2 BIG Projects Done!

I'm not sure why I haven't posted about these yet, but over the summer I knocked out two really big projects that I wanted to get done on the house.

Project #1 - The Roof!

Way way back during the inspection, I was told that a new roof would be needed within a few years of purchasing the house. That didn't really scare me off, so my realtor offered to get a quote on a new roof for me to use during negotiations. I'm not sure how he chose the particular company, but they came in, checked it out, and gave me a dollar figure to haggle with. (It worked, by the way - woohoo!)

Fast forward to 2 years later (and a small leak in the ceiling, yikes), and I was able to check this project off my list! For simplicity's sake, I just decided to go with that same company, so I got in touch with them for an updated quote. As it turns out, I found out a coworker at my new job is semi-related to the guy who runs the roofing company - small world! So at least I knew that he was a reputable guy who wouldn't rip me off ;)

A few phone calls and a couple weeks later, I had a shiny new roof!

Before

After!

Say hello to 30 years of (hopefully) not having to deal with this again :) All told, I never actually met my roofers in person, but they did a great job and I would recommend them! I was in touch with a gutter guy who my roofers recommended, but that ultimately didn't work out. I would like to replace the gutters at some point though!

Project #2 - The Fence!

Okay, this was actually kind of a nightmare :( I searched for fence companies on Angie's List since I didn't have any friends or acquaintances that knew of anyone reputable, and found a few that had good reviews that I was interested in getting quotes from.  Only one of those companies was very responsive, so I had them come out and give me a quote. I liked the guy, and what we discussed, but I really wasn't in any rush to get anything done and had fully planned on getting more quotes from other companies.

But then, laziness kicked in, and honestly, I didn't want to have to take more time off work to meet with other companies! On Angie's List reviews, customers are able to post the price of the work they had done, and after extensive research of other companies' comparable reviews, I deemed the pricing to be just fine.

So I called them up, and they came out to install the fence. Step one of install was full on removal of all of the HUGELY overgrown plants.

Here's a reminder of what it looked like back there...

There was also a chain link fence along the West and North of the property, cleverly hidden behind all the greenery. Well, once all that was gone, they put up the framing, and I came home to this:

Yeah!

And then the day after that:

I love it!

It looks great, right? Well, a pretty huge miscommunication happened, and what should have looked like this:

(Taken from the company's website)

Ended up looking like this:

Not the prettiest...

I was lead to believe that the overlapping wood would look more like the first photo, but it ended up looking like more of an afterthought, which you can see in the second photo. And because I wasn't there to supervise, that's what I got. Hrmph.

All in all, obviously it's way better than what was there previously, but I wasn't entirely happy with the company (as well as their lack of removing materials after the job was finished...I don't want to get into it). I'm glad it's done, and that I now have more privacy back there!

As of right now, the back yard is a complete blank slate. I'm interested in putting some sort of deck or patio out there, and I'd like to eventually incorporate foliage that *won't* overtake the yard (I'm looking at you, blackberries). I'd love to eventually have a garden, maybe even chickens (!), but most importantly, I'd just like it to be functional! I don't think I've spent more than a few minutes out there at a time when I wasn't doing yard work. I'd like to actually enjoy relaxing out there! I think I see hammocks in my future...

Megan

Yardwork

It seems as though I've spent as much time on the yard in these past couple of months as I've spent on the entire house interior in the past year! One of the reasons I decided on a house over a condo was so I could have a yard - for growing vegetables, raising chickens (!!), maybe having a backyard bbq or two - but man, it is a TON of work to keep up with! I think it's especially hard for me, since I didn't grow up having any sort of yard to speak of...we had a slab of concrete in front of the apartment I grew up in, and dad was the gardener in the family. I remember having tomatoes, basil, and cactus fruit (yum!). There was also a time where we grew some HUGE sunflowers and eating the seeds was fun although not as tasty as the salty ones you buy at the store :P. Oh and we had grapes growing over an arbor, which was very cool in my opinion :)

