Signs of Progress

Tim's Birthday Key Lime Pie!

It's been crazy busy last couple of days. We had to have the bedrooms painted so that the baseboards could be installed. It is much easier to paint without worrying about dripping paint on the baseboards. I took a vacation day today and Tim and I both worked at the house for pretty much the entire day. We are officially getting tired.

The painting necessitated multiple trips to Lowe's for roller trays, extra rollers, blue painter's tape, paint, you name it. But, well worth the effort and the blisters on my hands to get the work done without drips on the baseboards or on the nice tile. 

We also had our first "situation" between Tim and I this week regarding his painting skills. Or lack thereof, I should say. Up till this point, we've gotten along really great with no negativity or arguments about anything, and this was more of a "I can't believe you call this painting," kind of discussion.

So today is Tim's birthday and most of his birthday was spent painting closets (just plain white - it doesn't matter if there are streaks inside the closet). I couldn't sleep this morning and got up at 4AM and made 2 key lime pies for the birthday boy. So here's a shot of him having a little birthday pie. In addition, here are some of the painting and the crazy colors the kids picked out for their rooms in this post.

 A little blurry, but here's the "Silver Fox" in the guest bedroom. This was my $5.00 Paint Bargain!

On the left is "Gecko Green" in Timmy's bedroom, and below that is "Amber Wave" in the guest bathroom.

 Here's a couple shots of the orange / creamsicle in the kids' bathroom. This was a $5.00 bargain paint that I am still waiting to see how I feel about. The photos I think don't show how truly weird this paint is... it's probably going to be going away this weekend because I just can't get used to it.

I also bought a new light fixture today at Lowe's but I didn't have it in me to pull off the old one and replace it with a new one. Plus, the tile guy was working in this bathroom today, so we would have had to dance around each other all day. Maybe this weekend.



The Laundry Room in "Budoir Blue"





Here's Norah's Room in "Pretty Pink." This is the paint that caused Tim to be banished
to closet painting for the rest of our marriage. Two coats of paint later, It's pretty Pepto-Bismol.

  Also, we've got a lot of the tile floor in now, which is still the prettiest floor ever. The only room left to go  on the tile installation is the master bathroom with the master bedroom closets. On Thursday and Friday, carpeting will be installed in the bedrooms and the granite goes in on Friday.  We're having the windows professionally cleaned on Thursday. If you could see a close-up of the status of the windows at this moment, there is almost no price you wouldn't pay to not have to deal with them. Our appliances (minus the stove) will be installed on Friday too.The stove was unfortunately back-ordered until next Tuesday. Once we have it, we are in business and ready to move in! 

Kitchen Floor is In!!!!



Tim's Dad is here this week, which has been awesome. The floor is just about complete!



Floor Envy......And Attack of the Crazy Colors

It's been a weekend of great progress at our Broken House. But first I have a confession: 

The French pattern rolled edge Travertine floor is the prettiest floor I have ever seen.  I can't believe I'm going to get to see this pretty floor every day. Even though it's only about 1/3 done, I really really think it's beatiful. Better than beautiful but I'm just not word-smithy enough tonight to come up with a word that's better than beautiful. In the pictures of the floor, before you say "oh she's nuts," the floor still has to be sealed, and we are getting new 8" baseboards to set off the new paint (Named Macadamia Nut - love the crazy paint color names... now there's a job.... coming up with paint color names, more on that in a minute).

Some some action photos from this week. Here is one of the very hard working guys who "textured" our kitchen and bathroom walls with a Florida staple... it's called "orange peel." The walls down here, unlike most of the walls up North are textured with "mud" that gives the wall the texture of an orange. Since it's already in most of the house, it's in my current house, it's in the houses of everyone I've ever been to in the State of Florida, we went with the orange peel. It gets sprayed on and has to dry for at least 24 hours before painting.

 
 Here's a little more orange peel for you folks keeping score at home:



 Now. Onto the floor. Here's what the crates came in when the tile was delivered to my house. There is also a pallet of mud or mortar visible in the bottom right corner of the photo. I think you'll agree. That's a lotta tile.

Here is the first day's work, in progress. You can see the color variations in the stone and how pretty it is and the the pattern shows that off.

