Bathroom Tackled

I have tackled the master bathroom.  Part of me wanted to put of yellow caution tape and just close it off for 6 months until the construction begins and then the other part of me wanted to make it livable for now.

We had been using the bathroom in hallway outside the master bedroom but that was just a total pain in the ass.  I means especially when you are used to having your bathroom right there!  I did not like have to wake up in the middle of the night and fend off the cats (They are not allowed out of the master suite due to construction) and make sure they do not escape while I am sleepy.  Aldo the hall bath was very tiny.  The master bath is ugly as hell but it is 180 sq ft.  The double vanity is fine and toilet is fine and the tub is fine…the shower however is not so much.  If you look at the pics page it is horrible. 

So being the all or nothing girl that I am, I decided that I would go for it.  I spent the entire day cleaning the bathroom.  I had Lime Away and rubber gloves and a scrubby.  I opened both windows and turned on the fan and it took me over three hours on just the shower!!!  It was so disgusting.  I kept gagging.  Not at the nast so much but at the thought of the people who used to live her and use that shower.  I mean were they frichen blind?!?!?!?  Did they not see it?  How could a human being stand on such nast?!?!?  I do not understand?  Ugh!  Anyway I pretty much cleaned it so much that it started to eat the bottom of the shower off.  There were still some stains left but I figured since I ate the first few layers of the shower off we were safe.  I was still paranoid though so I bought more chemicals and washed the whole shower again with different chemicals when I got done with the Lime Away and then when I was done with those chemicals, I went over everything with baking soda.  I then bought two tub mats and covered the entire bottom of the shower.

The shower is now safe for use.  Mister put our shower head in there for us.  Now the only problem is there is no water pressure.  Mister has tried to fix it a few times and it just would not work.  The plumbing will all be fixed when we have the maser bath gutted in a few months but until then I do not know what to do!  I cannot deal with this trickle nonsense!    Well I got Mister to agree to try a new shower head.  They claim to be the best.  I have ordered one and I will give an update when it arrives.  Hopefully it will be a miracle and work like it says.

Kitchen Doable

Well I have gotten the kitchen in my house livable. It is not what I call decent kitchen by any stretch of the imagination but it works for now and it has been my quite livable. Thanks so much to my wonderful Aunt Ebbie! My aunt came over and helped me work in the kitchen for two days to get it livable. We had to scrub the cabinets both inside and out and the counters with comet and hot water. We went to Menard’s and they had this stuff called Cabinet Magic. It was a cleaner that really worked well. This was after my aunt and I spent a day cleaning them with cleanser and hot water and they still felt gross. There was still a film on them but this stuff got that off so that was great! I am now no loner scared to touch my ugly cabinets.

The most difficult part of the kitchen was finding a place to put everything. There is a serious lack of cabinet space in this kitchen. We worked at it and we got everything squished into place pretty good. I did donate about two boxes of stuff that I did not use and I threw away a lot of things too. That is a good thing though because it makes room for new when I get my new kitchen!

Anyway it was absolutely wonderful to get my kitchen done and I could not have done it with out my aunt! She was such a huge help and it was fun too! She brought me some wonderful gifts too to make it that much nicer.  She got me an aerator for my kitchen sink and a dish drainer and Brita Pitcher so I can drink the water!  Thank you , thank you, thank you!!! Now I have at least one “Done” room in my house. Even though the kitchen is getting completely gutted and re done in a few months it is livable now and it will be the only “Done” room for a few months and at least I can cook in it!!! I cannot go with out cooking!

I could have done it on my own but having help is more fun and I had a great time Thanks so much Aunt Ebbie!

