We have a washer and a dryer. At last!

Went all the way to Marietta complete with trailer and straps. Now we can wash and dry, well, we can't dry as the plug and socket aren't a match but assuming I survive tinkering with 220V, I will fix it.

cheapest kitchen furniture

There's a lack of storage and prepartion space in the kitchen, so rather than spending money on something that's going to be dumped when we re-do, I figured I'd build something from scrap.

Not pretty, but it does the job

And it only cost about 3 dollars

Now it just needs a lick of paint.

Cement Board Anxiety

(Steph writing)

After piecing together the jigsaw puzzle of floorboards, Steve covered the whole thing with another layer of plywood, and then cement board. Here's what it looks like now:

Nice!



It's like, nearly 1/4 of a room! Even the tub looks better against an actual floor. Speaking of the tub, I've been sourcing refinishers around town so that we can redo the enamel rather than replacing the tub itself. Seems there are a range of companies that offer a range of processes at a range of prices. We've been quoted anywhere from $300-$500, each claiming their process is infinitely superior to everyone else's. The good news is that it's the last thing we need to do, after the tile is up, walls and floors done, etc. So we've got time to ask around about the best option.

Cement Board Master

In the meantime, it seems our sweet little rescue pup has a case of acute separation anxiety. After a few days of following us everywhere we go, he won't let us leave him for even a few minutes without going beserk. As in, destructive. As in, tear-down-the-blinds-and-push-the-air-conditioner-out-the-window destructive. We figure this must be why his last owners abandoned him. So we are getting some advice from a trainer and in the meantime working on some techniques to get him more comfortable, like doing our 'leaving the house' rituals over and over again to get him relaxed with the sound of the door locking, etc.

Poor little fella! How can we convince him to chill out when he's alone. How can we teach him that we will come back?



More Floor Repair, Plus a New Helper

(Steph writing)

So after repairing the disintegrated floor joists in the upstairs bathroom, Steve turned his attention to the floorboards themselves. Some of them were also damaged from moisture and carpenter ants, so needed cutting out. Yes, that means more sawdust and wood debris downstairs!

He then replaced the missing planks with plywood, kind of like a big jigsaw puzzle:

Wait a minute! Who's that little guy in Steve's lap!? It's....

ROONEY!

Oh yes, we decided now's the time to rescue a beautiful border collie from Atlanta Pet Rescue. Here we are at the shelter:

Rooney is the best. He's very smart and affectionate, and loves being wherever the people are. He's still warming up and getting used to his new home, but he's already gotten much better at walking on a leash, and he's well on his way to learning to 'sit'. Oh, and he's also gone from being afraid of his crate to happily hanging out in it. In short, he's a genius!

(Steph writing)

So in addition to the problems with the upstairs bathroom floor, the walls need some attention too. They were covered in this awful cheap vinyl stuff. When we (Steve) pulled that off, here was what we found:

Someone's half job. The lower part of the wall is original wood planks, and the upper part is drywall.

Now Steve thought we should just cover it up as is and use wainscoating to hide the disparity between top and bottom. I suggested that perhaps we would regret that decision one day, should we ever decide to do away with the wainscoating only to think 'curses! I wish we'd done it right the first time...'

Luckily, I went out for a few hours and then came home to this:



Empty walls!

I guess the threat of more work in the future was worse than the threat of more work now. I don't think we'll (he'll) regret it.

Gas Masks

(Steph writing)

Did Steve mention the gas masks? Since we're cutting out nasty things like black mold, we've decided to go safe and are wearing super-duper air filters while we do everything. They make you really hot and sweaty around the mouth, which is a strange place to feel hot and sweaty. But the good news is, you can't smell anything. No bleach, no paint, no mold, no nothing. And they look tough, right? it's like we live in some kind of sci fi post-apocalyptic dystopia...

Debris

(Steph writing)

So on my first day working on the house, we scrubbed every inch of the downstairs apartment with bleach, and then painted the floors white. I felt satisfied, like I'd at least made it liveable, even though it is not beautiful. Here is the downstairs bathroom, looking its best:

Nice, huh?





The next day Steve got to work on the floor joists in the upstairs bathroom, unleashing a torrent of sawdust and crumbling carpenter-ant-infested wood on the bathroom below. So looks like this will be a daily ritual: Sweep up debris, hit it with the shop-vac, and wipe it down with bleach.Only THEN you can take a shower.