So at this point in my post, I probably ought to lay off the floor business because no one will ever want to read this blog again. We let the kids pick out their paint colors for the bedroom, and no surprises, she picked pink, he picked green.I think Norah's was "Pretty Pink" and Tim's is "Gecko Green," perfect for the tormenter/chaser of lizards that he is.

Above is a little silliness with laundry room paint. It looks more purple in the photo than it really is, and  the name of this paint is "Budoir Blue."  The laundry room doubles as a mud room when you first come in from the garage, and there's no natural light in there. I wanted this room to be a happy color since it's the first room we'll walk into and the last room we walk out of on every trip to the house, and this Budoir Blue, despite the name struck me as happy. It was either this or a pale orange color, but Tim nixed the orange for some reason. Oh, but if you're married to a girl from Syracuse, you can't nix the orange for long as you'll soon read.   After I took this picture, I painted the whole wall so my love message is lost forever, except for this blog that is. The Budoir Blue is happy and pretty.

Here's a shot of our Master bedroom. This paint is called "Versatile Gray." You'd think after four years of every day wearing gray at West Point, that gray is the last color I'd choose for my bedroom, but it's a very soothing and calm color. And as the name suggests, versatile.

Right outside our bedroom is the lanai and pool area, which are pretty and a nice thing to see first thing in the morning.

 This next room is where I'd really like some opinions. I became a devotee of the Lowe's Paint Department bargain bin this weekend. For those of you who don't know (My Sister Eileen, raise your hand at this point)... you can go to Lowe's or Home Depot or Ace Hardware and they usually have a "mistake" or "oops" or "leftover" rack. They've mixed the paint for someone who has now changed their minds, and the person for whom the paint was mixed leaves the store without purchasing the paint.  The abandoned paint then goes on the "mistake rack" for a greatly reduced price. At the left, you'll see $5.00 worth of creamsicle orange paint in the kids' bathroom that came from the Lowe's "oops" rack. Forget the ugly light fixture over the mirror, what do you think? Is the orange paint cute and fun or wierd and freaky? Tim didn't want it, but I insisted on it... and now I'm wondering if it should have been left on the rack. The jury is still out. 

I also purchased a gallon of "Silver Fox" for my guest bedroom for $5.00 at the Lowe's Oops Rack, and that is a really really beautiful bluish/gray color. Very calm and soothing, and I've already painted it, just need to go back and cut in the ceiling, photo coming soon.

Last photo for this post, big surprise!

Demo Ends but The Money Flow is Just Beginning

We are done with the demo of the broken house. As you can see from the following pictures, it's a mess, dirty, dusty, walls peeled, bare concrete floors. It's now ready to get put back together! Close-up of the existing stove cooktop, complete with a tile chip for a nose. Those things are EVERYWHERE. Even Stove Man is happy that the demo is just about over!

Because we're getting new tile and new countertops, there's really no point in cleaning these surfaces off, they'll just get messed up again until the new stuff gets installed. We are also getting new kitchen appliances since these are about 15 years old, and well-used. The house (and its occupants) deserve something new and beautiful. Painting begins tomorrow, September 23rd, and so does the tile install. Granite goes in on October 1st or maybe even earlier if the tile guys are done. These are *hopefully* the last pictures of the house all pulled apart that we'll ever be able to show:

And now some good news! Our granite kitchen countertops are on order, and here's a quick picture of what our granite is going to look like. The picture was taken outdoors, on our cement driveway so as to get the correct color in daylight (without a flash), and it's got browns and golds mostly in it. The floor tile is on the right, more on that in just a minute:

Onto the master bathroom. Tim finished the great wallpaper peel in there. We also removed the jacuzzi jetted tub. I don't have anything against jacuzzi's or jetted bathtubs personally, but I am not a huge bath person. I am definitely not a huge "looks like fake marble with a big crack in it" bath person. Even more so, I am not a "steps of cracked tile leading up to the romance capital of Florida in the fake marble bathtub" kind of person. So, the fake marble bathtub is history.

Tomorrow the area where the tub used to be will be dry-walled (just the walls of course), the tile will be laid, and we'll cap off the pipes for a future claw-foot, free-standing, soaking bathtub. I think it'll look nice!

We are also going to have granite countertops in the master bathroom with undermount sinks. I went to the warehouse today and I picked out a somewhat funky slab with "a lot of movement" as they say in the granite biz.

