Tile Demo and Getting the Floors Refinished

Well, my priorities changed. Probably something everyone else expected to happen, kind of like when you know your friend is dating a jerk but you just have to wait for them to figure it out?

Originally my main goals were:
Pull up carpet and expose hardwood floors then refinish
Paint master bedroom
Paint living room

Well, I was stressing out about the painting. Not because it's hard, but because I have no idea what colors I want to paint those two rooms. And I feel like I can't decide until I move in and figure out how my furniture will be arranged. How can I determine accent walls if I don't know where I want my bed or couch yet? So I've decided to wait until I move in to do this. Instead I'm going to try and get the kitchen primed for painting and still get the floors done.

On Monday, I removed all the wallpaper in the kitchen and breakfast nook (full details on this project). It took about 4 hours. Then I took a nap on the only piece of furniture in my house, the built in bench in the breakfast nook, while I waited for Steve to come over after he got off work.

While I was napping, The Scooter Brigade showed up to help me remove the tile some idiots had laid down over the hardwood in my entryway. Matt had offered to help me get it up. He and his neighbor Ron who has been helping him with his kitchen remodel came over on their scooters and were fantastic cheap labor.

(Scooter Brigade)

It's the same ugly white tile that's in the kitchen. It's about 3 feet deep and 6 feet wide.

(Sara and Steve from my first night in the house removing carpet from around the entry tile)

The Brigade showed me how to get the tile loose from the cement hardy boards but then proceeded to remove all the tile for me which I really appreciate. Then Matt showed me how to get the hardy boards which were glued and nailed to the hardwood up. You wedge a crowbar (the claw part) under the edge, then pound the hell out of it with a hammer to get it all the way under, then push down on the crowbar to tear some up. Then use the hammer to remove the nails. Matt remove about two squares of the board then left the rest to me.

(The hardy board underneath the tiles)

So in about 35 minutes, the Scooter Brigade removed all my tile and got me started on the hardy board which took me about two more hours to remove (it's more difficult than the tile). I ended up taking off about 13 tiles worth and Stephen did the last 5 for me and my aching back.

(No more tile!)

Stephen and I also pulled up the last of the carpet that we had left on the add on portion of my living room and sanded and scrapped the rust of my medicine cabinet so I can spray paint it white (that's what he was doing while I worked on the tile).

Monday I also had the contractor who did the termite repairs on my house last week, Wayne Ziegler, come over to give me a quote to refinish my hardwood floors. That is the one project where EVERY article/blog/message board thread I've read on the topic says "don't do it yourself". It's super time consuming (sand with several different grains of sandpaper, vacum dust, one coat of finish, sand again, second coat of finish, buff). Plus it's easy to mess up and over sand a spot or not apply the finish properly. So I decided I'd grudgingly spend the money to have a pro do it. I was only going to get the living room and hallway where I'd removed the carpet done because the 3 bedrooms had been finished before. But Wayne is giving me a REALLY good deal to do the whole house, so I'm just going for it.

Tuesday Wayne came over and sanded the floors and I think they're going to look pretty awesome! He was able to lighten all the water stains (I'm not having him sand the floors all the way down and restain, we're just doing a clear coat over the top).

(Living room after it was sanded - the dust is still on the floor)

Today he and his son will be patching the nail holes from the carpet tack strip and the tile. Wed first coat of finish. Thursday light sand to smooth it/pop any bubbles, Friday final coat of finish. It's going to look beautiful!

While Wayne sanded, I cleared out all the junk previous tenants of the house had piled up on the side of the garage over the years: lots of cardboard boxes, wood reminants, a broken patio umbrella, broken office chair, high chair, weights, the old garage cabinets, shower curtain and rod, some kid's stuff, a few hundred feet of mesh fence and posts, a dog cage, and the old flourescent worklight from the garage. Matt has his friend's truck that I can use for to haul this stuff to the dump, I just need to see if I can sweet talk Matt into helping me in exchange for a few hours of labor from me to help him on the kitchen remodel he's in the middle of.

