Thanks Uncle Jack!

 There are a couple things that I realized I somehow missed mentioning. So I'd like to do so now.
The first is that we got a new roof put on the house. It was our biggest single expense in the remodel, but totally necessary. It was done a few weeks ago. After some intense debate about what color roof to go with we chose "Charcoal" (I kinda thought red would be cool, but it was too risky for our fist remodel). The company we hired had a crew of about 7 guys, and they managed to get the whole thing up in two days. They also installed skylights, and worked through a pretty significant snow storm, so I was impressed. And the roof looks great. My only complaint (and it's not their fault because it was snowing like crazy) is that there are roofing nails all over the ground now.

The second thing is that we ordered new windows for most of the house. They had to be custom built, but we got a good deal at the Home Depot, although we paid for it in the time it actually took to place the order. They guy helping us was really helpful, but he made watching water boil, or paint dry (and I have a great deal of experience with the latter at this point) seem quick.

The last, and most important thing is that we got a couple unexpected visits from Uncle Jack and he brought us a full on happy hour both times, AND insisted we take a break and sit down for a few! Woohoo! Finally someone who understands my work style! There is nothing better than a cold beer/ beverage and an excuse to sit down for a few minutes when working on your first remodel. I will be forever grateful. And I think it's great that he was there for our first beers in our new place! It makes it extra special and memorable. 

Showing Uncle Jack around

Our first beer in the new house!

Yes, I was VERY happy

Break time courtesy of Uncle Jack

A Leaky Mess!

First batch of split pipes

Things at the house will probably go slower this week than last. Eduardo and Dad have some tile jobs to work on, so that just leaves me to do whatever I can get done. Yesterday I added the first bit of color back into the new place. Even though I have been painting for weeks, so far it's just been all-white primer, or white ceiling paint. But yesterday I painted the kitchen "Honey Butter" yellow. We'd thought about going for the same color orange we had in our old kitchen, but I thought we should just try something new. Honey Butter is definitely new...and bold. I hope Eduardo likes it when he sees it.

Today I will start on the less bold beige/brown color I chose. Those sort of vague colors really have to be up on the wall before I can tell if I like them or not. On a small sample strip it's just too hard to visualize whether a slightly more grey beige would look better than a slightly more brown one.

I must admit that it is kind of nice to have the house to myself when painting. I don't have to worry about being in the way, or the guys rubbing against my fresh painted walls, and I can turn the music up. Also some of the pressure I feel at all their accomplishment (while I plod away priming wall after wall) is lessened, so I don't feel as rushed or as disappointed in what I've gotten done. That's not to say that they have said anything to that effect, in fact I don't think they even think that, and I don't either really. It's just the nature of what I am doing. Last week they took care of all the plumbing, so that is done. Last week they hung the sliding door upstairs, so that is done. This weekend they started hanging the interior doors so that is mostly done. I have just been priming. A wall here, half a ceiling there, most of the trim, but not all of it, half of the upstairs living room...For all of my working I have yet to finish even one room. Except for what I did yesterday I haven't even actually PAINTED anything yet! I am hoping to get some stuff done this week, so I feel a little bit better about the situation. If I can get the kitchen and the two bedrooms done, trim and all, I'll be pretty excited I think. But we'll see about that. There is so much more to painting (final color) than just rolling it on the wall. There is taping, and I have to move everything in the rooms around, which can take some time.

