Nearing the deadline

Man, for just being a closet for laundry, this little area sure is requiring a lot of time and blog space!

This morning I sanded the drywall that Scott touched up last night as well as the ceiling. Have I mentioned before that I really dislike sanding drywall? Because I do dislike it, a lot. Normally I wouldn't even touch the ceiling as anything over my head is out of my domain, but it was looking pretty good so I thought I'd give it a go and see if we were at the point of calling it done. Covered in drywall dust head to toe, I felt like the stay-puff marshmallow man.

Before we can paint the ceiling, we needed to try to match the knockdown texture. We did all the drywall when we built the house nine years ago, and in some places it looks great. In others you can observe our amateur status. We weren't pros at drywall but we were kind of forced to take that task on to get our budget back on track after the contractor (we shall call him Nimrod) 'forgot' to include the cost of trusses in his bid. Eliminating the labor expense on drywall was a big step toward recovering our budget. Not being pros, however, we weren't doing anything fancy on the ceilings. I know that the popcorn look would have been the most forgiving but it is also something people seem to loathe with a passion so we compromised with a knock down texture that would mask imperfections.

To blend the extended ceiling into the old, we were not about to go through the mess and expense of renting a professional sprayer. For such a small area we bought a can of spray-on ceiling texture and hoped it would work ok. Scott came home at lunch today and put the texture up while my primer dried so I could get two coats of paint on the walls today.

ceiling texture spray

He did a test spray on a piece of scrap drywall just to get a feel for the spray pattern. It was easy enough, just twist the nozzle, spray to desired thickness, let rest for a few minutes and use a 6-8" drywall knife to knock it down. After applying it we both felt there were a few areas that could use a little heavier texture so he touched up those spots. Within half an hour he was completely done with a 1' x 5' section. It isn't an exact match but close enough, especially for the laundry closet.Then my fun began.

I don't mind painting, but boring white primer and white semi-gloss on all the trim is getting old. White, white, give me color! I was dying to see if I liked the color I picked on the walls because if I didn't like it today was my one and only chance to change it. Once the washer and dryer are set in the space on their pedestal, there will be no chance at a do-over.

I had a hard time settling on a color. I've been checking out a lot of trends on Pinterest.com and I've been seeing a lot of beach glass greens and blues. I like those colors, and the temptation was definitely there to make this little laundry closet light and airy. But I decided to push out of my comfort zone a little and be bold. I'm never disappointed when I choose a rich color and yet I usually have to talk myself into it. I ended up settling on a color called "Big Cypress" by Pittsburgh Paints. It is sort of a cinnamon copper color.

First things first, I decided to tape off a 4 inch section at the front of the walls. This is so that when the white bi-fold doors are closed on the closet you won't be able to see the cinnamon color around the edges. Next I painted up around the new light fixture. I found this one at Lowe's for $20. I really like it because the halogen lights are very bright and the track lights can be positioned to focus the light in front of the machines where I will be pre-treating spots in the laundry.

lights off

lights on

Next I painted all the walls. I am really liking the color and I think it will look great with the champagne colored appliances and black pedestal.

Still need to apply one more coat and paint the ceilings, put the face plates on the utility boxes, mop the floor and finish the pedestal before tomorrow afternoon. Tonight is football homecoming, but it is freezing cold so I'm bowing out on the festivities to get the painting done. Then later tonight Scott can thaw out under the lights after taking our kids to the game and finish everything else. Tomorrow both girls have activities so we won't have a chance to do any last minute details, it all needs to be done tonight. Getting closer though!

12 inches equals 2 weeks

I so wish I was better about taking before pictures. I didn't get any of the laundry closet because, well, it was a closet. Soon it will be a thing of beauty. :)

Getting super fancy appliances meant expanding the space by another foot. We were able to bump the closet back into the master bedroom without causing any issues there. In addition to creating the extra space, we'd need to move the plumbing from the left side to the right side, move the dryer vent from the left side to the right side, as well as switch the electrical outlets for the dryer and washer.

The first couple evenings were spent on planning and disconnecting. All of the things that needed to be moved were in a tight space in the basement above the furnace ducts and cold air return. It was not going to be an easy project. Then came the demo. The back wall was there one day, gone the next. I walked in to find Scott standing in the master bedroom looking at the back side of the wall and he seemed to be in a relatively good mood. "Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good," he said. He explained that he'd forgot about the triangular shaped dead space that ran through the area where the spare bath, laundry closet, and master bedroom meet. (to see this on the plans go to this post and scroll down to alternate plan, it is located behind the dryer) Inside this space runs the venting for the upstairs plumbing and assorted wiring. Had this not been there, the venting would have come through the wall of the laundry closet and it would have been a HUGE hassle and expense to try to change it. Yay for luck!

