yay! now we have room for food!

We picked up this china cabinet on Craigslist. It was being sold for $75 but since we weren't sure about it, they let us have it for $50 just so they wouldn't have to move it. We hoped it would go in the dining room, but it didn't really fit, plus it leaned (the floors are more uneven in the DR) to the front, and it didn't match! Big disappointment. But then we moved it into the kitchen, and voila!--it looks as if it were built to match our cabinets. We're using it for our everyday dishes now, and using the available cabinet space for food. This kitchen is a lot smaller than the condo's, so every little bit helps.

The china cabinet is made out of teak and appears to be from Japan (sticker on the back). Brandon claims it smells like a certain fragrant illegal substance and patchouli. We sprayed it with odor remover and Lysol and it's better now. (No offense, ladies, if you happen to come across the blog! The china cabinet is great! But it did have fragrance about it...) Gecko has shown quite a bit of interest in it, even so...

evil

Having installed one of these before, I thought this time would be a breeze. Was I ever wrong! I was begging the drill to go into drywall and plaster each time, and not another wall stud. Maybe it wasn't even a stud, maybe it was just the plaster lathe, but it was hard as a rock and the drill just spun and got hot, rather than drilling into the wood.

After many frustrating hours, this is the final result:

let's vote!

Who likes these curtains besides me? Brandon says they are too busy. They do remind me of my parents' house in the 70s for some reason, but I like them.

fine craftsmanship

Perhaps the Craftsman era was devoted to quality work, but the guys who did the renovations on our house were decidedly not devoted to much of anything except payday and quitting time.

Here is a view of our hallway. The damage you see is not due to poor craftsmanship, but is where Tim and the guys pulled the molding off in order to work on the floors.

But let's take a closer look at things... Is that...a...Coke can...in the wall?

Yes, it is. Behind the drywall and the molding, someone permanently installed a Coke can in our home. Appropriate, somehow, but annoying nonetheless. At least it's empty!

Another example of quality work. (The paint job is mine, so no comment on that! It's a work in progress.) But, notice that the light switch appears to be OFF. But the light appears to be ON. Yep, it's installed upside down. Good work, guys!

mr. handyman

The house has been really frustrating. Usually we're not smiling if we're holding tools!

more new photos

I went back and added photos to some of the previous entries, but here are the rest of them:

New refrigerator!

Ooh!

Ahh!

His Fatness.

Our quick fix to prevent His Fatness from getting stuck in the chimney. Gecko hardly ever exhibits interest in anything other than his food bowl, but he was very, very interested in the chimney flue. Not sure if he'd actually try to climb up, but it's a given that he'd get stuck ;)

The back room / den. Still looks pretty much like this today. Actually, it's on today's calendar for "To Do."

Front room / living room. Actually looks much better than this right now.
Back room/den again.
Kitchen, partially cleaned and decluttered.

gecko's roadkill impersonation

That's 17 lbs. of pure feline intensity there, folks. Might want to keep some distance...he could attack at any moment. As soon as his nap is over. Maybe.

aww...

the fridge

The newest addition to the household:

• CleanSteel™ Exterior - Offers a premium stainless look that resists fingerprints, smudges, and smears
• External temperature controls with child lock - Combines the ease of 0-9 temperature settings, with the sophistication of electronic controls
• Adjustable Humidity Vegetable/Fruit Crisper - Provides easy storage environment for fruits and vegetables
• Adjustable Temperature Deli Drawer - Keep meats and cheeses fresher, longer
• Eco Options approved product

Thanks to Mom & Dad and LL for their contributions! And Moises, at the Home Depot on Ponce, ROCKS!

Wait. Now this means I have to...cook.

time flies...

...when you can't find your watch.

Well, actually, I am able to find my watch, but not much else. We moved in last Saturday, and haven't quite unpacked everything yet (<-- understatement). Before I say anything else, let me say a HUGE thank you to Spetz and Pete and Miguel. We honestly could not have done it without you guys. I thought we just needed help moving the bed, but how wrong I was. Even with the extra help, we started loading the truck at 10am, and didn't finish unloading it until around 5pm. The alarm guy came yesterday and installed the new alarm system. So far so good--fatboy Gecko the cat hasn't tripped the motion sensor, but we're still skeptical. They say it covers pets up to 40 lbs., and he's only at 17, but we'll see how it goes.




















