Life in Color Photo

Okay so being able to paint my house any color I want is so cool, expect that there are a million choices and sometimes it seems that none of them are right. Unlike painting with drylok which is a horrible tedious experience, painting pretty colors is, well, fun. So I have to make some decisions.

The color on the right was my original thought. It’s call baby blanket, but it’s way too soft for me. I think that second richer color is a better bet. Remember I did start that triangle quilt months ago that is white with a melody of greens. My bedroom is going to be small, and for sleeping only (whoo hoo I can’t wait), I think that dark green will work.

The electrician came today and I’m getting the whole basement re-wired. With six sets of florescents and fifteen sets of grounded plugs. I am so excited for this. It’s being done as a favor to my dad, so I’m not sure how long it’s going to take since they are fitting me in between other jobs. I can’t finish sheet rocking all the open bits until the electrician is done, so I think my house won’t be settled until the end of August at the earliest. I’ve gotten a ton done, but here’s a run down of things I still want to take care of before moving in:

UPSTAIRS
-quarter round around the upstairs rooms (I have to prime, paint, cut, install, then pop the finish nails down and cover those holes up, then touch up)
-finish filling holes in walls/moldings and sand down
-paint moldings
-paint windows
-make curtains
-paint rooms
-paint cabinet doors and drawers (sand down/strip first)
-strip and sand doors, then paint, clean and reinstall hardware
-finish up kitchen (finish painting cabinets, strip cabinet doors and paint, paint drawers, new drawer pulls, new cabinet knobs, and closure mechanism, new fridge- maybe! and a super clean)
-paint inside closets
-ugh, the bathroom: patch hole in wall, new sink, new counter top, paint, new light fixture
-clean and paint stairwell
-paint stairs (I’m going to use a non stick because they are steep and narrow)
-I’d like a new thermostat, the one I have now is fugly
-new light fixture in living room
-new step into garage
-three plugs + light in garage (plus switch)
-smoke detectors

BASEMENT
-new windows (theses are being made now, but they will come to me "naked" so I’ll have to prime, paint, then route new hing grooves and locks, as well as some kind of holding system to keep the windows open, the sticks I’m using now are nice, but um, not so classy. I also have to come up with some kind of screen, and curtains)
-window moldings (sanded, fixed up, and then primed and painted)
-six lights + 15 plugs + light switches
-paint walls
-sheetrock all openings
-handrail for stairs
-texture ceiling
-paint ceiling
-acid wash or sand floor
-seal floor
-paint floor
-hole for dryer vent through foundation
-install washer/dryer
-smoke detectors

OUTDOORS
-plug outside? I want one for Christmas lights 🙂
-finish fence
-inject stump killer
-one more load to dump to clean up pile in driveway
-powerwash house
-clean out gutters

OTHER
-have the gas turned back on and connections checked
-move mail

Somehow writing this all out makes me feel better, and sure I could do a few of those things after I move in, but I have too many additional projects to list if I included all I plan to do someday, those are must dos.

Yesterday was the muriatic acid day. Kay, you were right, it wasn’t so scary. The scary part was the shit that came off the walls, OH MY LORD, yuck. Like black dirt, ew! I like things clean. I may be messy sometimes, but underneath the mess? Clean. So today we went at it with the drylok and it soon became clear that the four gallon buckets we bought were not going to be enough. I had to patch with a quick setting cement patch while Taylor started to paint. I look over after about a half hour and started freaking out, "Taylor! What the heck are you doing?!?!" He had flung paint all over the place and his brush… and handle were completely covered in paint. I got some drop cloths out and we went back to it. My mom showed up and like whipped through a can so I had to go get some more at Lowe’s. Now I’m all about the local guy so I don’t go to these big places that often, and let me tell you, that was my last trip to Lowe’s. I don’t know if it’s just our Lowe’s or what, but everything was in Spanish! I was like, um, am I in the twilight zone here? And then I was trying to get around these woman and said "excuse me", and they ignored me and then I said, "excuse me" again (I think I have pretty nice manors so this was in a very pleasant tone) and the lady looked at me like I was an alien. So I had to go over and move her baby carriage myself to get my cart through the aisle. Meanwhile they had just turned back to the paint chips. Argh, whatever. So I got my four more cans of drylok. I also loaded up on a thick nap roller, some dryloc caulk stuff for the intersection of the wall and the floor and three more cans of quick patch. By the time I got back my mom had already whipped through three more cans (you think I’m joking, but I’m so not) and we were putting this coat on with brushes! Don’t tell me to roll it because I looked it up everywhere and the first coat has to go on with a brush to get into all the pores of the concrete.

Anyway by about five we had finished almost everything up with the first brushed coat, and we needed more drylok. I took Taylor home, went to Home Depot, got dinner and came back. My mom and I worked for a while, then Sciarrino showed up ("hello my bestest buddy in town can you please please come help me!") to patch the holes in all the moldings around the windows and doors and everything. My mom stayed until eight and Sciarrino and I until nine. And when we left it looked like this:


The ceilings are all going to be textured, and they will have a molding around that top bit. There is going to be a cabinet straight back to hid the mess of pipes, and the floor, well you’ll just have to wait and see. This paint makes it look so much less scary down there! And we cranked it out just in time because tomorrow I meet with the electrician. We only have one set of grounded plugs… in the whole house! Grounded plugs are the three pronged kind. Not having these is a pain. Oh, and there is only one regular plug in the whole basement. It was powering the stereo today (thanks Brent!). So more work tomorrow. I’ll take some more pictures in the daylight.

