How we spent our weekend

Well we didn't have a fun weekend, but it was very productive. I've been wanting to replace the carpet on our second floor since we moved into this house three years ago.  We are finally able to do it.  I had to work two days last week, so I spent my three days "off" working at home, pulling up the old base boards and painting the new ones. I was happy to go back to work. Sometimes the work that I find for myself to do at home is more physically exhausting than the work that I get paid to do.

That is the mess that was left. The installers will be removing that today.

We are going through Lowe's to have the new carpet installed, and it is going in as I type.  I was not expecting that it could be put in this quickly.  James and I had two days to get the furniture moved, the carpet and pad removed and all the staples pulled out of the floor. We had to pull carpet out of three bedrooms, our walk-in closet, a hallway, and the the stairway. I was so sore last night, I had a hard time sleeping.

 The new carpet is much darker than the old carpet. The old carpet was almost white.  While we were pulling it out, we found a few pieces of what we suppose was the original carpet. It was pink. Our new carpet is a "green" carpet. It is EverStrand Carpet from Mohawk. It is made out of recycled plastic bottles.

I'm really thankful for all the hard work James put into removing the old carpet. He enjoys having leisure time on the weekends, and this weekend did not offer him much of that!

Bathroom Remodeling

 We have a small half-bath in our basement, and we are doing some remodeling in there.  We are replacing the flooring, vanity, fixtures, mirror and repainting.  Basically the only things that stay are the wastebasket and toilet.  Here are some before pictures:

You can see spackling on the wall in this photo, above the sink.  That is because there used to be a medicine cabinet there, and whoever installed it decided that it would be a wonderful idea to glue it to the wall.  Ugh.  What is wrong with just using screws?  The glue damaged the sheetrock, so I had to spackle over the damage.

The floor had seen better days.  This is was vinyl flooring, and the upper layer of it had started to wear off.

We had a really difficult time removing the vanity because it was also glued to the wall.  Again, the glue damaged the sheetrock.  I understand needing to use caulk or silicone around a sink, but this much glue??  I have been unable to remove all of the glue from the wall.  If anyone has any advice about how to remove it, I'll take it!  I've been trying to scrap it off with a putty knife, which has not worked that well.

A close up of the damage:

A shot of the room once we got everything removed:

Yard work is done!

Here are some pictures of the finished project:

This is at the base of the dogwood tree:

The pros at work

The landscapers began working on our yard late last week.  They finished up today, but I don't have any pictures of the finished project yet because it was raining when I got home.  I'll try to post pics in a few days.  We are really pleased with the work.  Click here for the before photos.

This is what the yard looked like after Day 1

 This is in front of our garage.  This is where the really scraggly half green, half dead bush was.

Here's what things looked like after day 2

I was impressed with what they got done in just two days.

Landscaping

The work in the yard continues.  James tried removing some of the larger bushes, but he called it quits.  I don't blame him!  Those bushes have been there for years and they have a deep, complex root system.  I'm glad he tried.  The landscaper will be over in a few weeks to remove the rest and replace it.

Landscaping

Just before I left for Haiti, James and I met with a landscaper to get an estimate for replacing the "flower beds" in the front yard.  They are in such a mess, it is a stretch to call them flower beds.  That conjures up much too nice of a mental image.  We agreed on a price, and the landscaper is going to start working soon after we get the plants that are there out.  James removed three of the smaller bushes yesterday, here's what the yard looked like after that.

That tree is a dogwood tree, and we are keeping it along with the daylilies.  The yard doesn't look so bad from the photos, but there are lots of weeds and if you look closely, you will see where a round area of the grass was scorched during last week's crawfish boil.  Oh well, that grassy area is coming out too.

This sad little bush is in front of our garage.  It is so ugly.  Last spring, it was much larger, and much greener.  It was so big it was encroaching on the driveway, and my pants would get snagged in it when I walked by.  I got tried of that, so I decided to trim it.  I did not know that the green parts would not grow back.  It is going to be removed as well.

Today I spent about half an hour trimming the bushes down.  I did that so we could see where the base of the bushes were.  It started to sprinkle, so I had to call it quits, but I got a little done.

I found out that bush above was actually two bushes.

