Birthday, Paint Day

Today is my birthday!  Before you get too excited about all of the fun things I must have done to celebrate my birthday today, bear in mind that I'm fairly single-minded about the house.  My day was spent up to my elbows in paint, most of the day spent by myself in that big empty house...  Thankfully Darrell joined me for a couple of hours in the afternoon, enough to finish out a few of the projects I had spent hours with already, doing tedious tasks like taping and cutting in.  It was maddening!

Cutting in on the Master Bedroom walls:

Boy, this color sure is drying darker than I thought it would...

But we're going for broke and going to continue on painting the Master Bedroom walls, trying not to worry too much about the color.  And here is the finished look:

We continued on because we sprang for the 5 gallon container of that color:

Oh well, you live and learn. I think we'll continue using that for the Living Room and maybe the office.  I need to find a lighter color for the main living spaces.

We also put a second coat of primer on the Living Room walls, and I think it now looks ready to accept some paint!:

And a second coat of primer on the Family Room paneling:

This time it looks like the primer has almost completely covered the paneling! Yippee!  I hope this means we can start painting this room tomorrow!?!? :)  

That's all for today.  My legs, arms, back, and hips are all really sore and I need to rest!

One more thing, my birthday treat, which I ate between paint coats this afternoon:

Progress in Paint

We were fresh off a two day break, as we went in Venice to celebrate Christmas with Kelly's family. The rest was nice, but we were wrought with feelings that we should hurry back to spend more time with the house.  There's just so much to do, and with our move date just two weeks away, it seems like that day is barreling toward us.  Thankfully today was a very productive day!

Darrell and I started our day early, with a goal to start the family room paneling.  We approached it knowing that the paneling was going to be a real test of our abilities and fortitude in the home improvement department.  So far, it hasn't disappointed on that!  We began by washing down the room paneling with TSP, spackling all of the holes and dings, and sanding everything down.  It was pretty amazing how many holes were in that paneling.  It's a good thing that we're starting fresh!  After it all dried and the sanding dust settled, we started cutting in around the edges of the room and hand painting the primer on the shelving and mantle:

I'm not going to lie... when we got done it looked like this, and I was scared:

YIKES! I had a moment of anxiety, especially as the first coat of primer looked like it wasn't rolling on or drying evenly (at all).   No turning back now, we're completely committed.  We're letting this dry overnight and hope to try a second coat of primer tomorrow.  Hopefully we can get through the room with just one more coat of primer... but I have a feeling we may need a third.  Before we even get to paint....

Soooo after this was finished, we painted the living room ceiling with flat white ceiling paint to finish off that room's ceiling.  We then moved on to the Master Bedroom and painted the ceiling in there with the Kilz Ceiling Primer/Paint combo.  Now that ceiling is done too! Woohoo!

Then we got ambitious and decided to get rid of the green living room walls.  We didn't necessarily have an issue with green paint, but 1) they had done a lousy job painting it on, so it wasn't even and had super sloppy edges, and 2) we have terra cotta colored sofas that we're putting in this room and this just isn't the right shade of green for those pieces.  So, onward with the primer!

This experience actually went well.  The walls are primed, but we see the green still poking through, so it seems like we're probably going to need another coat on there, too.

By this time, we decided to try to knock out a few more things before we wrapped up the day...

Recessed lighting:

As you can see, this light had several issues -- the hole around the canister was too big, the bulb was a standard neon energy-saving bulb, and because they used standard bulbs you could see straight up into the canister. No bueno.

One of Darrell's many talents is in the light fixtures department.  His dad was an electrical contractor, so Darrell spent many days in his youth helping out his dad with light fixtures. So, he suggested dropping the bulb inside of the can, replacing the trim with a wider piece that would cover a too-large hole, and using the correct bulb, a flood light.  (N otice our freshly painted ceiling!)  It looks so much better already!!!

Master Bedroom Painting:
We also decided to start the wall painting in the Master Bedroom.  We got the room about 80% taped off, and Darrell had just started the cutting-in, when the power went out.  One second later, we heard the transformer blow.  As we had to feel our way around the construction zone to seek out a flashlight (thank goodness for Darrell's awesome toolbox full of random stuff that we need all the time!), Darrell said, "I hope this doesn't happen a lot."  No kidding!  I hope this isn't a sign of things to come...

Well that's it for today!  We were totally impressed with how much we got accomplished today.  I hope tomorrow goes just as well!

Work Begins!

Over the past two days since Closing, we have visited The Home Depot a few times and have had sticker shock over the cost of improvements -- ahhh the joys of home ownership! :)   One job that we thought would be reasonably affordable now appears to be budget-busting, meaning we're re-prioritizing our wishlist.

First things first, painting the ceilings of the Kitchen/Dining/Family Room!  We knew we needed to put Kilz on the ceilings because there was evidence of previous water staining (they repaired the roof, but didn't bother with the interior drywall).  So, we started by removing the recessed lighting trim and a/c vents, and taping off the light fixtures that were too time consuming to take out.

Removal of hardware and cutting in around the openings:

We also did the cutting in around the corners and openings in the front living room:

While the trim paint was drying, I decided to clean some of the dirty spots around the house in preparation for future cleaning:

 Backside of the front door:

(BTW, did you see that the doorknob and the deadbolt that the bank put on are different tones? So even though we just shelled out $120 to rekey the house as part of our closing costs, now we have to do it again, just to get them to match. You might also notice that the sidelight panels, top and bottom, do not match.  It will drive me crazy enough to do something about it someday, but it's way down our list of things that need to get done.)

