Paint fumes

There aren't many large, visible projects left inside the New Old House. A few light fixtures to change out, a window treatment here or there, but it's mostly getting down to the unseen details.

We've done some attic work, including replacing the evaporator coil in the air conditioning unit, replacing the very old HVAC ductwork in the house, and replacing some awful frayed wires in the attic. New cable lines are next on the attic list, since there is a whopping ONE cable outlet in the house, conveniently located in the guest room.

Meanwhile, the bathroom is entering the final stages of done. The last cabinet in the room was gross inside- a mixture of miscellaneous product stains and a wall color the approximate color of bread mold.

There's great storage in there, and with help from a few cans of paint, it's on the way to much cleaner:

Matching painted woodwork helps, too. The shelves are drying, and that will be that!

Of course, the almost-full paint pan had to be emptied, so why not start on the upper kitchen cabinets? The cabinets, in their dilapidated glory, required quite a few coats. The first coat was pathetic:

But luckily, the second (third, fifty-seventh) coats started looking infinitely better:

The insides are going to be done first, then all the doors will get removed, filled, repaired (oh, the repairs), and the outsides of the boxes will get a few coats. Then, doors back on, new hardware, and they'll be done, too! Thank goodness- the oily can stains on the shelves were pretty gross.

Cabinets... and things

It has been pretty quiet around the old blog lately... Mostly because we haven't made much progress on the cabinets. Well, that's not entirely true... We do have most of our cabinet doors and drawers in:

There are some pieces of the dishwasher to install still, toekicks for the cabinets, and you can even see a few granite samples on the "counter" -- a reality that is unfortunately weeks away. But what's that thing on the left side of the photo? Why, it's our refrigerator!

We made a promise to be moved in by Christmas, so we hired some movers and had them help us move the heavy things into the house. They brought the stove, fridge, washer and dryer, and bed frames over. Suddenly, the somewhat-filled house became a livable place. Only two weeks after we had our first guests sover for an evening. They'd be surprised at the changes!

We've been toting things over for weeks, which meant we only needed movers for the really large things. There's a pile of stuff in the old house still, but we're slowly sorting, donating, and filing everything away. We have a huge list of tasks to work through, but we're knocking them out at a decent pace.

For instance, the laundry room needed some storage space. The area above the machines previously held one modest wire shelf. Home Depot had some Closet Maid kits that were pretty inexpensive (and cheaper than buying the individual parts). They're not pretty, but they work:

I may end up sewing a curtain-type cover for the front of the shelf, just to keep everything visually clean.

Oh, and back in the kitchen, we began the process of trimming the window out again, since all the trim was torn out during the cabinet demolition. To get the trim to sit out beyond a tile backsplash, we had to build up the window area a bit. The first step was to cut poplar boards to fit in the area.

Then, some super thin birch plywood was placed on the inside of the window frame. This covered the edge of the poplar boards, making the window frame look like a solid piece of wood. We cut two poplar sills for the windows, trimming them together at the corner:

The whole window was then caulked and prepared for the trim. The pieces are cut, just not attached yet, due to the chaos of moving. I'm looking forward to crossing that off the list!

So that happened...

Remember how we replaced the sink in the bathroom? And the pipe was recessed into the wall, making it quite difficult to replace fittings?

Well, the sink in the kitchen had the same issues. And unfortunately, the other base cabinets in the kitchen were made the same as the little one we demoed already. So they all had to go:

It was rather frightening to see:

• The total lack of insulation
• The mess of wiring that ran every which way, none of which was properly terminated or code in the slightest. 
• A ton of pipes that were not only NOT code, but running through studs as though they had a personal vendetta against pine
• Scrubby asphalt paper
• A bleached out rat skeleton (not pictured, for the good of your stomachs)
• Actual live plants (vines) growing up into the wall cavity. You can see remnants of them in the trashcan in the picture.

