Mastering the Bedroom

I had more help again today!  This time Mom came over, and she was eager to start the kitchen clean-up and organizing.  But knowing exactly what that entailed (and how we probably wouldn't get very far), I said, "Let's do a room upstairs instead."  One at a time!  Room by room.

So that's what we did.  The Master Bedroom is essentially complete...well, sort of.  I'm still eagerly awaiting a nasty rain so I can see how the door holds up to water.  I'm still not confident the leak below the bedroom into the kitchen is remedied (I'm so hoping it is), and I just need to wait for a good rain to see.  And I was eager to get that nasty bathroom sticky tile floor up...

So we started with the simple part of cleaning up a room:  removing stuff!  And, my, oh, my did this room have LOTS of stuff to remove!  I had the remnants of the poor shelf job from the previous owner (massive 2 x 4's, metal brackets), tons and tons of paint supplies and paint from the whole-house paint job, a couple ladders, and various parts and items from who knows what!  The room was a mess.

Paint supplies, left-over shelving, various miscellaneous.  It all had to go!

It all has to go!

After removing the big stuff, we took out the little stuff, and then Mom started on vacuuming the bare floors.  This room was a MESS.  That sawdust that has been all over everything was, of course, in this room, as well, with the door and floorboard replacement.  Much to her surprise, Mom would fill up a couple of vacuum containers AND clog the filter a couple of times!  FILTHY!

I worked on a quick project that I have been putting off for quite some time now (a couple of weeks anyway).  The towel rack fell off the wall in the main bathroom upstairs, and I have never replaced it!  I knew it was just a simple set screw and a couple minute job, but it's amazing what you just deal with when you have so much else going on.  I literally had a towel draped over a laundry basket for the last two weeks.  JUST FIX IT, ANDY!  So I did.  It was a simple and quick fix.  Knock it off the list!

No towel rack!

Less than 10 minutes, and back in business.

I then headed back to the Master Bedroom where Mom was still cleaning every nook and cranny!  When you want a house clean, get my Mom to help.  Seriously, she is a no-nonsense cleaner.  EVERYTHING gets cleaned.  Floors, trim, windows, counters, whatever is there.  It's great.

While she worked on that, I decided to tackle one of the medium-sized projects in the bedroom:  removing the sticky tile from the bathroom area.  It's not really a bathroom as it's part of the bedroom, and I'm strongly considering carpeting this area of the room, too.  The way they had it divided was awkward and clunky.  I'm thinking that wall-to-wall carpet in this room would make the room flow better (much like with what I'm doing with the downstairs flow from the formal dining room through the entryway into the living room).  They had it divided up awkward downstairs, too, and I just don't like it.  I like floooooooooooow.

The gross and cheap sticky tile with the awkward diagonal room separation.

But regardless, the floor had to be pulled up!  It was yet another lesson in the leaky or wet areas of the home.  Many of the edge tiles pulled up very easily which meant they had been wet in years past.  Next to the sink around the exterior door, next to the bathtub room, they just pulled up so easily.  And, not surprisingly, close to the sinks, I found yet more black mold!  This house is so gross.  But right in the middle, I had to really work to get them up!  I used a claw-hammer to do so, and it wasn't overly strenuous work, but it did take some time.  Thankfully, I had plenty of that!  Mom was busy filling up the vacuum!



Bye, bye, tiles!



Oh, look!  More mold!  Nothing surprises me at this point.

I had to take over part of her job, though, as she refused to clean a couple of the areas ("Too much dog hair and filth, and I will vomit," according to her.)  ha!  Now I've seen my mom gag, and it's actually much to my enjoyment, but I decided to help her on this one.  And she was right!  This house is actually disgustingly filthy.  It's quite gross at times.  When I opened up the vents, I said, "What I would like to do is actually collect all of this hair and make a stuffed animal for my niece."  Of course, that is disgusting, but it was a comment showing just how much dog hair was in these vents!

"Mom, just think, EVERY breath you breathe in this house first had to pass through the heater through these ducts and through these hairs until it ended up in your lungs."  Yes, I'm a terrible son, but it was a reminder for both of us as to how gross this house really was and to get to cleaning it even more!  Seriously gross.

