PAINT II: OK, I get it now.

Why is paint so complicated? I mean it should be simple really. You have a room, you need a color, you choose said color, you paint and your happy. But NOO paint is just as complicated as picking anything else in a house, in FACT it's probably harder than most things.

The thing that baffled me the most about paint was that it's not JUST about the color..it's about the finish. Eggshell? What's eggshell? And why do you need a glossier paint in high traffic areas? To WASH the walls? WHO WASHES WALLS?! Well apparently, you are suppose to, cause they get dirty. And the glossier they are the easier they are to clean. Well this was all news to me. Beyond this I also learned that really, in the scheme of things, painting a new wall with new primer and then painting it and adding trim is really relatively simple. It's the existing stuff that makes you want to cry. The prep, the prep will KILL you, drive you mad if you're not careful.

I learned this lesson one Saturday when MB's parental units both came to help with the progress on the house. MB's mom happens to be very helpful and rather good at decorating and design. Me? Not so much. I like simple, although I don't think I'd say I have bad taste, it's just some times I have not the slightest clue about how to go about something. It's like accessorizing your outfit. I can pull the actual outfit together rather well, its the accessories that I lose my nerve on. I'm the same with designing a house. I tend to go with things that are relatively safe and if I don't know what else it needs, I'm none the wiser and the house and my bank account are none the worse for wear. Well on this particular day we decided to tackle the living room. The living room was one of the few rooms that was not gutted. There was a random sort of hay color on the walls and carpet covering a beautiful red oak floor (we have been over this but I have included a before picture of the living room for effect) and wood trim around the windows and doors. Well these were all staying but being repainted. Apparently, you need to wash the walls with TSP(?) Before you paint. You ALSO need to sand down old finish on trim so the paint has something to stick you. I KNEW I wasn't going to like that part. I took wood shop. I know sanding is the most tedious and annoying task there is. Well luckily MB's mom took on the sanding for me (thank God in heaven) so I could go outside and pull weeds out of my poor, neglected garden.
Then we took a little trip to the store and got us some TSP and some sponges and went to work on the walls. YUCK. That's all I have to say. I had no IDEA walls could get so dirty! I'm a bit of neat freak so of course, now that I know how dirty walls get I will be washing them often I'm sure. Again, something you just don't think about in a log house! The water coming off the walls was a nasty greyish/black color. We worked in a wave, MB's mom going first and me following behind the clean up the rest of the grossness. I knew there was one spot that was obviously dirty where 'dude' had had his TV and that was disgusting. By the time we were done I was thoroughly disturbed and the walls were ready.

I was tasked with painting the ceilings and walls in the two closets in the master bedroom one weekend (mother day weekend mind you) while MB was a away on a boy's fishing trip. Lovely. I spent my Friday and Saturday night's drinking wine, listening to Nora Jones and Reckless Kelly respectively (those were the CD's in the stereo so those are what got played!) and painstakingly painting. It took me forever. I also painted Sunday. I was terrified I was going to mess up cutting everything in and it took me a whole night to do just that. I cut in all the primer. then rolled the primer. Then cut the white ceiling paint being used for the whole thing and then rolled it. All told it took me 3 days. A very long time but I was being meticulous. MB couldn't believe it took me so long. I then spent a Monday night or such finishing the third coat. By this point, I got it. I see why people don't like painting.

Having no idea real idea how to paint, and all of the switch plates being off of everything in the bedrooms, I had no idea how to tackle the living room but MB was confident that I could handle cutting and rolling the living room with primer. So, having a bunch of blue tape in hand, I proceeded to tape off all of the trim and, all of the switch plates in the room. I had primed more than halfway around the room and hallway when MB came in and bust out laughing. "You can just take these off you konw?" No, OBVIOUSLY I never thought of that or I would have done it! (working on a house puts tremendous strain on a relationship, everyone knows that but I kept my mouth shut). The first switch plate MB removed was to a random cable outlet and lo and behold the dumb ass that was the last owner, instead of drilling a proper hole for the cable, just HACKED a big hole in the wall! I was instructed that this would need to be patched before a second coat of paint could be applied, another annoying thing I learned being that all rooms need two coats of paint (and this hole has STILL gone un-patched but we did buy the materials last week to do so). So after all of this work and with some help from MB we had primed all of the bedrooms and ceilings and painted the master bedroom entirely.

This was now two weeks before our party "deadline" and we were getting there but there was still the issue of the floors. This was my big hurdle. It felt to me, as though once the floors were done we would BE there. Everything else was just fluff, but the floors, we couldn't move anything in until they were done and THAT was the big goal!

Hear yee, hear yee, we have walls

It is a strange and bizarre sight to be able to see THROUGH your walls. To see thee bones of your house..although, admittedly, very cool as well. It makes you realize there isn't much to a house. It makes you understand the structure and that is the first step in understand your house I believe. I'm not going to lie, the idea that there is space between your walls in which small critters and ants and spiders (over whom I am currently waging war. Our house has an unnatural draw to spiders apparently)freaks me out to no end. Again, I grew up in a log house. That means there is no space in between the outside wall and the inside, it's solid wood. It certainly brings to light the importance of good insulation I can tell you that much!

