Exterior Painting

It's finally warm enough to paint the outside of my house!  I've waited all winter to get this done.  The official color is Dapper Tan by Sherwin Williams.  The trim color is a cream they matched to my new gutters, which I had put on in the fall.  Therefore, my trim color is called Gutter Cream (that's what's on the can).  I'm sure it's soon to be a very popular color. ;)

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Goodbye Popcorn

This house was built in 1986 and came with the ever popular (kidding) popcorn ceiling texture.  I might have left it except for a few water stains on the main level and a massive water stain in the basement.  In fact some of the texture in the basement had already started peeling off the ceiling.  That kind of made my mind up for me.  The guy that did my ceilings was really nice and not a jerk when I told him I wanted to save $800 and paint the ceilings myself.  He left the plastic up for me and told me to use latex Kilz as my ceiling paint.

Plastic went up first.  It made my house look like a haunted house.

I know some of you may have wanted the fan, but sadly, my dad threw it away. ;)

Very dirty popcorn ceiling.  As you can see, there was a ceiling fan there.

There's really no good way to clean that.

Those are water stains from my old leaky roof on the ceiling next to the wall.  Those went away too.

Scraped, but you can't really see it in the pictures.

This is the finished knockdown.  Not painted yet.

Texture still drying.

Painted...and done, so glad.

Time to Lay Some Tile

This is the upstairs bathroom.  I started with the floor and laid down 1/4" Durock.  I like the durock because it is concrete board with an inlaid fiber mesh.  Water doesn't affect it.  So if it ever gets wet in the future from a leak or something, it won't swell, or hold on to moisture causing mold to grow, etc.

1/4" Durock underlayment on the floor.

1/2" Durock underlayment in the shower.

I stated by marking a chalk line centered on the doorway.  I then started by laying whole tiles in the doorway and working off of that.  That way all my cut tiles are by the walls and not in the doorway.

 You might notice I pulled off the wallpaper, too.  I wanted to get that done before I put the grout in because it can be messy.

This is only the beginning.  I still have to lay tile in the shower, the floor and shower in the bath downstairs, the kitchen, and the laundry.  

New Front Door

The front door looks ok in this picture, but it's not.  It doesn't seal well and looks like it has been forced open at some point.  It has to go.  The guy I usually use for things like this wasn't available before Christmas, but today was a warm day so we were able to get it installed in just a couple of hours.

Yea Siding!

 My siding is finally done!  I can't believe it took so long to find someone to do the siding, but I'm so happy that it is now done.  The weather has been perfect this week too, otherwise it wouldn't have gotten done.  I finished trimming out all the windows just before they started.

I've posted some of the original photos for comparison.

This is a mouse tunnel in the foam.  I taped it all up, don't worry.

Windows - I'll Do It Myself

Well I've decided to do the windows myself.  In the amount of time I've spent looking for someone to do it I could have already been done with it myself.  The whole idea was to save time but that hasn't worked out.  I'm still looking for someone to do the siding.

The windows are original and in sad shape.  The windows are only single pane and most are missing the storm windows.  They also have hail damage, pictured.  Half of the windows have already been done but I'm going to pull out and put them back in so that they will be trimmed the same as the new windows I'm putting in.

Getting Rid of a Gross Kitchen

I've been dismantling the kitchen lately.  You can't really see it in the pictures, but the cabinets were really dirty and grungy.  Yuck.  I also found all kinds of food and mouse poop in the cabinets, under the cabinets and in the floor vent.  As well as toys, plastic straws, coins, and silverware.  Kind of like being an archaeologist.  Except not.  

 

It's already more open and I've just gotten started.

They tried to paint the tile.

But they didn't bother to take their painters tape off. 

Windows and Siding

I still haven't found anyone to put up my siding or install my windows.  I have gotten estimates, but they are really expensive for the amount of siding that I need done, I'm not even doing the whole house.  I'm getting tired of looking and am considering doing it myself with some help.  It's going to get cold soon.

New Roof

I have a new roof!  The roofers came yesterday and got the whole roof done in one day.  Awesome!  Still working on getting the siding done, but at least my roof won't leak when it rains.

Before

After

Pulling Up the Floor

I decided, because of the intensity of the urine smell, that the easiest thing to do is to pull up sections of the subfloor.  Now that I'm done you can already smell the difference.  Not much to look at, but it smells better.  I'm still going to use Kilz on other parts of the floor that I haven't pulled up, just to make sure there is no more smell.

A Witch in the Attic!

Now that the tub/shower has been pulled out of the upstairs bathroom, the insulation in the wall has been exposed.  Some of that insulation was sticking out into the bathroom so I pushed on it to push it back into the wall and it kept going and going until I realized there was nothing behind it and I was pushing it into the attic.  When I realized what was going on, I moved the insulation out of the way and looked into the attic, just being curious.  What I saw was a cardboard box and some sizable mass lying beside it.  Well I pulled everything out of the attic through the bathroom wall, it was easier than using a ladder in the garage, and this is what I found.

 She's a life size talking, moving witch.  She actually has several phrases that she says.  No, it didn't freak me out to find her in the attic.  It's not like she was set up and plugged in waiting to pounce on her unsuspecting victim.  Lol.  She was just a lump on the floor.  There was also a cardboard box full of stuff.  Apparently the previous owners loved Halloween.  Here are some pics.