Going back to the plumbing problems last week. What a mess that turned out to be! I wish Eduardo could write about that, since I only know what I saw from breaks I took from painting. But anyway I'll try my best (and hope it's close to the truth). So remember way back when in November when I was all barfy and going to make an offer ont he house and we found out that there was a plumbing leak? And then I got all freaked out and thought that it would be a huge deal and cost thousands of dollars to fix? Yes, well the huge deal part was right, but (luckily) the thousands of dollars was off. It didn't cost a whole lot, dollar wise, just a few copper pieces, and some pipe (since Pepere Joe had a bunch of soldering stuff that Uncle Jack loaned to us). But in time it was quite expensive, and in patience from the guys maybe double or triple that. The short version is that they went through the house and fixed all the pipes that they saw that were busted. Both lines to the upstairs shower, both lines to the downstairs bathtub, one to the downstairs bathroom sink, the kitchen sink, the lines to the laundry, and a couple under the house. I think there were maybe 8 or 9 fixes made by the time I called the Township and had them turn on the water. They did, and we waited and....water started pouring out from the kitchen pipes, the laundry ones, the upstairs bathroom, and the downstairs tub! There was a bit of shouting to "turn it off!" before the show was over. The great news was that none of the fixed spots were leaking, the bad news was that there were a bunch more burst pipes than we thought. So they had to rip out the bathroom vanity upstairs, and reopen the laundry room wall, and expose more of the kitchen pipes, and crawl around in the cold, cobwebby much under the house and fix everything. Oh there was a break in the hot water heater line too. I forgot about that one. The guys spent the next two or three days cutting holes in walls, finding and fixing broken or leaky pipes, and going up and down out of the crawls space. 

Cutting pipe

Heading down into the crawl space

Eduardo too

Fixed pipes

Dad soldering pipes

A Little Bit of Everything

Guys hard at work!

I don't know how long it's been since I last wrote. A long time I think. All the days are running together in a blur. Everyday is pretty much the same thing. I wake up achy, have coffee, make breakfast, make lunches, go to the house and sand or paint all day. Take a break or two to go to Home Depot or wherever to pick up whatever, leave the house by 7:00, with a nose full of drywall buggers and covered in paint, get to the coffeehouse and start dinner, eat around 8:30-9:00, watch a little TV and peace out.

Everyday except today that is! We actually left the house around 6:00, made it to the coffeehouse by 6:30, warmed up leftovers for dinner, and I even had time to take a shower before sitting down to write! What a glorious evening hu? And I'm not drop dead tired, AND it's only 7:30! (Yes, my expectations have lowered considerably.) I'm all clean, and already in bed! I have a nice hot cup of decaf, and I smell good (Eduardo seemed surprised by it when I sat by him on the couch...LOL), and I pulled the window shade up so I can enjoy the gloomy rainy evening while being snuggly warm in bed...sigh, so heavenly!

But anyway, despite the monotony of the past few days (I still can't believe it's only Wednesday), I'm going to try to recollect a few of the details. You know, for posterity.

So what has happened since I last wrote? Hmmm...well, I personally haven't been doing anything besides sanding and priming walls. I have been doing that for...over a week now. Every day we are at the house. I think that is why everything is running together for me. But Eduardo and Dad have done tons of other stuff!

Last Thursday they started building the walls for the walk in closet. It's going to be super sweet! It was pretty amazing to me that Dad knows how to everything. I remember him being pretty handy when I was a kid, but this is beyond that. He can build walls and run electrical, and fix plumbing...but I'm getting ahead of myself. So he and Eduardo framed in the walls and cut all the holes to run the electrical and put a light in the new walk in closet. Friday they continued working on the it. Menards delivered our other cabinets (minus one) and the additional door, but for some reason they did not include our 15 sheets of cement board which was a bummer. I spent the day priming most of the rest of the trim. Before we left for the night Dad and Eduardo set the cabinets in their places only to realize we were still missing one! So out of 11 cabinets, two were ordered wrong, two were never ordered, and one more was ordered correctly but they shipped the wrong one. Needless to say I am not super pleased with Menards. But the cabinets themselves are pretty. Dad says they are not well reinforced, and so we will have to be careful installing them. Once they are all together they will be fine, but while it's still in pieces we need to be careful.

Saturday we were supposed to have a day off and went into town for breakfast, but we ended up going to the Home Depot to pick up drywall to finish up the closet. We took it back to the house, and then Eduardo and I unloaded it all and took it upstairs so it would be ready to go.

We decided to work on Sunday because Dad and Eduardo were supposed to be working on a tile job all week, so we wanted to squeeze in as much as we could before then. We also decided that when Dad can come down to help us we will skip the gym since he likes to get started early. But he had something in the morning so we went to the gym and then met him at the house later. I spent the day priming the pink bedroom and half of the brown one. Dad and Eduardo put the drywall up in the closet, and...I can't remember if they got to anything else or not.