Basement #2

I spent Thursday and Friday last week painting in the basement.  I got a lot done, but it still feels like I'm nowhere near the end.  It is a large room, and the walls were not in great shape.  There were lots of holes to patch up before I could start painting.  I have learned how to float drywall and patch up holes that spackle won't fix.  Here's some pictures of on hole that I fixed.  I had tried to patch it up with spackle, but it didn't work.  The spackle would not stick.  I asked a few questions at Lowe's about how to fix it, and got what I needed.  I bought joint compound and non-adhesive drywall joint tape.

I applied a small amount of joint compound to the problem area and them applied the joint tape.  I applied another layer of point compound on top of the tape and let it dry over night.  Then I sanded the area smooth.

I prefer joint compound instead of spackle now.  It is smoother, and less messy.  This is a picture after the first coat of paint.  It still needs another coat, but it looks better.

 Our house had popcorn ceilings throughout when we bought it.  We hired a painter to remove most it and repaint.  We didn't have him do any work in the basement, and the stairway still had a popcorn ceiling.  We removed it ourselves with a putty knife.  James scraped off the areas that I could not reach.  This is not something that you should do yourself is you think our ceiling might have asbestos in it.  We knew ours did not.

 Here's the mess that it left behind.  See all those little white specks?  It took a while to vacuum that all up!

 Some pictures of the painting in progress

 I should have some time to paint next Friday and Saturday.  I hope to have one coat of paint up everywhere by the end of next weekend.

Basement #1

I mentioned in some older posts that I has started painting our basement. Here is a "before" picture.  It was pretty plain.  White walls and no artwork.

These were taken after I had been painting around the trim and outlets for a couple of days.  That is our dog, Daisy in the picture.  I was hesitant to let the dogs in the basement with me while I was painting because I was afraid they would make a mess.  I could just see red paw prints all over the carpet.  However, they were very good - as long as I was painting by myself.  Last Saturday, James spent a few hours helping me paint.  The little dog (Lily) did not like it when we talked to each other from across the room.  It made her very antsy, and she almost stepped in the paint.  She was banished after that.  Daisy was too.

These last two pictures were taken after we called it quits on Saturday last week.  I ran out of the tan colored paint.  I'm using Valspar paint.  The red is called "Rare Sienna" and the tan color is called "Mediterranean Caramel."  I have another darker brown called "Chestnut Beach" that I'm also going use.

We still have a lot to do, but we're off to a nice start.

The saga continues. . .

Well, our renovations continue. The grout in our master bathroom is still chipping up off the floor. I spoke with the man who had done the repairs a few weeks ago, and he think that person who mixed up the grout to begin with put too much water it. This has made the grout weak, and he is going to remove all of it. Ugh. I am so sick of this, but I am glad that the company is doing to right thing by re-doing the work properly. It's just that for what we paid, it should have been done right to begin with. Someone is coming to remove the grout and put new grout down next Friday. This will 10 days that I've had to spend at home because of this project. . .when it was supposed to take only 5.

So it's not finished after all. . .

Sunday before last, we were asked to host our small group with short notice. Good thing too, because we spent to afternoon tidying up. While we were cleaning the half bath, we noticed that the new baseboard behind the toilet was wet. The new toilet was leaking, and probably had been leaking since it had been installed. . .so about 12 days. James was able to stop the leak. I called the foreman the next morning.

He sent someone new to us over here that evening. There were 5 other things that needed to be fixed. Ralph was supposed to fix these things, but he had already put me off for 4 days . . .telling me each day that he would be here. Ralph never showed, he has been fired by the foreman.

Here's what needed to be done. . .we found more things as late as this morning.

• the grout on the wall in the guest bath did not dry to a uniform color, and it should have
• the grout on the floor in out the master bath and the laundry room was chipping up in a few places. This meant that two tiles in the master bath had to be removed and replaced.
• the closet door in the guest bath needs to be trimmed because it scrapes the floor.
• the access panel that installed for the tub is coming loose from the ceiling in the kitchen.
• the grout around the new tub is cracked
• the base of the toilets need to be caulked

Here is a picture of the grout that should be the same color, but it is not uniform. The blue arrow indicates one of the worst places.

So far today, the grout has been removed from this part of the wall, the rotten wet baseboard has been replaced, the tiles in the master bath that needed to be replaced have been, & the cracked grout around the tub has been removed.

Finished Project

Here are some pictures of the finished project.

Half Bath

Guest bath

Wall tile in guest bath. . .so much better than the shoddy wainscoting.

Master Bath

Our new tub

Shower in master bath

We also put tile in the laundry room, but that's not that interesting to see.