Home Improvement

Things are coming together!

Woo hoo! Things is a happenin baby!!! We are actually making progress. I don’t want to jinx it but it was awesome to some home and see green board around the tub and dry wall in the closet next door. Mom, dad, Bill, and Edith were busy while we were at work today. I’m excited to finish out the bath and start on the surround. I was even excited to see an outlet in the bathroom. This house is old enough that there weren’t any outlets in the bathrooms.

I never thought I'd be so excited about an outlet.

Those wacky 60’s. What were they thinking not having hair dryers and electric shavers?!?! That’s just crazy! Well, Estela wasn’t feeling well today, so her job was to go home and relax. I didn’t get to help much but I did get to start laying joint compound on the new drywall. Not too bad if I say so myself… J/k I pretty much just made a mess, but that’s what sanding is for right? I can’t wait till tomorrow to see what happens while we’re at work. It’s cool having our own house elves! Just kiddin’. We appreciate all the help we are getting. We couldn’t get it all done in time without everyone’s help. We love y’all. By the way, for those that haven’t seen it yet, here’s a picture of what the outside is starting to look like.

I definately like white better than pink! How's about you?

Waterproofer white is working for us. How about you? Anyways, a rerun of My Name is Earl keeps distracting me and I should be going to sleep. Got plenty to do tomorrow. Take it easy, we’ll post you later.

We have turned a bit of a corner. As my mom said, “we’re putting things back in now.” At least less and less is being torn out and more is being put in. Bill, dad, and I (ok, mainly them) got the tub in place.

The jacuzzi suite!!! J/k it's our new tub. Saaaweeeet!

We had some small setbacks figuring out the plumbing and setting it up for the surround (shower walls.) Once we got a game plan and the plumbing got lined up, the day was pretty much over. Tony got a lot of the Drylok on the problem wall, the front of the house and a bit of the back. It looks great! So much better than the pink!!! It’s white by the way. It looks awesome, even with the burgundy trim. It makes a big difference. Sorry I don’t have a pic. It was dark before I thought about it. Anyways, we got quite a bit of other things done today too. Mom and Edith started on the window screens. Estela was an unpacking and cabinet lining fiend. Anna busted out the lawn mower again and I was all over the place. From scraping grease out of the kitchen to tearing out drywall and helping with the tub. Estela and I even got some touch up painting done. In all a pretty productive weekend came to a close. We are excited to keep things moving along. I’m sure that I’ve forgotten some of what we did again but, I’m just jazzed to see things start to come together. Well, tomorrow it’s back to regular work for most of us. We can only be thankful for the fact that mom and dad, Bill and Edith are retired and think we are worth helping out. It’s gonna be a long hard week, but it will be worth it. For now, however, it’s off to sleep. I’m exhausted. As are everyone else. We’ll post ya laters…

Man am I beat. Today we worked our butts off! We got a little bit of a late start because Estela, dad, and I got stuck in the Home Depot vortex for about 2.5 hours! We got there shortly after 10am and didn’t leave until about 12:30pm. Mom thought we were taking the scenic tour she took the day before. We finally made it out of there and were able to get started. Our friends Kay and Bob showed up to help us paint and our friends from Arizona Bill and Edith arrived to stay and help us out for a while too. Estela, Kay, Bob, and Mom painted the big part of the living room.

It looks awesome!!! I didn’t take a picture because it wouldn’t come out very well. White walls aren’t very Photogenic. If I haven’t mentioned it before, we are giving the entire interior a coating of Behr high gloss white paint. We love it! We have a thing for clean white walls. It really makes the stone fireplace jump off the wall. You’ll have to come see it!

In addition to that, Tony pulled the stupid planter shelf (that was falling off anyways) off the wall and patched the holes. Thank you Tony!!! That thing was a hazard. The house already looks better with just that gone. Dad got to patching and treating our problem wall from the outside. Hopefully after that and a few coats of the Drylok we should have the moisture problem beat.

Bill and Edith got our old tub out of the bathroom and I tore out what was left of the bathroom to make way for the new green board, tub and surround. By the way, Home Depot was having a crazy sale this weekend, that’s part of the reason we were there for so long. We scored an awesome marble top sink and cabinet on sale today. We’re stoked about it. The main bath is gonna rock when we are done with it. Hopefully that’s very soon. Anyways, we got a lot done again today and I’m sure I forgot a few things. Edith brought their little Shih-Tzu Maggy Joe with them and we got distracted a few times. I’ll take a picture of her tomorrow. She’s so cute. She does look just like an Ewok.

Well, gotta crash, we are getting at it early tomorrow. Tune back in to see if we get that bathroom back in commision. Post ya later!

