Week 2: Adventures with electricity

Task # 3: Interior Painting Prep

Note to all homeowners: when painting your walls, you should remove all fixtures and nails/screws.  Not only does it look unprofessional and tacky, but it's also a huge pain to remove them if they are painted over (such as the curtain fixture pictured here).  Don't get lazy and skip this step.  It will look much better if you don't have paint gooped up on the nails.

We had to use a flat metal scraper to break the paint sealing the outlet covers to the wall.  Since the outlets themselves were painted over, it was tricky to remove the plates.  With one particular plate, Matt pulled a little too hard when the outlets were still attached to the plate.  A huge spark coming from the outlet and half the lights in the house going out indicated that this was probably not a smart idea.  Since we still needed to get the outlet covers off, Matt developed a new technique where he used the scraper to pull at the cover while simultaneously using a hammer to insure the socket was staying in the wall. (Note: We turned off all the power to the outlets before trying again.) 

At least this caused us to learn about how to use the fuse box (old school style).  The house doesn't have a circuit breaker, but instead a box with actual fuses (yes, they still sell fuses).  All we needed was another trip to Home Depot (our new favorite store) and a quick internet search to repair the blown fuse.  The lights are back on again, but we eventually need to call an electrician to replace the box with a circuit breaker.

Week 1: All Hands on Deck (Roof and Bathroom)

Task #2: Consultations.  The roof and the master bathroom desperately need to be redone. 

The Roof:

The shingles are peeling up and need to be replaced so we had 2 contractors come out to give estimates to repair the roof.  Even though we cleaned out the gutters, they are still leaking and not moving water properly due to too many years of neglect.  While we have someone to do the roof, they will also be replacing the fascia/soffits that may be rotted and set us up with brand new gutters.  A big investment, but definitely worth it.  Unfortunately the contractor can't begin work until August.

The Bathroom:



The fixtures are out-dated and the floors need to be re-done.  The previous owners had carpet in the bathroom. Yuck!



The bathroom is abnormally small, so we met with a Home Depot Bathroom rennovation consultant to see what our option are.  We will be knocking down the wall around the shower to open up the space more.  The shower will have white subway tile with a shower "nook" to hold shampoo and sliding frameless glass doors.  We will also have a white pedestal sink installed.  We are going "white and light" to give the illusion of having a bigger space and to bring in some country/cottage style themes.  They will start construction on the new bathroom in late July. 

Week 1: On the Move

Matt hasn't wasted any time during his first week of homeownership.  We're aiming to get as much work done on the house as possible before Matt and Gurak move in at the end of July.

Task #1: Clean out gutters.  The gutters are in such bad shape that they have small plants/trees growing out of them.  Needless to say, they weren't exactly moving water away from the house very well.  On day 1 we spent 7 hours shoveling 2-3 inches worth of compost out of the gutters.  The key to this was to drag a tarp around behind us so that we didn't litter the yard with sludge.