Floors

So I am in the Lake House now but the floors had to be done before I and our furniture arrived. First of all if I have not made it abundantly clear from early posts how nasty this house was let me go on a bit. These people who owned the house let several (I saw about 6 when we were viewing) have the run of the place so we have now completely gutted out part of the house. (The in law suite did not have cats in it so it is livable.) Anyway, Mister completely gutted it. So far he has tore out ever piece of carpet in the house and then he had to tear up almost all of the sub floor in the entire house as well b/c it was all pee soaked, and as if that was not bad enough…wait for it…it seeped into the drywall so in every frigging room the drywall had to be removed about 4 feet up from the floor and thrown out!!! We had to get new sub floor and new dry wall for the whole house right off the bat before we even moved in just so our movers would be able to have something to set out stuff down on!
We have not done any of the 4 bathrooms or the kitchen b/c they are getting completely gutted and nothing is salvageable in those rooms at all. These rooms are being done by professionals in a few months though and thank God there is not carpet in those rooms so we can clean them as good as we can an try to make due until the pros get here. It kind of sucks though b/c it still smells like cat in all the bathrooms even though there was no carpet and I know that under their cheap ass vinyl floor the subfloor is a nightmare and that under the hideous wall paper the drywall is rotted. I suggest you all buy stock in RENUZIT® PRODUCTS adjustable cones b/c I have them all over the bathrooms and the kitchen! Seriously! They are everywhere…I know I have a really sensitive nose but these people were nasty as hell! How could they live like this?
Anyway back to the floors. This is what Mister did:
1) Shook his head and cursed at how nasty these people were
2) Ripped up an entire house full of carpet. About 5000 sq ft
3) Saw in horror the damage to the underlayment and cursed prior owners again for their nastiness
4) Ripped up almost that much underlayment
5) Applied Simple Solution & Natures Miracle and good ole’ white vinegar to the salvageable underlayment and subfloor
6) Applied Zinsser shellac base sealant and cursed prior owners again while in a haze * Keep area well ventilated!!!
7) Laid new underlayment and subfloor
So the floors are all done now and ready for the hard wood and carpet. We will be getting ceramic, granite and marble for the kitchen and bathrooms but that will be done by the pros in a few months. So for now I get to live on lovely subfloor which is fine b/c at least it does not smell like cat!!! I truly had my doubts about the smell being gone but the above steps and all of Mister’s hard work really paid off!

Moving Day

Well we finally moved on October 11^th! The movers were nice but they moved like molasses. It should not have taken them all day to move my stuff into my new house b/c my new house is a gutted empty house that they did not need to be careful of anything…except my things of course! But they took plenty of breaks and managed to finish right as scheduled. We had to pay the exact estimated figure…funny how that worked out. But the important thing is we are here now, Mister and I, living under one roof again.

Closing Chaos

Ok, I have been way too stressed out to post recently but a whole lot of nothing has been happening.  We were supposed to close last Fri.  Actually we should have closed on 8/17 then on 8/24 then on 8/28.  I have now said @#$5 it all and it will happened when it will happen.  This is absurd. 

There are so many issues going into play here it is not even funny.  The catman and banshee are trying to be all mad about closing late but they are obviously not ready to close because there is still junk all over the house.  Last week my momma and her friend went out driving by on either 8/22 or 8/23 and saw them moving stuff out of the house!   Mister went out there w/the appraiser yesterday and he took photo and they still have shit everywhere!  Uhmmm, wasn’t the house supposed to be sold and EMPTY on 8/17?  Yeah I thought so.  That takes us to our other issue, the appraiser.  He decided instead of updating the appraisal he did for us 4 months ago, which is all the loan guy wanted he would be a dick and do a new one.  Mister even offered to pay him the full price just to update but no!  He had to be a dick which made us lose our second closing date.  Then he had the audacity to call us an hour before the appointment and b/c we did not answer the phone after three rings he left us a nasty message saying he was not going to show up.   He did not pick up his phone when Mister called him right back so I called him from my phone asking why he was not going to show up.  He said it was because we did not answer.  I told him that was absurd and that we called him back 3 seconds after he hung up but he would not answer and he yelled at me.  Now I was being polite to this ass even though I should not have been b/c

A)      He is charging us for another appraisal that he knows we do not need just b/c we are in a crunch and he knows he can.

B)       We offered him the money anyway just b/c we knew he was that type of slime and we wanted the job done ASAP and he would not do it otherwise.

