May 6th photos

Me in the basement (behind the brick support on the left), vacuuming up 80 years of dirt:

Another view of me and my tattoo vacuuming. We almost filled up the shop vac with debris:

This is the shed area underneath the back bedroom/den. It is visible in exterior photos of the house as being the little basement part under the upstairs addition. It's a tan color on the outside. We're going to use it to store our bikes and lawnmower, but first we had to clean, clean, clean. For some reason they had covered it in cardboard, and maybe even carpet? I can't remember now...even though they put brick down first. We're guessing the brick used to be the back wall of the house, which they tore down when they added on. We were hoping to be able to eventually expose the brick in the add-on room, enlarging it to make it a master suite. We can still do the master suite, but no brick wall!

Another view of the shed area, along with the lower part of the brick wall, which (obviously) still exists:

Brandon was very upset when he found this next to the driveway, because he thought at first that it was our original (and probably Craftsman) front door. We later realized that the three window panes were sort of diagonal, each one a little higher than the last. We're guessing now it was maybe from the 1950's or so, and probably not original to the house. If you believe otherwise, please don't tell us, because it's very sad. The door itself is sad, buried under it's black plastic in the side yard. No idea how long it's been there, since it's so crumbled. The bamboo shot up through the plastic, as you can see in the photo, so we guess it's been there for quite some time.

Top of door, with three side by side windows:

Long view of door, top to bottom:

Basement, in more of the crawlspace section, where the hvac stuff is located:

So, is this like where we put our canning? Basement, crawlspace:

The uh, "finished" part of the basement. See that little green dot in the middle, next to the floor support? Check out the next photo for details...

Close up of last photo. This would be a candle, resting on a shelf made out of a circular saw blade. Yes, you read that correctly. A SAW BLADE. My arm has healed, so I can't include the resulting boo-boo in the photos. Apparently they tried to saw through it to remove it, failed, beat on it with a hammer, still failed to remove it, and then said, "Hey, man! This would be a great place to put a candle!" I especially like how it's sea green, to match the walls. ;)



Basement view, from the entranceway:




Back upstairs...patching, patching, and more patching:

Den, maybe? Maybe Brandon can tell which room this is. It's sanded, at any rate:

Office, sanded:

Master bedroom, sanded:

May 5th photos

Brandon in our new kitchen (not yet painted):


Our now faux-finished fireplace...(will wait til we get furniture in to decide whether we repaint or strip the paint):



The sander in the office, sanded halfway:

The entranceway to the bathroom. That's going to be one heck of a threshold:

Sanding equipment in the dining room:

I think this is a patched area in the dining room, next to the kitchen door:

One board left to patch in the hallway:

More of the hallway:

Brandon watching as Ashley pries up the plywood glued and nailed in the hallway:

The hallway in a mess:

The back bedroom/den:

Another view of the back bedroom/den:

May 4th photos

Here are photos from Friday, May 4th. We had finished painting the master bedroom a light blue, and the living room a taupe sort of color. This is pre-faux-painted-fireplace.

stupid, stupid rat creatures

So, um, the lady next door told me why she acquired a cat...turns out our yard was so overgrown and full of rat's nests, that she started putting out cat food in hopes of attracting a stray cat. It worked, and now she has a backyard cat, but luckily (hopefully) our rats are long gone.

Guessing that the "squirrel" remains we found in the workshop were actually...well...rats.

slowly but surely

We've been working on the house steadily since our last post, but are too tired at night to update the blog :)

The guys showed up on Friday afternoon around 4pm or so, exhausted from fighting their way through Atlanta rush hour traffic. They braved traffic again to find a Home Depot where they could rent a floor sander and get supplies.

Kathy and I got the hallway painted and that was about it before the guys arrived. We did attempt to do something with the fireplace, but I'm not sure it's really what we were going for. It's now sort of faux-finished (did I mention that B hates faux-finishes? hmm...) in a taupe color to match the walls, but it's a little too toned down and kind of just blends in now. We tried to dry brush red paint over it (the same red it was originally painted with) but it mixed in a weird way and turned it pinky-orange. Not good. B and I may try to strip it later, but it'll do for now.

We picked out a terra cotta color for the dining room (oops paint at Home Depot), but a couple of days ago I realized that the next door neighbor has the same color on his dining room! How'd that happen?!