Happy at work

Monday was St. Patrick's Day. We went to work. Dad and Eduardo finally got to tackle the plumbing...and what a mess! Every pipe it seemed had a split in it. I started collecting the broken pieces and decided to make some kind of art sculpture out of them. It was really something to see though. They had to open up all the walls where the pipes were and sure enough, they were broken. They even went down into the crawlspace and were working down there. When they came back up they were all wet and covered in sand, and had heads and sweatshirts full of cobwebs and dust. I was suddenly grateful that my whole task for the day had been to continue priming the brown room. I eventually made my way into the hallway and dining room too. Uncle Jack stopped by in the afternoon and brought us some Seagrams wine coolers, and convinced us to take a break and have a drink. We sat in the living room in our patio chairs and chatted. He said he is going to come help when we get to the tiling part.

My St. Patty's Day flair

We worked until at least 7:00. I was so tired I could barely stand it. I tried to keep busy while the guys were finishing up, by straightening up the house and throwing away all the garbage and putting the tools away. Everything there is all over the place all the time, and we are constantly tripping over power cords or doors, or looking for tools.

On our way home we stopped at Meijer and got some Guinness and Bass, so at least I could make a Black and Tan when we got home (since we weren't doing anything fun for St. Patty's Day).

Yesterday I did more of the same until I ran out of primer. Eduardo and Dad planned to install the sliding glass door upstairs, but couldn't figure out how to get the door up there. It was so heavy and bulky! Eventually the three of us managed to get it up the stairs, but boy oh boy, was it a pain. Dad had to take off in the afternoon so Eduardo and I went to Menards to get more primer and pick up our cement board. They were out of the 5 gallon buckets of primer, so we got four smaller ones, only to realize after we got back to the house that it was "sealer" not primer. I was SUPER annoyed because the lady who worked there said it was the same thing! Anyway we also bought the granite tiles for the kitchen counter and a ceiling fan for the living room. Our bill was like $600. Yikes!

We got back to the house and Eduardo and Dad got back to work on the sliding door. Since I still didn't have my primer I carried in all the cement board and boxes or granite from the truck, sanded some walls, filled in a couple holes, and peeled tape off the wall in the laundry room, and cleaned. Once again I was super exhausted. We got home around 7:45, and didn't finish grilling dinner until 9:00.

That pretty much brings us to today!

I got up at 6:30 with the intention of writing for a while before we had to head down to the house, but Dad was already up, and then Eduardo got up, and before I knew it we were discussing stuff for the house.

I am enjoying the house, and the remodel, and all the help Dad is giving us, but I am realizing (after a month now) that I need a regular break from it in a way that Eduardo and Dad just don't seem to. We get back to the coffeehouse at night and the two of them can talk about the house all through dinner, and then again in the morning over coffee, and I find it...frustrating. It's not that I'm not interested in what they are talking about, but...I just need a mental break from the house once in a while to think about other things. I can't enjoy this whole process as much when I don't have time to rest and sort of decompress, and step back and enjoy the big picture. It's hard for me to feel really excited about the house and the progress we are making when I am constantly caught up in the details of working on it. And I haven't been stepping back or taking a break, because I feel like nobody else is, and I don't want to be the weak link, the slacker who is not doing their share of the work. But I'll tell you something, it's really starting to get to me. I can feel it. I felt it this morning when I got up, and I would have stayed back today, but we had a bunch of errands to run and stuff to pick up. I haven't told Eduardo or Dad yet, but I am thinking I'll do it tomorrow, and just take the day off. I honestly feel giddy at the thought of a whole day to myself to just sit on my ass and not worry about sanding or painting anything.

But anyway, today we bought the tile we are going to use in the bathroom upstairs. It was about $350. Dad had some tile that he said we could have for free but it wasn't nearly as cool as the stuff we got. Still in the back of my mind I am wondering if we should return it and go with free over cool. Eduardo doesn't think so, and after the chore of moving those super heavy boxes of tile, I don't blame him.

We had to go to Menards again today to return that sealer and pick up our last kitchen cabinet. I have decided that I don't care for Menards for several reasons:

1.) It's really hard to find someone to help you when you are in the store.

