The Big House

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2010-03-09T22:01:00.000-08:00

From this five years ago...

to this last fall...

to this a few short weeks ago.

Moving a kitchen to another room...

can cause a lot of headaches...

but well worth it.

These last few pictures were taken seven weeks ago. Right now, we are in the home stretch. At the beginning of the remodel we decided to move in with my sister. How glad I am that we did. We spent seven weeks there. Thank God we have her and her husband to put up with a grumpy dad, nervous mom, three stir crazy boys, and one territorial dog. I made dinner only twice. Can you believe it? Don't worry, they plan on having dinner here a lot for a VERY long time.

We still do not have a functional kitchen, but it's close. Oh so very close.

Hey! Did you know we are getting a new kitchen?!?

2010-02-15T11:26:00.000-08:00

It has been four weeks of decisions, dust, and depression. We are at the halfway mark of our kitchen remodel. Things are on the upswing now. Sheetrock is going up, the painter and floor guy is on stand-by. It is starting to take shape.

Almost one year ago, The Deputy and I came to the conclusion that a new kitchen was necessary. Well, he thought a new garage was necessary, but I sat him down and explained our priorities. For example, we had only two and a half feet of workable counter space. Another example, the kitchen floor in the winter time was at a consistent temperature comparable to the arctic tundra. The final example, stuff was starting to fall apart. Tada! He agreed.

So, we met with a kitchen designer. She was nice, but didn't have great ideas. We have a VERY small kitchen. She could not come up with a plan that would maximize usable space in the kitchen area. Then one day our plumber was over pulling small toys out of our sewer line and we got to talking about the new kitchen. We told him we couldn't figure out how to get a better work layout for our existing kitchen. He suggested we move the kitchen to another larger room in our house! I laughed at the crazy thought. Did he think we had a money tree out back? I know I call him on a regular basis to pull items out of our drains, but really, move the kitchen?!?

Two days later our persistent plumber showed up on our doorstep with three different kitchen plans he drew up. I politely explained to him that this idea he had would be too costly and we already had a set budget. He politely explained to me that he would have to replace all the plumbing due to the age of our house and it would make no difference if he replaced it in the existing small kitchen or the huge empty room we rarely used. Then, I started listening to him. And this is what I got.

A kitchen that is almost triple the size of my old one. HELLO! While, yes, our budget did go up, only slightly though, we are getting everything we (I) want in a kitchen. This room originally was a half bath, walk-in closet, and my sewing/computer room. The original kitchen was to the left of the new kitchen. What you don't see on this plan is what we will put in the old kitchen area. A bathroom with a shower and laundry area AND a small sewing area for me. Well, a sewing nook. A person has to give and take. I decided to give my sewing room to take a new kitchen. I still will have a decent size work space, but I will miss my old sewing room.

So there you have it. A year in the planning and eight weeks of craziness. Our house is a complete disaster area. We even have dust on the toilet paper. Instead of hairballs, our cat is hocking up dust balls. Our kids look like ragamuffins. Okay, you get the point, remodeling is rough. In the end, it will be worth it. I hope.

Plants are taking over!

2009-06-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

Well, not in a bad way. In a very good way. The front and south side of the house flower beds have finally started to fill in nicely. Two years ago it was my goal to have all perennials in the beds around the house. I am about 95% there. For a few bare spots I bought Wave Petunias for fillers. Hopefully, in a couple of years, I will only buy annuals for my pots and that's it!

We purchased all of the bushes from Lowe's Nursery department. They have all done very well, except two hydrangeas. I think those were favorite spots for our dog Max, if you get my drift. Most of the perennial plants were purchased, but quite a few were given to me. While picking the plants I focused on bloom time, size, and cost. Some plants worked well, some not so well. We have a good variety of hostas. Also, there are spirea, hydrangeas, weigelas, sedum, shasta daisies, iris, tulips, lavender, mums, and some others. In this process, I have found out that I actually like gardening. Huh. Imagine that.