And I learned that I had even more inefficiency in my vents!  One of the three vents in the bedroom had pulled apart from the floorboard and was dangling to one side.  Granted, most of the forced air would still be forced into the room, but it was obvious that some of it would be making its way in between the two floors of the house, AND whatever air was in between the floors of the house would be making its way into this bedroom when the air was not running!  I had to fix it right then and there.



A good start to a stuffed animal!  Gross!  And note the right side disconnected.

So much better!

The two other vents both required deep cleanings, as well, as well as some sheet metal repair (bending them all back into place or re-supporting them into the floorboards).  Small but necessary repairs!  One room at a time.  I like that.  Just work one room at a time.  "Mom, what I need to do is make a list of all of the items that need done in each room, and just start checking them off."  Each room needs something!

I finally had all of the tiles removed, and the room already looks SO much better without the cheap tiles visible.  Those sticky tiles are just a cheap fix, and I don't care much for them.  Especially in a house like this.  It needs higher quality.  And just as I suspected, the room looks bigger!  It flows from side-to-side.  The verdict is still out, but I think I will go carpet from side-to-side.  The toilet and bathtub will still get tile, but I don't necessarily need tile in front of the sinks.  I think carpet would look great.

The bathroom looks better already.

From the bedroom, we moved into the walk-in closet, then hallway, and then down the stairs.  Mom kept vacuuming.  I removed the threshold from between the bedroom and hallway, and ew!, what a mess!  Seriously, dirt and pet dander everywhere.  Just gross.

I plucked out remaining staples from the stairs, and Mom kept up her vigorous cleaning, filling up that vacuum!  Oddly enough, several of the nails holding down the floors were up (loose), and I had to nail those back down.  What an odd house!  Seriously, way too many nails had popped up.  It's so weird.



One of the corners of the stairs.  Dirt, dirt, everywhere!  And look, even a nail popped up!

Once we were finally all done with the stairs, Mom attacked the stair rails.  My house started to smell lemon-y fresh (I loved it!), and the rails took on a look all their own.  They are BEAUTIFUL.  I absolutely love the look of fresh wood, and these really popped.  I had to scrape off paint marks from both my painter and the previous paint job (think yellow), but they were coming right off.  The rails are now gorgeous!  And the house smells great!  And the stairs are clean!  And the hall is clean!  And the bedroom is clean!

Beautiful color!  And CLEAN!

I just love the amount of wood in this house.

I can't fully put into words just how gross this house has been.  Some (a lot) of the dust was from the contractor sawing inside, but in other areas, the dirt is from a couple decades of dog and living.  When I walk barefoot, I feel it.  There is a reason I tell everyone to PLEASE take your shoes off when you walk on the new carpet.  Every step you take in this house before you get there is on dog, dirt, dust, and gross-ness, so when you step into those rooms with your shoes, you are taking that in there, as well!  I know it's a royal pain to do it EVERY time (trust me, when I have to go into the bedroom numerous times in a row, I hate it!), but it's keeping the new new until the rest of the new comes!

But what a huge step in the right direction!  The house is getting clean!  Yay!

What a huge Master Bedroom with flow into the exposed bathroom sink area!

So fresh and clean!  Just needs carpet!

Thanks for the help today, Mom!  I have a huge Master Bedroom awaiting my bed!  All it needs now is carpet, and it's 100% finished!  How exciting!  Of course, with the job loss this week, it will most likely be awhile to get my funds in order, but it's still a VERY exciting step in the right direction.  I want to make sure no water comes in through the new door, too, before I put carpet right up against it.  You know, just to be sure...

But I am ready for the stairs and upstairs to be carpeted!!!  Woo hoo!  Half of the house is almost done!

Walk-In's Welcome

Dad stopped by again to help with some projects.  He brought coffee, a much-welcomed surprise!  I have yet to hook up my coffee maker.  He also brought cereal, and I grabbed the milk out of the garage.  Hey, house-flipping isn't always easy!

Our goal was simple:  Finish the walk-in closet we started yesterday!  We had put it on hold so Dad could bring by the laser level, and what a SMART decision that was.  It kills me to leave projects unfinished!  I don't know when that started, but it seriously drives me nuts when I start something but don't finish it.