What you’ve been waiting for:


And on the back side: Pre-staining one side of the fence (Bj and Bill did this) because it will be impossible to get to once up (we’re not taking down Morris’s fence). And were is this going to go?


Karen helping out. We took all the remaining hardware off the doors/cupboards/drawers and got to work stripping. Now some say I’m anal to do this. I don’t care. This will make the whole house look clean and fresh. And when I clean up those glass knobs they will really pop.


In the basement you see my dad appreciating the Bud Light I have stocked in the fridge. Quite a transformation down here. They ripped out every last gross board. Started framing up the new wall, replaced all the beams, and added a three foot wide door into my storage room (behind my dad, the door is around the corner to the right of the stairs). I love that they took that wall off behind my dad, it totally opens up the corner. I’ve decided to leave that and just put a railing in it’s place. My neighbor Tracy loved the difference. She said she and an old renter use to joke about which weird room in the basement had a body in it. Ew, we didn’t find a body, but we did find the remains of something else:


Fire! This had been covered a long time ago, and could be the reason the ceilings are taking so many coats to paint nicely. That’s the worst part above, and no structural damage thank goodness.


Dave the carpenter says, "Those posts aren’t going anywhere." And he’s right. They were sitting on little bits of concrete, but they sledgehammered that out while the house was jacked up (not as risky as it sounds I found out). Then this plate is bolted into the concrete floor, a little lift is put in (to keep the beam from sitting directly on the concrete and thus avoiding moisture problems in the future) and then it’s bolted to the beam. It’s also bolted to the big beam at the top. I think this looks way better too (added bonus!).

So what now? Oh just a million little things. Before the carpenter comes back next weekend the electrician needs to come. But before he can come I have to dryloc the walls (so the conduits don’t sit on a moisture trap), and before I can do that I have to patch them, before that muratic acid them, and before that wire brush them. So I start with the wire brushing tomorrow. In great news Sciarrino volunteered to power wash the exterior of my house. Um, gee, I don’t know, YES PLEASE! So things are coming along, and I feel good about everything. My budget is staying on track thanks to all these wonderful helpers. I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Need more  paint mom? Not surprising since nobody goes through it as fast as you!

Check the previous post, I crossed some things off, and added a few more.

Thanks for all your comments on my finds. I’ve updated my "New to Me – Thrifting Adventures" category to include all my thrifty finds since I started the blog. Enjoy! Speaking of the categories, I think I need a new name for my house category, "does this mean I’m a grown up?" isn’t really doing it for me, any ideas?

So the house. Well I have been going over there often, but not too much progress has been made. This is due to a couple of things. One, the freaking dumpster that would NOT go away no matter how many times I called. How big of a scam is this? They drop off another dumpster after they take the original one to be dumped because a different set of trucks handles empty dumpsters and they are not connected or something. But the lady tells me, "oh don’t worry we are not charging you for all these extra days, we’ll only charge you if there is something in it." So of course I had to stalk my house and make sure no one tossed something in the tempting empty dumpster that was sitting there for days. So I still have a big pile of junk to move in the front because I couldn’t back a truck up there.

The second reason is the floors. The floors look amazing. I really think I would not be exaggerating to say I added ten thousand dollars to the worth of the house. They are so freaking awesome! And the guy putting them them in? So freaking crazy. Okay I don’t want anyone to take this the wrong way, but when I was getting estimates and I first met the guy I thought he was maybe a bit autistic, he didn’t make any eye contact, wouldn’t shake my hand, and had some interesting mannerisms. He was so into the wood in the house, reciting detail after detail of the woods, histories, and other odd facts. Well I hired him because he was the most enthusiastic (and was so enthusiastic to work on Pecan that he gave me a price cut). Then he left me this message on my phone, it was totally random asking about when to come work and stuff and at the end he said, "oh sorry if I’m a bit loopy, I just sealed some floors." And after seeing him in action I can see what he means. The stuff he is using on my floors is insanely smelly. Taylor and I went over there yesterday (it was 100+ out and a Sunday, I have no idea why he was working) and went into the basement to tape down some foil to see if I have moisture issues. The whole house had a wavy cloud of stink around it and Taylor and I talked about how we would probably have babies with two heads after five minutes in there. The floor guy had a paper mask on with just little filter things, and NO WINDOWS OPEN!

I went back over there tonight and took a picture through the backdoor, it’s not the best, but it’s my drylok into the concrete with a stiff brush. After that it’s just one more coat with a roller. Ahhhhh! But seriously what choice do I have? The basement has to be perfection if even one roll of ribbon is going to go down there.

So that’s the update so far. I really can not wait to get into the upstairs. I am so excited to see what the rooms will look liked trimmed in white instead of cream. I actually dream about my mom and I being featured in country home, "Mother Daughter Renovation – Perfect in Every Way!"