Since I FINALLY have time for a little blogging and pictures, I thought I would share with you all. Our new bed will be in the back of the house. I can't wait to get the sod cutter!

Windows

2008-08-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Windows. I hate deciding what to do with a window. Curtains? Blinds? Full-blown drapes? I go back and forth for months, sometimes years before I make a final decision. A huge factor in the decision process is cost. If the price isn't right, I forget about it and start the entire process over in six months. In our house, the downstairs alone has 15 windows. Four in each the living and family rooms. Three in the kitchen. Two in the dining room. One each in the bath and sewing room. That's a lot of windows folks. Too many windows to think about!

In the recent months I have narrowed down three items that are at the top of my criteria list. First is consistency. From the house and the street all of the windows should have a uniform look. I am not aware of this rule being in any decorating book, it's only a pet peeve of mine. Second is that this house has most of the original wood trim. This is one of the reasons why we wanted to buy it. I don't want to cover up the window trim with heavy drapes. Third is cost. This whole ordeal has got to be affordable.

Family Room Window

This is a picture of a window in the family room. Most of the windows downstairs looks like this one. We still have install some more replacement windows in some rooms, but you get the general idea. Long windows with gorgeous trim. I love them. Even though all these windows cuts down on my wall space.

Now onto what I have decided. It's been a long road in the decision making process. I think I have placed orders for a half a dozen different items and cancelled them all until now. The orders have been placed. The ball is rolling in the right direction.

Top-down/Bottom-up Cellular Shades

The first layer will be the top-down/bottom-up cellular shades, in cream, from JCPenney. These have been purchased for every window downstairs excluding the sewing room and bath room. Those two windows are slightly different than the rest of the house. Hopefully in a future post I will show how different they are. These shades are going to create a uniform look inside and out throughout the downstairs. They are light filtering so I won't have to worry about the rooms being too dark if left closed during the day. The best part, the price is right. An average of $19.99 a window with a 20% coupon.

Waverly Valance

The next layer is the top valance. I felt I needed something to dress the window up a little bit and keep within the victorian charm of this home. I decided on top valances only because I started that theme in the dining room. The valances I purchased on eBay for 16.99 apiece. These are only for the family room. They are going to look great with my tan walls and burgundy sofas. The best part, most of the wood trim will be showing.

Macrame Lace Tier

The final layer I really debated on. Did these windows need something else or should I go with what I have? See... more decisions. My future sister-in-law has a house similar to mine. Her downstairs windows all have lace panels. I love the look, but I didn't want floor length lace curtains. I found these macrame tiers at JCPenney for $6.99. I bought enough for the family, living, and dining rooms. I am hoping this gives the windows a light airy feel from the inside.

There you have it. My crazy road to window treatments. It has been three years making these decisions. THREE YEARS! Now I sit back and wait for it all to arrive. Then watch the Deputy install them all. I am sure he will be thrilled...

Trench Digging & Deck Staining

2008-06-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

Trench digging and deck staining. How much more exciting can you get? We like to live our summers a little on the wild side.

First off, deck staining 101. If you open the can of stain and the stain does not look like what you chose off the color sample, chances are that it is not what you chose. Trust me. Don't even think "Oh, I think once I put it on it will change to the color I picked." Sometimes I wish I had someone to whap me in the head when I make bad decisions. Okay, I'll lay it out on the table. I opened the first can. It didn't look like the russet color I had chosen. That's when I didn't think right. I went ahead and put it on the deck. The next day when I was going to apply the stain to the second half of the deck, I opened my second gallon. There was the russet I wanted. Great. I had to reapply the right color over the other crap. Go ahead, I have nothing better to do anyway.

Here is half of the deck stained in the correct Pittsburgh Semi-Transparent Stain, Russet color.