While the wall was ripped out, he realized he this would be his only opportunity to fix a screw up in the spare bathroom that happened when we built the house. The light switch was placed on the wrong wall. We dealt with it by putting a door in that swung in the opposite direction, but it is awkward. As much as it didn't make sense to add to the amount of work this project already required, this really was the only opportunity to fix the blunder.

You can see that the door had to swing past the wall that bumps out next to the tub. Every time it passed, the door latch scraped the wall. The door should have swung in toward the tub, with the light switch on the opposite wall. Like it is now:

You can also see by the pictures that before we had to drop everything and work on the laundry closet, there was a lot of drywall repair going on in this bathroom. That's ok, the walls were filthy and I wasn't crazy about this color anyway.

Scott worked every evening after dinner until about 10pm. On the weekends, when we weren't at our daughter's games, picking up materials or eating meals, we were working. Delivery was set up for September 27th so we had 16 days. My birthday was the 25th and it was "celebrated" by working. There was simply no choice. Even then we were forced to admit that we'd have to push the delivery back. Another week of going to the laundromat for me.

Finally we were nearing completion. The drywall was up and a coat of mud was on. Hurray!

We were also lucky in that we had exactly enough tiles left over from the original construction to add one more row so we didn't have to change the floor. After installing we had just one tile left... until Scott dropped his level and cracked one of the new tiles. Now we have zero, so hopefully we won't ever need to make any other repairs!

Aside from the drywall and some copper and PVC fittings, we didn't have to buy much for this project. It was just a lot of work. Then waiting. Waiting for the mud to dry.
We should have bought quick set mud and mixed it. We didn't. *banging head*

All this work and I still don't know if we'll be done by tomorrow, October 1st, the new delivery date. Yesterday I sanded and primed the walls even though the ceiling still needed another coat of mud and the knockdown texture applied. This is my most recent photo:

Sorry it is so dark, the light was disconnected so this is the best I could do. On my way down right now to sand, prime, and paint some more. With any luck I'll be able to show you more progress tomorrow, and also show you the gorgeous stand we made for the washer and dryer.

Laundry Room - Urgent

The spontaneous combustion of our Maytag dryer created a new state of urgency. When the washer died, we had the one down at H2 to replace it with. We'd given the dryer away so there was no free fix this time. The washer was not one we wanted to keep anyway, it was a top loader that seems to devour clothing. All the edges of my towels are now shredded and frayed. Yeah, they are all 10 years old. But the one thing I can say about the Maytag Neptune washer is that when it was working, it worked fantastic. My old towels didn't look old until I started using this bottom of the line agitating top loader. Hate is not a word I toss around lightly, but yes, I hate that beast.

After I'd recovered from the dryer fire, I spent the rest of the day researching new appliances online. Well, there was a brief break in the action for dinner and a trip to the laundromat to dry the laundry that was in the dryer at the moment of ignition. Then there was the dilemma as to whether to put new appliances in H1, the house we're living in, or in H2, the house we hope to move into. Convenience aside, we didn't really want to install them here since we have already included the appliances in the sellers' agreement. Putting them in at H2 would involve some work, though. Let me explain...

When we built the house we followed the plans on the laundry area. We didn't catch the fact that modern appliances were not going to fit into a 30" deep closet. Most washers and dryers are pushing that depth without allowing for space to put hoses and cords or vent the dryer. Because of the shallow depth of the closet, we were never able to put on the bi-fold doors we'd purchased for the closet. They still sit in their packaging in the garage. We were definitely aware that it would be hard to find appliances for that space. We thought about moving the laundry into the spare bedroom and turning it into a laundry/craft area, but I hated the idea of giving up a bedroom. I tried searching for washers and dryers that were under 27" in hopes that there might be a front loading set that were not tiny apartment sized, but maybe taller or something.

Sears actually let me search by depth which is how I stumbled across this set:

Read all the specs on this GE set HERE

It was listed as having a depth of 27". I thought, wow, that's too good to be true!
It was.
I did a little more digging and discovered that this set was actually 34 1/2" deep. Width for each is 27". Ah, gotta love a typo. While I was searching, I discovered that there were no reviews on this set. It must be very new. It is also super expensive- to the tune of $1499 each. Ouch! But then the google smiled on me and coughed up a price of $768 at AppliancesConnection.com (note- that is no longer their price, check for yourself). I showed my husband and he was intrigued. Mainly because we were hoping to spend around $650 each and this wasn't much more for a much, much higher valued appliance. Nearly half price!

The next day we stopped by Lowe's to see if they had this set in stock so we could look at them before ordering online. What we discovered when we were shopping is that front load washers are not designed to switch the door swing with the exception of Electrolux models. This posed a problem as our space was plumbed for the washer on the right. Appliance manufacturers think the washer should be on the left. The dryer doors can all be reversed, but you can't even special order a washer for most models with the opposite swing.