Where's that smell coming from?

So downstairs has been damp, I think just from it being left alone for so long. It made the carpets damp and mildew-y so we took those out, painted the floor, bleached everything that even looked like mold got the place smelling a lot better, but still something remained.

The last thing to try was the old sink cabinet. I had feared to get too far into that as it was nasty, but the time came and it seemed a drain had dripped at some point, or a pipe but either way the mold was serious on the particle board and was so thick it was like flock. The board itself was so rotted and fragile that it couldn't easily be picked up as it just crumbled like weetabix.

I sawed and cut thing to pieces and threw it out, turns out that the box supports the sink so I quickly put some of it back whilst I improvised a support, crude but it works.

Steff said 'you love to destroy things'. Yes, yes I do

Years old and damp particle board is not robust, but at least the mold had something to eat

Finished, but not pretty

Floor joists

Seems that the leak in the upstairs bathroom had rotted the floor and the subfloor in there. I had to cut it out and will replace.

Whilst i was at it i noticed that the floor joists had been butchered and lashed-up to allow for the sewer pipe so that had to be fixed. I re-used the wood i had taken from the old handrail and installed it as a joist, then connected across with smaller sections. Should be strong enough now for the toilet and the new floors.

Finished joists, new pieces in place.

Half way done

Habitation

We're sort of moving in! We have an air mattress, and few bits and bobs and a table and chairs that steff scored from a serendipitous yard sale a block away, just $20. that's value!

No place like home

$20 dining room furniture. Score!

Paint the floor

After hours and hours and hours of stripping the floor and its tiles,  we had to do something with to cover over the ugly black paint/adhesive. White paint is the answer.

Trash

And this is just from the downstairs apartment!

Pipes

They used to make pipes out of steel. I didn't know that, but I do know that steel rusts, and a well twisted sink shut-off valve can, apparently, sheer off due to rust.

You can just see the broken pipe sticking out from the wall in the upstairs bathroom

Of course, this doubtless created a torrent of water and might help explain the ceiling's collapse in the bathroom below.

Time for some new pipe. We avoid copper due to the potential pitfalls of using fire and solder near a wooden structure without any experience, and went for CPVC. This is more like building lego than plumbing so Justin and I felt ok about it.

We updated the pipes to the upstairs bathroom after pulling out the wall in the adjoining bedroom to gain greater access:

Old steel pipe

The broken sink pipe

back of the bathroom wall showing the remains of the steel

new CPVC stuff, ready primed

Just need the new fixtures, tiles, wallboard, floor, floor covering, fan, lights, cabinet, shelves, windows, paint, trim and accessories and it'll be nice.

Drainage

The house has had some damp issues in the lower apt. It seems that over the years the earth on the side of the house has been allowed to pile up until it covered about 12 inches of the wall. The drain pipe for half the roof also dumps into that same mess and, inevitably, soaks into the cement block wall.

I dug it out and we installed a pipe to keep things drier

Pre-pipe - not the way to keep the walls dry

Bathrooms

They were both a mess. It seems that the upstairs one had had a leak for a long time. The shower/bath tap fixture had a small crack in it that must have been leaking. It explains the damp, moldy and rotten wood below and around.Some of the floor boards are rotted to nothing, but they can be replaced easily enough.

All the above are the downstairs bathroom as I found it. I removed the damaged wallboards and cleaned up, bleached and got it operational, at least. Not pretty, but the fixtures all work.

The upstairs

I stood looking at the outside wall when it suddenly dawned on me that there was one too many windows in the side of the house. The previously unnoticed window was privacy glass, a bathroom? Upstairs we went and smashed a hole in the external wall's tile and board. Light!

See below:

As we found it

No idea why it was boarded over, but it was. Saves me cutting a new window hole, but the window itself is not in good condition. it needs a new one and insulation should be installed. Only air exists in the void right now.

Closing

It finally happened, it took nearly 7 months but eventually we got the deal done and the closing happened on the 3rd October 2011.

I went to the lawyer's office and signed 'til my hand cramped, but I left with keys and the promise of a lot of work to do




- Posted from my phone