There's also something very misleading about walls. They go up and OH MY GOD you're done! right? Well that's what it looks like. The insulation went up on our after what seemed like forever and then MB and his family team (Dad and Bro) began to "hang dry wall". Again, this is a very new and bizarre experience for me. The walls go up and it seems like everything is done. Like you are well on your way to being finished. HOWEVER, there is a lot more that goes into this then just hanging them up and screwing them into the studs.

The joins need to be tapped. Then every single line of tape and every screw hole needs to be mudded. Apparently, there is another method where the entire wall is covered in plaster? Well that's not how we did it and I must say, our walls look phenomenal. You cannot see a single line or seam anywhere, more than I can say for the crappy job the previous owners did in the living room (grr). Well anyways apparently, this process is excessively time consuming. Only one corner can be done at a time. Then it is sanded, then mudded again, and then sanded again. This takes more time, esp with one man doing it in his spare time on three rooms and 4 closets (that is a LOT of corners for those of you who can count!). By the time I was soo done with remodeling I wanted to LIVE in my house!

I have yet to explain that while this entire thing was going on we, the two of us and three cats, were now living in essentially one room. We had the kitchen yes but everything was in one room and thank god for it. Our house has a good sized addition, sort of a three seasons room with lots of windows and separate, electric heat. Our bed, our small couch and half of our clothes were stuffed into this room. The vast majority of the rest of our stuff was in the basement. In fact, it still is. I'm still getting dressed in the basement daily. But the reality was that we had been over a month in one room while a good %85 of our livable space was being redone. This sucked. It sucked big time! I was getting claustrophobic to say the least. So when the walls went up I thought "Yes! this is it we are nearly there!" this sad idea lacks the truth that no, we were not nearly there. The FLOORS. we still had tar covering most of the floors even after MB's repeated work on the tar. I was getting disgruntled but there was still so much to do!

Hulk SMASH!!! The demo days

WE have a saying in our house (one of many). Our "baby" cat Finella who somehow thinks she is either a dog or a person, is the biggest brute and often goes crash around into things prompting us to use the term "Finny SMASH!" Well, during the month of April I think the term changed to "Lindsey SMASH!", "MB SMASH!".

The original plans to simply re-do the entire master bedroom, changed to, "well if this room, why not the other spare bedroom?" And "if that room? Why not all THREE bedrooms?!" One of the gloriously horrifying discoveries we, and apparently "dude" (what we like to use to refer to the previous 2 yr owner who seemed to have lost all steam about 2 days in would be my guess?) made was that the ORIGINAL owners...never primed the drywall before sticking up layers upon layers of wallpaper. Now, having grown up in a wall paperless log home I didn't quite grasp the gravity of the situation until MB's mother found out and I watch a look of veritable horror cross her face. As MB later explained, there would be no real way to remove the old, peeling wallpaper without destroying the wall. Great. Lovely. Such wonder, smart people those previous owners were.

When we originally looked at the house, 'dude' had apparently made an attempt to remove the wallpaper in the master bedroom and failed miserably. He had gouged the walls. This, plus MB's overwhelming desire to re-do thing the correct way and re-insulate, lead to the original plan of "master bedroom over hall". It was to my great delight, as I began the panicking decent in realization that there was near nothing I was going to be able to do about the walls in the other bedrooms, that I was informed that all of the bedrooms would be demoed and re done.

I got to the house one day (We lived in our apartment for a month after we bought the house before moving in. Something that saved us and our sanity I do believe), to find I could see strait through from my living room, into our master bedroom. You see, not only are all three bedrooms teeny tiny, but the closets? Hah! They are just comical. Another amazing MB foresight in this project, was to take the closet space in the living room (coat closet is my guess?), wall it off in there and GAIN another closet in the bedroom! This coming from the fact that MB knows there was no way I was sharing a tiny closet with him. I couldn't believe the change! It was kind of fun walking strait through one room into the other.

The weekend of Easter found MB breaking down and handing a flat bar over to me. I had instinctively KNOWN demolition would be fun as hell. I smashed, I ripped and crashed into things and kicked them! It was AWESOMEEE!!!! We spend Easter morning demoing the back bedroom and got so into it, I never had a chance to shower. We showed up to Easter dinner with me picking rubble out of my hair.

Demo was a joy. I mean, you get to destroy things! Even a 2 year old understands the sheer delight of demo. So much changes so quickly and you feel like your really making progress. However....once demo is over, you realize your house is no longer really "houseish", it's more 'construction zoneish". The progress for here is slow and by this point...we moved in. The idea that things would be done before we moved in had Long since been plowed over. Now, we lived inside our construction zone. Greatttt.

Let the abomniations begin!