How To: Remove Wallpaper

I've never removed wallpaper before. I don't think I've ever even lived in a house that has wallpaper. Although I have to say that thanks to Design Sponge, I'm becoming a fan of wallpaper. I always think of ugly, tiny flower patterns when I think of wallpaper, but it turns out now you can find really modern, hip patterns by companies like Madison & Grow (right) and Graham&Brown (left). I like the idea of using it for accent walls or instead of contact paper in cabinets, drawers, and closets.

But back to the How To portion of this post...

First, My Wallpaper
Apparently I was the winner of the wallpaper-over-wallpaper lottery in my house. Under the faux pink marble wallpaper in my kitchen and breakfast nook, there was the ugly, tiny flowers pattern I'm familiar with. And the faux marble wasn't full sheets of paper, it had been torn into roughly 12x12 squares and given a "rough edge" treatment, then layered one on top of the other. Great. So everyone had me scared about removing wallpaper and how difficult it usually is. How you'll start to pull up a piece and then it will just stop coming off. And with my treatment, it would probably be even harder.

So I read up online to see what I'd need and gathered my tools:

• Wallpaper Scorer($8.50)
• Wallpaper glue remover - I bought "Chomp!". It's new and the guy at Home Depot said customers had been saying great things. ($7)
  
• Paint scrapper - metal ($8 - I've used this for a lot of different projects already)
  
• Paint scrapper - plastic ($1)
  
• Needle nose pliers (I ended up needing these to grab at tiny strips that stuck near the window panes and for stuff that was stuck behind the chair rail dividing my room) (free b/c I had a pair)
  
• Dish sponge with rough scraper side

Ready, Set, Remove!
I approached my first section of wall paper with dread. I started by the door where some was already peeling, got an edge up and sarted pulling. And it came up so easy! Both layers came off together. The only parts that were difficult where when I'd get to the edge of a new sheet of the original paper (the flowered paper on the underneath the layered marble). But even that was pretty simple. Sometimes I'd use my fingernail, but using the metal paint scrapper was quicker, get it under the edge to pull it away from the wall, then back to pulling it off the wall. I didn't end up needing the wallpaper scorer - sweet, I get 8 bucks back from Home Depot!


It took me about two hours to remove all the wallpaper from both rooms. Not bad! Next step: remove the glue backing still stuck to the wall.

Removing the glue turned out to be really easy too. Just soak the wall with the glue remover (Chomp! comes in a spray bottle so application was easy). I started at the top of each wall and soaked sections roughly 2x2 feet at a time. You can do more, but you just need to make sure you get it off quick or it'll start drying.

Let it sit for maybe a minute, then you can pull the backing right off with your hands, and it usually comes off in full sheets or at the very least, really large chunks. Then I'd take the plastic paint scrapper tool and scrape of little bits that stuck by door and window moulding. And the final step was to wipe the wall with some water (I did this after I finished each section).

White on White

Today I learned two things:
1. Painting a white wall a different shade of white is difficult! You can't see where you missed until it dries.
2. Pulling staples out of hardwood is just like plucking your eyebrows: some are easy to see and grab and pluck right out and others are less willing to relinquish their stronghold.

I'll keep it short tonight. Today I put a second coat of primer on the blue trim in the master bedroom, painted the bathroom walls white and the wainscoting green (it matches the tile work), scrapped some paint off doors, and removed the hallway carpet, staples, and tacking strips. I forgot to take a picture of the hallway before I pulled up the carpet for better before and after. Oops.

And I did it all by myself today! It was my first day working on my house alone. Today I went in with a plan so I didn't have ADD like yesterday and I did MUCH better. I let myself get distracted once in a while to peel paint off doors (it's like peeling sunburnt skin which is disgusting and I love doing), but other than that, I stayed on task. And I did painting first because last night I learned that painting requires patience and attention to detail; something I'm usually lacking after 9 hours of working. I saved ripping and tearing carpet and nails for the late night task; it's mindless and mostly just requires muscle.

Around 11:30, when I was sitting at the far end of the hallway removing one of the last tack strips, I had my first happy moment. I was looking down the hall at all the work I'd done by myself and could see out into the living room and just thought to myself "this is all mine and it's going to look awesome soon". It was kind of my first real, wow, I own this place moment.