2.) Both orders we placed within different departments were submitted incorrectly (and entered into the computer multiple times because something or other didn't work). 

3.) When they run out of things it takes FOREVER for them to get more. Like 3-4 weeks for some things! It's ridiculous.

4.) Their whole rebate system is super annoying. Why can't they just give you a discount or a store credit and be done with it? I'll tell you, it's so they can advertise things at a certain price, all the while banking on the fact that most of the people buying stuff will be too lazy to send in the rebate forms...I don't know why, but the whole thing just seems kind of shady and manipulative.

5.) I feel like the people who work there really don't understand the products they are selling. The woman who told me to get the "sealer" instead of primer yesterday suggested to me to buy the more expensive primer that was in stock. When I asked her why the other person I'd asked had recommended the one I'd originally purchased she shrugged and said they were pretty much the same except it "doesn't work as well and the new synthetic mix". Excuse me? Why would I pay more for an inferior product, and how are they the same thing when one works better than the other?

Anyway, I decided today that I am over Menards. I have much better luck at the Home Depot or Lowes.

The whole renovation so far has been really interesting, even if I am completely exhausted all the time and never get a chance to think about it. Even my never ending sanding and painting. I never thought I'd have an opinion on what brand of spackling to use, but I certainly do now. And I was unaware that the muscles in my fingers could get just as sore as my back or quads can. I've never had a strategy for painting before either, but now I have discovered several superior methods depending on if it's trim, or walls or a ceiling. I also know what I would look like if I went grey prematurely since I've had drywall dust in my hair for a week. I've discovered just how weak my arms really are, and I have more sympathy for people with back problems now. I have a very strong dislike for people who tape walls to paint and then leave the tape up there for 10 years for someone (such as myself) to have to peel off millimeter by millimeter. Grrr...

Little by little things are coming together. The guys are doing such an amazing job, and Dad is being so great teaching Eduardo how to do everything, and Eduardo is soaking everything up and it's just amazing all the stuff he is able to do now and it's only been a month! We are still in the repair phase, especially with the plumbing. Today the township came out and turned the water on and water started pouring out of the wall from upstairs, and at the kitchen sink, and in the laundry room. They found like....6 or 7 more busted pipes, and spent all afternoon putting holes in the walls and repairing them. They even had to pull out the whole water heater because one of the pipes to it had a split in it. It seems to me that the plumbing is not very expensive to fix, but it is very destructive really time consuming. And it's dangerous because you have to use a blow torch and solder. Eduardo got burned today and Dad accidentally lit some insulation on fire.

Well, that about does it for me. My fingers are tired and my wrists are pretty sore too, and it's almost 9:00 which means I've got a good half hour left in me to read for a few minutes, brush my teeth, and get ready for bed. 

Meanwhile I'm still sanding...

Building the closet

New sliding door

My contribution

Snowstorm!

On our way to work!

It's a snowstorm! The perfect day to stay home and watch movies! But wouldn't you know it, we have our big delivery from Menard's coming today? Lame!

Anyway, I haven't written much this week because I have been so tired both in the morning and at night. But let me fill you in on the highlights of this weeks so far.

Dad and Eduardo ripped out the downstairs bathroom, all the way down to the studs and discovered that all the pipes had burst in one spot or another. They laid down the cement board in the kitchen, and they ripped out the back of the master closet. Yesterday they spent the afternoon trying to figure out what all the light switches go to. We are still unclear about how it's rigged up, and part of the problem may be that the connections are bad. We don't know. What we do know for sure is we have 5 lights witches by the door that may or may not turn something on. OK. Good.

What have I been doing while they are doing all that? I have been sanding walls...for days. And I am the clean up crew, and just yesterday I started priming the trim that we are trying to save. My jobs are not as big, or as...exciting, but I feel good about the fact that I am getting things done that no one else wants to do.

The sanding block is still my nemesis. I'm not super sore, but I can definitely feel it. But it's nice to know that I am getting extra exercise while I am working. Especially my arms:)

Today, like I said we have our big order coming in. The doors have different color hinges than I wanted (brass instead of brushed nickel), but...oh well.