I like how it looks under the overhang better than out in the sun. Though, I could pretty much hate it and still NOT change it. I don't think I will stain ever again. (Don't quote me though, this stuff only has a five year warranty.) I did go on and finish the entire deck in 103 degree weather. Well, it was only 87 degrees, but with the Iowa humidity it's more like 103. At least in my world.

All of our deck furniture had to be stored in our broken concrete, dirt pit below the deck. Isn't it lovely?

Remember when I said we were putting a ground level deck down there? That plan has been slightly altered. We got a quote for the lumber and after we picked ourselves off the floor we realized we might as well have a concrete patio for that kind of money. We had the first contractor come to give us a quote. He gave it, we choked a little bit, then decided we must bite the bullet. The second contractor came a few days later. His quote was $1800 LESS than the first contractor. AND the second contractor has been doing this for over 30 years. The other guy has been only doing it for a few years. Cripes, thank God we got a second quote. So here is a lesson for you all. GET MULTIPLE BIDS! Here end the lesson. Also, nice affordable contractor can be here in three weeks to do it. Even better!

What was The Deputy doing you ask?

Standing around holding a shovel. He's handy like that. Remember the concrete block wall of just plain tackiness? Yes, he dug it out and is prepping it for a new retaining wall. Oh boy, he is having so much fun. Especially when he hit an old cistern. That was the true highlight of his day when he realized he has to shovel a truckload of sand to fill it in. Good times that will be.

Oops. An picture of him working. He will really like this one.

Good thing our oldest son is around to inspect his work. He does look like a little supervisor, doesn't he?

Everyone needs some yard bling

2008-05-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

Here begins a very long post, with pictures, that might bore you to tears. Consider yourself warned.

For two years we have been working on the front and side of our house. In the beginning, we had a crumbling wrap around porch. With holes. Large holes. Our first full summer here we replaced the whole sha-bang, with a large deck area off of the rear of the house. That project depleted all of our funds, along with any ambition for more outdoor projects.

Last year, our bank account bounced back along with our ambition. We had a beautiful wrap around porch, but no bling. I'm talking yard bling. Plants. No, not flamingos. I do have standards ya know. (Really, I would probably put one in my yard. Really. Maybe two.) So we spent some cha-ching to get some yard bling. We dug out sod, scooped away decorative rock (shakes a fist at previous owners!), and planted some beauties of some bushes. Along with the bushes I planted a BUNCH of hostas I had to beg, borrow, and steal. Yes, steal. Stole them from my sister's place. She said no, so I took. So there. Call the police. Wait. I live with the police. Forget I said anything.

Now we have a nice garden area around the deck. Time to branch out. Move on to phase... I can't remember what phase I am on. Partly because I am making it up as I go. So tonight I share photos, crappy almost night time photos, of my yard bling. As a special bonus, I am sharing with you the next phase (whatever number it is) of the yard saga. Don't clap all at once.

This is the front of my house. All of the hostas were given to me. Except the three in the front. They were stolen.

Here is the other side of the front of my house. See the vast openess of the mulch in the lower left hand corner? That is where our sidewalk is supposed to go. Turns out, because we have no street parking there is no point in spending the money to have a sidewalk that goes to nothing. Also, this means we have spent a bagillion bucks on the front of our house for no one to see but us. And don't tell me people will see it driving by. We live on a hill. A VERY large hill. No one is going to see it but us.

Here is some more landscaping on the side. All hostas were borrowed in this picture.

Here is the side picture right off of our deck. I have hostas, spirea, wiegella, and boxwoods. I planted a few wave petunias for a little color this summer.

Today I worked on a smaller area. I don't have a before picture, but here is a patch of weeds that looks like the weeds I dug out today. This is 90% of my yard. Weeds. Exciting, I know.

Here is the finished product. The ginormous planter was already there. And the rose bush I got Mother's Day a year ago. Today, I planted a butterfly bush, a couple hostas (given to me thankyouverymuch) and some yellow perennial plant that I will never know the name of. My four year old got a little over-zealous throwing things away for me. Including plant tags.