Adam gave me a good idea at band practice tonight. He'd seen on HGTV people had painted some plywood floor. I hadn't thought of that, but it's a good solution for the crappy plywood that's in the portion of my living room that was an addition. I was going to just leave carpet over it (see Friday's post), but I like this idea much better. I actually like painted wood floors and I could do something fun with it. Thanks Adam!

The Joy of Taping and Priming

Today I learned that I'm very unfocused when I don't have a plan. I would start on one thing, like washing all the doors, then get sidetracked trying to scrape all the paint off the door (they've been painted badly multiple times), then I'd notice the paint on a window was peeling, so I'd start peeling that off, then before I was done I'd decide to remove the mini blinds.

Here's the deal, I've got 3 things that need to be done before I move in next Sunday: paint the living room, paint the master bedroom, and I decided I'm going to put a finish on the hardwood floor I exposed in the living room yesterday. These things need to be done before all my junk is in the way. The problem is, I have NO IDEA what colors I want those rooms. Small barrier.

So while I try to decide on colors, I'll work on other stuff. Stephen came over today and worked on cleaning gunk off the living room floor so I can finish it Monday while I had home improvement A.D.D. in the back half of the house.

This morning I had bought paint to use on the doors and for the bathroom, so I decided today I could work on the bathroom and prime the master bedroom. I rescued Stephen from the living room and dragged him into my bathroom project. We took out the hardware and took down the medicine cabinet. And discovered a big hole in the wall; I guess there used to be a recessed medicine cabinet.


There was old wallpaper around it which we removed, then we patched all the holes and imperfectgions in the wall. They've changed the patch stuff so it's pink when you apply and when it's dry, it turns white.


At 3:30 we got yummy burritos at Super Oscar's, near University and 70th, then Steve went home to enjoy the rest of his day off and I went to Erika's to look at furniture she's donating to my guest bedroom, to Adam's to get the speaker cable for the bass amp I'm selling, and then to Sara's to borrow an allen wrench.

I got back to the house at 6:30 and this time I had a plan for the rest of my evening! Prime the bathroom and prime the master bedroom. Got the bathroom done by 7:30:


Then I tackled the master bedroom. It's very blue. I'd washed all the walls earlier in the day. Next I had to tape the trim at the floor and the ceiling above the upper trim.

I'd never taped a room before. It's pretty low on my list of things I ever want to do again. Unfortunately, I'll have to do it 5 more times. After I taped everything, i had to put down a dropcloth and tape it into place. Then i spent about half an hour doing things the long way before I figured out it would be best to paint all the edges around the floor first, then do the trim up top, and finally prime the walls.

Things I learned:

1. It's better to do paint brush strokes in small strokes. But when you're tired and impatient, that's an impossible task.
2. Don't buy the cheapest paint rollers. They're cheap for a reason.
3. I HATE priming trim.
4. I HATE moving a ladder around the room to prime trim.
5. Be careful when you're climbing a ladder near a ceiling fan.

I finished at midnight. So not counting my break to enjoy a string cheese and bread pudding dinner, it took me about 4 hours to prep and prime an entire room by myself. And I still need to go over the trim one more time before I can paint it white.

So to summarize, today I primed my bathroom and master bedroom, removed the window treatments in all the bedrooms, and washed all the doors. And will be a lifelong enemy of crown moulding that needs to be painted. Also, I'm proud of myself for not getting paint on my clothes or my hair!

How To: Remove Carpet from Hardwood Floors

Today I got my keys! After work I went over to my house (note it is no longer "the property", it's MINE) to get started on some work. Sara, Adam, and Stephen were all coming by later to check out the new digs, but I had an hour to kill before they showed up. So I decided I'd go to town on the bush that's growing out of control and blocking the front door and the tree branches that hang really low over the driveway and scrape my roof when I pull in.

The ridiculous, overgrow Front Door Bush, which blocks my breakfast nook window and, more importantly, the path to my front door (this picture is actually a month old, so it was worse today):
So I got all ready to be handy and do dirty work, grabbed the super hedge cutters I borrowed from Adam, and attempted to go to town on the bush ("that's what she said..."). But the bush was stronger than me and the dull, dull, dull shears I had borrowed. Any branch that was the size of my pinky was impossible to cut! So I did what I could until Sara could arrive with reinforcements.