*It's later, a little past 3:30 and I kind of got my wish! We are back at the coffeehouse, whilst the storm rages outside. But let me go back and recap.

Despite the howling wind, and 4" of snow, we headed into town. We probably would have stayed home except for our delivery, but we figured if we have to go for that we may as well go to the gym too. The drive down was super precarious. We couldn't see the road, much less the lines on it, and there were times when the snow was blowing so hard you couldn't see 5 feet in front of you. We were surprised by how many people we saw driving without their lights on. Shame on them. They could cause a serious accident. We got to the gym around 11:10. We were almost by ourselves there. I ran faster and harder to squeeze my 5 miles in before we had to go. When we were done, it was a complete whiteout outside. You couldn't see a single thing. Eduardo had to gun the truck just to get out of our parking spot, because the snow was getting so deep around it. We were just pulling out when the delivery guys called and said they were on their way. They asked me if the driveway was plowed, and I hesitated before saying no. They said they couldn't deliver if it wasn't, so I told them it would be by the time they got there. I wasn’t sure if that was a lie or not. It has been a lot of years since I’ve shoveled a driveway, and Eduardo is a driveway-shoveling virgin. But we would not be deterred from trying! SO....after working out super hard for an hour, Eduardo and I (but he did more than me) shoveled (technically I swept with a broom) the whole driveway in like 15 minutes! And the snow was falling all around us, and the wind was howling and blowing, and the drifts were at least 4" deep, twice that in other areas! Can you believe that? I there I was, shuffling around in my Crocks (because I still don't have boots) and my feet got totally soaked along with my jeans, but I kept sweeping as fast as I could. Eduardo looked a little more graceful than I did. But we got it done. And about 30 seconds before they arrived!

Then they started unloading, and our cabinet order was all messed up! They had to take back three cabinets, and we are missing 4. One of them they just got wrong, two were supposed to be 12x30, but instead what we ordered (and didn't catch) was 30x12, and so those have to go back, and the last one we thought we'd ordered, but apparently never actually did. What a disaster! They also damaged one of our doors, so that had to go back as well. So after all that stressful driving down, our order wasn't even complete.

Anyway, we decided to head back here because all of my receipts were here, and I needed to see what the heck was going on before I called Menards back. So we headed back up, almost getting stuck at the corner of Cherry Hill and 25, and then driving about 10 miles an hour behind a big tractor plowing the road. The conditions were worse after the plow turned and we had to continue on. Right past Galbraith Line, we started sliding all over the place. I was pretty stressed out by the whole thing, but Eduardo seemed to think it was pretty hilarious. What is it that makes guys laugh at danger? Must be some property of testosterone or something. I am glad he was the one driving.

I was super relieved when we made it back here in one piece. So yeah, anyway, that was our exciting day braving the blizzard that is still blowing outside! 

Grouchy, Unpleasant Me

The sanding block that's doing me in.

I didn't sleep well last night. I was dreaming about working at the house. It was actually more relaxing to just be in bed awake than sleeping and working. So that's pretty much what I did from 2:30 on. It's hard to figure out why sometimes I sleep better than others.

Anyway, today is Friday and I am glad. We have worked hard all week and I am looking forward to the weekend off. I think my body is too. My arms are sore again from sanding walls yesterday, and that is kind of hilarious to me because the sanding block weighs almost nothing, and is made out of foam. I realize that the only thing lighter than foam is air, or feathers maybe, but I swear it has exhausted my arms just the same. Apparently I do not raise my arms above my head often enough to hold a piece of foam. That’s pretty embarrassing.

I really enjoy the work though. It's different from what I normally do, and I am finding that in addition to being sort of tedious it is really satisfying too. The ripping things out was fun, but I am enjoying the putting back together even more.