Here are the bonus photos. This is the area off the rear of our deck. This is the path we take to get into our house every day. A combination of broken concrete, weeds, and dirt greet me every single day. I won't even go into the mud baths my boys take when it rains. This is our next project. It's a ground level deck. All nice level prettiness will be here soon.

Gone will be the treacherous stairs of cement block.

Along with it, the cement block retaining wall. (Shakes fists at previous owners!) Just for reference here, cement blocks are not attractive for steps, walls, or anything else. They are ugly. Just in case you were considering them for your landscape needs.

Confessions of a Laundry Room

2008-04-07T19:41:00.000-07:00

There is a confession that needs to be made here. The sad state I keep my laundry room. Otherwise known as the dungeon. People, it is scary down there. I do the laundry and hightail it to safe ground. It is also a room where I ~~throw~~ store totes full of nothing, hide presents (because the kids won't even go down there), and ill-fitting children's clothes. This combination along side the fact that it is in the basement, with no decent light, is a formula for dumpiness.

I probably should have done a warning before you looked at the pictures. Yet, you have to see it to believe it. I am letting it all hang out there for you. My laundry room is a hole. A junk filled hole.

All hope is not lost on me. I have a plan. Yes, my little pretties, a plan. I am going to tackle said laundry room/dungeon/junk filled hole and transform it to a place of tranquility. A place where the warm hum of the dryer and the Downy scented air will cajole me into the basement to do laundry. Ah, I can almost smell it now...

So here it is. In the next couple of weeks the transformation will take place. On my strict budget of $100. I will not go a penny over. I hope. No, I won't. Most of my supplies will come from my ~~crap~~ resources I have stored away here. Think I can do it? I hope you said yes, because I don't know if I can. I might need you to cheer me on a little.

By the way, we start gutting out our upstairs next week. The perfect time to work on my laundry room, dontcha think?

Our house speaks...

2008-03-02T18:51:00.003-08:00

In my previous post about what to do with the hallway and our ultimate decision to paint the paneling has been nixed. We recently found a pile of plaster dust on the floor upstairs. The plaster has crumbled so much that it has completely bowed out some of the paneling in the hallway. I knew we should have not discussed painting the paneling. This old house got wind of it and was offended. I guess she doesn't want a face lift, just a complete overhaul. She is getting a little self centered, ya know.

The house has spoken. The paneling AND plaster must come down. All my googling for Nu-Wall, embossed wallpaper, and painting paneling was all for naught. Looks like we are getting a brand spankin new hallway. I am so happy. Can't you tell?

Moral of this story, listen when your house speaks. Or it will start spewing things from the walls.

Let's Talk.

2008-01-17T17:31:00.000-08:00

Huhllooo? Anyone still out there? Besides all of you crazies that keep googling "How to remove laminate flooring from wood floors?" Yeah, you people need to throw down sub-flooring. Scraping that crap up was a nightmare. (I still like how it turned out. I just like to make a drama out of everything.)

This sadly neglected blog has not had a post since 2006. Remember 2006? What a great year for home repairs. A new wrap around porch for this monster, a kitchen spruce up, a wood floor re-do, painting, oh I forget the rest. In 2007 we had um, what do I call it... a burnout. There was some landscaping. Lots of talking. Then more talking. Nothing really got past the talking stage.

2008. Now here is a year. A bright shiny spankin new year. This is the year we will do a little more than talking. Hey you. Yeah, you. The one who is laughing at me. I really mean it this year. I do. So shutup. For our first ~~little~~ project we really should tackle our hallway upstairs. It is the queen of ugly things. It has ugly blonde paneling that has faded to an odd green color. (If it would have had any decency it would have faded into an "in" green.) I am sure when the paneling was put in place, the acoustic ceiling tiles were a perfect match. Actually, they still are a perfect match. They are both ugly. The only appealing things in that hallway are the paneled doors, the trim, and the transom windows. Since it has those things going for it, the outlook looks good. Possibly.

