Scrubbing Dirt Off the Face

From the first day I laid eyes on this property, one of the most glaring features was the filth on the front of the house.  When you drive by other houses in the neighborhood, the houses just look clean.  The siding is sharp, the colors are steady, the curb appeal is apparent.  But with this house, the yard is a mess, the shutters are missing, the bushes are uneven, the front porch light hangs sideways, AND on top of it all, the house has dirt and grime and mildew all over its fact.

Simply put, THE HOUSE JUST LOOKS DIRTY.

The front of the house is just filthy!

Looks like a previous owner tried to (poorly) power wash the grime off the front siding.  Still filthy!

So today, I decided to start tackling that (massive) project.  I have plans of installing shutters in the spring (when finances allow), and I want the siding to be clean for that installation.  Plus it just drives me nuts that my house is a myriad of colors.  The siding is hidden behind filth!  We were blessed with a late fall 80-degree day, so I took full advantage of that, knowing I was going to get wet with the spray.

I pulled out my best-$20-garage-sale-purchase-ever Snap-On power washer and went to work.  The power washer has been amazing.  And today was no exception.  The mildew was blown right off.  It's tedious work (much like the deck), but the results are instantaneous, so it keeps you moving.

Before...

And After!

All in all, I sprayed for a little over an hour.  The problem is that I can only reach so high!  But the bottom half of the house looks so much better.  It's frustrating that the project is still incomplete, but, hey, you can only do what you can do.  I'll probably have to get scaffolding to complete the top half.  But it will really help out.

Can you tell where I've already sprayed?!

I left one siding piece untouched to show the difference.

Working from the bottom up.  What a difference!

ALL of the front was gross!

Right half sprayed, left half still dirty.  A minor difference here on the garage.

Now...how to keep the mildew from returning?!  It's on the north side of the house!  Maybe a twice-a-year bath in vinegar or some cleaner?!

The house is clean up to the tops of the door and windows!!!

But still dirty up top!

Weeds Be Gone...Pleeeeeeease!!!

It's going to take awhile.  That's what I keep telling myself.  But, my, oh, my, how decrepit my yard looks.  If you remember, when I first purchased the house, the lawn was...well, frankly, there wasn't much of a lawn.  I had desert-like dirt patches that reminded me of dry skin.  Grass was few and far between.

The yard as I acquired it.

But after a little drought in July, the rains came, and the weeds flourished!  So when I finally closed on the house, I then had a yard taken over by weeds.  And they have continued for the last couple of months.

The yard is an eye-sore!

80% weeds, 20% grass.  I have my hands full.

I'm a novice when it comes to cleaning up a lawn, but I knew it needed two things:  for the weeds to be killed, and for the new grass to be planted.  I already treated the lawn for weeds a week and a half ago (spot spray), so it was time to plant new seed.

And I wanted to take advantage of a pretty special toy that I had on-hand.  My brother informed me that his co-worker had a lawn aerator that we could use IF I got it running for him.  It seemed like a decent trade.  Well, that was until I realized that the unit was missing parts and NOT just needing a carb cleaning as I had been told.  But as a good brother, I went ahead and fixed the unit and this morning installed the final remaining piece.  All in all, I had to replace four or five items and wait three weeks for parts!  But the little engine now runs perfect.  And the lawn aerator works perfect, too!  This is about a $3000 unit, so it's no small joke.  It literally walks YOU around the yard.

The aerator and my dying lawn!

The aerator has been here!!!

But it does a fine job.  So I decided to aerate first, then overseed next.  Again, I don't know what I'm doing, but it sure made sense in my head!  Get some holes in the dirt, let the seed mix in with the dirt on top and the holes below, and voila!



The aerator removes plugs from the yard, thus leaving holes, and then drops the dirt plugs behind.

I guess I will see how well I did in a couple of weeks.

But I'm excited to tackle this project.  I mean, this yard is ROUGH.  Weeds, weeds, everywhere!

The weeds are starting to die, leaving behind very small patches of grass.

 

I contemplated just tilling up the entire yard and starting anew!

The weeds are literally TAKING OVER.

There is juuuuuuust enough hope for grass that I left it as-is and over-seeded.  Time will tell!

But the $40 bag of grass seed is spread all over the yard!  And I went over several areas more than once!  I just hope the seeds take!  I tried to water, but let's be honest, it's virtually impossible to water this entire massive yard...and I knew it would be dry by tomorrow.  So I'm just hoping for the seeds to stick and for rain to fall!

I told you I was a novice.  :)

Moving the Truck Over...and The Big Kitchen Table!

I'm still having no luck selling my current house, so I finally caved and went with a Realtor.  That's not to say that I haven't had "success" in showing my house, but after 13 showings in 3 months and no offers, I figured it was time to put it out there on the MLS.  Believe me, it pains me to know that I will lose roughly $7,000 in commission, as I am using much of my equity from my current house to fund the work on this next house.  But with winter coming, no offers yet, and me being on the road, I figured it was time to enlist some help.

But $7,000?!  That would totally take care of ALL the painting and most of the flooring!!!  Agh!

Well, one of the parts of getting my house in show-worthy condition was to move my truck over to the new house in order to make my current garage look big.  It's a two-car garage, for sure, but with my long truck in there, it was a tight fit to walk in the entrance door!

But part of moving my truck to the new house meant cleaning out the new garage in order to do that!  I had that massive kitchen table that I purchased a couple of months ago just sitting on the floor.  So I enlisted Dad's help to move stuff inside the house and make room.