So I did not want to piss him off at all so I let his royal highness yell at me about how I needed to answer my phone after three rings an hour before an appointment to confirm w/him.  After he got done screaming at me I told him mister would be there.  I was in such shock that a small business owner would act in such a way to a client.  Anyway he will be dealt w/after the closing but right now I need the appraisal and obviously he is a bit of an unstable personality so I will have to wait for that later.

To make everything even worse though, Mister went out to meet the appraiser of the year and the catman was not there as agreed upon.  Catman refused to allow Mister to break into the house (he dose so professionally for a living…legally of course!) So of course the appraisal could not happen anyway!  Grrr!  The appraiser at least got his outside work done and they agreed to meet on Tue morning.  So there goes our third closing date thanks to the sellers.  Now the reason they did not want Mister and the appraiser into the house on that day is b/c it was still full of shit!!!  But this is how dumb they are.  Did they haul ass on Sun and Mon to get it out?  Well maybe they did.  They do have a lot of it.  But Mister still got pics of a lot of it.  Idiots! 

Anyway, I do not know when we will close now.  I could hope for Friday, 8/31 but that would be too nice and why would I build myself up like that?  Nope, I will just pretend there is no date and it will happen when it happens and keep staying here in the current house w/the parents.  It is crazy cozy.

Old House Be Gone

There was an entire soccer team in my parents house last night and they moved all their stuff out to the PODs in 2 hours!  Wow!  That was fast!  That was so amazing and very cool of them to help out!  Some of the mentioned free exercise.   They took a lot of the tools that we put on the curbside too when they were done.  Now my parents stuff is in storage for a week and my parents are at my house for the week.  This morning they went to close on their house and hand the keys off to the little boy who bought their house.  I am sure he is not a little boy but he is about 21 and had his mom and dad hooking him up when he was looking at the place.  I hope he fixes it up and enjoys it!  My parents lived there for 28 yrs.  They moved in right before they had me.  I know they are very happy to be moving on now.  My mom can’t wait to get to a bigger, newer house that she can fix up and have renovated to her specification and my dad can’t wait to get out on the lake and go fishing everyday!

What We’re Gonna Do!

I just don’t understand people! How can people live that way!?!? I mean don’t they smell that! Dang! Those people who had that house were just nasty. I consider what we are doing a rescue mission. Rescuing this poor house! It is such a great house and it has such a good strong frame and was built really well but it a decorating nightmare! Wait until I have the pics up! I will see if Mister still has any of the pics he took of the house when he did the inspection. If so I will post some so you can see what I mean. At least they are not scratch and sniff! It was a nightmare. They are packrats. I think they may have had that packrat disorder. They claimed that they sold antiques but it was mostly worthless junk. Now remember, this is an approx 7000 sq ft house and they had every inch of it stuffed and I mean stuffed full of shit!!! And on top of that is smelled like cat!!! When our real estate agent walked us through the door the first time the smell smacked us in the face big time! It was bad. I had to dig in my purse for my perfume! Seriously, it was that bad. I walked a bunch of contractors through that place and each one I would meet outside first for a little chat and warn them about what they would be about to smell going in there! It was bad. I had to carry my little bottle of essential oil w/me and take frequent smells just so I would not get a headache. And to make matters worse it is summer and he keeps the windows closed and no air!!! What a freak! The man is a total nut case. I went by last weekend and they were having a SALE b/c there is no way one could move that much shit so I guess they thought they would try to sell it off. Anyway, I asked the guy if I could walk through the house and he said sure. My mom has still not seen the inside of the house yet and she was with us and wanted to see it. So she went in and was about to cry. She was like, there is soooo much shit in here and there is no way he will have all of it out before we move in. Well, I, myself, know how much shit they had in there, thought that it was greatly improved upon. They have moved out about 75% of their stuff! Granted they still have a ton of shit left so I can see why my mom, not seeing it before, thought it was an overwhelming amount of stuff, but now you could actually see the floor! And the smell has actually improved a bit too. It smelled not soooo much like a cat house as like an old stale warehouse. Must be because all of the furniture is gone. My g_d though! How could they live w/that smell for so long!?!?! It was bad! It gives me hope though that is was mostly in the furniture and not so much on the carpet so maybe we won’t have too much sub floor to replace. That would be nice! Oh well, we won’t know the damage until we pull it all up and I will get some pics. I am going to take pics and document this journey the whole way.