My gal Susan at the granite yard had been saving this piece for me, and I'm happy she did. The picture may not show it, but there are a lot of golds, grays, browns, and even pink in this granite. It's called Juparana Classic, and I guess it's from India. All that way to wind up in my very own bathroom!

Our tile installer also took us over to another client's house today to see the exact floor we are going to have installed! He has installed the same product in several houses with great results.

It is gorgeous. It's a French Pattern travertine tile with a rolled edge, and feels beautiful to the touch and it's beautiful to look at, and very nice to walk on.

Tim and I are nervous about the price tag but it's so elegant and nice, and I think will really make our house stand out. I'm excited to see it in our place!

Again, the kids have been so good throughout all this. And, as fate would have it, Norah is the "Student of the Week" or something, which mostly means that she has extra projects to write about all her adventures as a first grader. My thoughts: "Great timing, First Grade Teacher."

Thankfully we are finished with the extra work. Her big project? "My work on the broken house." Way to kill two birds with one stone. Here are a couple more pictures of the kids pitching in around the house, cleaning up Tim's wallpaper peelings:

The next time I submit a blog post, we should have paint up and floors being tiled. I am going to paint the bedrooms, kids and guest bath, and the laundry room, beginning this weekend. I want a funky color for the laundry room. Syracuse University orange or something to that effect. Pictures to follow!

My Sister Wants More Pictures

Sunday night... We are exhausted. I seriously need to go to work tomorrow so I can rest my body a little. Tim jackhammered tile and leftover thin set on the cement floor for about 6 more hours today. He thinks the drill bit or the drill or whatever this thing is is broken. I don't know, and I am too tired to expend any mental energy on this. I tried jackhammering and lasted about 3 minutes short of lasting 5 minutes. The vibration the jackhammer kicks back is pretty tough to handle and I was exhausted.

In case you were wondering, Tim Flaherty is a machine... He kept working all day. Here he is blasting through the thin set in the laundry room. We have a joke about doing our own infomercial workout video loosely based upon Power 90X or P-90X, whatever they call it. Tim calls our work on the broken house P-90 Foreclosure because it's so physically demanding. We are sweating like crazy the entire time, hearts pounding, muscles exhausted. Oh, and eating like wolverines whenever we get the chance. We are also doing loads of laundry of our work clothes almost constantly.



While Tim was jack hammering, I worked on removing the baseboards. We're going to get new ones anyway, and then the tile can be flush against the wall and it'll have a nice finished edge. It's pretty gross and dusty work, but then again, the dust is mostly from the tile demolition. We also filled up a few more bags of tile and dust for the garbage men to take away on Tuesday. They already hate our guts even though I gave them some cash as a thank you last week for hauling away what we had out at the curb. Wait till they get a look at this week's tile extravaganza, I will be paying their kids' college tuition.


We talked with our tile guy tonight. He told us he can finish the rest of the demo job for a very reasonable price. Ummmm.... Let me think about it......... OK!!!!! We are done with this job. I pray that I never demo tile again in my whole life. There is a layer of dust on every surface in the house. The tile guy is coming over tomorrow morning to check out our work, get his demo guy / middle relief pitcher in here and then he can get down to doing the tile maybe later this week. The granite template guy was over yesterday, and we are getting a painter quote tomorrow. Things are coming together. I also picked out bedroom carpet.

Oh, but just as there is a ray of sunshine, there's always a cloud..... I had the bright idea tonight that I ought to disconnect the dishwasher and demo the tile underneath it after Tim took the kids to our normal non-broken house so that he could mow the lawn. I wanted to stay at the broken house and work some more. I got the dishwasher unscrewed, pulled out, and tipped over. I didn't care if I scratched it because the dishwasher didn't work anyway and we need to get a new one. But this one came with some water inside (thank you foreclosure gods) and it spilled all over what was formerly the kitchen floor. I couldn't disconnect the electrical line because it was hard-wired into the island (as opposed to plugged in), and so I just shut off the power at the circuit breaker and called it a night. I figured when I start doing stupid things, it's time to go home and take a shower.

The kids have been awesome throughout. They have a pool, and for that, they're pretty happy. The weather was gorgeous today, mid-80's and humidity not too bad. They spent most of the time horsing around by the pool. We keep them going with snacks and quick visits and they're really happy kids.

