One bedroom floored, two more to go

Posted by Josh | October 10, 2007 | Trackback | 4 comments >>

Another room has a new floor! More pink carpet gone!

You can see, in the first image, that I had to patch a lot of one wall because of the built-in book shelves that used to be there. The previous owners took the shelving and left the naked hardware. It was also the catbox room and you could tell. The stains went all they way down to the floor boards. I’m so happy to have that stinky carpet gone. Also, for some reason, that room had no door stoppers, so I added those so my nicely painted walls wouldn’t get doorknob holes punched in them.

I still have to get a vent cover, add the quarter round trim, get curtains and maybe a new light fixture. That stuff might wait until I have the bedrooms on the North side done. The rest of that pink carpet has to go ASAP!

Cat door

Posted by Josh | September 30, 2007 | Trackback | Leave a comment >>

It’s been a while since I’ve had something to report about the pink house. That’s because after putting in the first round of flooring it got really freakin’ hot. I didn’t want to spend any time in the steamy, humid garage cutting floor, so I didn’t. Now that it’s cooled down, I’ve begun work on the small bedroom. I’ll report more on that later.

The real accomplishment for today is: I put in a cat door.

You may not be impressed by this, but I need to give a little bit of a back story as to why this is a really good thing. You see, we have a cat, named Jude, who’s a bit on the large side. So large that we had to buy the small dog door instead of an actual cat door so he’d fit. Now, Jude isn’t the brightest bulb in the bunch, but he’s the friendliest cat I’ve ever encountered, so we like him. The thing is, when Jude drops a duce in the litter box, you know it. In fact, about five minutes later, the entire basement knows it. This is because he’s doesn’t quite understand that part about covering up what he puts in the litter box. He just scratches the sides of the box and goes on his merry way.

Now that Natalie is spending more time in the basement working on projects, Jude’s little F bombs have become a problem, so in went the cat door and now we can quarantine off the kitty litter room from everywhere else and contain the stink. I just hope Jude is smart enough to figure out how the door works.

New floors are down

Posted by Josh | July 1, 2007 | Trackback | 1 comment >>

It was a lot of work, but I just finished the last of the floor installation tonight. It looks great! Natalie and I just put the furniture back in and have been decorating away.

We started on the install last weekend with the help of my mom, dad and brother. Natalie got up early on Saturday and put down a nice coat of primer so dad, William and I could get a fresh coat of paint up. The next day, dad and William helped me start the installation of the laminate wood. It was difficult around doorways and corners, but the middle of the room went down quickly. Dad and I finished up the living room the next day and I continued working on the hallway the following week.

I also made a quick improvement to the front door. Last winter I noticed the front door had a slight gap under it and with the carpet gone, it got bigger, so I installed a thicker threshold and the gap is now sealed up. It shouldn’t let any cold air in this winter.

I still need to go around and install 1/4 round trim to hide the edges of the floor and repaint all the trim, but even unfinished, the house looks so much better. All the old lady / moth ball / cat pee smell must have been held in the carpet because now the house smells a lot better. My allergy symptoms will probably diminish some too without carpet holding in dust and cat dander.

I’d say the installation was a success and now I just have 3 bedrooms left to do. They’ll happen soon enough. I think I need a few weeks to relax.

More pink removin’

Posted by Josh | June 17, 2007 | Trackback | 3 comments >>

We were busy again today. The living room was cleared and we began tearing down pink wallpaper and tearing out pink carpet. It was easy and we were done quickly. Removing all the staples left from the carpet padding is another story. I got tired of doing that pretty fast. After the wallpaper came down, I discovered a hole by the light switch. It looks like whoever put it in made the hole too big and rather than fix it they put wallpaper over it. Oh well, at least I have experience fixing that.