But no lawn to speak of. And the few bushes that were street adjacent were taken care of by the landlord. Point is, I'm not used to any of this stuff, but it's something I've always (kind of) wanted. Enter my very own lawn...by estimations, I have 3000 sq feet of the stuff. Most of it is grass, but in the back yard there are a couple of small, funky looking trees, some bushes (some pretty, some not so much), and tons of invasive bamboo and blackberry bushes. I think I've got the front lawn mowing down...I go in a square spiral from the edges inward...not sure if it's the most efficient but it works for me! As I mentioned in this post, the back yard was left untouched for far too long, so long in fact that I had to hire someone to just get it down to manageable for me. I've since been keeping up with the mowing, but the ground is uneven in many places, and my mower inevitably ends up grinding down mounds of dirt, which go all up in my nostrils and I end up with black boogers (sorry, tmi!). I've also purchased a string trimmer for the places the mower can't get to, and it doubles as an edger (although I'm not too steady with it yet so I've made some janky looking edges, woops). And my newest yard related purchase is an electric hedge trimmer, which is actually really fun to use! I've pared down quite a few overgrown bushes with that puppy.

The only trouble I'm running into is that I basically fill up my compost/yard wast bin super quick, so I can really only do so much each week. I know there are those big paper bags you can buy for extra yard waste, but you have to pay the disposal company extra per each bag they pick up too. Well anyways, I know that I'm going to need help removing the bamboo and blackberry bushes...those suckers are apparently impossible to get rid of. I've actually contacted a couple of brush clearing companies to get quotes on how much it will cost to just level the back yard. And I mean get rid of everything...all I want is dirt back there so I can start with a clean slate. Of course though once that happens, the next thing I'll need to do is put in a fence. It's almost completely obscured now, but I know there's a chain link fence on 2 sides of the yard (the other side is just a hedge), which I definitely want to replace with wood for privacy. But how many thousands of dollars will that all cost?? Oof. Definitely a project for another time. So for now, I'll continue to mow and trim and compost one week at a time!

My pretty yard tools

Wooo tomato plant! You can see some green ones in there if you search carefully!

I trimmed down the bushes at the front of the house - you can
sort of see how overgrown these were in  the picture below

See? Off to the left? So bushy!

I have also been enjoying cooking more and more on my sexy range. Below is a one-pot creamy sausage pasta that I've made at least a hundred times lately :P

Nom nom!

Well, busy weekend ahead (Wendy and Adam *finally* getting hitched!), but hopefully I'll have the gumption to do more interior work in the coming weeks. I NEED to paint! Somebody kick my butt into gear so I don't put it off any longer!

-Megan

House-aversary!

Well, well, it's been exactly a year since I closed on the house! It really doesn't seem like it's been a full year, but the calendar doesn't lie. There have been many many times when I feel like not a lot has been done, because there is still so much more to do, but then I'll sometimes peruse back into this blog's archives and realize how much has changed!

My top 5 projects from the past year:

1. The Kitchen
When I finally had a fully functioning kitchen, I felt like I had really accomplished a huge project. I was without a range and sink for a full 4 months, so I basically "cooked" with a microwave and used disposable dishes/cutlery whenever possible. I also ate out a ton, which wasn't too good for the wallet or the waistband! I'm still really enjoying the choices I made in regards to materials and specific appliances. I know that there is a bunch still left to do in the kitchen, but I'm most likely going to tackle other areas first. I still need to install a shelf on the sink side, install baseboard trim all around the room, replace the light above the sink, replace the window blinds, replace the windows themselves, and somehow close off the area next to the pantry which now (temporarily?) houses the cat litter box. Whew, that's a LOT! Maybe I'll have half that accomplished by next year...?

2. The Bathroom
I think living without a toilet for a full week (you don't wanna know how I did it...) really makes me appreciate how far my bathroom has come this past year! The paint color is probably the most noticeable change (from pee yellow - ceilings included! - to a calming grey), but having an unsoiled toilet, a sink that's not only pretty but actually attached to the wall (!!), and the removal of the black moldy caulk, really complete the image :) Again, still a LOT to do until I feel like the bathroom will be complete...replacing the plastic tub surround with tile, fixing the window frame, and installing a fan are the big ones. But I'd also like to replace the shower fixtures, the medicine cabinet, and the light above it, and replace that one strip of base trim that I royally screwed up with nails!

3. The Garage
Clearing the creepy "bonus room" out of the garage was a huge deal, and one I'm glad I got out of the way early on. I was willing to let this go for a while because I felt a lot of other projects were more pressing, but my friend Todd offered to knock down the room for me one day, and I'm so happy I took him up on that! Then, when I rented the drop box and a bunch of other friends came over to help clear out all the crap, I had a clean slate to work with. Admittedly, it looks like a typical garage full of "stuff" right now, but without that space (and the cool storage units from my grandma) the house would still be full of boxes, and I would still be doing laundry with barely any room to move. I have a ton of stuff in there that's slated for a yard sale, or donation, or recycling, so when I have time I'll sort that all out and the garage will be nice and roomy again!