This little tidbit along with the complete lack of shallow dept front-loaders led us to acknowledge the fact that we were going to have to modify the laudry closet to accommodate any front-loading set. Lowe's did not have this exact set, they had a white version one step down for $1399. We liked it, thought all the features sounded fantastic and decided we'd order online. I was checking the model number against the AppliancesConnection.com website, just to be sure it was the same, when a sales man asked what I was looking up. I showed him my phone and he said, wow, that was a great deal. Jokingly, I said, "that isn't something you'd be interested in price matching, is it?" I was laughing when I said it. But said he didn't know but would take a look. I honestly expected him to laugh right along with me so imagine my surprise when he borrowed my phone and called a manager over to take a look.

Because of the drastic price difference, it wasn't a decision made quickly. But in the end, Lowe's did match the price. The gave us free delivery, too. They were not able to give us free sales tax, but we considered that a more than fair trade-off to be dealing with a local store and also get 6 months same as cash.

I am so stinking impressed with Lowe's and their commitment to price matching. The fact that this happened on our 17th wedding anniversary felt like a gift from God. Here you go- finally a matching set of appliances and they are even half price. :)

The joy lasted until U of M beat ND that night. For me anyway... my husband the Michigan fan was overjoyed. Me, not so much. That's ok, though. He got the win, but the reality of all the work that lay ahead to get ready for the washer and dryer would sink in the next day. The appliances were on order. He had 2 weeks. Could we do it? Could we make that deadline?

The universe speaks

You know how sometimes you are going along, all fine in your own world with your own plan and you think you have a grip on things then suddenly it all comes to a screeching halt?

*cue the record player needle scraping across the vinyl sound*

**if you don't have a clue what that means then you are just a baby-

 go get your iPod and take a nap while I rant**

Well that was me, exactly 20 days ago. I mean, we'd just come off the whole 'hole in the floor' thing, but otherwise I felt like things were moving along. We had a few things to wrap up upstairs and then we'd start working on the main floor.

***I feel the need to insert screech noise again***

Remember how I said that we would need to do something with the laundry closet but that was low priority? Well, that became high priority really fast when our dryer decided to take up flame throwing as a hobby. I tossed a load of darks into my 5 year old Maytag Neptune dryer and pushed the start button.

Bbbzzzzzzzztt!

Flames! Flames licking around the powdered detergent box and softener sheets. Shit! TurnPowerOff! Stick hand right over FLAMES and turn it OFF. O.F.F. 

Smoke, oh, lord and the popping and sizzling. Black thick smoke. Shit!

So after a terrifying 15 minutes and a frantic call to my husband (did you turn the breaker off? No,will do that right now!), the smoke cleared and I was still alive. The dryer, however, was not. He came home from work, removed the electrical panel and determined that the fire had indeed burnt itself out. Every window and door was propped open to air out the house. Of course we had a showing the next day. Of course.

Blue flames came shooting out the gap where the control panel meets the top of the dryer.

The fried electrical panel.

Melted.

Our Maytag Neptune washer had died a few months before in a dramatic fashion, but not nearly as bad as this. We replaced it with the cheap top loader that was at H2 and it proceeded to eat my clothes at every opportunity. As washers go, it has an identity crisis. It thinks it is a vacuum. You know, because it sucks.

I spent the remainder of the day researching washers and dryers. I'll share that segment of the story in another post. We did send the photos off to Maytag and I need to tell you that they seem to agree that this electrical fire should not have happened. They are buying the machine back from us (at about a third of the original cost) and have arranged with a local appliance store to bring us a check and pick it up so their safety department can investigate it. I have to say I'm good with this- they could have told us sorry, warranty has expired, you're out of luck. Instead they have taken this complaint seriously and are taking measures to rectify it.

While the man was working on the floor, I broke down and had to get some color on the main floor. I couldn't take looking at the ugly baby blue that was so horribly applied any longer.

Um yeah. I know. It practically causes me to go into fits of anguish every time I look at it. This is what happens when well meaning family members don't know what the heck they are doing and won't ask for help. I'm guessing they ran out of paint, I really don't know. Obviously, they couldn't reach up over the stair case so they painted what they could reach. Loverly, don't you agree? I loathe looking at this botched up blue and can't wait to have it vanquished.

I knew I wanted a grey-green for the living room. This one is Behr's "Olivewood." It is kind of hard to think of redecorating with all your existing furnishings, because the temptation is to want to start fresh. But you know the checkbook tells a different story. Currently our living room at H1 is painted a soothing yellow that isn't too yellow, Behr "Calm Air". There is one accent wall that is a rich reddish brown. Our furniture consists of a leather loveseat, dark grey-green loveseat, and cream colored sofa with wood tables. We have art and throw pillows in that same dark red, gold, avocado green and pumpkin, with accents of purple and teal. I know it sounds crazy, but it works for me:

For H2, I wanted to change it up a bit, but still work with all our stuff. Because I love things like the prints on top of the bookshelves that my husband brought back from a market in Barcelona... and the teal dish I glazed last year when my girlfriends took me to a DIY pottery place for my birthday, I want to make some changes but keep most of these furnishings. I am really liking the Olivewood. It actually looks two shades different on some walls than on others, in a good way... like I went to extra effort. Plus the color just looks right in the space.