Well, today, I had 2 of the weirder experiences in my life working on this house. The 1st may not seem so weird to you, and it didn’t to me at first either. The 2nd one however is classic, especially for this house. Here goes… The first weird thing was that Estela and I bought a bathtub for the house. We decided since we were rebuilding the shower walls and the tub was chipped up and flimsy, we might as well replace it with a tub that didn’t feel like my big bum was gonna crash through it. So after looking online and seeing some options we loaded up the truck and headed to Lowe’s. We picked up a nice enameled steel tub for a great deal and a decent surround that looks like we’ll be able to adapt to fit around the window in the shower. Anyways, as I said, it didn’t seem weird at first but after I got home I thought, “we just bought a bathtub.” How grown up of a purchase is that? “We just bought a bathtub”, just keeps bouncing around my mind. I can’t really explain why it feels so weird since we’ve been working on “our house” for like 2 weeks, but it does sink in a little when you’re pushing a cart around with a bathtub on it. Wow.

Anyways, now that I’ve put you to sleep, the second thing was that I was removing some more drywall today and was lucky enough to find this:

Dude, I always wondered what happened to the mighty trash heap...

There was a little bit of everything stuffed in this wall. There was a dinner knife, matches, a lighter, a ball point pen, a felt tipped pen, lots of chewed up gum, candy wrappers, tags from clothing, bottle caps, and tons of trash. I couldn’t believe it. This is quite possibly nastier than all the m*ld we keep finding. Seriously, what kind of animals lived here? Bunch of savages in this town, I tell you. This one ranked 5 gags on the Gag-o-meter! I don’t even want to know what might be in some of our other walls. I was just about ready to grab my hole saw drill bit and start core sampling all over our house just so I can sleep at night. Yikes! This one really blew my mind. I’d like to think that there happened to be a hole in the wall and some kid was just shoving stuff in there, but there were cigarette butts and a condom wrapper in there. Blarf!!! Here’s a shot of everything after I got it all out of the wall:

The might trash heap has spoken!!!

Well, in addition to that, dad and I got a new light fixture in the Master Bathroom. The old fluorescent was making noise even when it was off. Turns out that even in the off position the switch was allowing electricity to flow to the fixture so the ballast was making noise even when off. Nice huh? That had to go. Estela found some cute globes for the hallway lights, mom was a cleaning machine (when she wasn’t taking a scenic tour of San Diego…that’s a funny story for later.) Dad got some Drylock on the outer wall of the office and the stuff seems pretty cool. Tony dug more on the moat and I had all the trash fun. We actually are getting quite a bit done. This weekend will hoepfully bear the fruit of a new bathroom! That’s about all for today. We’ll post you later.

Well between both sets of parents, grass, mud, and junk were cleared away from the house. A lot of cracks and holes in the Stucco were repaired. Here’s hoping that moisture won’t be able to seep into the office anymore. We did some exploring in the walls and we’re probably going to have to replace about 75% of the Drywall back there once it all dries out. We’ll also be doing some exterior waterproofing. I’ll be letting y’all know how we like Drylok brand waterproofer. That seemed to be the highest recommended fix for our problem. I have the day off work so I hope to get some major work done. Also, our goal is to get the bathroom back in commision by the end of the weekend. That would be awesome. Plus, anybody who wants to help do some painting is welcome this weekend. We still have plenty of walls to paint! Take it easy guys.

We have heat!!! We replaced some hoses on our 2 little furnaces and now both of them are working. Yay! Now hopefully mom and dad don’t feel like they are living in a cave anymore. It feels so much more like a house now just having heat. I know we don’t have a main bathroom or even carpet yet but heat made it feel a lot better. We were planning on getting some work done on the bathroom, but we hit another derailing point today. Cracks and holes in the exterior wall of what will eventually be our office have allowed moisture in for who knows how long. So, more drywall is coming out and now we need to do some major exterior cleanup and some Stucco repair. That’ll be fun. Since we all had to work today, mom and dad were the main ones working again today. Thanks guys! We owe you big time. Anyways, tomorrow will bring some digging, weed pulling, and grass cutting to help stop the exterior seeping. We’ll keep you posted.

Hey Kids, thanks for stopping by. I finally remembered to bring the camera home so here goes…

Day 9 and 10 pics:

I told you the other day was a huge progress day. We got a lot done.

Today was more cleaning and demolition. We think we might have gotten all the “M-word” from around the bathroom (we hope!) We had to tear out part of the back hallway, but at least we think we got it all now.  Anyways, we got some pretty curtains hung in the master bedroom. They are an awesome dark blue that are supposed to be special blackout curtains. I like them already. I’m sure I’m missing some stuff that got done but I’m exhausted so I’ll sign off for tonight. We’ll post you later.