My friend - and now neighbor! - Matt scooted by (literally) during a break from working on refinishing his cabinets to come see my new house and while I was giving him the tour Stephen showed up and Sara and her boyfriend Jason shortly after. After commenting that he'd build a mini-ramp in my backyard because it's so trashed, Matt left to get back to his work and the rest of us got busy pulling up the carpet in my living room to get to the hardwood (after Sara took care of my bush problems).

My living room before.

How To Remove the Carpet
I've been dreading the moment of pulling up my carpet and getting to the middle only to find a huge stain. So we start pulling up the carpet. It's pretty easy, all you need are gloves, needle nose pliers, some sort of crowbar or lever and a hammer. And something to put all the carpet staples in. We grabbed a loose corner and started peeling back the carpet and the layer of padding between it and the hardwood. Luckily they hadn't gone crazy also using glue to adhere the carpet padding to the floor. I was worried about that.

After we got the carpet pulled up and shoved to one end of the room, Sara and Steve started removing the border the carpet had been tacked to by using the crow bar to pry underneath and then lift it up (the border is attached by short nails that pull out of the hardwood floors pretty easy). While they did that, Jason used the pliers to pull the hundreds of staples that had been used to attach the padding to the floor.

Meanwhile, I gave a tour of my house to Adam, Kara, Erika and Jerry who had all shown up when we had about half of the carpet pulled up. By the time I was done giving the tour (I'll have a picture tour for you tomorrow), they had all the carpet up and most the border removed. Man, this home improvement stuff is easy! (just kidding - THANK YOU guys for being such awesome cheap labor!)

Sara and Jason left after about 2.5 hours. We were probably 80% done by then. Stepehn and I finished removing the last of the staples, rolled the carpet into the corner, and swept up the floor. My floors turned out to be in pretty great condition! There are some water stains here and there, but ain't no thang. I don't feel like sanding and refinishing, but I might just refinish. I need to research this process. First I just want to clean them with, as Steve kept saying, Murphy's, and see how they clean up.

Stephen showing off our handy work and playing a little broom guitar.

The one bummer is that the alcove of my living room (you can see it on the right in the before picture) turned out to be an add on. It doesn't have hardwood, just plywood =( So for now I think my "solution" will have to be to get a piece of reminant carpet that doesn't want to make me throw up like the current carpet, and leave that area covered and put a transition tack down. Right now the original carpet is there; we cut it and left it in place while we pulled up the rest of the room. I'd love to put in wood, but I just don't think I can afford that right now.

After toasting our work with a cupcake nightcap with the delicious Eclipse Chocolat cupcakes Erika and Jerry brought me, Stephen and I called it a night around 10:30.

Tomorrow: sanding, priming and painting doors and trim while I continue to ponder what color to pain the living room.

Rolando: My New Neighborhood

The house I bought is in a neighborhood of San Diego called Rolando. For those of you in SD, it's south of College Area. I'd never heard of it until my friend told me about it a few months ago because he was looking at a property to buy there. And I still don't really know the boundries; I guess there's also Rolando Village which I assume is the even nicer section of the neighborhood since they fancied their name up with "village".

Rolando is an older, established neighborhood with lots of trees and nice streets and friendly people. I'll have plenty of surrogate grandparents there which I like; it tells me people move there and they stay. The houses range from the 1920s mostly up to the 1950s, but there is some newer construction here and there. Quiet streets with people out walking their dogs and I'm told lots of step down staircases to walk around on because it's on a hill with a number of small gulfs and canyons (sadly, I'm at the bottom of the hill). There's a park around the corner from me and there aren't any apartment or condo complexes that I've noticed in my immediate area.

On my particular block, there are actually several houses that are remodeling which I think is a great sign and I'm sure helps property values for everyone on the block. And I bet they can't wait for me to get my front yard in shape...

A nice bonus: I already know a few people in the neighborhood! My friend Matt's new house is just a few blocks away to the west of mine, my friend Melissa and her family are moving into the 'hood in July, and my other friend Matt lives a couple minutes drive to the east of me. And I learned that Billy, a fellow local musician from the band Billy Midnight, is also just a couple blocks north of me.