It was truly a Pandora's Box moment, realizing that any improvements to the sink would require the work of the same professional plumbers we were planning to hire for the bathroom. At least the electrician, when he came to update the outlets, would be able to take care of that wiring mess. 

But the cabinets were gone, too, which was an ominous absence that sounded painfully like dollars being ejected out of our bank account at high speeds. Alas, the show had to go on!

The plumber finished the plumbing quickly, at the same time as the bathroom project. The electrician came and updated the kitchen wiring not long afterward. Unfortunately for us, the electrician required a permit... Which we did not have. And since the plumbing had been done as well, we had a few things to -ahem- discuss with the city. A few hours and $90 later, we had permits and inspection dates for the work. At least that went (relatively) smoothly. 

After the subcontractors left, the first order of business was to tackle the wall insulation. Although we could have shoved some fiberglass in there and called it a day, we wanted something solid that was a bit more difficult for vines, cockroaches, and pre-skeletal rats to get through. I grabbed some R-3 foam boards and a truckload of gaps and cracks foam and went to town:

The foam stops at the exterior of the house, for what it's worth. I left the asphalt paper remnants behind it, too, just for good measure. The seal was tight on the foam, and you could definitely tell the difference in airtightness. I mean, at least we couldn't see daylight anymore. 

The next step was to add some of that lovely pink, horrible-awful fiberglass insulation. We got R-13 batts (code requires a total of R-7, I think, so we are way over it now). We trimmed and stuffed the cavities with batts, and started slapping drywall up. 

Like how easy I made that sound? The first piece included two outlet boxes, so beyond trimming the general shape to fit under the window, we had a few holes. Too bad this happened on the first one: 

Uggggggh. We're tiling over that area, though, we were able to move ahead without losing the piece. 

Drywall is a super slow process. It's probably about the most painful job that looks so incredibly easy, but it never is. I've never had luck with drywall of any kind. At least we were able to get it moving, and finish the first piece quickly: 

You can see some of the batts here, including the one for the empty cavity, which is drooping over to the side because it decided to get sassy with me, so I put it in the corner. We struggled with more outlet boxes, the drain and water supply lines, but eventually we won: 

What's that you say? Something here looks off? One of these things is... not like the other? Apparently, Home Depot and Lowe's have some philosophical disagreements when it comes to mildew-resistant drywall. I prefer to consider this a journey to Mardi Gras, myself. At least it's done!

Next are the cabinets. We did a lot of research and ended up at Ikea, where the cabinets are inexpensive but modular in a way that we couldn't beat. If a door gets ruined, I can run over to the store, (which is 5 minutes from the house) and grab a new one. We started assembling the cabinets, and by the end of the night tonight, we had made noticeable progress:

Oh Ikea cabinets, thank you for not being jerks. Of course, the same can't be said for the water supply and drain lines, which made getting that corner cabinet in place a nightmare that even a can of Crisco and a shoehorn couldn't remedy. For those wondering, neither did prayer or cursing- in that order.

We still need to grab the door and drawer fronts, buy a countertop of some sort, and get all the shelving in, but so far, I'm pretty impressed with how sturdy the boxes are. We mismeasured the back wall, though, so our 24" cabinet will be going back to the Swedish motherland in exchange for a 21" box that will allow us to put a dishwasher in there. No dishwasher before- what a nightmare! 

Due to the upper cabinet positions and the placement of the windows, we have to keep the sink in the corner. The previous sink, if you recall, was a standard rectangle, installed at an angle with a custom-built cabinet to hold it:

Using standard cabinets means we need a special sink to fit in the corner. Ikea to the rescue again, with a cute corner sink that will work with any faucet we may buy:

Why, hello sink. One of these days, you will hold my dirty dishes. I hope you're excited. 

One more cabinet to go, then a bit of leveling with the adjustable legs. Sides, toe kicks, doors and drawer fronts in a dark finish, as well as drawer and countertop installation await us first. As soon as all of that is done, we'll be close to moving in! Of course, there's still a ton of work to do in the kitchen, including removing some erroneously-installed mirror film from the windows, demolishing and sacrificing the scallop trim to the kitchen gods, and painting all of the walls, upper cabinet boxes, and fronts... (Or replacing the fronts, perhaps?)

Finding a countertop won't be quick choice, either...

Update

I've updated our project list, which can be found here. As we decide to do more things (or ponder them without actually deciding), I'll update the list.

Front entry facelift

There was nothing really wrong with the exterior of the New Old House... Some fascia boards are looking rough, some soffits need to be replaced, and the whole house would benefit from a gutter system-- but nothing serious.

The front door had some old numbers and a crusty mailbox out front, which were perfectly functional. We weren't planning on doing anything with them, but while at the hardware store, I came across a really cute light fixture:

The fixture demanded matching house numbers and a new mailbox, and I was happy to oblige. In addition to those items, the cedar shingles on the house were in dire need of a coat of paint. We had a loose shingle on the back of the house, so I popped it off and took it to the paint department to get a match. Even on a rainy day, the paint dried quickly. Half and hour after that, the whole facelift was completed:

Well, I say that, but it's not entirely true. The front door (and, indeed, all the other doors in and around the house) were primed, not painted, so I'll have to look into that...

Impulse project

As my parents' visit came to a close, we looked at any last, small projects we'd need to complete. I'd noticed the toilet in the full bathroom had cracked, and during our home inspection, the inspector had mentioned that the sink was rusting out.

Installing plumbing fixtures (especially standalone things like toilets) can be fairly easy-- you just remove the old one and put in the new one-- toilet "kits" that include rings, seats, and flush valves have instructions that can help, too.

Here's the bathroom in original condition:

It's not in terrible shape, but the fixtures had to be replaced. Note the awesome scalloped cabinet on the upper right. Also note the light fixture, which is one of those dressing room-style fixtures. I hate those.

After removal of the toilet and sink:

A plumber came in and fixed the sink pipe, which was recessed into the wall (and impossible to work on). He also worked on the sink in the kitchen, which we feared was similar... we were right.

So new toilet install: Put the wax ring on the toilet, set it on the bolts, fasten it down. Put on the tank, fasten it down. Test for water fastness, add seat and tank cover, and boom! Toilet.

We figured the pedestal sink was fine, but the bathroom would benefit from some more counter space. There's plenty of storage in the room, but nowhere to rest a hair dryer or keep a tooth brush. We picked up a vanity cabinet that came with a sink top on it. The vanity came assembled, but the top had to be connected and fastened down. Nice results on both:

The bathroom definitely feels less gross now.

We also decided to take down the scalloped cabinet on the wall and replace the mirror and light fixture. The cabinet was pretty gross and made the bathroom feel cramped, so we tore it out. Unfortunately, (or fortunately?) the painters had painted the bathroom already, so we had to sand down, patch, and repaint the walls and ceiling behind the cabinet.

A new, larger mirror is much more updated, and the light fixture is so much better, too.

Sorry my photo of the fixture is terrible--  Let me try again:

The shades look like this:

They diffuse the light really well. The bulbs are 40W, and I'm thinking they should probably be a bit less bright.

I'm super excited with how the bathroom turned out. We also added a new shower head and curtain rod, because both were old and kind of crusty:

One of these days, we'll get around to painting the cabinet on the left. I should've had the painters do the door frame and cabinet, too. I just assumed at the time that we wouldn't have to do much to the bathroom. Ha! We've come a long way from this:

Things left to do in here: add curtains, paint trim, paint cabinet.

Operation: Hardwood

I'm so happy to announce that the flooring is done. After about a week of solid work, the entire house (minus a few spaces) is properly floored. Let's start with some photos:

This is our "den" room. Remember the carpeting here? Stained everywhere but under the couch. This was the first room we started in, and the flooring went in quickly on the first day. Eagle eyes may notice a very nice new light fixture. We bought two of them and installed them in place of a burned-out fixture on one end and a ceiling fan on the other. The fixtures just came from our local Home Depot, and were chosen for their minimal depth and neutral look:

It's my unfortunate luck that, after installing these lights, I'd go to Ikea and find some slightly more modern fixtures that I liked much, much better. For less money. Figures.

The challenge in this space was the closet at the far end of the room. When you install hardwood flooring and come to any type of doorway where the flooring continues into another space, you have to make sure the hardwoods align with each other, so the boards can continue through the doorway. This means striking guidelines to show where the floor needs to meet up, and almost-sort-of working backward to determine where to start the flooring in the next room. Not all rooms line up, so you end up with partial-width boards on the edges of the room.

At each doorway, you have to cut the jamb to allow the wood to pass under, as well. You also have to notch flooring (sometimes) to get it to fit properly. This is probably the most challenging part of the install.

Under the flooring, we used rolls of underlayment, which create a vapor barrier as well as some padding to make the flooring more comfortable and less noisy. That stuff is super easy to put down and self-adheres, so I don't have any real photos of that process.

Here's our dining room:

It went smoothly, as well. Notice anything in here? We have new curtain rods and curtains! Aaaand a new light fixture in here, too:

This one is from Ikea. I liked the industrial look and the adjustable height. It gives off a nice cone of light, but would definitely be better with some light cans above to fill in the space above the fixture.

The living room went along swimmingly, too. After the flooring was down, we applied the baseboard trim. We bought contractor packs of 16' long, primed MDF baseboards. After a coat of paint, they went  in quickly thanks to my dad's precision measuring and a little help from an air nailer.

The final room was the back bedroom, which we all finished together:

And let me tell you, there was much celebrating:


Stay tuned for plumbing woes, electrical issues, wildlife invasions, and what happens when you decide to do "just a little exploratory demolition"...

Demolition: Kitchen cabinet

There was a standalone lower kitchen cabinet beside the stove in our kitchen. You can see it in this photo, close to the center of the picture:

As we were laying flooring, we decided it'd be better to remove it and put flooring down instead. It's easy enough to get another cabinet to place there, or instead use that area for a large kitchen cart.

So off it came:

Boom! You can see some flooring boxes at the bottom left, and some of our flooring in the dining room, too.

Removing the cabinet was interesting, because we realized that whoever installed the cabinet did so in an atypical fashion. It was all built in, attached to the paneling, and the countertop tile was set on some concrete that was haphazardly poured into the top. The drawers in the kitchen don't even have sliding hardware, so it was pretty easy to get apart. I popped off all the trim, and we used a reciprocating saw to cut off the top... It wouldn't come off without a fight!

Now, we have a dirty and slightly discolored wall, which is fine, because we're hoping to paint it eventually. Onward!

Hiring a painter

The walls were in okay-not-great shape when we bought the house, and we wanted to make sure that everything looked neat and clean when we moved in. We set off to Angie's List to locate a good painter.

They say a decent rule of thumb is to interview/get quotes from three businesses when you're hiring someone to do work in your house:

The first one we chose was the highest rated painter on the list- no negative complaints at all and a decent number of good reviews (like 60). The guy came in, took a look at the spaces, and promised to give us a quote within a few days. He did tell us he could work within our short timeframe, so that was a plus. He seemed like a really nice guy, and he said his crew were all employees (not subcontractors).

The second guy came later that evening. He looked at everything slowly, writing down pertinent information as he went along, and was able to give us a quote on the spot. That was nice, because it was our first indication of cost for the job. He was really quiet, didn't say anything about his business or crew, but seemed confident he could handle the job and start immediately.

The final guy came a few days later. He looked through the house as well, and was able to give an on-the-spot quote, too, with a few options for added services. For instance, adding second coats to frames and doors would cost $160.

When we got all three quotes, painter #1 was most expensive, painter #3 was second, and painter #2 was the cheapest. We really liked painter #1, but his price was 33% higher than the next guy. It was a big difference. We liked painter #3 second best, and his price was a bit more do-able, so we hired him.

A job that he had estimated would take 4-5 days ended up taking a little over 2 1/2, which was awesome. We just checked out the job and are happy with the results. Check it out:

The Magic of Carpet

I keep joking on Facebook (and to anyone who will listen) that I was going to give my house a Brazilian wax last weekend. Well, I was only sort-of kidding.

If you remember my last post, the house features wall-to-wall carpeting everywhere except the rooms with running water (and one closet). Now, let me just take a moment to tell you how much I hate carpeting. I abhor it. Yeah, it's nice when the weather's cold, but in Houston, that happens for exactly 45 minutes every year, and we all rush to put on our hats and flimsy coats and make snowmen out of the flurries that melt immediately upon hitting the ground. Carpeting is just the worst.

Perhaps I'm outing myself as a completely OCD freak, but every time I see carpeting, all I can think of is spilled food, buckets of shed skin cells, pet hair, baby vomit, and LOTS of small creature urine. I know, that tapioca pudding you're eating is super appetizing now, right? I'm sorry. I can't help it. I hate carpeting. I even hated it in my last pre-marriage apartment, where I was the first tenant. The stuff off-gassed VOC's for six months before daily window opening finally killed it.

Carpeting in this house-- carpeting of indeterminate age-- carpeting with bubbles and speed bumps and so much staining and wear-- it wasn't staying. Sorry house, I'm not even leaving you a little landing strip. End of debate.

The thing about pulling up carpeting is that it's fun and incredibly easy. For the uninitiated, a carpet installer nails down little tack strips:

and the carpet mashes onto the spikes, holding it in place. The best part about this is that they only do it along the edges of a room. Find a corner of the room and just yank on the carpeting, and it'll reveal the little strips.

I got a sharp utility blade and cut the carpet into long strips that were around 4' wide. Sharp blades are key, because they cut the carpet much better than a dull blade. I don't have much upper body strength, so I would kneel on the floor like I'm doing the Child's Pose in yoga:

dig the knife into the carpet, and pull it toward the side of my body. Kind of like a reverse inch worm. I'm sure it was incredibly amusing to the spectator. I cut 4' swaths because I needed something I could carry that wouldn't be too heavy when rolled up. In the beginning, Andrew was at work and couldn't help, so I did a room or two by myself, but once he came over, we really got rolling! All the carpeting came up in less than a day. At the end, we were left with tack strips and carpet padding everywhere:

and a garage full of old carpeting:

We left the padding down so we'd have something to kneel on as we removed the tack strips. They come out easily with a crowbar or hammer, because the nails are shallow. Andrew removed the strips and I rolled up the padding, and dumped it in the garage as well.

As I removed the padding, I was surprised to find a plywood subfloor underneath. you can kind of see it in this image:

Our home inspector, who was otherwise awesome, told us he saw concrete when he pulled back the carpeting. We bought our flooring based on the assumption that we were laying it on a slab, so I was somewhat annoyed that we had the wrong info. We are floating the floor system (more on that in another post), so it's not an issue, but it did preclude us from buying some other types of wood that could've been just a nice. Ah well, you live and learn! Next time we'll check for sure.

We're going to call a demolition company that works with Habitat for Humanity to see if they want to come pick up the old carpeting. These companies generally grab the materials for free and recycle them. Because we're donating it to a company that helps a charity, we'll be able to get a receipt showing the value of our donation, and use it on our taxes. Which is great, because we're feeling prettttty cash poor from the flooring and hiring a painter (look forward to a post on that, too).

The next step for us is removing all the baseboards in the house, which involves knocking some nails through and labeling each board, so they can be replaced. Looking forward to a long weekend!

State of the House

I figure it's worth noting that when we put the offer on the house, we hadn't been inside it.