In the picture above you can see the bottom half of the wall by the front door was left unpainted. That is not because we were trying to mimic the crap job that was done with the blue! It was because it will be painted white in anticipation of the board and batten treatment we're going to put there that will run all the way up the staircase, similar to this one that I shared on Pinterest:

Elite Trimworks Stair Kit

Near the front door is this large window which looks out over the front yard. I know the wall looks burgundy but that is just bad lighting and my phone's camera. It is the same grey-green as above:

I can't tell you how nice it feels to see the calming Olivewood color when I walk in the door. It is like a sniff of a Yankee eucalyptus candle, a walk through a white pine forest... soothing and fresh, relaxing and happy. Yeah, all that from a can of paint!

Flooring woes

The floor. One of the most difficult decisions at H2 has been what to do with the flooring on the main level. The existing hardwood is narrow planks and has not worn well. It looks more like it is 30 years old instead of 8. We spent an hour drooling over samples at Lumber Liquidators and another hour or two at various websites. I really wanted a darker handscraped floor, something with wide planks. Like this:

Virginia Mill Works Old World Oak Handscraped

Without the guarantee of a quick sale on our house, I came to the realization that we were being seduced by all the pretties. We could squander our savings to create something lovely or we could be practical and admit that if H1 didn't sell we would have to list H2 and see which one sold first. If we weren't going to keep it for ourselves, then I'd let someone else go through the expense of replacing the hardwood. Of course, this would mean more work, sanding and staining the current hardwood... and it would also mean keeping the tile in the kitchen. We'd hoped to unify the space with one flooring material but the reality of the budget set in.

We reserved a floor sander from the local rental company for the Saturday before Labor Day. I spent all day Friday pulling up baseboard and moving everything out of the dining room. We knew we needed to start there because if we were unable to clean up the black stain in front of the doors then we'd have to replace the floor instead of refinish.

Know that if I had a preference, it would be replace. But the difference of $300 vs. $3000 was pretty compelling.

I mentioned that black stain before. It was located in front of the french doors leading to the deck. We thought that it was caused from a wet rug. My mother-in-law kept the dogs' water bowl on one end of the rug and we assumed that the stain was the result of the pets spilling and dribbling water. Over the course of years, the constant moisture from the rug had caused a large black stain.

We were wrong.

My husband went to remove a piece of oak molding by the french doors and when he pulled it up, the entire threshold of the doors came up with it. It was completely rotted. He started poking the area with a screwdriver and the point went through the sub-floor like a hot knife through butter. This was not good.

I wish I'd had the forethought to get pictures of the next two hours as they unfolded. He started pulling up the hardwood and realized that the floor was rotted quite a ways back. He grabbed a hammer and tapped the floor... whoosh... a big hole straight to the basement. Clearly we wouldn't be spending the weekend sanding and staining the floor.

You would think I would have been happy about this, seeing as how it looked like I would be justified in getting that new floor after all. But emotionally, I'd been all over the map about this floor. I'd finally resolved to be conservative and practical and damn if the house didn't decide that wasn't good enough.
Since the hardwood was laid on an angle parallel to the staircase, my husband had to rip up half the dining room floor to replace the sub-floor. To replace, sand, and refinish all of it would now be closer to $1000. Still a difference, but all that work sounded a lot better when it was only going to cost me $300. I still don't know what we are going to do when it is all said and done.

You can see Mr. Handyman there standing on a ladder in the basement, working on replacing the rotted wood next to the joists. THANKFULLY, the joists themselves were just fine.

What caused this? We can't be entirely sure, but the logical guess is that the framing crew that installed the doors did a lousy job. Every time it rained, water seeped in under the threshold and over the years it created this huge soft spot.

Ripping up the floor, buying materials, cleaning out all the traces of rotted wood and fixing the hole with a new sub-floor took the entire holiday weekend. Nothing like putting the "labor" into Labor Day! But in the end, the Handyman reigned supreme.

SHA-ZAM
*note- he has warned me not to use this photo of him clowning around but I couldn't resist. It is easier to get forgiveness than permission, or so he tells me...

H2 Layout

It occurred to me that maybe it would be easier for you to visualize all the odd angles I'm posting about if you can see the layout of the entire house. We purchased the plans online and they are still available, a quick google search made this quite easy for me to share with you. Ah, I love the google.

Asheville House Plan, available HERE
by architect Jerold Axelrod

It occurred to me that maybe it would be easier for you to visualize all the odd angles I'm posting about if you can see the layout of the entire house. We purchased the plans online and they are still available, a quick google search made this quite easy for me to share with you. Ah, I love the google.