4. The Floors
The very first project I did when I got the keys to the house was ripping up the carpet and refinishing the hardwood floors underneath. I did the refinishing myself, which accounts for the not-so-professional look to it, but whatever, I saved a good $1,500 by doing it that way! I've always been a fan of hardwood, and it immediately made the house look less "cheap". I also replaced the bathroom floor (oy, that was a nightmare) with vinyl tile...which I'll definitely want to redo one day. It didn't turn out quite that great, but again, super cheap! Like, $20 cheap. Woohoo! The vinyl tile I installed in the kitchen was another story...these tiles were more expensive, but sturdier, groutable (which I think was key to making it look like a nice floor), and because the tiles were rectangular instead of square, I think it gave it a more high end look. Still cheap though (compared to stone, wood, ceramic tile, etc)!

5. Paint
You all have heard me talk about it a bunch already, but every single interior surface of the house was covered in a grimy yellowish-white color when I first got the keys. Well, since then, I've primed pretty much everything, and have now painted most of the walls! It looks SO SO much better! It definitely changes the entire feel of the house and makes it feel much more welcoming. I don't know if I've chosen all of the right colors, but the cool thing is that painting is one of the cheapest (and kinda easiest) things you can do to change a room. I still need to paint the hallway and the spare bedroom (for which I have both cans of paint...just gotta get to it!), and I do need to someday paint all of the door and base trims around the entire house.

Now that I've compiled all of the big stuff in a list...wow! I guess I have done a lot over the past year! And by "I", I mean "my friends and I" because seriously, how in the hell could I have done all of this on my own?? I would probably still be sitting in a room with yellowed walls and dingy carpet if I hadn't had the help, encouragement, and support (physical and mental...and monetary!) from my friends and family. There are still times when I think I'm crazy for taking this on, but over the past year I've also had a lot of moments where I feel like I made a great investment and I get excited about the future.

And speaking of the future...here are the projects I hope to accomplish in the coming year (or two...)!
- Backyard - this one's a doozy
- Exterior paint - also of doozy caliber
- Roof - I think you know what I am going to say here

Some pictures for fun!

The house last year

This morning! Please ignore the Christmas light clips still
on the gutters...the lawn looks a lot better though!

Remember that little front yard project from back in March?

Blooms!! Lots of weeds also...but look at the pretty flowers!

Until next time!

-Megan

I'm Alive!

Wow you guys...it's been over a month since I've updated this bad boy! I blame it on vacation, settling into the new job, and well, general laziness :P I have done a thing or two to the place though, check it out!

• Backsplash
  As promised, I'm finally going to reveal my super secret backsplash! It's an unconventional material for a backsplash. Can you guess what it is?

Much better than before!

Colorized!

Color up close

• Towel Bar
  I finally put up another towel bar in the bathroom...this one's for hand towels (oooh fancy!)

Oy what a mess!

Finito!

• Paint
  I painted the living room! I squeezed 2 coats out of one gallon of paint (it's a fairly big room!). It looks a lot like the bathroom color in these pictures...but it's actually more of a brown grey. I'm happy with it! I chose from the same color family as the kitchen, so they bounce off each other well.

Before...

After!

Other corner of the room

• Backyard
  I was a bad homeowner and hadn't touched the backyard since....last summer :-/ Needless to say, it was very literally a jungle out there. I honestly don't know how I would have been able to tackle it myself (didn't have all the right tools for one thing), and after talking with one of my new coworkers, I decided to hire her (very reasonable!) gardener for a one time clear-out. It was SO SO worth it!

I mean, literally, the grass was 4 feet tall...

Now the grass looks like crap, but at least I can walk around out there!

I really enjoyed my vacation to see my dad and family on the east coast, as well as spending the weekend in Chicago on the way back visiting my friend Chris. My new job is going really well so far! All of the people are cool, and most importantly, it's NOT my old job :P

I have a busy month coming up - Wendy's bachelorette party, the Tough Mudder, Sarah's birthday, beer fest volunteering...and mid-July Wendy & Adam are gettin' hitched! I don't know how much time I'll have to devote to the house but you all will be the first to know about any more updates! :)

-Megan

Happy Spring!