Welcome to Day 10! Today was a pretty light day. Mom and dad had to head home for the day, and everyone else had to work today, myself included. After work I got to cleaning up the garage while Estela, Nicole, and her parents did a little painting. That’s about all that really happened tonight. Somebody (me) forgot the camera again. Though I did remember to take a picture of Nicole painting. Yup, you read that right… Nicole was actually working! I know. I was just as shocked as you are (for those of you who know her.) I have actual photographic proof of it! I think I might be able to sell it for what those kids sold that footage of bigfoot for!

I’m just kidding Nic! It was awesome that you came over and helped out. Even though she didn’t feel like she did much, she helped out a lot. They got a second coat of primer on the hallway. There is less and less of the nasty peach color every day. Yay! Anyhoo, sorry that there isn’t much news, but them’s the breaks ya know. Hopefully I’ll remember the camera tomorrow and I’ll be able to post the pics of the last couple of days. Take it easy out there and check back tomorrow.

Wow, talk about making progress. We really made a lot of headway today. Unfortunately I left the camera over at the house so I can’t post any pictures (I’ll post them tomorrow) but trust me we got some awesome work done. And I mean Awesome! Mom and Myrna used this stuff we got at the 99cents only store called awesome. This stuff rocks. You should definitely check it out. Estela’s mom also used it to get some nasty grease off the walls. There was grease all over the kitchen. I think the previous people fried everything. There was grease on the ceiling!!! Wow! But anyways, that Awesome stuff worked like crazy. Our cabinets look like different cabinets. I thought they were yellow, but turns out they are actually white! Who knew?

In addition to that, mom and dad took the stove apart and cleaned it so good, it looks brand new. I’m telling you, It’s Awesome! We pulled the toilet and sink in the main bathroom and tore out the rest of the infected walls. No more bio-hazard, yay!!! We read on the F.E.M.A. site and a few others to wash all of the infection off the wood and studs with water and laundry detergent then treat the wood with a bleach and water mix, so we scrubbed what is left of the bathroom and sprayed it down with Clorox and water. It’s Awesome to see clean wood and drywall in the bathroom. I can’t wait to get new cement board in there and install the new bathtub surround.

Estela and Myrna got the master bedroom painting done. We love glossy paint! Tony got a lot more work done on the plumbing problem in the front yard. Today was a family affair. We had both sets of parents, Myrna, Ron Jr., Brandon, Estela and Me all working today. We miss you Ron Sr.! I wanna give a shout out to my brother Ron. He’s in the Navy and currently deployed till August. He wanted to help out but we didn’t get the house until after he shipped out. But, we’ve been putting his Ford F-150 to work at least. Everybody thank someone in the armed forces. We love you Ron!

Well, I know we got more done, but I’m wiped and need to crash. Thanks for checking in, we’ll post ya later.

Peace

Estela enjoying our new Rain gutters.

I know San Diego always needs the rain and we really don’t get that much here but I would really like it to stop raining for a while. Doesn’t mother nature know we’re working on a house here? Haven’t we hit our yearly average already??? Our back yard is a swamp and I feel like we have a moat around the house. Tony’s been digging up the crappy plumbing and now the trench that runs all the way around the house is full of rainwater. I’m wondering if Home Depot sells draw bridges… At least we have another line of defense around the castle now. Oh wait, we aren’t the knights who say Ni! So we don’t need a moat. Oh well…

Despite all the rain, we did some major damage today. We got some rain gutters up around the back door so no more waterfall action in the living room. We now have a kitchen sink that doesn’t just drain into the back yard (you really gotta see how they “modified” the kitchen to believe it.) I got a big chunk of the bathroom demo done. I think I could get into demolition. It’s fun to break stuff and not get into trouble for it (or blamed for it when it wasn’t even my fault! right mom?)

I think I missed my calling...

Tony was a door frame fixin’ machine. For any of you who are thinking of putting screws with round heads in your door hinges, “I’m gonna punch your mama in the mouth.” Estela and mom tag-teamed the kitchen cabinets and pantry. Dad hooked up water to the new fridge (just another reason to love it, sorry Estela.) I’m psyched, things are coming together. Slowly but surely they are coming along. I don’t know how I forgot to mention it yesterday but mom worked some magic on the stove top and got all the burners, and even the igniters working. How cool is that? Anyways, we got a lot done today and I can feel it. I’m sure everyone is feeling it tonight. Anyways, another day is in the can. I’m gonna let the 2 Blue Moons I drank while typing this take me away (better than Calgon!) Post Y’all later.

P.S. Bonus points to anyone who gets the 2 movie references I made tonight!