Kitchen Layout Nightmare

When it comes to a low budget restoration, remodel, or redo moving plumbing, gas lines, and electrical is not within reach. In planning the necessary adjustments for the kitchen to function properly it seems there are few options that don't involve the expense of ripping things out and starting anew. 

The purchase of a new range will happen in the next to near future, but as many people are aware, a less than full size range will hurt resale value. That being said, the purchase of a new refrigerator is hopefully not in the near future. Something that works won't be replaced until it breaks. 

Given those constraints, internet, what would you do with this kitchen?

A Quick Turn

Sometimes when dealing with a massive project you'll find yourself overwhelmed and not sure where to start. This is especially true if you're experiencing outside stressors like work, family life, or a furnace that doesn't function during a cold snap. When that happens, try to accomplish something small. 

This door had to remain open because the back knob (below) was broken. 

This morning, while trying to stay warm, I replaced the knob and now have not only a functioning door, but a sense of accomplishment. 

Sand The Floor

No, this doesn't concern karate lessons. As any new-homeowner may feel, my floors are awful looking. Aside from patching wood in to match the current wood in this home, all of the floors must be refinished. 

The floor in the living room. 

No water is on the floor, this is simply how damaged the floors are in here. They rent machines that sand floors very quickly, but it is possible to sand the floor yourself. As this process hasn't yet been completed (or started for that matter) there are no after pictures. Bit by bit the floors will come together... I think. 

How To Stay Warm

Some advice for homeowners: If you're going to move into your construction project, make sure you have the essentials...like heat, especially in the colder seasons. 

The best way to stay warm, it seems, is to keep working. This was the result of trying not to get too cold in a home that was averaging 48 degrees inside. Perhaps it's not the best way to keep warm, but progress is progress!

Now, when you've finished pulling up the old particleboard you'll be toasty warm. The only question becomes what to do with the particle board? 

Living In A Construction Zone

Day 1...

Now, some may call me crazy for moving into a home with no working shower, no working bath faucet, and ripped up flooring all over the place. I beg to differ. I'd call me crazy for moving into a place like that with a gas stove, furnace, and water heater with no gas turned on. 

All that aside... I survived night one!

To Tile Or Not To Tile

That is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the bath's walls to suffer the slings and splashes of outrageous showers, or take tiles against a sea of moisture, and by grouting protect them. 

Butchered Bard aside, this is what you can do with the help of a friend:

Quite superior than what you can do by yourself:

Yes, it looks really crooked but the sad thing is it's actually level. The walls are just that messed up. 

Now all that's left is spending a fortune on tile, buying mortar, grout, thinset, and hardie board for the floors. That shouldn't be too hard in the next 6 days right?

Come Sail Away

Come sail away, come sail away...

With my house.

I've heard of living on the water but this is ridiculous! Fortunately sump pumps are readily available for purchase!

So now my crawl space is water free-ish. 

Tub Humor

Question: How many people does it take to take off a tub faucet?

Answer: Two. One to get frustrated and give up, the second to look it up.

Thank G-d for friends!!!

Tub trouble

At a certain point you have to admit defeat. Well maybe you don't have to, but I certainly do. I called in the professionals to haul the rest of the stuff out of the bathroom. 

Before hauling:

After hauling:

Then there's the issue of putting everything back in. I could not fathom putting a bathtub in myself. I am not embarrassed to admit that it is well beyond what I can do. I hired someone to put a new subfloor (ready for me to tile), a tub, and cement board on the walls (again ready for me to tile). 

This was the result of 10 hours of their work:

Notice anything missing from the walls and floor? Thus my next job seems to be learning how to put cement board on the walls and floors. The only issue may be that I can barely lift the cement board and don't own a saw. We shall see if professionals will again be required. 

I suppose the lesson in all if this is: 1) Know when to call the pros, 2) Make sure the pros are going to do what you want. 

Got Wood?

The floors in the living and dining room are oak, much of them in tact and in need of a little refinishing. Then there's the matter of the plywood. 

That discolored stuff in the lower right section is plywood. This was something I knew about before I bought the house. Clearly the people that owned this house previously didn't care about it at all. With all the pest problems I should have expected that they wouldn't feel it necessary to fix what had been ripped out. 

The bedroom is another story. Covered in scary looking linoleum tiles over particleboard that extends all the way down the hallway towards the bathroom. Why anyone would cover wood floors with a 70's nightmare I couldn't say. 

I mean, really? Who on earth would do that? So I've been slowly ripping the screws out after I ripped the tiles off (also a slow process) the sticky mess of a floor. Underneath it all I discovered this...

Got wood? Yes! I have wood! It was only after ripping up two additional sections that I found more plywood patching the areas of the floor they'd ripped out. 

Once again, house, my joy has turned to frustration. At least now I'll learn a lot about wood. And for all who thought this entry would concern anything else, get outta here!

Let This Be Called

A cruddy bathroom gets what's coming!

And this is, 'Cruddy Bathroom fights back'.

Bouncy Castle Blowout

This is not your typical giant bouncy castle. It is, in fact, a house dressed up for Halloween to look like a bouncy castle. The bug-killing going on underneath the costume is, I'm guessing, just a bonus.

My house, the Giant Bouncy Castle

These are dead bugs. I am happy the bugs are dead. I have no moral objections to killing creepy crawly things that are slowly eating my house. I have no moral objections to killing creepy crawly things that aren't eating my house. I just really don't like creepy crawly things.

All in all, I like that the bug men killed the creepy crawlers. I like that my house no longer looks like a giant bouncy castle (although I'd like to consider building my own bouncy castle some day). I DO NOT LIKE!!! that the bug men killed my window! The man said there was a little crack in the window. Did he think I wouldn't notice when I went to the house that there's not a little crack in the window, there's a little window that's not cracked? So now I need a window person. Soon, like now. Magic window elves if you could do me a solid tonight so I don't have to worry about this that'd be awesome.