I give you... Stairway to ugliness.

In recent months, during one of our talking jags, we have gone back and forth about what to do with this hallway. Gut it out? Paint over the paneling? We talked (yes, talked) to people who have done both. Most importantly, we talked to people who gut out rooms in an old house. The largest problem they encountered was trying to put back in the original wood trim. And how walls bowed because the original framing is usually uneven. So, that led us to think about painting the paneling. I have painted paneling before, with very good results. That paneling had a French country look that looked great in our little cottage home. It's uneven wood texture really added to the room. Here in a Victorian? Nah, not so good I think.

It screams... "Do something! I am sooo ugly!"

All of this talking led to more talking. Are you sick of the talking? Yeah, so are we. Wait, though. The talking led to another idea. Spackling. Spackling the grooves in the paneling. Making them all nice and smooth to look like a regular wall. Hummm... this puppy might work. If we can get past this talking stage. If you notice on the second photo, I did start spackling. Five months ago.

Ah. Pretty transom window and trim.

Ah. Pretty transom... HEY! What the? Who did that?

After this post, I have officially talked this project to a new level. The level of production. In the coming weeks, spackling will be my new best friend. Let's hope he treats my walls, and me nice.

Paint a countertop.

2006-11-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

*SCROLL TO BOTTOM OF THE POST FOR AN UPDATE!*
Probably the scariest part of this project was painting our countertops. While watching an episode of Debbie Travis Painted house one evening, I saw her paint a Formica counter. Huh, maybe I could do this. I mentioned it to some friends and they looked at me like I was nuts. Not the first time they have done that either. Because of the initial reaction, I filed the idea away.

As the kitchen/floors project wore on, our small counter space wasn't cutting it. I am pretty sure it was installed in the early 1950's. It was a gray-green with pearl white swirls on it. Very retro. So not for our house. It stuck out like a sore thumb. I pulled the painting idea back out of my memory and decided to do it. The Debbie Travis version said to use melamine paint. Great. I had no idea what it was and it sounded expensive. I googled latex paint countertops and got a few hits. From what I read, I thought I could get by with the supplies on hand. Lord knows, I don't like to spend any more money than I have to. I decided to try and get a granite effect like the Debbie Travis episode had.

First, I cleaned the surface with 409 cleaner and let it dry. Then I painted the entire countertops with a latex primer (white). After it dried (which primer does not take that long to dry) I applied a neutral basecoat. I believe the color was nutty tan. Oh, I can't remember, but it was tanish. I then sponged black over the tan. The directions called to use a seafoam sponge, but because I live out in the sticks the closest thing I could find was a car wash sponge. It had big holes in it, and hey, it was a buck. (Told ya I am cheap.) When sponging the black on, only allow very little of the basecoat (tan) to show through. My suggestion is to start in a small area. Sponge the black on a little at a time, until you get the desired effect you want.

By the time I had finished sponging the entire area, it was completely dry at where I had started. I then used a brown-coppery latex paint to randomly sponge the black. How much is entirely up to the person. Start small, then add more if you feel you need to. Don't worry if you get too much on, because you can always go over it with the black sponge if you need to. Also, make sure to dab most of the paint off of the sponge so there is no glops of paint on the counter. That doesn't look good. Trust me on that one.

This is how it looks after all the sponging.

The final process is to seal the countertops with a water based polyurethene. No less than three coats!!! Allow a two hour drying time in between coats and 24 hour drying time after the final coat of polyurethene. Then you are done! Honestly, when I started this project I didn't think it was going to turn out good. Now, it looks so good I should have done it sooner. It has only been a few weeks since I have done this, but it has held up well. Just remember, no hot pans and use a cutting board. Because of the paint I had on hand, this project only cost me $5. I would say for a normal kitchen area the cost of paint and sponges might run a person between $40 and $50.