The Asheville is a cute cape cod which we chose for several reasons. It was meant to be a retirement home so it didn't need to be large and the build-able area of the lot was fairly small so a large home wasn't practical. Our budget dictated a small house. I was advised by a couple contractors (and my husband) that a simple ranch style house would be easier to build. But most ranch style homes are kind of boring. I wanted to see an upstairs where guests could stay. I saw this picture and thought immediately it looked like a Thomas Kincaide house, a perfect place for a grandma to live. 

We wanted an attached garage, and our driveway came in from a direction that required us to flip the plans. We did everything in a mirrored image, so keep that in mind when you look at the architect's plans.

This is the original plan. We chose to use the alternate plan which would create a large Master suite:

This is the layout of the upstairs:

This is a rendering of the kitchen and dining area, which looks much larger than the actual space:

Of course, there were areas we had to modify due to local building codes and changes we needed to make to accommodate the restrictions of our lot. The lot itself was a steep hill. The south side is bordered by a quiet side road and the north side comes out onto a cul de sac shared with two other driveways. Because of the hill, the house is nestled in a little hollow. It is bordered on all sides by a lot of trees and wild vegetation, and even though it is near a lake it feels quite secluded. 

Originally, we thought we would leave the upstairs unfinished (except for what you could see from the bottom of the stairs). We ended up finishing the bedrooms and bathrooms as inexpensively as possible so that the granddaughters had a place to play and have sleepovers. 

Building the home was an adventure and a challenge. But that is a story for a different day. Today's story is  all about the re-do.

Potential

Ahhhh... the infinite potential of a stack of primered 2 x 4's...
Wait until you see what this becomes!

Upstairs, west bedroom

This bedroom is almost a mirror image of the east bedroom, with the exception of the closet. The other closet is a standard closet with a 5' opening. This room's closet is a triangular walk in closet located near the dormer instead of on the opposite wall. Because of the closet configuration, it is slightly larger.

Back in January, our oldest daughter received new bedding for her birthday. We bought a lot of accessories too, all in hot pink/black/white with zebra and leopard prints mixed in. It is a diva room! She wanted to keep that diva feel here and use as much as possible from her previous room. Her bed size will change from full to queen so we'll wait to see how the comforter fits, if it is too narrow we'll invest in a solid hot pink blanket or light comforter underneath that will extend down below her full sized comforter.

With the color scheme in mind, I asked her to think about a paint color that wouldn't compete, but serve as a neutral back drop to all of her bold colors and accessories. She chose Behr's Feather Gray for the walls and then borrowed the same Scented Valentine pink for her dormer as we used on the walls in her sister's room.

Hey, you can see the ozone generator in this image!

One thing that she did request was a graffiti wall. We discussed different options and then settled on creating a giant chalk board for her room.

We did this by purchasing a 4' x 8' piece of fiber board from Home Depot and painting it with chalk board paint. We decided to make it a magnetic board so we primed it with Rustoleum's Black Flat Magnetic Primer. One of my husband's co-workers had just completed a small project using Rustoleum's Chalk Board Paint and she gave us what was left so we didn't have to buy that.

The super smooth surface of the fiber board was perfect for this project. We screwed it to the wall then filled the screw holes with caulk. Once that dried we primed it with three thin coats of the magnetic primer. If you ever attempt to use this product let me suggest having it mixed at the paint counter before you leave. It is almost impossible to get completely blended at home, you'll be stirring for a good 15 minutes as the magnetic portion of the product settles to the bottom and is very heavy. To make the magnetic effect very strong, I think this would require more than three coats- at least five- but we used all that the can held and at $20 a quart I was not buying more. Once this had fully dried I painted it with two coats of chalkboard paint, again using all that remained in the can. It has a nice finish on it and will hold small magnets. I doubt it could hold anything heavier than a piece of paper, though, so it does have its limitations.

Once it was dry we used door trim to create a frame, nailing it directly to the wall. We caulked the nail holes and mitered corners and hit it with a final coat of white semi gloss. The frame makes the entire board look polished and it will be the perfect place for my daughter to do her graffiti. I'll try to remember to get a finished pic with the trim for you.

I told the girls we had to wait until H1 was sold before we'd be buying any accessories for H2. Then I saw this hot pink lamp for $10 at Walmart and knew it would be perfect so I ignored my own words and picked it up anyway.

Things left to do:
Had to replace a couple pieces of floor trim but got distracted with other projects so that needs to be finished. Also, the closet could really stand to be painted better. Its odd angles make it hard to get the corners but our sloppiness shows. Even though it is just a kids' closet, the time to make it right is now. I'm also painting the bed that will go in this room a distressed black. That has been started but not yet finished.

Upstairs, east bedroom

We started in the bedroom on the east side of the house for no better reason than when their dad asked the girls to come down and help on that particular day, only one of them did. The bedroom she wanted to be hers was the one where we started.