I don't know why, but I still think of the house as an orphaned thing, and the more I fill holes in walls, the more I see the abuse that 20 years of not caring has inflicted upon it, and the better I feel about patching it up, and taking the imperfections and making everything whole again. It is somehow a wonderful feeling to find an ugly scratch, caused by who knows what, and fill it in with vinyl compound, and then smooth it out until I can't even feel with my bare fingers that it was ever there. I wish holes in people were as easy to fill as holes in houses. There would be a lot more happy people around. I feel that if Miss Meadowlawn were alive this would be considered the healing time. First we had to get rid of all the bad, cut it out, rip it up and take it away. And we were left with an empty shell, exposed and damaged, but still solid and strong deep down, where it counts (thank goodness!). And this week, and probably next, we are taking the time to fix her, to remove those old memories from her to erase the lumps, bumps, scratches, dents, cracks, and holes caused by angry people swinging doors too hard. I am filling in every pin hole that ever pricked our dear girl, and as soon as we prime her, no one will ever remember they were ever there. And I love that feeling of helping and healing.

*So after that rather poetic paragraph…We got mostly nothing done today! Lol. Typical. Despite not sleeping well, the day started off pretty well I thought. But as it wore on we couldn't seem to get much accomplished.

It's tough moving to a new state. There are so many things to do that are just way more complicated than they ought to be. Changing addresses, registering vehicles, getting new ID, insurance...the list goes on.

And I was feeling tired and short tempered all day, which translates into an unexplainable inability to make even the most trivial decisions, which in turn pisses me off, which in turn frustrates me and makes me grouchy and mildly to moderately unpleasant to be around. Basically it sucks for everyone. So we didn't go to the DMV like we planned, and didn't get any work on the house done. What we did do was spend three hours at Menards to order two doors and some cement board. What we did do was spend three hours walking back and forth through the store looking at all the things we may or may not want to buy for the house; counter tops, trim, backsplash, shitters...LOL. Opps! I meant shutters. Although we are looking for shitters too I guess... And it's just so many decisions, none of which we made, and so we will just have to go back and do it all again some other day and actually purchase stuff for real, and that thought just exhausts me.

Sometimes I wish there weren't so many options, sometimes I wish you could just walk into a store and say "Hey, I need some trim for my living room" and there would only be one kind there, so you could just take it, feel good about it, and get on with your life. But noooo. That’s not real life is it? In real life there is plain wood trim, there is primed trim, there is trim already colored that you never have to paint. You can choose a simple design or an ornate one, or any of the fifteen variations in between. You can get it in 1/2", 3/4", 1", 3", and if you really want to shell out the big bucks in 6". You can get some that's plain and painted and it will cost you the same as one that is plain wood but much more decorative which you have to paint yourself. You can budget $2.25 a foot and still have eight different kinds to choose from.

And so you find yourself standing in the same isle for an hour, surrounded by a hundred and fifty different kinds of trim, trying to sort out all these options you don't want to have, but are now compelled to consider. And suddenly the pressure is overwhelming, and your stomach is growling because lunch was an hour ago, but you missed it because you got sucked into the black hole of choosing trim, and you feel faint. At that point there are only two options. Option 1.) You throw your arms up in the air and exclaim "fuck it" and grab four of whatever is closest to where you are standing, buy it, and nail it up before you can change your mind or 2.) Quietly hang your head in defeat, accept that you are never going to actually buy trim, that your living room will be forever trimm-less, and go get a sandwich.

That's what I felt like all day today, with every single thing we looked at, and I am sorry to say that for the most part I went with option 2. My sandwich was tuna on whole wheat, and it was delicious.

Spindles and Stuff

Priming banisters and railings and patching and sanding walls is tedious work. I know because that is what I have been doing all week. When I need a break I sweep floors, pick up garbage, or pull nails out of trim, but for the most part it's been painting, patching and sanding.I don't dislike the work, in fact it's sort of...meditative in a way. But at the same time I feel like what I have done in a day is much less impressive than what Dad and Eduardo are doing. They are repairing whole walls in the amount of time it takes me to paint like three spindles of the railing. But I take comfort in the fact that the work still needs to be done, and I am doing it.

I want to write more, but I am just too tired. It's amazing how quickly the days are going, and how much we are able to squeeze into them. But they always end the same. Me content, but exhausted at 9:00 pm, and ready to hit the sack. At least tomorrow is Friday. That means another day of painting and patching and sanding, and then (hopefully) a couple days off to write and reflect and accomplish some of the other goals I set for myself. All of it sounds great. I've had a good week so far, and there is no reason why this weekend shouldn't be wonderful as well.