The laser level absolutely took the work out of the project.  We probably spent over an hour and a half on the shelves yesterday and only put one tiny one up.  With this level, we had the holes marked, drilled out, supports up, and shelf up within 45 minutes.  So nice.

The laser level was a huge help!

Straight-and-level!

Once the top shelf was up, we started on the bottom shelf.  This house seriously has MAJOR money invested in shelving alone.  It's kinda nice.  I have priced them out, and WOW, these are expensive!  But what a major selling point.  Storage EVERYWHERE!  And a walk-in closet the size of a small bedroom!

The second shelf went even faster.  We were getting good.



Two shelves up!

Then we started on the opposite side of the closet and mounted yet another shelf.

And then we added the two small shelves.

More shelves!

I elected to keep a shelf that was previously installed out of the closet.  I like the current storage, and I like the roominess it has with how it is.  Someone can store clothes, big stuff on the floor, and little stuff.  My sister came by this afternoon was said, "This is just not fair" when she saw the closet.  But she said that the space I left open can even be used for a dresser.  Sure can, sis!  Genius!  I liked that idea.  You can have EVERYTHING clothing-related in the closet and even get dressed in the closet.  Which opens up the master bedroom even more!  I love it!

We had the whole closet wrapped up in 2 1/2 hours.  Nice!  Thanks for the help, Pa!

I had my little helpers come by again today ("to see the progress on the house," according to the six-year-old).  I learned in a VERY difficult way today that my house is not child-proof.  Much to my disappointment, I lost my most cherished Etch-a-Sketch picture today.  I had been preserving it for over a decade now, so it was painful.  It was a combination of my fault (not child-proofing the house) combined with a wild child (touching, exploring everything and being on a floor and in a room she was not supposed to be in), but I'm learning such is life.  Everything fades!

But we at least enjoyed each other and played a couple rousing games of Princess Dominoes in the living room.  Another life lesson:  Children don't care about you not having floors.  Only you do.  They just want to have fun and be loved.

The four and two-year-old won fair and square in our two games!

The rest of the day was spent on minor stuff.  I headed over to the old house to vacuum the newly-installed carpet.  The 2nd showing was cancelled today, and I learned the potential buyer is no longer interested.  Oh, the ups and downs of this home-selling process!  Oh, the ups and downs of this year!  Major, major swings indeed!

I love the look of the old house, though.  It's funny (not funny) how we get homes in the best condition after we move out.  Why is that?!  But it's a very sharp house, and I'm confident it will sell.  We are two days short of six months on the market, though.  Ouch.

I headed back to the new house and cleaned up some more.  I moved my clothes into the walk-in closet.  I started cleaning out the Master Bedroom, packing away painting supplies and organizing the remaining shelving pieces.  I then spent a good amount of time trying to find bills and receipts.  I have a TON of items that need returned, and with the loss of my job this week, I need the most amount of money back I can get!



What a closet!  Room everywhere!

I filled in the bottom of the remaining bi-fold door to the laundry with wood filler.  After the glue dried from last night, there was still quite a bit of play in the pivot hole.  So I'll drill that out tomorrow and should have a working door again!  It will be nice to close off that area.

The glue stuck, but the hole was too big...

Filled with wood glue.

Speaking of which, I did my first load of laundry in this house today.  So that's a success.  I have been wearing the same jeans over and over!  I still don't have the dryer vent hooked up, but I think I figured out a way to heat the house AND make it smell good at the same time!

I also had a small project of staining the cabinet that Dad and I rebuilt.  But what a fiasco that was!  When trying to get the old dried stain chunk out of the hole in the cap, the bottle exploded everywhere!  I had stain all over me, my coat, my jeans, the cabinet, the walls, the countertop, papers, and the floor.  Basically anything that was within three feet of the bottle.  It was yet another frustration!  But the cabinet turned out gorgeous.  It really looks sharp with the new oak stain.  We done good, Pa!

Little by little.  I keep telling myself that.  I've had some nearly overwhelming days, but I just keep moving forward.  Sometimes these days move backwards, but today was a good day with the walk-in closet.  It REALLY turned out sharp.  And what a selling point!

What wife wouldn't like this?!

Little by little...

