Day 2! So Many Projects!!!

Today started out with a little bit of a reminder not to get too many houses:  a repair on another house!  I headed to Menard's first for items for the new house, then headed over for my 9:00 A.M. appointment at another rental.  The tenant said they could not use the door between the kitchen and the garage.  Well, it turned out the knob literally broke!  After another trip to Menard's, I replaced that out.  It cost me $10, but I also received her rent check today for 100 times that, so it's a healthy reminder why I do what I do.

From there, I headed over to the firehouse to finish my coffee.  Then I realized daylight was wasting, so I headed for the house.  I went to change out the rusty shut-off valve in the master bath only to have it break off in my hands.  That pipe was RUSTY.  Well...not good.  I honestly didn't know what to do!  So I moved on to another project.  But I KNEW that I couldn't turn the water on with a pipe just sitting there with no shut-off!

I headed to the other bathroom to check out the floor.  I didn't like it.  The more I looked at the luan, the more I realized it needed to be removed.  It was old and had been wet.  So I started ripping up the old floor.  It was again just old-fashioned sweaty equity, and I did start breaking a sweat!  The previous contractor did it right and put in a ton of nails!  But the floor came up pretty well.

Removing the old luan board from the main bathroom.

I also tackled a myriad of other projects today.  One of my most favorite was demolition!!!  My painter came over today to give me a quote, and there was one wall in the house that I just hated:  the wood paneling wall!  Anyone who knows me knows I hate wood paneling, and I just knew that had to go!  I didn't know what was behind the paneling, but I didn't care.  It was in bad shape, so I wanted it out of there!

It's hard to see, but this is painted 1970's wood paneling.  They tried to skim coat it (horrible job), then paint it.  I hated it from the moment I walked in!

Well, I was THRILLED to find a nice, solid frame-work behind the portion over the chimney and even more ecstatic to find drywall on the outside walls.  This dining area is going to pop now!  My brother came over to watch me rip it all down.  That's fun.  It's fun doing this project in front of others!  I think others kind of get involved, too.  He helped me remove the large shelf, and I would love to not put that back in except that the floor is not finished under that shelf!  AGH!!!  I'm going to have to get creative, because I really, REALLY like the shelf not being in there.  It opens up the room.

Now a blank canvas!  What to do?  Veneer stone?  Drywall?  Barnwood?

After removing the cabinet, I had four surprises:  no laminate wood, black mold, 1970's carpet, and tile below the carpet.

I grabbed some lunch, asked the hardware owner about the toilet issue (he thought it was sweated), then headed back to the house.  I figured the pipe was broke already, so I just tried to unscrew it.  It moved!  It moved freely!  Much to my happiness, the pipe screwed right out.  I grabbed a new one at the hardware store, and that project is done (except that I forgot the chrome wall cover!).  Agh!!!  I was thrilled, though, because I was literally going to call a plumber to do that...probably around $125!

The new 1/4-turn toilet valve!  I forgot about the chrome wall cap, though.  oops!  I'll fix it tomorrow.

I ripped off the remaining wood paneling, cleaned up the old floor tiles from yesterday, cleaned up the luan floor from today.  I still wanted to turn on the water, so I went after the two remaining items:  the kitchen sprayer that broke off yesterday with the new force of water, and the inlet valve on the dishwasher.  With Dad's help, I determined that the inlet valve was only $31 (I've done them before), but the unit was 17 years old.  Hmm.  I needed a break from being on my feet, so I headed to the store to buy some chrome covers and think about the dishwasher.  Well, after finding a brand-new dishwasher on sale for $239, it was a no-brainer.  I bought a brand-new kitchen faucet, too.  I had to head to two Menard's to get the dishwasher, but I wanted to turn on the water!!!

Once back around 6:00, I tackled the kitchen faucet.  I had purchased the wrong water lines, so I couldn't finish that.  And since I couldn't turn the water on because of that, I decided to wait on the dishwasher until tomorrow.

As soon as the Public Works turned on the water, the sprayer shot off, and I had water going everywhere!  Rather than replace just the sprayer, I decided to modernize the entire faucet.  Before...

And After!  Such a more classy look.

 I did decide to grout my main bathroom tub, though. I want to check off all these projects!  I also took care of a couple of quick projects: replacing the showerheads (one non-existent) in the master and main bathrooms.  Little by little!

The crack line from top to bottom in my main bathtub.

After the grout!

Before:  A large crack ran from top to bottom in my main bath.

After:  New grout!

The "shower head" as I acquired it.

Replaced with a "new" one.  I had this laying around my house, but I don't like it, so I'll replace it with new.

The carpet guy came by today, too, to give me a quote, so we'll see where he lands.  After much thought, I am going to replace the floor in the bathrooms (there is no floor now!), one of the bedrooms, but I am going to try to clean the remaining floors for the first tenant.  I think it can be done.

All in all a GREAT day.  Chea came over at the end, and she is eager to help, too!  In a pretty comical but surprising find, she was playing with the kitchen window screens.  I had showed her what a previous owner had done by just stuffing napkins into the gap left by the lost/broken window hinge.  She was curious about how the screens opened, and when she did get them opened, a large piece of vinyl fell out!  My 1970's window decoration was just loosely hanging between the glass and the screen!  I eagerly yanked them both out!  Seriously, I was ecstatic.  I had even contemplated replacing just the kitchen windows in the house just to take away from the 1970's look.  Way to go, Chea!

