learning as we go.

 

While Beau and a contractor are replacing rotted floor joists and putting in efficient windows and doors, I'll be on Pinterest going to town pinning every rustic cabin option out there for ideas.

 

I'm like a kid in a Pinterest candy shop. It is ridiculous.

 

So, do you think we are nutso for tackling this huge project, or are you on board with us? Either way, it promises to be an interesting ride.