Brrr, It's Cold Inside!!!

Just keep plugging away.  That's the mantra for the house.  I made a to-do list for the house when I first bought it, and I swear the list is longer now four months AFTER purchase!  It seems like the more I do, the more NEEDS to be done!  Am I moving forward at all?!

Dad showed up this morning, and we started tackling the staples in the kitchen.  I told him that my goal was one 4' x 8' floorboard a day.  I think I have around 15 or so to do, so it's just a couple weeks of pulling staples.  Little by little!

Well, we strategically focused on the middle of the kitchen dining area.  The reason being that I want to be able to scoot the chairs if need be.  I don't have to have tile floors yet, but I WOULD like to be able to use the table if I wanted to!  I looked at the clock.  9:40 A.M.  Let's see how long it would take.

OH.  MY.  The staples!!!  Hundreds upon hundreds in the floor.  Flooring guys have told me that they have a tool similar to a roofer that they use to pick up the staples...and the ones they can't get they just hammer in.  But in both Dad's and I's mentality, why not pluck 'em up for good?!  We both have tons of free time on our hands right now, so...

Staples, staples, EVERYWHERE.

One board at a time.  But it's work!

After the board (and then some!), we decided to tackle the walk-in closet.  I'm trying to find projects that require two people, and this is definitely one of them.  The shelves are SO long that I can't handle them myself.  Well, we quickly learned that we were ill-prepared for the job.  With the length of the shelf combined with the flexibility of the shelf (not completely rigid), we had a difficult time keeping it level for drilling holes.  I put three support holes into the wall before we realized that we were going to have a tremendously difficult time staying straight across the whole wall.  We REALLY needed a laser level, but it was at Mom and Dad's house.

Adding shelves to the massive walk-in closet...well, trying to anyway...

So after a frustrating hour and a half of hanging shelves (and messing up), we decided to call it quits on that project and just wait until tomorrow.  It pains me to do that, but I really want it to look nice.

So as to not waste any time (ok, so we DID have a long lunch break talking about how nice it would be to have a laser level, and I even considered buying one at Sears across the street!), Pa decided we should pull up more staples.  I, of course, accused him of being crazy, but he started, and I couldn't let him work by himself.

So at the front entryway, we started pulling staples.  Hundreds upon hundreds of staples.  Now, granted, this was the most important part of the house to pull staples, for I cringe every time I walk from upstairs to downstairs barefoot!  I take a shower upstairs, then have to come downstairs to grab clothes out of the dryer, off the couch, or out of my suitcase!  And OUCH! do those small staples kill the foot.  I have hit more than one that just surprises the living daylights out of you with how painful it is.

Staples every inch!

What tedious work!  But my feet will love me!

Leaving our wake in the front entryway.

So we pulled.  And pulled.  And pulled some more.  I was pulling close to the air vent next to the front door when I said, "Dad, I don't think the heat is on, but I feel a huge cold draft coming out of the vent."  "Well, that's good."  "No, Dad, the heat is NOT on.  I'm telling you, no air should be moving here."

But we kept pulling staples.




Not only did the staples come up, but the staples have prevented me from getting a good, deep clean of the floors in this area!  So bye, bye, staples, dirt, hair, and pet dander!

One of the piles of staples and dirt.

Another pile.

After we pulled them all out, I swept them all up and looked for ones we had missed...to the tune of over 30!  ha!  Pa was taking some much-needed relaxation in the chair and mentioning he was leaving for home when I said, "Just a few more minutes.  Let me clean up here."  I grabbed the sweeper and cleaned up the area.  And then I noticed the incredibly filthy air register, so I took the hose from the vacuum and started cleaning it out.



Yet another container full of dirt and dust and sawdust.  This house is FILTHY.



The walkway is now clear!  I can walk from the bath to the laundryroom (and scream in the kitchen when I hit those staples!)

And something just didn't feel right.  I wasn't hitting bottom.  I figured I was missing something, so I pulled the hose away and couldn't believe my eyes.  COULD NOT BELIEVE.

I was looking straight into my crawlspace!!!  I thought I was done looking into my crawlspace from the main floor.  I couldn't see exactly what was going on, so I grabbed a flashlight, and that only made the realization all the worse.  My elbow in the ductwork had literally rusted out.  I had a straight view of my crawl.