I would like to also point out that everything I have read says that this should be only for a quick fix. Though I did read where one person did this six years ago and they countertops are still in good condition. I suppose time will only tell. But for now, I am happy!

Kitchen before we started this mess.

The countertops look completely black against the cabinets, but in true life they do stand out.

My pantry countertop.

*UPDATE*
It is August of 2007 and I must report some sad news. The paint on the countertop has started to chip away in the work areas. It is mostly limited to around the sink area. Now, I am thinking that a couple more coats of polyurethene should have been done. At least five.

While I do still think this is an easy (and cheap) solution for old countertops, I do think some re-thinking must be done around the sink area.

Wood Floors, The Finale

2006-11-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

By golly, it is all done. Finally. Finito. One day after the project, we both said we would never do it again. Now that it has been a couple of weeks, I would say we would do it again. Especially from the results we got. After it was all said and done, our total expenses (for the floors only) came in under $400. That is for three rooms. Pretty good huh? We decided to stain the floors Traditional Cherry because our wood work is a little darker. The results are awesome. More so in the kitchen. Remember they are pine floors in there? Initially that cherry stain made the floor a bright red. Oh, that was worrisome. Once we applied the varnish, it did cut the bright red to a very warm red. I really like how it turned out.

The living room floor did not change too much. I suppose since this was our only original floor exposed when we moved in. I guess we are pretty used to it being a wood floor. It still turned out nice.

Next to the kitchen, the most dramatic change was the dining room. I cannot believe how good the floor looks! You are going to have to take my word on it, because the photos did not turn out so well. Tonight, I am going to try some more pictures to upload. (Before I have to return the camera to my sister!)

Please check back this week. I will be sharing some more pictures of the rooms. Also, I will have a post on how to paint a Formica countertop! Yes, I did it!!! And it looks AWESOME!

What's new

2006-10-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts on this ~~freakin~~ wonderful home remodel journey. The biggest reason for my absence on this blog is the fact that I cannot post any photos on here. I lost my battery charger in this disorganized mess. I had thought, what's the point in posting if I don't have anything to show for it? I have come to the conclusion there is no point in looking for the charger. I have thought about buying one, but I know as soon as I click 'check-out' the thing will grow legs and suddenly appear.

One thing that we keep plugging away on is our floors. The dining room is 1/2 done with the removal of the hideous blue/green industrial carpet. This is probably one of the most costly part of our venture. We cannot use the previous method of boiling vinegar water on this glue. Since it is newer glue (curse the idiot that spread carpet glue on perfectly good oak floors) we have to use an adhesive remover. Sold by the gallon, the cheapest we can find is for $15. Tomorrow we will have to purchase two more to finish the job. Which makes seven gallons total. Ouch.

Next Saturday we start the sanding process. We have reserved a floor sander for 24 hours. Let's hope we get it done in that time. After sanding we will start the staining. In the kitchen and small hallway, I have decided to stain a tile design (on the diagonal) to tie the two rooms together. The kitchen has wide pine floors, while the hall is a narrow oak. Since they are somewhat open to each other, I am hoping this diagonal tile design will tie it all in AND make it appear larger. What we will do is stain the entire floor, let it dry, and put one coat of polyeurthene. After that is dry, we will tape off 3ft x 3ft squares. On every other square I will wash on a solution of white paint and water. When that is dry, we will finish off with the last two coats of polyeurthene.

The dining room and living room will have only stain and three coats of polyeurthene. Oh yeah, our most exciting news for the dining room floor is once we removed the carpet, we found that our floor has a rectangular design. Instead of the wood going straight back and forth, it is one large rectangle that gets smaller as it goes to the middle. Our living room is this way, so we were really excited to see this in the dining room.