So why did we buy a smelly cat house that needs a lot of work?

Well because we got it for a steal and it doesn’t really need that much work. The work it needs is all cosmetic. The reason it is going to seem like soooo much work is because we are going to be doing most of it ourselves because Mister is cheap thrifty. The only problem with this is Mister is ALWAYS busy. He owns his own business and never stops working. So I am not sure if he will be able to fine enough round-to-its to get this done in a timely fashion. I am also not a patient person whatsoever so this will be interesting. I told him that if he is going to be doing a lot of this himself then he needs to brace himself to be nagged a lot and he said that would nothing new. Ha! He has seen nothing yet! Just wait until he tries to slack! We do have one or two guys, professionals who will be helping us along the way. One we have not interviewed yet. He is the kitchen guy. The other guy will be helping us with the reconfiguration of our entryway and our moving of a wall and building of the mud room and will help out w/the major construction parts. I’ll call him Guy. He was very nice and seemed to be on the same page and pace for the vision of our project. He was very confident and had a lot of good ideas and pointed out a lot of things the other contractors missed. He also seemed like a good person. His wife works w/my mom. He works a lot too like Mister, so maybe between the both of them we may get this project done yet. When this is all done we be living in a $500,000.00 house on a lake and I will have my family with me. It will be nice. It is not my dream house. That would be a Frank Loyd Wright but this will be close enough as I get to gut the entire place and it is big enough! Mister will not allow any cheap materials in the home either so that means I get nice stuff too! And have I mentioned it is on a lake!!! There are also no neighbors. I mean there are a few but they are not close and since this is in the country I am hoping they are not all snooty and shitty like the suburban ones I have now. This move is just going to be so great…now if we could just get started!!!

What Is Going On…

So we will be moving my mom and dad’s stuff in next week and then my dad and Clint will be staying out at the Lake House and get started on it while my mom and I stay at my house and finish packing my stuff. This week mom and dad will be staying w/Mister and I while there stuff sits in a POD so we can spend all week packing my stuff. Once we get the house, dad and Mister will stay out there we start to unpack my mom and dad’s stuff. Our stuff is being moved by movers on 09/12 – 09/13. Then we will officially be out of suburban hell and into country, Lake House, living! Yay!

It will be a ton of work though the first few weeks though before we get our stuff moved in. My mom and dad’s part is no so bad. Theirs is not “Pretty,” but it is not offensive and it is move in ready. Our part on the other had is atrocious! We will have to rip out all of the flooring. That means approx 5000 sq ft of carpet and vinyl! The house belonged to a catman so it smells like cats and it all has to go. Every last inch has to be ripped up and tossed out. Then we have to inspect the sub floor to see how much damage has been done by the cats. What can be salvaged will be and then the rest will have to be replaced. Then it will all get soaked w/some sort of enzyme thing like nature’s made or something. I will have to post what we use later. Then we will paint it w/Kiltz and poly it. This must be done on like the the first few days and leave the windows open so it can air the place out. This is the most important project of the whole endeavor because the floors must be done before we can move stuff in. We are not going put our flooring in yet. A) We have not picked all of it yet, so therefore it is not ordered and B) We have not decided who is going to lay it. Mister is thinking he and his brother are going to do all of the hard wood and there is going to be a ton of hard wood and our part and in my mom’s part. Then we need to have a pro do the tile b/c it will be granite and marble and ceramic tile and there will be a ton of tile work in the master bath. And the carpet, forget it, Mister hates carpet! C) We are doing one room at a time to so we want to get the paint and the walls done before we do the floors. We can move furniture around and live on “rustic” flooring for a while if it means it will be done right! But at the very least the floors have to be sanitized and sealed!!! Cat Be Gone!!! There can be no trace of cat there b/c we have two kitties and they cannot know that there were naughty kitties living there before we moved in!