The floors were more of a challenge than the guys expected, and they had to head back home to north GA before they got finished. The back bedroom is sanded, and the other two bedrooms are partially sanded, but the living room and dining room are still as is. The hallway...wow, what a mess. The plywood was glued to the hardwood and nailed down. They got the nails out but Tim and Ashley worked for HOURS prying the plywood off with a hammer and crowbar. When they left, the hallway was about 2/3 of the way done with removing the plywood and patching. All the other vent holes in the existing floor have been repaired and patched as well. Tim and Donald are going to try to come back tonight and start working again...

We had a yard sale in Forest Park with B's mom this weekend. Deidra and Elisha came up to help out. D translated for the Spanish-speaking shoppers and Elisha handled the cash box. And to be only seven, he did a great job! Afterwards we all went over to see the new house, and had dinner at the East Point Corner Tavern. Not sure if we were just that tired and hungry, or the food was that good, but the meal was fantastic. Turns out that Tim, Donald, and Ashley checked out the yard sales in our new neighborhood, and made some new friends. They were raving about how great the neighborhood is and how friendly everyone is. We have met so many of our neighbors in just two weeks--most of them just came up and introduced themselves and said hi. Everyone is SO friendly, we can't believe it. Definitely feels like a small town but right next to the city.

On Sunday, Brandon, me, Patrice, and Billy all went over to tackle the basement. It was awful! We pulled garbage bag after bag of trash out of there, mostly wood scraps, old cardboard, old yucky carpet (who does wall-to-wall in a crawl space?!), bits of wire, broken dishes, etc. Nothing worth keeping, really, mostly just ordinary old garbage. Then we vacuumed...and vacuumed...and vacuumed. We pretty much filled up a shop vac with dirt and debris. The basement is half crawl space and half walkable space with a cement floor. We hope to use part of it for storage and part for B's eBay shipping supplies and maybe some craft stuff of mine. It's got lots of shelving (and I mean, LOTS, they must have done their own canning or something...) and workshop counters built in. It still needs a good dusting, vacuuming, and mopping, and then we can actually use it. We also pulled out the old washer and dryer and Patrice cleaned them up. We got the dryer into the house, but the washer is a little rusty and needs more cleaning first. We hope to buy new ones eventually, but if these work they will just have to do for now. We also have to figure out what to do about getting a refrigerator!

Night before last we went to the house but were too tired to work. We cleaned up the flooring trash off the front porch and then headed over to explore Camp Creek Parkway, a huge shopping area near the airport. Wow--suburbia! Lowe's (where we swapped out our living room ceiling fan), PetSmart, Longhorn, etc. Good to know it's nearby, and good, too, that it's not right in our backyard. We also drove through College Park and were excited to see some promising looking local restaurants, including Noodle, which is also in Decatur. Patrice stopped by with our new lawnmower, which she picked up for us on the way home from the mountains. We found it on Craigslist for $80--a brand new electric Black & Decker mower! The guy used it just a few times, then decided his yard was too large for it (it is corded, and the cord shouldn't exceed 100'). It retails for $199 at Home Depot, and we were just about ready to buy one new when I found his ad.

Last night we met at the house after work. B finished up filling the nail holes in the floor with wood putty, while I painted the kitchen.

More photos coming soon...

cool house numbers, and on sale, too!

Ordered these Craftsman-esque numbers online today. They are clearanced at $2.99 each! What a great deal, since most of the ones we've seen are $10-25 each. We've ordered three sets, to do the mailbox and the house plaque.

Using a screen shot since Atlas Homewares has copyrighted their photos. But it's free advertising...!

"after" photos, days 2 & 3

Here are the photos after we started ripping out the carpet, only to discover that the hardwoods were gorgeous until the contractors decided to use them as a drop cloth for the painting as well as the drywall. The closeup photo with the stained drywall mud is where we believe they dropped a bucket of mud, left it there, and then while still damp, covered it with carpet! Lucky for us, it won't have to come out, just sanded down a bit and refinished. The guys are coming this weekend to work on the floors, and my sister Kathy and I are hoping to knock out the rest of the painting today. Yesterday, Mom, Dad, & Kathy came up to help out, and B's mom Patrice came over to help, too. Photos of the new paint coming soon! Dad fixed the kitchen sink drain (was leaking) and redid the pipe that went from the garbage disposal to the trap. He also tried to light our water heater pilot light, but there's no gas! Guess the gas company will have to come back out...

Living room



















Front door / living room



















Hallway



















Doorway into main bathroom, complete with about an inch of concrete















Main bathroom



















Dining room















Dining room closeup, with my feet for idea of size of damage















Back bedroom / den















Another view of back bedroom / den















Master bedroom closet (right) and laundry area (left)
















Master bedroom