Final Walk Through

Today I had my final walkthrough of the house. All in all, I've only been inside this house 3 times, so I was scared I'd go in today and totally hate it. The kitchen needs an update and the living room has some weird architectural features. But I actually liked it MORE because all the bulky, dark furniture the previous tenant had was out and I could really see the space.

And I guess the kitchen isn't quite as hideous as I remember. But more likely I'm suffering from cute child syndrome - you know, how everybody thinks their kid is cute because it's THEIR kid. I guess my kitchen is my ugly kid that probably won't get asked to the prom, but I love him anyway because I see the man I hope he'll grow up to be.

After my walkthrough, I talked to the general contractor who was there doing all my required termite damage repairs (removing the dry rot damaged posts from the porch, fixing the eaves, replacing some wood in the garage and on a window frame). He was nice and made me feel good about my purchase. He said the interior of the house was really clean and it had been well taken care of and he'd been impressed when he walked through earlier. And that the unpermitted add-on half bath in my garage (wtf, right?) was done properly. Nice to hear that from someone who spends all day on houses. Plus he has an inexpensive plant guy who can remove the huge, bulky Juniper that's blocking the front of my house. Maybe in a couple months when I have cash again... Or Stephen and I can just take a chainsaw to it and see how we do. That's not dangerous, right? You think I'm joking, but as I was driving back home today I was honestly trying to figure out how to cut it down. Probably saw off bits and pieces of branch at a time.

I also pulled up a few corners of the carpet that covers the combo living/dining area and the hallway. There's hardwood under there and I'm praying that it's not totally wrecked. The corners looked pretty good, just need a little polish to clean them up. But I'm afriad there might be pet stains in the middle of the room. But that's what area rugs are for, I suppose.

Escrow called me this afternoon asking for $600 more dollars. Back off of my savings account people, you've already raped and pilaged it you dirty pirates!

Thanks to Adam letting me raid his garage, I'm now set with painting supplies. Now I just need to buy paint and recruit a couple people for a painting party. I also borrowed a few tools from Adam to supplement the 3 screwdrivers, 1 hammer, and 1 wrench that have gotten me through the last 8 years of rentals. Over to Sara's house tomorrow to borrow her cordless drill.

The Best Sign I Ever Read

Today I stopped by the property (I won't consider it "my house" until I have the keys) to talk to Toby, my termite guy (Ardvark Ant and Pest - I highly recommend if you've got a pest problem, they're all very friendly and of the 3 places I got bids from, Toby was the only one to take the time to explain everything to me and give me advice on how to do a few repairs myself).

When I pulled up to the house, I noticed they had finally put a "sold" sign up on top of the Prudential sign post that's been on the lawn for months. It was a satisfying sight and helped drive home the realness of this situation for me.
This afternoon I meet with the escrow company, my mortgage broker, and a notary to sign my final paperwork.

In the meantime I'm trying to ignore how much more closing costs were than I expected and how broke I'm going to be. Need to build that savings account back up to a reasonable amount ASAP! Garage sale at my place Saturday, June 27th (South Park is having a community garage sale that day).

Top 4 Scariest Moments of My Life

I've had a few truly terrifying experiences in my life:

1. Hiding in my bathroom while a man broke down the front door of my apartment yelling "I'm going to kill you!" (clearly he didn't)
   
2. Driving on a 5 mile stretch of two-lane road in the middle of nowhere at 2am being chased by another car.
3. Watching the headlights of a raised truck coming at me right before being hit on the driver's side door of my car while I was driving.

Today I get to add #4 to this list: Saying out loud "Yes please, I'd like to wire $34,000 out of my bank account." That is a scary number to say out loud when you're talking about money I've been saving for 10 years. I'm a great saver, and now 90% of it is gone. To a good cause, I know. But it's still gone.

Kristin made a good point when she reminded me, "What else were you saving that money for?" And she's right. Buying a house is exactly what I was saving that money for. And now I've gone and done it!

Holy cow, I just spent $34,000 today...