The carpet had been ripped up, but there were staples all over the floor. The tack board around the perimeter and floor trim needed to be pulled up as well. We saved the trim to reuse so all the nails had to be pulled from it. The blinds on the windows were cheap vinyl blinds that the cats had ruined (they had ruined every set of blinds in the house except one bathroom). The cats had also damaged the door jambs of all the doors upstairs too. This particular bedroom was very bad. We weren't sure if the doors would need to be replaced or if they could be repaired with wood filler. Since we happened to have some filler on hand, we tried that first. It required patience and letting several layers build up, but it worked and we discovered we'd be able to salvage all of the interior doors.

There was still a subtle odor from the cats so we wanted to be sure to use a primer with a vapor barrier. We did a fair amount of research and discovered that Zinsser oil-based primer seemed to be a favorite among the flippers on the internet boards. Since they steered me in the right direction with the ozone generator I was very happy to embrace the love and go with the popular primer.

Until we opened the can, anyway. Wow, them's some fumes! I couldn't hack it. Several times I started feeling light headed and dizzy and when I bent over one time I thought I was going to face plant into the floor. I bailed on the priming and sat outside for the rest of the night trying to make the world stop spinning. Ok, so by rest of the night I mean about an hour, but it was long enough for me to decide that we could not use that same primer throughout the entire house. Not to mention that cleaning up oil-based paint is a royal pain PITA. We opted for a latex primer after that for all of the walls and only used the oil-based primer on the floors to seal in any remaining cat odor.

We let the girls pick out their paint colors with minimal direction. My youngest loves green, all shades of green, and I fully expected her room to be green and purple with touches of yellow and pink in the accessories. To help the girls get a vision for their room, I took them to the how-to book section at Home Depot and flipped through a book on kids' rooms. I was so surprised when she picked out a room that was pink with orange and yellow. She also liked one that was purple, so we decided to paint the walls pink, the dormer walls purple, and then paint a desk and dresser in green.

The only difficult part of painting the upstairs rooms was the 9' ceilings. I simply can't reach, even on a small step stool. This meant much of the painting fell on my husband's shoulders. Sorry, guy!

After we painted ceilings and walls, we installed the flooring that the girls picked out. It is a laminate from Home Depot that was mid-range in quality but only $1.30 a square foot. We found that Big Lots seemed to have better quality underlayment for a cheaper price so we opted for that. The flooring went down pretty quickly, with just a few complex cuts. Most of it could be done with the powered miter box (great Father's Day gift, btw). A few boards required being ripped down on the table saw which was a hassle since that meant trekking up the hill to H1 to cut them and hope the measurements were right the first time.

The things that remained in this room: floor trim- it was given a fresh coat of paint and we needed to add shoe molding (not pictured) due to the change from carpet to laminate; windows- Pella windows that were factory finished in white, one of the better choices we made when we built the house; mirrored closet doors- if it ain't broke don't fix it; light fixtures- the girls like them so they are adequate for now. I wouldn't mind switching them out for fans but they say no for now.

I would like to see a shelf built around most of the room where the wall meets the angled portion of the ceiling for all my daughter's stuffed animals. I'd also like to see some trim on the ceiling. There is a rectangular area around the light fixture which is somewhat sunken. It is the result of amateur mudding when we built the house and I think decorative molding would enhance the room as well as disguise the flaw. It isn't a big deal, though, probably not noticeable to most people, and definitely a project that can wait.

Still needs to be done:
window hardware, painted furniture, decor, final cleaning once the dust in the rest of the house has settled.

What's next?

After addressing the worst of the odor issues, the next quandry literally became, "what do we do next?"

The thing about this house was that we built it for someone else. We chose flooring, kitchen cabinets and counters, bathroom faucets and fixtures all with my mother-in-law's taste in mind. There were some things we never got around to finishing when we first built it and there were areas where we chose a budget option that didn't stand up to 8 years of use and needed to be replaced. Plus let's not forget about the floors, doors, walls, etc., damaged by the animals.

It seemed like every project was pulling a thread causing 6 more projects to unravel. The kitchen cabinets were filthy. Beyond gross. Should I bother washing them, though, or should we just replace them? Several had damage: the bottom of the sink cabinet looked rotted, a narrow cabinet door was busted off its hinges, potatoes or something had rotted inside a drawer and permanently stained it. Was it worth trying to clean them when I didn't like the pickled oak finish anyway? If we replaced them we'd have a chance to rework a very tiny kitchen layout, turning the kitchen & dining room into one larger, more functional eat-in kitchen space.

Cleaning = $7 for a box of TSP and 4 pack of sponges from the dollar store.
Painting = $100 for primer, paint, glaze, finishing wax, sandpaper and cheesecloth.
Replacing = $5000-12,000 depending on how many, style, etc.

Replacing was the preferred choice but was out of the question until we sold our house and had the means to afford it. We turned instead to the staircase.

The house looks very traditional cape cod on the outside. Inside, it is a bunch of odd angles. Unique and cute, but unusual. When we built the house we were on a tight budget made even tighter by a contractor who mis-quoted. Seemed he realized half-way into the building that he forgot the cost of the trusses in his bid. This is why you never take the low quote... but I digress.