And the digustingly dirty section of wall where a former canine resident must have scratched and rubbed against the wall:

I took a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (love those things!) to all of the dirty spots, grime, and goo and it all came right off.  Like Magic! :)

And then, once the paint cutting was dry, it was time to roll!  We painted the living room ceiling with Kilz No VOC primer and it surprised us by taking 1.5 cans of Kilz to cover it, it just soaked right in.  So before starting on the Kitchen/Dining/Family Room ceiling, we decided we didn't have enough primer to do the job and went back to Home Depot to buy more.  While there, we stumbled upon this awesome Kilz ceiling paint and primer in one! We thought it might save us from having to roll each ceiling twice, so we thought we'd give it a shot. We bought three cans with fingers crossed to keep up with the job.  And let me tell you, we found product of the year!  Kilz and paint in one, and it's No VOC!  This stuff is fantastic:

We rolled the entire Kitchen/Dining/Family Room with only one can of this paint/primer. It's thinner than the other primer and it dries super fast.  We were really impressed with it.  See Darrell rolling the room:

Darrell was rolling after I did the cutting-in.  We like being each other's eyes, so in this case he rolled and I told him where he'd missed a spot and where he'd left his wet edge. 

So that was the past two days.  Now it's Christmas Eve and we're going to spend two days with my family in Venice, Florida.  The paint will dry really well and hopefully we'll come back to the house with a renewed excitement for the job at hand!  Merry Christmas!

Closing Day

We closed on the house today!!!  It was a little hairy right up until we signed the paperwork, but it all worked out!  We don't plan on moving our furniture into the house until January 7th or 8th, so we have a couple of weeks to work on the place.  Every square inch of the house needs to be painted. Top to bottom.  And it needs some repair work on the eaves, new carpet in the bedrooms, and new kitchen countertops and sink to kick off the kitchen mini-fix.

Day one, we just wanted to focus on cleaning, since the place was pretty filthy.  Within our first four hours in the house, I had swept up two dustpans of dirt, dead bugs, dog hair balls, and other ickiness; cleaned all of the bathrooms; vacuumed the floors; used the blower to clean out the screened patio; put up temporary shades; used a razor blade and Goo Gone to scrape up sticky stuff from the bamboo hardwood and travertine floors; and met two very nice, but clearly nosy neighbors.

Here is a sampling of the work we've already undertaken:

First, I'm definitely clean-freak-ish, so starting out by cleaning this house is a must.  I just can't get comfortable amongst filth.  I cleaned all of the counters, glass, mirrors, and surfaces with my favorite Method product.  This stuff works great, smells great, is great for the environment, and dries without a sticky residue.

We then swept the hardwood bamboo and travertine to pick up the dirt and junk.  This was the first dusptan of ickiness:

As proof for those of you who don't believe I get dirty or sweaty:

This is the north wall of the living room.  The outlet that is high in the middle of the wall is a cable jack.  Why is it so far left?  I think we're going to have it patched by our handyman since I like symmetry, so there's no way I'd put a TV that far left of center.

This is looking toward the family room from the front door/entry hallway.  Imagine how good it'll look once all of that paneling is painted (yes, we're trying that before drywalling... paint is cheaper):

One of my favorite little features of this house is the adorable built-in bookcase in the family room:

Once again, a picture of all of cleansers and air fresheners, my little helpers:

 I had Darrell vacuum under the bathroom vanity, since there are decorative openings near the floor.

And it's good thing we did that, because look at the nastiness that he pulled out of there -- a hair ball and styrofoam!  These pieces were so big it clogged his shop vac.  Gross.

 Then, we noticed that there was all kinds of gooey stuff stuck to the flooring and tile...

Believe it or not, we soaked each spot with Goo Gone solution and scraped gently with an old school razor blade, and each and every sticky mess cleaned up in seconds.  Seriously, it would only have taken someone a few minutes to do this, and somehow it was neglected for a year or more.  The negligence is shocking.

And here is the shower tile after the sticky tabs were taken off (much better!):

And finally we wrapped up our evening by installing the temporary (paper) window shades that will stay up through our paint job.  Not pretty, but functional, and they look better (less askew) from the street:

The Listing: 741 Friar Road

Our journey to home ownership began in early November 2011, when we finally pulled the trigger and got pre-approved for a mortgage.  After we were pre-approved through our bank (for a mortgage double what we really wanted to spend), we began working with Susie our realtor with Coldwell Banker and a referral from my coworker.  Susie, in her infinite wisdom, focused us very well and showed us our future home on our first outing with her -- the third house we viewed.  She's that good. :)

From the minute we walked in, we loved the flooring, the openness of the kitchen/dining/family room, the fireplace, the four bedrooms, and three full bathrooms.  Not to mention the nice, shady backyard that Darrell and Charlie are going to love. The problem is that the house needs a LOT of work. I mean, lots of TLC, elbow grease, and weekend projects.  But this house had that special something...

Here are the photos from the listing:

 The Family Room.  The paneling is... interesting.  But I love the fireplace (which will look amazing without that brass insert).  Nice that the previous occupants' couch and American flag window cling is still in the photo.

Sadly, those wood blinds had been torn out (literally, big gaping holes in the ceiling above the windows... thanks, guys) by the time we walked through.

The kitchen is newer...

...And has lots of counter space!

 This window treatment wasn't in either, but that was fine by me... that little valence is pretty hideous.

Same for the curtain in the bedroom.  Yikes.

This is actually the most modern of the three bathrooms:

Screened Patio:

The backyard has two large Camphor trees... they're gorgeous and provide a lovely shady yard.

So, we fell in love and put in an offer on the house... I should mention that this house was a foreclosure that had been owned by an investor who had purchased it in 1988 and rented it out ever since.  And believe me, it showed.  We think a little TLC will turn this house in to a home!