What fun this is!

The windows just yelled "1970's!"

Thanks to Chea's surprising find, the windows are now clean and wide open!!!  Yay!!!

Day One--Closing and Water On...Then Off!!!

Well, it's official!!!  I am the proud owner of a new house!!!  I closed at 11:00 A.M. this morning, and my truck was FULL of repair items for the house!  I loaded up all my tools and items purchased from last week, headed to closing, then back home to pick up some more tools, then headed for the house.

Today's goal was simple:  Turn the water on, and make sure I had no leaks!!!  AND finish the master bathroom (lay linoleum, change showerhead, grout cracked lines).

I had an appointment at 2:00 P.M. with the Public Works guy, so I started tackling the bathroom.  I removed the toilet (they are SO heavy by yourself!).  I made an awful mess on the floor and carpet trying to carry out the toilet by myself...it was really bad!  So I had to clean that mess up.  The flange and floor was a little bit worse off than I had expected, and I also didn't like the slow-leaking shut-off valve, so I decided to replace that, too.

I then started tackling those ugly yellow-porcelain tiles in my master bath.  I was happy to find that they came up fairly easy.  It just required the old-fashioned method:  hammer and chisel.



The yellow tiles just had to go!!!

Tedious but methodical work.  The ol'-fashioned hammer, chisel, and patience.

Thankfully, the tiles were coming up fairly easily.

Somewhere in all the mess, the Public Works guy showed up.  He slowly turned on the water, and I heard a waterfall somewhere in the house.  I had turned off what I thought was EVERYTHING.  Turned out I forgot about the washer and dryer valves.  AGH!!!  I had two water lines spraying in!  It was pretty bad.  After I closed those, we still had water running...I found a leaky toilet, so I shut that line off.  Still water.  I tracked it down to the water heater filling up.  After it was full, though, we still had water!  I tracked it down again to my dishwasher inlet valve shooting water all over under the dishwasher (those ALWAYS break on foreclosures).  After I shut that off, I still had water moving!  And we couldn't find it.

We looked outside, inside, outside, inside.  And then during my mad rush through the house, I found it:  I stepped right in a massive puddle in the kitchen!  AGH, THE ICEMAKER LINE!!!  It was amazing just how much this was kicking out.  I had water ALL OVER the kitchen floor.  sigh.

That little item ended up being quite a bit of work!  The shut-off valve in the crawlspace was so corroded that it was worthless, so I decided to cap it.  Well, that cap didn't work (it was leaking before the outlet!).  So I decided to just buy a replacement crimp for leaks.  That didn't work, either!  After a couple of hours, the public works guy had to go, so I had him just turn the water off again.  This was NOT how my day was supposed to go!!!

I finally bought another icemaker line and tried to line up the puncture hole on the copper line with the needle on the new one.  I was happy to learn that it worked!!!  I turned the water back on, and it didn't really move that much.  I still wasn't confident on leaving the house unattended with the water on, so I shut it back off, especially with the toilet valves pooling up little balls of water.  But I should be able to tackle those tomorrow and get the water on!

I met Dad at my house to load up the refrigerator and washer and dryer.  It's going to be nice to have my garage back again!

Dad stayed to change out the two-prong receptacles to GFCI-protected three-prong receptacles.  My entire house is wired in 1970...as in two-prong.  We are able to get two changed out on one circuit.  I counted the circuits:  16!  We also did 90% of another circuit, but I need to get 15-amp GFCI's instead of 20 for that one.  Needless to say, we have our work cut out for us on that project.  But then the house will be safe and updated!

A new GFCI receptacle!

A new 3-prong receptacle downstream of the new GFCI, so it's protected, too!

I went back to removing the bathroom tiles, and I was able to complete that project.  I also removed that toilet and vanity (I was not planning on the vanity) to get all of the tiles out.  I need to replace the shut-off valve in the master, too...it's so rusty.  I'm not sure if it will come out or not.

All in all, it was an ok day.  I did not get anywhere close to getting done what I wanted, but it's still a step in the right direction.  Tomorrow's goal is now to get the water on.  That should be very doable.  And then we'll start tackling projects from there!

Wallpaper, Wallpaper, Wallpaper. AGH!!!

I was able to catch a flight back by early evening, so I wasted no time in heading to the house!!!  Mom picked me up, and we drove right over!  I had a goal of getting the wallpaper done in the kitchen and bathrooms over the next two days.

I was thrilled to find that Mom had actually started work on the kitchen!  She said it was veeeeeeery slow work!  No good!  It's amazing the different types of wallpaper paste one comes across in a single house.  Some peels off, some stays on.  It's crazy!

Upon walking in, I was thrilled to find that my painter had started, too.  He had taped the baseboards and started the trim work around the house.  Woo hoo!!!

I started at the wallpaper in the kitchen around 7:00 P.M.  Dad brought over food, and we worked into the night!  The wallpaper was being mostly cooperative with the steamer (worth its weight in gold), but with the smaller areas to work in (above countertops, below cabinets), it was tedious.

I wasn't able to finish the kitchen tonight, but we did get about 90% of it done.  I'll have to tackle the rest tomorrow!!!  All I have left is above the sink and countertops on the same wall.

I left around 9:15 P.M.

It's so nice to get back during the early evening and gain an extra day of work.  Thanks, Mom, for the work done before I arrived, and thanks for the help throughout!!!

Little by little, the project is coming together!!!