There goes the Power!
November 6th, 2012
Managed to get into the house in between Matt demo and Glenn reconstruction to wipe down the upstairs hallway and bedrooms to keep the house destinkification process moving along. Started in the upstairs hallway on the weekend to make sure I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way once things got going again on Monday. Thankfully the hallway wasn’t too badly nicotine stained, just majorly cobwebby. Did the upstairs bedrooms next hoping it wouldn’t be too bad like the hallway. Well, it was kinda somewhere in between.
Started with the master bedroom. Getting my mop ready to TSP the ceiling, I actually took a good look at the ceiling for the first time. Interestingly enough it looked like someone spilled a cup of coffee upwards all over it. Lovely. As I moved around the room I found more random brown splatters in various places and all over the inside of the bedroom door. Gross. I soo don’t want to know what that was!
Monday came and the temperature went down. With no heating in the house anymore and the temperature dropping it was starting to get COLD. Left a space heater on overnight in the dining room but figured I’d give it a break when I got there in the morning. Made it through the second bedroom with my trusty old mop and TSP, chatting with Glenn who was working on the bathroom. Paused a few times to help move the tub in, and move it back out, and back in, getting it all ready to install. All was going well and then I moved back downstairs to get out of the way and give the living room a round 2. It was soo dirty to start with that although it was already cleaned once a couple of weeks ago now, it was in definite need of round 2 and possibly 3.
Once I got back downstairs I decided I was way too cold and it was time to turn the space heater on again. Take 2… 3? OK, while the heater was working all night it apparently didn’t want to work anymore! On the off chance that it was the plug rather than the heater that wasn’t working I decided to move it over to a plug in the living room. Turned it on… Heard Glenn shouting down from upstairs…
What?! Apparently all power went out upstairs. The outlet that Glenn was using for his power tools was now suddenly not working. I went back to the heater, gave it a dirty look, and turned it off. Something suspicious here…
Spent the next 10 minutes searching with Glenn for the outlet tester thing that tells if you an outlet is live or not. Had to put my Matt thinking cap on to determine where he might of left it, strenuous task I know, but I figured it out. It was lying down in the basement where Matt and Paul were demoing, never made it back to the toolbox where it belongs. Figures.
So, Glenn went around and checked all the outlets… Apparently I blew every fuse in the place because I was cold. There was one working outlet in the dining room, and one working light upstairs. Fantastic. What a pain. That is so not normal.
Texted Matt. Think we’re going to need an electrician in here stat…. Doo de doo… What? No, I didn’t do anything… Guess that’s enough damage for one day ;p
Posted in Cleaning, Renovation | 1 Comment
Demo Day 2 and 3 – Kitchen Gut
October 16th, 2012
Matt attacked the bathroom on day 1, but had to stop due to the lack of water shut off valves and car to go to the store (I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it at some point). So, the bathroom had to be left for another day since the car was still in the shop. Time to go to plan B and gut the kitchen.
Yellow cabinets and nasty countertop meet sledge hammer, crowbar plus sawsall. I was up a ladder finishing up cleaning the crown moulding in the living/dining room by hand when Matt let loose with the sledge hammer. There was some enthusiasm in that swing let me tell you (he was still pissed about the car) and the BANG was sooo loud I jumped and nearly fell off the ladder.
Six hours and a lot of debris later, no more kitchen. Wow, it’s looking way better already! Now I can really envision the new design in this space. It’s going to be pretty awesome when it’s all put back together…
Here are some pics:
Before:
Starting Kitchen
Now:
Matt Destroying the Kitchen
No Cabinets
Demo’d Kitchen
After:
Future Kitchen Drawing
Posted in Cleaning, Demo, Home Improvement | No Comments
Day 1 – Demo and Cleaning – Part 1 (cleaning)
October 13th, 2012
Being on a tight budget for this rather large project, we plan to do as much as we can ourselves. Two major components of the DIY part are demo, and clean up. I mean, if you’re tearing things out and demolishing stuff it’s a lot easier (and less professional skill requiring) than building things back up. That’s what the pros are for! And cleaning? Remember the peeling paint and nicotine stained walls? Anyone can do that it just takes a little bit of elbow grease!
So, I’ll leave the bathroom demo tale to Matt, but I have a few choice words to say about cleaning the living and dining room… The plan to start was to wipe down the walls and ceiling with water & TSP to start getting the nicotine and other stains off the walls so the place could start to air out. When I refer to ‘other stains’, to be honest I’m not sure exactly what they were. Sort of looked like someone threw coffee at the walls in random places. If it wasn’t coffee, I don’t want to know what it was!
To be able to reach the top of the walls and the ceiling (ceiling height is pretty high which is nice) I decided to use a mop. Filled up my bucket of TSP and water dipped the mop and ready to go! Yes, I did mop walls and ceilings.
OMG!!!! The walls and ceiling looked to be a dark mustard yellow type color but were in fact a pale cream or off white color. So gross! How much chain smoking and non cleaning does it take to get to that level of build up?? It took me 6 hours and two large size containers of TSP to do a once over of the living/dining room area. It’s going to need at least two more cleanings for sure!
I am by no means a neat freak but still sometimes I think my house is dire need of cleaning… It so does not even compare.
Posted in Cleaning, Home Improvement | 1 Comment