It was a fairly simple idea.  Put large objects from the garage in the house, and then drive the truck in the garage!  But I have sooooo much stuff in the garage already that it was a bit difficult!  And the items just keep on coming!  I picked up two large metal filing cabinets this morning for free (price is right!), so we had to move those around.  A couple four-wheelers, all sorts of lawn "implements," and now a truck!  The garage is packed!

But it was neat to finally see what I had purchased in terms of the kitchen table.  When I purchased it, it was already taken apart.  I took a bit of a gamble on all the parts being there (they weren't!), but after assembly, I realized I'm only missing a couple of washers.  I can handle that.

The "new" dining room table finally put together.  It's turning into a home!

The house is starting to look like a home!  I mean, minus the lack of flooring, the lack of wall hangings, and painting supplies everywhere, but still!

My painter also suggested painting the entire kitchen including the dining area the same color, so that was nice to see.  It makes the room look like one big room now.  Slowly but surely, it's getting there!!!

The different-colored dining room and kitchen.

Now one big room!

For the bottom floor, the remaining areas to be painted are the office (first coat already on), the dining room (as seen above with the big table), the tiny pantry, the hallway closet, and the bathroom.  Then it's time to move in and start working there while I live there!

Now if only I can get my current house sold!!!

Making a Garden!!!

The mind can easily be deceived, and I'm doing my best to remember that.  For, you see, the temperatures we have been enjoying are telling me it's summer!!!  But my better self tells me that we are only a couple of weeks away from our first frost according to historical averages!!!

So how long to enjoy my ever-producing garden while making sure I don't get boxed in by winter?!

I finally decided to till up my pepper plants, and wow, what a year I had with those!  These plants gave me well over 200 peppers this year!  And Mom learned a new green pepper soup that has won over my heart (along with Dad's!).  So it was with sorrow that I tilled them under.  But I decided to leave up my tomato plants that still have TONS of life left on them!

But I went ahead and decided to move over my strawberries to the new house.  So first and foremost, I decided to try out a new purchase from a couple of months ago.  I had seen a rare black Troy-Bilt tiller for sale on craigslist, and I had my dad pick it up for me for $300.  And ever since then, it has just sat in the new garage!  Well, today, I decided to fire it up!

Annnnnnnnnd it wouldn't start.  I pulled, and I pulled, and I pulled, and I pulled, and I got nothin'.  My starter fluid was over in the other house, so I decided to try a little lubricant spray.  I was able to get it to sputter, but it still wouldn't start.  And then in what was LITERALLY going to be my last pull, it fired right up.  Unbelievable.  But it ran fine after that!  Oh, engines.

I had a bit of a difficult time figuring out where I wanted my new garden in the massive backyard (especially with an odd tree back there), but I finally decided it would be right in the middle.  The rest of the yard is either too close to the deck or too much in the shade from the pine trees.  I was nervous about tilling up the soil, as Dad and I encountered sooooooo many rocks in our digging up of the fence posts, but I was happy to learn that the soil was black on black.  And the tiller was a champ!  It has counter-rotating tines, so it never once jumped on me on top of the untilled earth!  I had it tilled up in no time.

The new garden.  I have a VERY strong feeling this will grow in size.

The "new" tiller had no problem in the new soil!

Ready for spring plants next year!

After 25 Years, It's Time to Say Goodbye...

It's fun to come home and see changes in the house.  I have hired a painter to do the painting, so when I go to work, I'm eager to get back and see the changes!!!  This last return brought two HUGE surprises with it!  The living room is no longer yellow, and the kitchen is now a brilliant blue!

This is when house-flipping becomes fun.

Well, one of the problems my painter was having was with seeing what he was painting in the kitchen!  He said that he had no light.  And that was true...I knew that the light fixture didn't work!  But I hadn't fixed it yet!  So I told him today that I would get it fixed immediately for him.

I opened up the fixture and found two curved fluorescent tubes.  I took one with me to Menard's and priced it out:  $9.97 for one.  So $20 for two.  Hmm.  I wasn't a huge fan of the fixture anyway, as it literally screamed "1991."  These fixtures were so popular in these homes in the kitchen and basements.  Every once in awhile, you will see a long rectangular one with the wooden cross-frames in friend's houses.  Ew!  I had toyed with the idea of just spray-painting the gold trim to give it a more-modern look, but then I realized:  This look is still not modern!

Look at that 1991 gold!!!

This fixture was a behemoth!

Well, after much (and little) thought, I decided to update the fixture to 2016.  I could pay $20 to keep an old and out-dated fixture, or I could spend $34.97 and spruce up the entire look of the kitchen.  For $15, it was a no-brainer.

What is YOUR mind drawn to?!

The light is so big it's almost a focal point!

I picked up an Arabella-styled light from Menard's and went to install it.  Of course, after removing the behemoth, I had to chuckle again at the ceiling.  I don't know how in the world I ever thought this house had white ceilings, but if I ever had any doubt as to whether or not every room in the house needed its ceilings painted, this solidified the decision.  Look at that gross square!!!

Look at that gross old "white" ceiling!

And I'm telling you, this old fixture was HUGE!!!  I never did care for it.

After a little help from Dad to hold the new light up, I had a very modernized kitchen!  The painter said he will paint that section of the ceiling when he goes to paint the upstairs ceilings.  Perfect.

Modern look!

The kitchen gets a facelift!

Now...the only problem with updating a fixture is that your eyes start to see OTHER fixtures.  And in the background of this beautiful fixture is a very out-dated golden fan with drooping blades.  Guess what is next to go!!!  :)

Sorry, Fan, I'm not a fan.  You are next!