We finally started putting up curtains last night in our bedroom, but got too tired after the first one and just went to bed. We ended up buying pine dowels by the foot at Home Depot, since some of our windows are very wide. The LR window is actually a triple window, and needs a rod over 10' long. We're still trying to sort out which of our old curtains will fit where before we invest in anything new. We also found several sets of rather expensive looking ones at the dumpster last week, just sitting there next to it! The new set we got for the bedroom from IKEA is under debate right now...it might be too "busy" but I can't decide. Of course you know who thinks they are "busy"... ;)

Curtains aren't up yet in this photo, but you can see our temporary window coverings, which consist of the closet doors (which still haven't been reinstalled on their brackets) covered with curtains and towels.















The kitchen actually looks pretty good in this photo, as it was one of the few rooms that we unpacked immediately. It is totally covered in STUFF, however, which has made us painfully aware of just how much stuff we have.















Brandon bought that funky looking plant at IKEA. Make that a nameless, instructionless, TODAY'S SPECIAL type of funky plant. The leaves kept falling off, so I moved it to the front porch. The leaves stopped falling off, so I guess that was a good move.















It kind of amazes me how well our furniture fits the house. It fit the condo, too, but it was a different look there. The condo was more urban, I guess, but all that mid-century stuff we have looks really good in the house. Even sitting amongst all those boxes!

Found another rat skull yesterday. Ugh. Was loading the truck with all the debris we pulled out of the basement, and that Brandon had swept out from under the back porch. Think the rat skull was under the back porch. Did I say ugh already? This was after I'd already swept a dozen of the biggest, fattest, most disgusting SLUGS ever off of the lumber I was loading. Not to mention the centipede-looking things, and the roly-polies, the earthworms, and oh yeah, the baby crickets. The thought of the slugs still makes me feel queasy.

I'll post photos once I find the camera cord. Ha!

shaken, not stirred

Well...Tim and Donald returned on Thursday night to work on the floors some more. We'd hoped that they would finish, but no such luck. They got most of it done, including a coat of poly on most of the floors, but didn't get the hallway or master bedroom finished. They left around lunchtime on Saturday to head back home, and Tim promised to return on Monday to finish the job. There was some question about one heavy coat (thought by all to be a bad idea) vs. a couple of lighter coats, the second of which Brandon and I would have to do ourselves unless Tim returned yet again. Not sure if the message didn't get to Tim in time, but half the bedroom turned white. We guess it was due to a coat that was a little too heavy, but we're not really sure. We didn't think to take a photo, but it had the appearance of old, moldy boards--all the dark grain lines in the wood had turned a grayish white! This was only on half the room, and around some of the edges of the room. Brandon and I arrived at the house last night to discover this, and discuss our options. We could go rent a sander, try to figure it out on our own, and redo that half of the bedroom (and the end of the hall, which didn't seem to get a good sanding the first go-round). We could put a second coat on anyway, and hope the first would regain some normalcy and color (doubtful this would happen). Brandon was exhausted and ready to go home, but we headed over to Lowe's to see what we could figure out.

We bought lots of sandpaper for our electric hand sanders, more poly just in case, rollers, paint pans, etc. We finally got back to the house around 9:30pm, having picked up Chick-Fil-A for dinner (Does anyone know why there would have been 20+ cars in the drive-thru of the Camp Creek Chick-Fil-A at 9pm on a Tuesday night??? The whole place was packed!) We got back home, sat on the front porch eating our dinner, wondering if our neighbors thought we were strange since we always eat dinner on the front porch...we have no furniture anywhere else. Next door neighbor Chris came home and we helped locate his cat, who had gotten out at some point during the day. Then we started sanding. And sanding. And sanding. We went through several sandpaper refills, and Brandon tried to catch his sander on fire (when he dumped the sawdust, there was actually smoke rising from it!), and finally we decided we were done around, oh, I guess it must have been around 11:30pm or midnight. Then we swept, vacuumed, wiped, and vacuumed again. We started putting the poly on and it was BUBBLY! Turns out Brandon shook the can rather than stirring it, which is apparently the biggest no-no of all when it comes to floor refinishing (at least according to all the websites--it's on the Internet, it must be true!). We debated on whether or not to open another can and start over, but forged on, bubbles or no bubbles. If there end up being bubbles once it dries, I will resist the urge to say told you so ;) Actually, as long as it's not WHITE this time, I'll be cool with whatever it looks like.