The air vent before I cleaned it out.



At second glance, I noticed it had no bottom!!!  Agh, this house!!!

I was ready to tackle it tomorrow, but Dad said it was an urgent project that needed fixed, so we decided to tackle it at "closing" time.  Sorry, Pa!

I headed to the crawlspace to take a look at the situation, and it was obvious that I needed to replace not only the elbow but also the five-foot section of ductwork, too, as it was also rusted out.  It appears that my front door has been leaking so much water over the years (hence the ruined floors) that it leaked into the ductwork and simply rusted out over 25 years.



Just solid rust.



Why, yes, that IS my living room ceiling you are seeing.  Sigh.



The worthless vents.  This house is nothing but a big water leak fiasco.

Maybe this explains why my house has only been warming up to 62 degrees as pointed out by Mom yesterday!

We headed to Lowe's and grabbed the required materials, then headed back to the house.  The fix was relatively simple.  I worked in the crawlspace while Dad attached to duct upstairs.  We had it fixed in about 40 minutes.



The new parts ready to install.

And it was an instantaneous change.  As we both realized, not only was more heat coming into the house now, but less cold was coming into the house!  I'm actually thankful that today was so windy (gusting over 30 MPH), as I think that's what caused the massive airflow out of the vent that I felt in my face while pulling up staples.  The wind blew through the vents in the foundation of the crawl (I felt it drastically in the crawl) and pushed the air out the hole in the floor.  If it had been calm, I don't think I would have felt it at all.  So the cold air was stopped from coming into the house, AND the warm air was added to the house.  This should help out significantly!



The new duct installed!  All that heat was going straight into my crawlspace!  How inefficient!



All fixed!



Oh so clean!

As I told Dad, I think I have five ducts coming off the main duct, so we basically increased the efficiency of my heating by 20% today.  Amazing.

So glad we found the damage.

We called it quits a little after 6:00 P.M.  Thanks for the help on the needed fix, Pa!  He headed home right after that...later than expected for both of us.

 

 

Later this evening, I glued my bi-fold door pivot hole from the laundry room.  It had been totally splintered before I bought the house.  And now I'm trying to salvage the door.  I will let it set overnight.



The splintered door.



Letting it set.

One step forward, one step back!  Am I making any progress?!  Every time I check one box off the list, I add another...or three!

Save the Cabinets!

This morning I started out pulling staples from behind the dryer.  Mom and Dad graciously surprised me with moving over my appliances from the middle of the kitchen, but the staples prevent any real scooting from being done without tearing up the rubber feet.  So I decided to pull them up in the little "laundry room."  It's a tedious process, but it actually tells a lot about the house.

The old luan removed along with the tedious staple removal in process.

Rust denotes water was here!

One at a time.  An area the size of a clothes dryer took a half hour!

Namely where the water leaks have been in the past.  The staples are obviously steel, as the ones that have been wet over the years are rusty.  And, boy, did I have some rusty ones behind the washer and dryer!  I also had some old luan that needed to come up (a small strip), so that should be the last of that!

Dad decided to come over and help since he is retired now (congrats, Pa!), and we decided to work on a massive project:  repairing my kitchen cabinet.  Just last night at their house, I had talked about replacing the cabinets altogether.  For here is my issue:  The end cabinet is nearly destroyed from the massive water leak from the ceiling.  The cabinet body is made out of particle board (oh, you thought those were OAK?!  Me, too!), so once it became wet, it quite literally disintegrated.  The sawdust became just that.

A view of the rear of the cabinet (upside down).  The water totally contorted the shelf to the shape you see here!

What is more, the cabinet that was removed would now sit on two different surfaces.  The flooring was installed before the cabinets, so the base cabinets sit on top of the linoleum and luan.  I have removed it from everywhere else in the kitchen, but I cut the luan board along the cabinet edge to prevent having to remove the cabinets (or such was the goal at the time).  But as I would later learn, I needed to remove the end cabinet in order to have the damaged floor replaced.