We also revised our remaining schedule today and are hoping to be getting ready to start putting the broken house back together. It's back to work for me tomorrow and poor Tim has to keep at it in the broken house. I don't know what updates I'll be making this week. Every day is an adventure in the broken house.

To Quote Peter Gabriel, You Better Call the Sledgehammer

Considering what we had going on today in the broken house, I have been singing that song all day in my mind. I couldn't talk due to the face mask / respirator thing, could barely see thanks to my safety goggles, and had my earplugs in all day and so did Tim.... in fact, no one could hear me, so I guess it was ok for me to be singing "Sledgehammer" all day, cause that's what we did. Here's a quick shot of Tim pre-tile-breakup, in his "Viva Espana" outfit. Don't you think he looks like the Spanish flag?

We had high hopes this morning for a 25-lb. tile jackhammer to help us quickly and easily remove the tile in the broken house. Guess again. Mary Reizun took the kids out to a movie and then babysat them at our house, so we had a kid-free zone to work in all day. The tile jackhammer thing didn't work quite as spectacularly as promised. The best thing we did today was sledgehammer the tile out. Or I should say, Tim sledgehammered the tile out. I was mostly tile cleanup crew. I sledgehammered about 6 tiles before almost collapsing in exhaustion. Also, my hands and arms were killing me. In other good news, our air conditioner is up and running, our well equipment/water softener/filters are up and running, and I seem to have solved the wallpaper dilemma. I just got good at it after having blundered my way through the kitchen wallpaper removal. I now have mad wallpaper skillz.

Importantly, we also did our first budget check last night to see how much we have already spent, how much we have left to spend, and verify that we have enough to cover it. So far so good! I am happy to report we are on budget and just about on schedule.

Before I got to the broken house today, I picked out tile! I made two selections, just so I can have an idea on price. I am about 90% certain we're going to go with travertine tiles in a French pattern (picture to follow soon) and a rolled edge. Trust me, they're really pretty. We also picked out granite countertops yesterday, a kind of granite called Santa Cecilia. We were looking at Kashmir Gold (another variety) and actually liked it better, but the Santa Cecilia will go better with my cabinets and new tile floors. We'll probably begin installation in about 2 weeks. I had to choose between two very similar granites (from neighboring granite mines in Brazil), the Santa Cecilia and I think the other one was Giallo Gold or something... I went with Cecilia because 1) she seems like a nice Catholic girl, and 2) My sister Mary and I used to sing the Simon & Garfunkel song "Oh Cecilia" when I was a little girl and I have a lot of good memories of that!

Here's a great shot of me in my safety gear giving Tim the "what did you just say?" look. Actually I will admit, I was smiling in this picture, not that you can tell. We were almost done for the day, and I think I was getting punch-drunk. Tim would hit about 10-15 tiles, smash them up, and then I would come in with the push broom and put them into piles that we could sweep/shovel into double-bagged heavy duty garbage bags for the garbage guys to take away on Tuesday. The bags have to be less than 60 lbs each, but 60 lbs, in a great big black garbage bag full of sharp points is pretty unwieldy. I cut myself on my thumb once, and you'd think I'd have learned, but I really sliced my left thigh open too, it looks like I got clawed by an animal.... with claws. Tim told me to wear pants, but I forgot to bring them. Tomorrow.....



Here's a look at the huge pile of tile debris , oh and we had to move the refrigerator into the family room so that we could sledgehammer the tile underneath the refrigerator area in the kitchen. The dishwasher will probably be there tomorrow too:

We filled 12 or 15 bags of this stuff, and had to load it in the wheelbarrel to get it down to the curb. It's a mess, dusty, gets in your eyes, hair, socks, you name it. The face mask is a must because you don't want to inhale that thin set or ceramic dust. Hence, the need for all the protective gear. Poor Tim is back over at the house as I write this, I had to feed the kids, start some laundry, bring Mary Reizun back to her dorm at UCF, and get cleaned up. Not in that order.

Tim showered, ate supper, laid down to rest for a bit, and went back over there to get some more sledge hammering done. The poor guy, his head will be ringing tonight for sure. In case you're wondering what's the big deal, here's a little video to leave you with for the night. You can't quite, but almost feel the vibrations of the sledgehammer smashing up tile. It's tough tough work. I can honestly say we are both exhausted and sore, but this has also been a lot of fun too. We are having a great time together and we can't wait to get the project complete and show it to our friends and family. It is going to be a great house.