The staircase is a focal point of the front entry and could have been something beautiful, but in a hurry, exhausted, frustrated, not thinking clearly, we chose to drywall the room side about 40" high and cap the top of that with a nice oak board. Which was ok, but then we were forced to add a handrail by the building inspector anyway. So it looked a little boxy and dull. It really needs to be replaced with an open rail and banister. My husband wondered if we shouldn't knock out that wall completely and have a rail that overlooked the stairs going to the basement below the stairs going up. This would have been gorgeous on a home like the one we are in now, where there is a beautiful walkout basement flooded with natural light. But this basement won't ever be that way. Even once it is finished and we have the family room down there, it will never be the kind of basement you want completely open to the upstairs.

Unsure about exactly what to do with the stairs we looked to the floor. The narrow oak hardwood planks would need to be sanded and refinished if we were going to keep them. There was a huge black water damage stain in the dining room a foot in front of the french doors that led to the deck. We believed this was due to the pets' water bowl being placed on a rug in front of the doors and that over the years when it spilled it was left to dry on the rug, ruining the floor underneath. We weren't sure if we could sand it out. The flooring was laid on an angle so replacing that one area would mean ripping out half the dining room floor. Plus there was another issue- the kitchen was tiled but if we were replacing the floor we'd want to put the new hardwood or laminiate into the kitchen. The cabinets were set in place on top of the floor. To replace the floor we needed to decide what to do with the cabinets. In the living room we had a similar dilemma. To replace the flooring we needed to decide whether we were ripping down the entire stairway wall and installing rails or leaving the bottom portion of the stair wall. Essentially, flooring required too many other decisions- postpone that one.

The laundry area needed addressing, but since it was non-essential it seemed silly to start there.

Master bedroom - carpet or hardwood? If hardwood, we'd want to carry what we replaced the rest of the main floor with right on through. So other than painting, not much we could do there. Master bath would need to be gutted, requiring funds that we didn't have yet.

Every single project we needed to do came up against reasons why it shouldn't be first. Finally in our exhaustion my husband realized that if we were to sell our house- what we refer to as H1- promptly what we'd need most is a place to sleep and a bathroom. The rest we could work around, but we'd need to clean out the basement and garage to store all our stuff and we'd need two bedrooms and a bathroom at the very least.

The upstairs became our focus then, kind of by default. It wasn't the most thrilling project, but it was one that we needed to get done and for what it was worth, it would be among the easier things we would tackle.

Priority #1- "destinkify"

Within a few weeks of losing my mother-in-law, the extended family members that were staying with her moved back to their own home. They provided around the clock care in her final days, days that stretched into weeks beyond what the doctors thought we could hope for. Each day was a double edged sword, one more day of life... one more day of suffering. We had told them they did not need to feel obligated to stay for the difficult end, we would care for her. They chose to stay, and there is simply no way to say how much we appreciate that. Like all family dynamics, though, there was a lot more to it than that.

Several weeks later, when they were mostly moved out, we went down to make a list of what we needed to do. I was stunned at the odor- it was not that bad just a few weeks before. As we walked through we realized that in those weeks they left their pets to pretty much over-run the house. There were gigantic puffs of fur. The door jambs had all been scratched to hell. The master bedroom was covered with cat poop. I went home and locked myself in my bedroom and bawled for two hours. I expected to find a mess. I was not prepared, though, for just how bad it was.

My husband, sweetheart that he is, told me he would clean up the mess and I didn't have to set foot back in that house until he had done that. That wasn't ok with me either, though. We're in this for better AND for worse. We made the decision to build the house together, to let the family move in together. It would have been completely unfair of me to force him to face clean up alone. 

He did, however, single-handedly rip out all of the carpet. Three bedrooms, a landing, and staircase of pee-stained carpet. There were places that were still dripping cat urine a week after they had been gone. Obviously, with stains that bad it had soaked through the carpet, pad, and even the subfloor. We had used a product to treat the floors in our first house to rid it of a subtle odor from the previous owners' cat by Simple Solution. It was an enzyme which required mixing with water to activate the bacteria. It was amazing. Unfortunately, Simple Solution abandoned their fantastic formula to offer a pre-mixed version only. We tried it, and it helped, but it did not cure the pet odor. 

I spent a lot of time researching, reading forums for house flippers. I kept reading threads about how cat pee was the worst and how there was no way to remove it without stripping out all of the subfloor and drywall. Now, I helped put almost all of that drywall into that house and I know for a fact that is one job neither of us wants to repeat. NFW. Fortunately on almost every thread there would be one lone voice that seemed to be a flipping expert. Ozone generator, the expert would say. 

