The house is starting to look really good, and expose all it’s hidden quirks. If you haven’t seen the movie The Money Pit with Tom Hanks, it’s a good watch while going through this process. Anyway, as far as money pit things are related, first we tried to close the curtains and they fell off the wall. Second we unplugged the dryer from the wall and the plug box just came right off the wall. Third, I was closing the curtain of the shower gently (it never felt real secure) and the shower fell apart. Finally, the upstairs carpet smelled a bit off, so we steam cleaned it and it got much worse; upon pulling the carpet out we found pet urine stains down to the wood floors and litter everywhere.
This photo is the floor underneath the carpet upstairs. After cleaning the carpet the smell was unbearable! So we cut the carpet out and threw it out the window. The smell is better; we’re going to prime over the wood and then put a nice grey floor paint over the top. After that we’ll put either carpet remnant or rugs in here to make the room feel cozy.
Over the weekend the majority of our time was spent sanding the hardwood floors of the first floor. People have lots of opinions on floor sanding, it’s quite odd, actually. First, we met Rich at Portage Lumber and Do It Best store. He was super friendly and confident in our ability to knock this out. After that, every single person seemed to have this, “oh, good luck…” vibe going on when we told them about our grand plans. It’s a good thing we met Rich first, because it turns out that sanding floors is not all that difficult. It’s a heck of a workout on your muscles, and it’s difficult to make the edger and the drum sander bits line up quite right, but compared to where the floors started when we moved in, the results are incredible.
We knew the floors were going to look good when we were done, but this is amazing. It took an entire day and killed our backs, but it’s a great way to save about $1,500. We still have to either stain and finish it or just put a polyurethane finish over it (which is the current plan), but once that’s done we’ll be able to start officially moving in!
We got a futon for upstairs, so once we feel back to getting out to Portage again we’ll go ahead and set that bad boy up; that way the guest bedroom can be put together pretty much completely. We’ve been staying in the small room upstairs on an air mattress, hopefully a futon will be a little more comfortable. Tatum also started painting the cabinets so the kitchen is on it’s way to where we want it. Our long term goals are to get a 2 in 1 stand up washer/dryer combo (or move both washer and dryer into the basement) and move the refrigerator to open up some space for a dishwasher.
Finally, two last notes. First, the book sale at the Portage library is May 13-16! The house will be ready for company by then, so you should come visit and we can hit up the awesome library. Second, we found a stamp on the floor grates from Joe Bradford 03. We’re thinking this means the floors were installed (or maybe the heating grates) in 1903, though we haven’t had luck finding anything about Joe Bradford yet.
Eco Flick Lab 