Tim is not a roses and candy guy, BUT....

Tim is a pretty great guy!!!! As the title suggests, he is NOT a flower and candy guy, but he did something that showed me how much he loved me and how well he knows me. I'm not really a roses and candy girl... so I guess we are a good match for each other. I was in Washington all

week for work, and in my absence he had our yard completely cleared!!! The picture above of one of the workers, this poor guy had to use a MACHETE to get through the overgrowth. A picture is worth a thousand words, check out the before and after!!!!!

POOL AREA, BACK OF THE POOL BEFORE

BACK OF THE POOL AREA, TREES TRIMMED AFTER: you can actually see daylight. The guys who trimmed the trees told us it's important to keep these trees trimmed because there are squirrel nests in there, and snakes will slither up the trees to get the baby squirrels, and then you can have a snake land on your head from above.... and guess what? They found baby squirrels in these trees... they didn't say if there were also snakes, but I'm going to pretend the answer to that was NO. Baby squirrels, sorry to say are missing or dead as of today.

This is a snake-free zone baby!!!!!

GRAPEFRUIT TREE BEFORE: Let me just say that I was too freaked out by the potential of snakes or other slithery creatures in the very tall grass and or in the grapefruit tree itself. I could not go up to the tree to determine if it was a grapefruit or an orange. The branches were so overgrown, they hung on the ground. If you look in the "before" picture immediately below, you can actually see a man in the tree itself cutting back branches and he's almost completely swallowed by the branches.

GRAPEFRUIT TREE AFTER (Now I'm not afraid to walk up to it)

SIDE OF THE HOUSE HEDGE BEFORE :This was one of the creepier aspects of the broken house. The hedge below was about as tall as Rita is. You could barely see out of the windows because it was so tall and dense. The windows are also filthy from proximity to the hedge for so long. Obviously, we had to do something about it.

SIDE OF THE HOUSE WITH HEDGE TRIMMED, WINDOWS VISIBLE!!!! The hedge is now about waist high, and you can actually see out of the windows.

The guys who actually did all the cutting took over two very full truckloads of yard debris out of here this week. The picture below is only one of those trucks.

Welcome to the Jungle

Inside and outside our house it feels like a jungle in terms of environment, decor, and especially temperature! Poor Tim worked for another hour to get through the exceptionally tall grass in our backyard with just our regular mower. I think a heavy duty commercial mower for this first trim, or at a minimum, a riding mower... the poor guy. His fasion faux pas can be forgiven when you see how high this grass is. Speaking of fashion faux pas, Tim was so proud of his thrift store pants. He has them in yellow too. What a guy!

Inside the house, I spent about 4.5 hours today stripping jungle print wallpaper. When I needed a break from that I washed the floors with bleach... just wanted things to smell clean even if they don't look really clean yet. This wallpaper is a killer! I can't believe I worked so hard for so long and have so little to show for it. I have a scoring tool, special wallpaper remover chemical spray, hot water and a rag, a hand steamer AND a metal scraper, and I am only done with about 1/4 of the kitchen. I'm dying! There are 3 bathrooms left to go after this darn kitchen. Any words of wisdom on wallpaper removal I would greatly appreciate.

Another item of interest, apparently our Broken House was the builder's model for the Parade of Homes when it was built in 1996. So this wallpaper isn't just any wallpaper... it's super duper extra glue look good for the Parade of Homes wallpaper. So keep that in mind if you've got wallpaper removal ideas. Here's a shot of what I've removed so far. Not much to show for all that effort.

The heat index today in Orlando (the polar opposite of "wind chill" for all you Northerners) was 104 degrees. And let me remind you, still no air conditioning in this house. That'll be installed next Thursday, and oh how lovely that will be. We did get our new garage door opener installed so a bit of progress on that front. And Tim removed ALL of the carpet in the house as well as padding underneath. A very dirty and smelly job. I'm Mrs. Wallpaper, and he's Mr. Floors and Lawn I guess.

One last update for this VERY hot day, Tim also pressure washed the front walk leading to our front door. It was so bad, he wrote his name in the mold/muck cooked onto the concrete for the past probably 14 years, check that out. Things are looking like progress is being made, and for that I am pretty happy. I'm also pretty happy the pool is up and running. The kids spent about 6.5 hours in there today, and Tim and I jumped in at the end too, to cool off. So much better!