Natalie also decided that, since the shutters looked so nice, we needed a new light for the front door. Off to Lowe’s we went to get one. As you can see, it goes nicely with the shutters. Too bad I had a heck of a time installing it. One of the screw holes for mounting a fixture had a broken screw stuck in it. To fix it, the previous owners had a second screw drilled into the mortar. I would have used the old mount, but it didn’t fit the new light and when I took it out, the mortar crumbled away leaving me no place to leave a screw. My solution, after a lot of cussing and a trip to the store, was to Gorilla Glue it. I think it worked. We’ll see if it stays up.

Hole fixin’ and pink removing

Posted by Josh | June 16, 2007 | Trackback | Leave a comment >>

The past few days were busy. With the new floors a comin’, Natalie and I need to get busy taking down more pink wallpaper and finish up the painting. I ran into a smag when I got to the hallway. There was a large wrinkle in the drywall above the light switch that needed to be patched. I was going to chop it out and fill it in with the wire screen drywall patch they sell at the hardware store, but I was concerned about it not being flush with the wall. I asked my dad about it and he told me of another way where you attach a little bord to the back of the existing drywall to support a new piece that you cut to fit the hole. Then you just use drywall mud to fill in the seams. I did it and as you can see in the photos, it worked out great.

After the hole was dry and sanded, I jumped in and painted the entire hallway and replaced the light fixture. At first, I was a little startled by the green, but I think I like it.

While I painted the hallway, Natalie was outside painting the pink shutters black. It’s amazing what one little can of paint can do the the look of your house!

A smart thermostat

Posted by Josh | June 7, 2007 | Trackback | 3 comments >>

I installed a new programmable thermostat today. Since the heat in the house managed to pass the 90 degree mark, I got to try it out right away.

This new thermostat is easy to program and it allows me to set a schedule for every day of the week. It also keeps track of air filter usage and reminds me to change it. I’m hoping this will eventually pay for itself by shaving some cost off out utility bill. The box it came in says the thing will save 20-30% in utility costs. I’m not sure about that, but we’ll see.

I was a little reluctant to do it at first because of the electrical wiring, but once I figured out which breaker in the fusebox turned it off — it took a few tries — I jumped in and got it done in about 20 minutes. I think the hardest part was getting the old one off the wall. It was held together by a ton of tiny screws, so I had to go find my ity-bity screwdriver to work on it. Once I got it off the wall, the old mounting screws and holes fit the new thermostat so I didn’t have to drill anything. Now everything works just fine and the house is cooling down nicely.

The kitchen — now with less pink

Posted by Josh | June 2, 2007 | Trackback | Leave a comment >>

With the help of a steamer, we now have less pink! The wallpaper in the kitchen — the worst wallpaper in the house — has been torn down and in its place we put up a nice coat of paint. As you can see in the pictures, we went with a nice warm brown color called Toasted Nutmeg. It sets off the trim an cabinets nicely and, for some reason, makes everything seem brighter and cleaner.

The wallpaper came down with little effort. We didn’t even need the perforating tool. The top layer peeled right off and the under layer scraped off like putty after we steamed it throughly. We were able to speed things up by moistening the under layer with a spray bottle and then steaming it briefly before scraping it off. We were careful not to wet the walls too much so the drywall wouldn’t be damaged. Once the walls were dry, the remaining glue was washed off with a little bit of wallpaper removal solvent. After that was dry, we repaired holes and gouges and then sanded rough spots out.

Next came the hardest part: painting. It took forever taping up the trim and adding all the layers of primer and paint, but when we finished, the room looked one hundred times better. We didn’t realize how much we hated those pink flowers until they were gone.

The living room and hallway are next on the painting list. After that, the pink carpet is getting torn out.

Reception pictures

Posted by Josh | May 31, 2007 | Trackback | Leave a comment >>

The reception was a huge success and we were glad to see everyone who came. It was a fun time visiting friends and family, eating Chicago-style pizza and cake, and rockin’ out to Guitar Hero. Thanks for giving us some great memories! You can see lots more photos of the event in the photo section.