We did the bedroom with a roller, then went over it with a brush as we did each pass with the roller (before it dried) to get rid of the bubbles and smooth it out. I did the edges with the brush, and then started on the hall, turning off lights as I went (wouldn't be able to get back to the switch once we painted ourselves out of the house). We worked our way towards the front door, where we'd put all our stuff, and finally finished around 1am. We did a lot of the poly in the dark, so I hope it doesn't look that way once it dries. It was really hard to see where we were painting it on, so I hope it doesn't look awful. Will try to take photos tonight, when we go to put on the second coat if it's dry enough.

On Sunday, we went to the Scott Antique Market to look for doors and anything else cool for the house. We had gone to pick up an outdoor ceiling fan from someone on Craigslist, but when we got there, Brandon decided he didn't like it, so we apologized and left ;) We ended up spending the fan money on a church pew for the front porch, instead! We got it for $85 (down from asking price of $125), and we think it's from Macon. The guy we bought it from is the same one I bought my vanity from, and he's from Macon, so most of his stuff comes from there. The church pew needs a little cleaning up, but all in all it's in pretty good shape and it looks good. We also picked up a silver wall mirror ($5!) for the soon-to-be-dusty-purple half bath.

We also seem to have found a buyer for the carpet that we pulled out of the house the day of the closing (that seems like ages ago already). They plan to come get it this weekend, and we plan to move in on Saturday, so hopefully it will all work out.

Here are the results all the hard work!

Living room:

This is the bathroom threshhold (threshold?). (It still looks like this, even after moving in.)

Back bedroom/den. This room has the most gorgeous floor of all the rooms.



Hallway. I hate this picture of me! But I include it because it's apparently the only one of the hall... Notice how the hall is shiny but the living room is not, but it gets shiny again before the front door?? Apparently the more coats you put on, the more matte it becomes (satin finish poly).


Here's a close-up. I'm glad we caught this with the camera, because we were beginning to think we had lost our minds. The hall was shiny, and the living room was matte, except for a small area near the door. We thought the poly was defective (either too shiny or too matte), so we did a test area on a matte section. It came up shiny. So we went to work recoating the living room and the dining room. Halfway through, we realized that the coat we were putting on was making everything matte, not shiny. So we stopped. You can still see a couple of spots that we missed, and eventually we'll redo either the hallway (to be more matte) or the living room and dining room (to be more shiny).

Master bedroom:
Office:

Living room and front door:

Dining room:

May 9th photos

The office, sanded:

Who's that chubby girl standing on my granite countertops?!? Oh wait, that's me. :( The ladder wouldn't reach...not sure if you can stand on granite countertops or not...surely they are not designed for it, but they held up okay, thank goodness.

More patching...

The kitchen, now a pretty green. The yellow to the left is the old pantry, where apparently the refrigerator is now supposed to go, since they took down the doors and shelves, and installed a piece of copper tubing that I assume has something to do with the water line? Although, now that I think about it...there's no water cut off there. Argh. More superior craftsmanship...not.

Kitchen and "pantry" again:

That chubby girl on the countertops again. And all the mess that's being stored in the kitchen until we can put it where it really goes:

Master bedroom floor, sanded partially:

And more of the master bedroom, from the other angle:

Master bedroom photo, photo has bad coloring:

Patchwork by the front door. How many photos of this area do we need? Seems like we took one every day, although it didn't change a whole lot!

Hallway. I kinda like this photo, but I'm not really sure why.

Hallway. You can see the plywood, and the glue that was left behind once the plywood finally came up:

More hallway: