Travis: He-Man Oleander-Wrangler

We have a new roof!

Before:

Day 1:

Day 2:

After:

You know a man designed it when...

...it comes with a beer opener on the other end.

That's a paint can opener by the way for prying open paint lids. :-)

Ahh paint (well primer)

Lesson #3 in Home Remodeling: Always Stir Your Paint

We started throwing primer on the walls finally now we've more or less got the paint prep done. And I was very surprised to find out, you have to stir all the paint you buy. It starts out in this cottage cheese texture with a thin layer of water on top. Travis wanted to buy paddles to attach to his drill to stir the paint. I felt he just wanted more toys (a la the chain saw). But it actually takes a bit of elbow grease to stir 2 gallons of cottage cheese!

I got the exciting job of cutting in the paint with my handy-dandy paint cut-in bucket. Yep! It's one of Travis' used coffee tubs. We go through these are a rate that I find absolutely appalling but at least they're finally coming into good use. I get the smell coffee tinted paint fumes as I work.

Our 2 gallon bucket of primer only managed to cover a ceiling and 3 bedroom walls. Looks like we're in store for an early morning trip to Home Depot tomorrow morning. Also on the menu is the new lawn mower for Travis. It looks like it'll be a long weekend.

Look Ma...

I know what you're thinking. That doesn't look like much to write home about. But I would like to bring your attention to the lack of weeds in the entire frame of that picture. That was no picnic on my part. The other important fact is that the ground is wet. Travis managed to convince the sprinkler system in the front yard to work! (While I was in the middle of weeding the lawn of course but details.) We still need to get a new solenoid to be able to set the front lawn up for automatic watering but all the wiring and pipes are ready.

Travis did some further clearing of the backyard. So far, we've found 4 iron frames of some sort, a muffler, a metal barrel, a wooden bench that's seen better days, and a plastic tub. I have to admit I'm completely baffled by how all that stuff got back there. When Travis unceremoniously lopped off a large tree branch into our backyard neighbor's fence, we got a chance to meet them. Apparently, they maintain a cheat sheet of their neighbors' names like us and they one-upped us with emails and phone numbers.

Speaking of neighbors, I love love our neighbors. So several neighbors (always the husbands) have offered lending us power tools. I always take the chance to at least ask about something: stump grinder, chain saw, whatever Travis and I had been discussing recently. And what do you know, the guy from the backyard had a chain saw and he lent it to us on the spot to just give back whenever. The wife across the street also came over and hugged and thanked me for weeding our front yard. I thought that was awfully sweet of her. And she promised baked goods at some point. I'm sure Travis is still salivating over that.

In other news, we've almost got the house ready for paint. Perhaps 2 more nights of some sanding and vacuuming and we should be ready for a wall wash and some primer. We've toured 4 contractors through the proposed remodel plans. There may be a 5th we'd like to check out but we'll see.

All in a weekend's work

We're taking tonight off so I thought I'd update on what happened over the weekend. We gave our bedroom walls chicken pox with a bit of spackle. I'm becoming quite an expert spackler and have discovered I favor the metal putty knife over the plastic one for its flexibility and sharp cut lines. The plastic one also doesn't take even light abuse very well and its corners are already getting mushy.

And we finally put that horrid looking wood paneling behind the fireplace out of its misery. Of course that has gone and exposed the unfinished drywall behind, one of which needs some tape and mud. You'd be surprised how much mud a single wall takes as we used up all of the conservatively sized bucket we bought and will need at least one more to finish up the job.

Half of the front lawn has been properly weeded and given another partly cloudy day, I'm pretty confident our lawn will be rid of weeds. The trick is to use a trowel because, really, all advertised weeders are worthless. They either aren't sturdy enough to dig into the rock-hard parched dirt that is our lawn or are so hefty they eat up more grass than weeds. A properly positioned trowel and a little leverage pops the weeds out from underground and you get a hefty chunk of the root material out to keep them from coming back.

A Matriarchal Family

I have to admit, I derived especial join when signing this document during closing. I love that it points out we're "wife and husband" (emphasis added). I especially love that we're referred to as "Mrs. and Mr." For once, I get my name placed more prominently than Travis's.

Nail sets and sets of nails

So the first time I went to Home Depot I was picking up just the 'essentials'. I spent way too much money, burned right through all those gift cards. I didn't even get the lawn mower. Now I know I'm going to make countless trips to Home Depot, but i wasn't prepared to see that price tag. Stupid California sales tax.

On my next adventure to Lowe's I was looking to pick up a nail set. Asked one guy, no luck. He asked the next girl and she took me to the nails. "Here are our sets of nails." This was going to be a long night.

When looking for something in a home improvement store, look for the oldest guy you can find, or the person with the fewest teeth. They are sure to know where it is.

Safety First

Lesson #2 in Home Remodeling: Safety First
Late one night as I'm perched somewhat precariously on our A-frame ladder struggling with a piece of corner molding on the door, Travis asked, "You want some goggles?" Quite appropriately, that stubborn piece of moulding decides this is an opportune time to break free and fling itself halfway across the room, narrowly missing my face. At which point I decide, "Why yes I would like a pair of goggles."

Now this seems like it really should be lesson #1. However, I'm dispensing the lessons as I learn them, not so much as they should be taught. And since I stuck my fingers sans protection into silicone caulk despite the label warning me of skin irritation, I don't really feel qualified to harp on safety until such a time as I abide by it. (And FYI, my skin surprisingly wasn't irritated. But should this incident come back to haunt me I'll be sure to update and blame myself.)

And thus in honor of safety, here's how to dress for safely crawling under your house.

Baseboards, consider yourself conquered

That's right, I've single-handedly removed all the baseboards in our house! (Okay, so maybe Travis helped me start one of them.) And I'm damn proud of it. There's something oddly satisfying about doing demo work. And the nails feel really warm when you pull them out of the wall because of all the friction. It's creepy yet enjoyable. Makes you feel like you accomplished something. Of course in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "Now I will have to put this all back together again."

I put one hole into the wall but that was while trying to demo the shelves in a closet. In my defense, the construction of this house is rock solid and very sturdy. It's making taking it apart somewhat of a challenge. Luckily we had plans all along to tear that particular wall down. Disaster averted.

And after 3 years in Northern California, I have finally lived up to my reputation for attracting mosquitoes. That single mosquito in a 100-mile radius found me tonight and bit me twice in all of the 10 minutes I stood outside trying to revive our parched lawn.

We're taking tomorrow night off since next on the list is paint prep of the walls and we really need a larger chunk of time with light so it's on the schedule for Saturday. I have to admit, I'm pretty surprised at the progress we've made so far on it.

So I came home from work today...

And found this on my doorstep.

I think it's quite obvious I have the most awesome agent ever. But in all seriousness Coco is an amazing agent and I'd highly recommend her to anyone looking to buy a house in the East Bay with absolutely no reservations. I just couldn't have imagined anyone doing anything better at any step of the process. And on top of that she's just awesome.