I'm not even going to talk about the tree branch they broke towards the top of a 15 foot tree that's over 10 feet from the house and is now resting on my neighbors fence/garage...

Garden Lessons

I've learned some important lessons about yard care this week! The very first lesson was perhaps the one I was most excited about:

How to assemble your very own manual mower (or as Eddie Izzard might say, 'push me pull you' mower)? This was perhaps the easiest assembly I've ever encountered. Screw the screws in, push the handle cover onto the ends of the bars, and squeeze the bars together to snap them into place over the mower. Next came the dangerous part... add e-rings over the pegs to keep the handle in place. The pegs, located conveniently next to the big sharp mower blades are just big enough that you must give a very hard push for the e-ring to lock. Fortunately no fingers were lost in this exercise. 

Next lesson: How to mow a lawn. Fun fact: neighbors will throw junk into your yard if they think nobody's going to notice. This junk, along with twigs, will make your mower stop turning. Always rake before mowing! This means I should buy a rake before I mow again. Also, any uneven parts of the yard will catch on the mower and you may need a running start to get the grass on those bumps (like most of my yard).

In the end, it was a great workout and I now have a lawn instead of a jungle. 

Now, hoses. When you screw a screw into things you turn the screw clockwise. This is an important part of the lesson on hose attachment... for the threads of the screw are on the faucet, not the hose. I'm somewhat ashamed to say it took overnight considering this issue to figure out that meant I had to twist the hose counterclockwise to get it to attach. Attach it did; however, and I was able to water my lovely little yard!

Now, for the final lesson learned (the hard way): If you put a hose down facing away from you and you have yet to turn the faucet off, the hose will spin around and soak you... even if you run away from it!

Deck Demolishing

...can be difficult for someone who's not that tall.

That was a deck. It's big, monstrous, and prevents any light from reaching the back windows in the house. I'm not a big fan of light... in fact I'd say I'm relatively close to a vampire on a day-pass when it comes to sun touching my skin; however, that doesn't stop me from wanting to rid my house of this evil monstrosity.

The first time I saw this house I wondered why anyone would leave such a thing attached to a cute little house. 'Surely', I thought to myself, 'it can't be that hard to tear down this rickety old thing!' As if to prove me wrong, that rickety old thing turned out to be a well-built old thing with many many nails. That deck could open its own hardware store with all the nails it contained. In fact, working on the deck was why I purchased my favorite tool (thus far):

SLEDGEHAMMER

After just over a week of work on this deck, and only having nearly fallen off and broken my neck 3 times (believe me I'm not going to attempt to beat that record) I've taken the sides off! The top... well that's a different story. That one may need to be left to professionals that can wield power saws atop ladders 8 feet off the ground. I don't think adding nearly-falling-head-first-into-the-ground-from-8-feet-in-the-air-and-breaking-my-neck-but-catching-myself-and-only-severing-a-couple-limbs to my list of homeownership activities would be a good plan. 

So, while it isn't perfect, I think this can still be counted in the 'win' column for now!

Open Concept

Is the most evil thing you can possibly do to an old house. 

The very idea that someone would purchase an older home with the intent of taking down walls that had been standing proud for more than 75 years disgusts me. If you want to live in a place where you can see from your front door into the backyard then either build a new home or find an existing home that looks like a charmless, modernist, sure-to-be fad (like avocado colored appliances). 

Having said that... 

That is a 'before' picture of the one and only bathroom. I spent my Sunday pulling up the linoleum floor tiles to find...

a rotted subfloor underneath. So extensive is the damage caused by this rot if I should step hard in the wrong place I fear I may fall through the floor into the crawl-space beneath the house. 

What does this have to do with open concept? Only this:

The state of things made me want to demolish something. Since the tub surround was falling off the wall at one side, and I didn't like the placement of that wall (added only as a support for the tub surround), I removed it. 

I may still have a rotten floor, but at least I'm not carrying pent-up frustration about it. 

So here is my one and only 'open concept' adjustment to my home. I have created an open concept shower. 

Bugs Ahoy...

Or maybe just oy!

When I bought the house I knew there were termites, wood boring beetles, and (per the previous owner), "A few ants every now and then."  Define 'few'. To me few means 3-5 a day... Not 3-5 per quarter inch. I need that exterminator NOW!!!!

First Week

Last week I closed on a 1927 bungalow in an unincorporated (ugh), suburban (yuck), lower-middle income (sigh), little city (hah! what city?). The first day was very exciting: My awesome realtor gave me the keys and a sweet present for the house. That's about where the joy ended.

Arriving at the house, I noticed the people across the street (several grown men) had nothing better to do than sit on the front porch, smoke, and watch the quiet street... in the middle of a workday. Let's not even talk about the days that followed when I discovered their multiple junk cars littering the street and constantly parked in front of my house. I may not own the street in front of my house, but it's still rude to park junk there.

List of Priorities:

1. Pest repairs... thousands of dollars in repairs are needed and companies are unwilling or mind-numbingly slow about responding to my request for an estimate. How hard can it be? I'm happy to give you the square footage, just tent my house and kill the creepy-crawlers!
2. Gas Shutoff valve... required by the county and nobody wants to come to this city to do it.
3. Sewer Lateral... required by city/county and "the only guy that might know about that won't be back until Tuesday" (per the city's sewer place). Trying to get an extension but this will (clearly) have to wait until Tuesday.
4. Remove Deck... there's this monstrous back deck on the property, it needs to go.
5. Repair/Replace bathroom things.
6. Everything else...

Now, that's not too extensive a list, is it?