PLUS I have a shelf in yet another base cabinet that has been ruined by a water leak.  This is the one underneath the kitchen sink.  So because of all of these issues, I greatly contemplated just replacing ALL of the cabinets, spending the couple to few thousand dollars, and making the house easier to sell.

But then that got me thinking.  It's a couple to few thousand dollars!!!  And a lot of work!!!  Would I get the money back in a sale?  Possibly.  But why NOT just rebuild the cabinet and keep the money?

Well, frankly, I have stared at this cabinet NUMEROUS times.  But it was just a little bit demoralizing.  I wasn't sure I could cut it apart while keeping the integrity of the sides.  Long story short, I knew it was going to be a long pain-in-the-butt process of rebuilding it!  So I just didn't.

Well, enter my dad!  Why NOT rebuild it, he says?!  Well, because it's a massive project!  Well, you've now got time on your hands (I left my job on Monday), he responds!  Valid point!

So we decided to rebuild the cabinet.

And, oh, what sorry shape it was in.

The base of the cabinet was shot.

The base was worthless.

One side was definitely ruined (the far side), and even the closer side was torn up.

Cheap particle board was no match for a massive water leak.

The other side of the cabinet was also tore up from water and being scooted along the very staple-y floor.

Where to begin?!

I had to carefully trim down the base of the cabinet while keeping the integrity and strength of the top portion.  The old particle board shelf used to slide into a groove, but we decided to built a platform base and place the shelf on top.  I carved the particle board away with a knife on one side (the flaky side) and then used a small saw for the other side.  It was surgical work to not pierce through the particle board and penetrate the oak outer wall that I needed to keep.  But it was working!

One side is cut away!

The warped shelf removed.

The old particle board base was gone.  Now we had to build it back up.

The old base just disintegrated on one side when I cut it with a knife.  Hardly anything was left except for sawdust loosely held together.

Both sides removed and ready for a new base!

Ready for a new shelf.

I was dealing with extraordinarily thin sidewalls here (think cheap paneling).  I had to be careful not to cut through this when cutting away the inside particle board base.

We were getting ready to head out to the hardware store for wood when I decided to just look around my garage.  I had lots of wood taken out of my old shed!  And sure enough, I found all the pieces we needed to rebuilt it, even the shelf!

Our new base all beefed up.

An old piece of wood waiting for this very purpose to be re-used as a shelf!

The new base of the cabinet!



Stronger than it's ever been!

The cabinet ready to be turned upside down.  Look at that awful fading on the side, though!

It was tricky work at times, but you basically just cut out a new base and made a shelf fit into where it needed to be.  And it turned out looking great!  I will put a nice linoleum cover over the old wood shelf and give it a nice look.  But several hours of hard work paid off today, and it looks like I'll be keeping $3000 in my pocket!

Oh, the final cost after all was said and done?  Zero bucks.  Just scrap wood laying around.  I love it!  Frugal flipping at its finest!

In some other exciting news, I had my new internet installed today, and it works great!  I've been waiting more than two weeks for that.  I also sold my little truck this afternoon.  With the job loss, I'm trying to bring all the money back in that I can.  I expect to have a couple hard months ahead of me.  I paid $1000 for it, put over 4000 miles on it (lots of those moving back and forth between houses!), and sold it for $2000, so it worked out great.  It was such a handy little truck.

I also changed a rubber washer on my clothes washer hose, so that leak has stopped (Dad told me it was leaking when he hooked it up).  So the washer needed a washer.  And I mounted the left-hand side of the laundry doors tonight.  It's nice to start seeing the room as it should be.  Even closing off doors makes a huge difference.  The right-hand side doors are currently broken, so I will have to address the splintered wood issue there before I make any progress.

I tried to hook up my used dryer vent hose, but it was too stiff to work very well.  And when I cut it shorter to try to make it work...well, I cut it too short.  The rigidity of it (from being used) makes one side pull off every time I get the other side attached.  I could never get them on at the same time!  Oh, well, time to buy a new one.  Sometimes you just have to...

But what a great day!  I was overwhelmed with the idea of fixing that kitchen cabinet, but with a little bit of motivation, LOTS of time, some creativity and ingenuity, and some free spare parts, it all paid off.  It's ready for another 25 (dry) years!

The cabinet all ready to go again!

What a difference!  Ready to go!