Now we are getting down to the wire to try and wrap things up for the sanding. We will have to completely empty the rooms and move out for five to six days. Yes, you read that right, we are moving out while doing this. My dad has graciously offered for us to stay with him. He probably thinks I will be cooking for him every night. Ha. Not very likely. Our goal is to be back in the house the Thursday before Halloween.

If you don't see any posts for awhile, just imagine me working on the floors. Or in a closet screaming my head off. If I don't have a complete breakdown prior to the finish of this project, it would be a miracle.

Also, huge kudos to Jodi from Organized Chaos for the AWESOME blog design here. She did a great job with the whole page, especially with the banner. Isn't it cool? I love 'The Big House, Incarcerated Since 2005'. She came up with that. Neat, huh?!? Thanks again Jodi!

One thing leads to another

2006-09-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

We have all of the carpet and linoleum off of the kitchen floor, except for under the stove. That will be the absolute last area to be removed. I want to be able to cook right up until we are ready to start sanding. I have made arrangements for us to stay with my dad for a week or so while the floors are being done. Now there is something weird. Me moving back into my dad's after being out of there for 18 years. I didn't know how he would take the news, but he seemed to be very excited. I thought it was the thrill of having his baby girl back home. My sister pointed out it was because he would have someone cooking for him. I'm thinking she is right...

We started a small corner of the dining room floor. Fortunately (I think) there is only carpet and a layer of glue. While we don't have to tackle the crappy linoleum removal, we do have a thick layer of glue to remove. We are going to need the big guns for this. The only thing that will remove this glue is adhesive remover. It actually works very well. Downside is, it is $30 a gallon. And a gallon does not go very far. If anyone has a cheaper suggestion, I sure would like to hear it.

It seems that one thing keeps leading us to another thing around here. Since we are doing the floors, we decided that we should also paint the dining room. Which leads me to take off ugly wallpaper border.

See my progress. This was accomplished with only dishsoap, water, and a rag. Just get the paper wet and it peals right off. If only everything could go this well. Now I am up in the air about what color to paint the room. I tend to lean towards warmer colors. I need something that will make my woodwork look good. There is quite a bit of woodwork in that room because this is where our open stairway is. The entire stairway wall is stained wood. So, any suggestions on colors?

Wood Floors 2

2006-08-31T22:16:00.000-07:00

I think finally we have a system going for these floors. Tonight's work session seemed to go a lot quicker than the previous nights. Our biggest problem is the layer of tar/felt paper. Wetting it down with boiling vinegar water does get it up, but it makes a huge mess. And we are still left with a very thin layer of paper and glue to get off.

Tonight our friend came over with a heat gun. We were able to scrape off the thick layer of paper using it. The area we worked on only took 20 minutes. Even though we still use the boiling water to take the remaining thin paper and glue off, this trick cut our time considerably. After two hours of working, we completed the section we started AND prepared another section for the glue removal. I am seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel.

The white strips you see to the left of the photo is where someone patched in 1/4 inch strips into the floor using wood and putty. Since we did not realize this had been done, we took a bunch up. I think once we hit the water stage tomorrow night, the rest is going to pop out of there. Now we are wondering what we are going to do about this one. Right now, the only solution we can come up with is to putty the areas back in.

Right now, I am going to hit the tub and soak my aching back. I am not feeling stressed, it will be a good soak. I am feeling good since we are finally getting somewhere!

Wood Floors

2006-08-27T18:01:00.000-07:00

We have lived in this house for a little over one year. I know with this large house that the list for home renovations is running quite long. The one area of this home that drives me insane is our kitchen. For several months we have debated on how to tackle this problem. An entire kitchen renovation tops our want list, but our lack of funds puts it at the bottom. Originally, we set a goal of five years. In five years we will tackle this huge problem, the right way.