I must say signing "the papers" on a house...FAR less climactic then I would have expected. Plus is doesn't help when they say, "well its a Friday and it SHOULD get posted by 2pm. But if it doesn't, you technically don't own the house until MONDAY so, uhm yeah we'll tell you later." By 4pm we had gotten word that we did, in fact, OWN the house and by 4:45pm I was on my home got a call from MB who was bursting to tell me something. Within about 30 seconds of learning we had closed MB sprang on the house like a waiting cheetah and had ripped up the carpet in the master bedroom. "I have surprise for you when you get to the house." Well I like surprises so this was exciting! "OK, well I'll see it when I get there," I said being all of 10 minutes away. "Do you want me to just tell you now?" This means that he is going to tell me now because he CAN'T wait so I didn't argue. "(insert long loaded pause here) Well, it's kind of an abortion (I would have used abomination in this context but hey, that's what the guy said!) but...we have wood floors in the bedroom. Actually, I think we may have wood floors in ALL the bedrooms." WOW!

So here's the thing, our new/old house, is a cute 1947 ranch with a 2 car garage and a added back den. The previous owners had built and lived in the house until about 2ish years ago when it was sold to some kid...clearly this didn't go well as we ended up with it. I will never, possibly EVER understand what these people were thinking. I suppose if I try to put myself in their shoes I can understand some of the choices they made, but you will see as I progress that a common phrase NOW spoken in our house is "What F$%# where these people thinking?!"
Any who, there was carpeting in every room but the kitchen and bathroom. All three bedrooms, living room, backroom, carpeted. This, obviously HAD to go. The first & original plan was to gut the master bedroom, put in wood floors, new insulation, dry wall, ect. adnosium because MB could do this "quickly and cheaply". Good. Great. Awesome. I just wanted a new kitchen! We knew there were wood floors in the living room and hallway but assumed we would just rip up ALL the carpet and live with, what we assumed was plywood floors in the other bedrooms. No biggy, we have no children, we only need one bedroom.

As I pulled up to the house and walked cautiously into our new home (OK this right here is the strangest sensation. It didn't really FEEL any different but it was a weird sensation know this was now ours) I turn the corner to find MB on his hands and knees attacking the floor with a flat bar, ripping up TILE(?!). So THIS was the abortion he spoke of. These PEOPLE (previous owners, weirdos) had taken it upon themselves, to plaster plastic tile OVER perfectly good wood floors with...get this, TAR! Yes TAR! The only thing I can liken this to is take a big wad of bubbalicious, chew it a few times, stick it to the sidewalk, grind it in, let it bake for a few days in the summer heat....and then try to peel it off. It was something like that. So as we continue to rip up the carpet in all of the rooms, finding BEAUTIFUL wood floors in the living room (Why? How WHO DOES THAT?!) we find to our joy...and later dismay that we do indeed have wood floors, under tile/tar mixture, in all of our bedrooms. When i sent a pictures to everyone of this weird scenario I got a text back from my realtor says "welcome to the 60s". Apparently, these PEOPLE (previous owners obvi) jumped on every new trend there ever was. This including but not limited to, plastic being the revolutionary new material of the 60's (its great! its wonderful!l it's the answer to everything! Put it on your counters, your floors, your dogs its suuuppper!) and carpet being the best thing since sliced wonder bread during the 80s.

Now, Here is an important fact you should note about me: I grew up in a log house. Yes, fascinating I know, but this is VERY useful information for the rest of this blog. Think about it, I grew up surrounded by LOGS. Brown logs. Heck my aunt & uncle not only own a log home as well but my uncle is a frickin log home realtor! and my grandparents? Well by the time I knew them and they were living at 'camp'....they lived in a log home too! We had wood floors (I thought everyone did!), we didn't paint things, we didn't have siding, we didn't have drywall or horsehair plaster or WALLS we had LOGS! These are all strange new bizarre ideas to me. You will begin to understand that I've got an awful lot of enthusiasm and skills and I'm a fast, eager learner...but all those things, do not experience make.

I learned how to rip up carpet easy enough but after weekend number one, down on my hands and knees, scrapper in hand, I learned this is not the right way to break a girl into a new house! MB and I worked a whole day scrapping the floors, the plan being to sand them. The tile had all been ripped up, they needed to be scrapped once, then slathered with chemicals in sections, and scrapped again. After one day I couldn't handle it anymore. I mean I can do hard work but this was mental breakdown hard and frustrating. You scrap and you scrap and get all excited and you sit up and realize you have been so damn close to the floor that that big chunk you got up...is really itty bitty tiny. My hands were bruised, swollen, bloody and beaten...and I only did it for a day. MB had HOLES in his hands from blisters. I draw the line there. We quickly learned that many people, when faced with this nonsense, simply rip up the floors and apply new ones or refloor over them. Not us. Ohhh no! We saved a TON of money but god was it a battle.

I was prepared for this. It took, all told 2 months before MB FINISHED the floors as other projects were going on but to say that little detail put our timeline slightly off is the understatement of the century. I was prepared for this. I knew. I knew there were always going to be stupid little side projects that get in the way that must be done before you can take the next step but this was far more than I had expected.