I don't know if you've ever priced an ozone generator or even heard of one. I thank my lucky stars for the internet because soon enough I learned enough to feel confident buying an ozone generator AND found a company that offered compact units fairly cheap. I went so far as to google the company and it's owner to make sure they were legit. Similar capacity units were more than three times the price at other websites, so I wanted to be sure I was dealing with someone trustworthy. 

We opted for the Villa, because our stench was really bad and we were desperate to notice the difference quickly. This thing was amazing. It didn't completely remedy the odor, but made such a significant change. The areas where the cat pee was the worst were almost instantly improved. There was still a funky odor in the kitchen that we couldn't pin point and assumed it was a section of hardwood flooring that had pretty bad water damage. The ozone generator was absolutely worth the cost. It is amazing. Odorfreemachines.com shipped promptly and the unit looks exactly like the picture. It works just as promised. It must be used in a vacant house, which was no problem for us. We fired it up and focused our efforts on the landscaping at our home for a few weeks. We went down almost every day to reset the machine and move it around the house, gauging how well it was working. Just so you know, I'm not getting any kick backs from Odor Free, I'm just a very happy customer. 

The unit leaves a sanitizer scent in the air for a short while after using, but that is 10,000x better than cat pee.  If you need to deal with cat pee here is my advice: remove what you can, enzyme what remains, then fire up an ozone generator to zap any remaining odor. 

It occurred to me over the weekend that we are at a point with this house project that I felt comfortable blogging about it. There is still so much work to do so even though we've been working on it for ten weeks, it won't take me all that long to bring you up to speed. I've been taking pictures with my phone as we've worked, so over the next week or two I'll catch you up on 'how we spent our summer.'

First, I should give you a little background about the subject of this blog, Home Redo or Redux if I'm being fancy and quasi-French.

Fourteen years ago my husband and I bought a walk-out ranch home in a rural area of Southwest Michigan. We loved the location- walking distance to two lakes, rolling hills and trees. We'd hoped for more property but there was nothing on the market in our price range. I wasn't really interested in a ranch, but this one had a lot of potential: an unfinished walkout basement, cathedral pine-planked ceilings, open concept, attached garage, etc. Plus it seemed to be underpriced, relative to the other properties we'd looked at. We made a good offer quickly and it was ours.

We didn't realize until we'd basically bought it that the property was actually two lots. This became a great advantage a few years later.

Nine years ago we decided to split the lots and build a home next to ours for my husband's mom. After his dad passed away we felt that it was the right thing to do, to allow her to live completely independently but have her close enough that mowing the lawn and shoveling the driveway in the winter wouldn't be more difficult. We were able to give her the peace and quiet of the countryside, and she would be a daily part of our daughter's lives. The house took us a year to complete, we broke ground when my youngest daughter was only 3 months old. Building a house proved to be tougher than we predicted. Add a new baby and a lousy contractor and it made for a very difficult year. But once completed, my mother-in-law had a beautiful little cape cod.

We made a path between our houses. My kids came and went from grandma's just as easily as they slept and breathed. We knew this wouldn't last forever, but we expected 15-20 years that this arrangement would work out. We had this mental picture that the kids would at least be in high school or college before we'd have to think about assisted living for Mom. After all, she walked 2 miles a day. She was healthy and active. But surely you know where this is going. We only got 8 of those years.

Several months ago we had to decide what to do with the house. Over the course of the previous few months it had fallen in many ways into disrepair. Our focus was on the people, doing everything we could to try to bring her back to health and maintain some degree of normalcy for our kids. Extended family moved in because they like many in Michigan, they were out of work and couldn't afford to heat their home in the middle of winter. They provided wonderful care and companionship to Mom.

Their pets destroyed the place.

Yet, despite the odor and disarray, both of my daughters wanted to move there when we asked for their input on what they would like to see us do with grandma's house. To them, it was unbearable to think of strangers living in a place that many of their fondest memories were made. They saw the potential of bigger bedrooms, their own bathroom, and being just that much closer to the lake. Financially, there was no question that selling our home and moving there would be the best option. We'd put so much sweat equity into that house that from that stand point, it made sense.

I was very reluctant. I knew how much work there was to be done. When we built that house, we expected it's value to be very close to the home we currently live in. It should have appreciated right along with ours, right around $165k (taking into account the market slump). But if we had tried to sell it 'as is' I doubt we could have got more than $80k out of it. It smelled and looked that bad. We knew we'd have to invest at least $20k to bring it back up to living standards. To sell our house, we'd have to invest some serious time and effort into curb appeal, as we'd put all our previous energy into the inside. Selling our house meant the most work. I was very reluctant, but our family is made up of four voices and the other three were in favor of moving.

Of course, it was more complicated than this. We were all grieving. We didn't want to do anything with either house, but we couldn't afford to keep both. I suggested renting the cape cod but none of them wanted anything to do with that. So the decision to list ours was made and a summer full of work ensued. The first month we focused on getting our house ready to list. After that, we've been pretty much maintaining here and  throwing every spare minute into fixing up the other house, grandma's house, the house we now call H2.