Now, what do I do for five years? Honestly, a wise person would say put up with it. Well folks, I am not a wise person. Last week, I felt I couldn't look at the seafoam green kitchen one moment longer. So started the 'Project Spruce Up'. I would spruce up the kitchen with inexpensive paint and curtains. I set a budget. $150. I set up the garage area to paint my cabinets. Got that done. Friday night, my husband and I put two coats of shortbread yellow on the walls. Saturday morning we came downstairs to the new color. We loved it. But there was something that wasn't quite working. We looked at the floor. The problem. A bluish green industrial carpet. With stains. Large stains. I guess it didn't look so bad with the seafoam green cabinets. With the yellow walls and black cabinets. Yick.

There was only one thing to do. Rip it out. We knew there had to be hardwood floors under the carpet. Possibly a layer of linoleum. This was going to be a lot of work, but the alternative was the carpet. In our previous home, we did a kitchen redo. Painted walls, cabinets, even some wallpaper (shh! don't tell anyone!). By the time we got to the floor, we were burned out. We left the 1970's avocado carpet. The carpet with a huge paint stain in the corner. (Ask my husband about the stain...) Everytime someone would see our kitchen they would love it. Until they looked down. Then the moment was ruined. So, we will not leave the floor as it is.

Yesterday we tore the carpet out in the little hallway next to our kitchen. We were right, there was a layer of linoleum underneath. It didn't matter though, because it came up with the carpet. Not that it had much choice since the carpet is glued to every square inch of the room!

I was almost giddy that I didn't have to scrape up linoleum! Until I saw what it had left behind. A layer of felt like substance, glued to the floor. Oy. I got to work with a mixture of vinegar and water. My neighbors had told me that they removed the glue off of their floor with vinegar and water. A little section at a time. After an two hours, I made little progress.

I was ready to hang it up and get some Pergo. At this rate, I would be finished with the kitchen floor in 2010. Later in the evening, I gave it another try. This time, I let the vinegar and water sit for about an hour. The felt came up like a dream. After scraping all of the felt, I washed the floor with vinegar and water again to get all of the glue off. Evidently, older glue, like REALLY old glue was put on thin for linoleum floors. Not like how it is now. I was able to get it all off in 45 minutes.

Today my husband, a friend, and myself tackled the pantry. I wish I could report that this went just as well. I don't know if a different type of linoleum was under the carpet or what, but this felt like crap wasn't coming up. We tried everything. Vinegar and water. Adhesive remover. Paint Thinner. While it did take up some VERY thin layers, we still had that felt stuff on the floor. After four hours, this time I really was going to go get Pergo flooring.

While taking a break from the mess and fumes, I decided to Google our problem. Most sites recommended everything we had tried. There was even a site that recommended we give up. Heh. Every site talked about adhesive. Nothing written with crappy felt like substance left from linoleum. I finally came across a new solution that pertained to our problem. Boiling water. Boil some water, pour over the area, in small amounts, and scrape up. We gave it a try and it worked. An area, a VERY small area, that we had been working on took us 30 minutes to scrape.

I guess I am not ready to throw in the towel yet. I still got the Pergo 800 number on my screen, just in case. I used to think that my kitchen was too small. Now, I am thinking it is not small enough with all of that ugly carpet to be pulled up!

Welcome

2006-08-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The Big House!

For over two years, my husband and I looked at 12 different older homes. On the thirteenth try, we finally found our gem. It had almost everything we wanted. Four bedrooms, two baths, living room AND family room. Hey, this place is 2600 square feet of space! With four children, space is what we needed.

Most of my life, I have always wanted an older home. An older home with character. Most of the previous houses had woodwork stripped out of it or updated to the point where the original character was missing. We got unbelievably lucky on this house. The previous owners had left all of the woodwork and had done some major house repairs (roof, furnace, ac, siding, and half of the windows). All this at the best price we had seen.

We were all too eager to snap this up. Now, all that is left is to put our stamp on it. This blog will chronicle all of our efforts in giving our gem a new lease on life.

Happy reading!