Okay, so that sounds insane, but when you buy a house, there's an option period when you can back out without any kind of penalty. Remember, we saw the sign on July 3rd, and offered on the 4th. By the time we'd put the offer on the house, it had already been shown five times. But we didn't really feel comfortable calling a realtor out to the property on a holiday, so we just made a few phone calls. Our agent, the one who sold Andrew our current house, called the selling agent, and they got everything together for the offer, all via phone. Awesome.

When we finally did see the house a few days later, it was completely full of stuff. Most houses are, when they're showing, full of furniture and things neatly put away. But this was a house full of Richard and Mavis's things, all unclaimed odds and ends that would eventually be sold, the agent told us, at an estate sale. A few days later, we went back into the house while the home and termite inspectors were doing their reports, and I was able to take several photos of the "before" state of the house.

So allow us to take you on the grand tour.

A plan to orient yourselves, first. The front entry door is at the bottom of the plan:

The front entry room:

In this photo, the front door is to the right. You can see the large window that looks into the front yard. In this room, there's not a single permanent light fixture. The opening to the left goes directly into the dining room, and behind the camera is the hallway to the bedrooms. This space is more square than the other living space, but it's used as more of a pass-through zone than anything. In order to give it an identity, it needs to be more like an actual room, with well-defined traffic zones. We have stained carpets that show a lot of foot traffic staining. Not pictured: a linoleum entry area with a transition to the carpeting.

The dining room:

There's a nice, big window opening into the back yard. On the left are two openings to the kitchen, and on the right is an opening to the other living space. The light fixture in this room is dated, and carpeting is a tough choice for a space that is primarily for serving food.

The kitchen:

Woah. Aside from being super dated, the cabinet fronts show a ton of wear. The hardware is old, and the drawers don't have any sliding hardware. The fridge is gone, but we still have the outdated stove with wind-up timer, and the microwave which isn't that bad. The sink is rusted out on the bottom and will need to be replaced. Two nice windows and a ledge are decent additions, but the counter is old tile that will eventually get a facelift. The fixture in this room seems to do a good job of lighting the spaces, but under-cabinet lighting would be nice. Linoleum floors are coming out, too. The kitchen projects (save the floor) are something we're saving for when the weather gets cooler.

Back through the dining room and into the living room:

Acoustic tiles! Neato! There's one ceiling fan/light fixture in here that fails to fully light the space. A large window adds some natural light, at least. Dirty carpeting in here also has some bumps and lumps from stretching out... Or was it incorrectly installed?

If I turn around and look directly behind the camera, I see two doors:

On the left is the laundry room, which has another door into the patio out back, and a large walk-in closet with a pull-string light. The laundry room is little more than a hallway, and has really badly located light switches, behind the door. These rooms both have brand new linoleum... it's staying in the laundry, but we're taking it out of the closet when we re-do the flooring.

If I walk back into the dining room and then into the main entry where we started, I can see a hallway:

Nothing to really look at here. There's a pullstring for the attic acces, and a linen closet with a pullstring on the right. Aside from the closet, there are 4 doors that open into bedrooms and a bath. 

The first door on the left is a bedroom:

Wowee. This photo, thanks to the powers of ISO, doesn't look nearly as depressing as it is in real life. The fixture is super dated, and the carpeting, like the rest of the house, is in bad shape. 

At the end of the hallway, on the left, another bedroom:

This bedroom has a half bath:

It used to have a shower as well, but it was capped and turned into the closet on the right. The bathroom is in pretty good shape: It really only needs some paint. 

Across the hall, is the 3rd bedroom:

This bedroom has a nice closet, and is pretty similar to the previous one. 

The final stop on my tour is the one full bathroom in the house:

The tile... it burns! I don't think we have any plans to retile the bathroom, but the cabinet next to the sink is no longer there, and the tub needs to be refinished and get a new shower head. The weird thing on the wall is a gas heater that still works... And I have absolutely no idea what to do with it just yet.

So that's it! Seems like a ton of work, huh? I think we'll be able to make it all work!