Hellooooo! Is anyone still out there? There hasn't been much to say lately, so I wouldn't blame you if you stopped following along! I did actually make some progress this weekend though - long overdue (like, LOOOOOOONG overdue) - I mowed the lawn...for the first time since last summer! It was really bad...a good foot high in places. I don't have a before picture because it was just too embarrassing :P I will say it was so bad that I got a lawn care business card stuck in my mail box...oof!

Freshly mowed!

See all those clumps of grass? Yeah, I don't know what to do with them...they'll probably just die and fertilize the lawn. Those purple flowers were a nice surprise! I honestly wouldn't pin the previous owner for someone with a green thumb, but there are bulbs everywhere in the front of the house, and it's really pretty! Who knew!

In other news...Wendy came over last night and helped me with phase 1 of the kitchen backsplash! That's right, progress has been made in the kitchen :) I thought about posting a couple of pictures of what it looks like so far, but ultimately decided that I'll just post a bunch of progress pics when the whole thing is done. The hardest part is definitely over,  but some decisions need to be made before the next phase can be completed. I'm going to try and get a bunch done before I leave for my NY/PA/IL trip in just under a month...I'm planning on having a big party for my birthday and I won't have much time after the trip to prepare! Commence - April house blitz!

-Megan

Little Bit O' Yard Work

Thanks to some prodding and help from Stan, I got a little yard work done yesterday! There's a little patch of dirt right between the kitchen window and the driveway which was all torn up when the floor was being leveled. The guys who did the work filled it back in but with lower grade soil and there were tons of rocks scattered all around, then bunches of weeds started sprouting, and it was basically just a sad looking little space. In an effort to make it sort of pretty, we tilled the hell out of it, removed as many of the big rocks as possible, removed weeds, transplanted some of the actually decent looking plants that had started growing, and then finally scattered some wildflower seeds. Hopefully by summer I'll have something to show for all this work! :)

Before...ish...this was after quite a bit of work actually...

This was about half the amount of rocks we pulled out

After!

That was pretty much it for housework this past week. I have purchased my backsplash but I'm keeping it a surprise until I put it up! I'm aiming for this weekend but you know how that goes...

-Megan

A Productive President's Day

I had the day off yesterday, woo hoo! I conned Wendy and Adam into coming over so they could help me with the house :) Wendy and I tackled the priming of the kitchen walls and ceiling:

Oooo la la! Fancy pants indeed!

Before

After!

It might be hard to tell, but all of the walls and the ceiling were essentially the color of the blinds that you see in the after picture...that same nasty yellowish-white that the entire house was when I started with it! The backsplash will cover the part that wasn't primed. Now the question is...which color(s) will I go with for the walls?? I think I'll stick with some shade of white for the ceiling though.

While we were in the kitchen, Adam offered to rip out all of the blackberry bushes in the back yard! For some reason I don't have a before picture...what is wrong with me?? Well, imagine if you will, tall dense blackberry bushes covering the entire back fence area. Here's how it looked after Adam had his way with it:

Die blackberries! Die!

I mean seriously, it's a huge difference. The yard looks so much bigger now too! I'll still need to get rid of those other piles of yard waste, and then who knows? Maybe I'll have the initiative to actually plant stuff for this coming summer!

And now for the negative part...my furnace started blowing cold air last weekend. I tried what I could to fix it on my own (replaced the filter, re-set it based on the instructions on the inside panel) but resigned myself to  calling in a professional. It turns out it was the circuit board failing, and it won't be cheap :( But I need heat, right? Boo! Houses are expensive!

Well, I don't have too busy of a weekend coming up. If I can decide on a wall color for the kitchen and/or living room this week then I'll hopefully be able to check that off my list by the end of February!

-Megan

Long Weekend Ahead!

Can you see it?

Eh?

Can you see the frost on my terribly un-mowed lawn? There was some on the roof too. I'm excited for the day when an inch or two blankets the house...it will look so cozy! Is there anything I need to know about snow and houses?

Anyways, I have Monday off for MLK JR day and I'm taking votes on what I should do:

• Organize the garage
• Prime the kitchen walls
• Sleep in and watch TV

Annnnd go!

-Megan

Halloween & Kitchen Floor

Oh hi there! My first Halloween in my very first house was a success! All told, I only got about 25 trick-or-treaters, but I also got a surprise visit from Sarah, Brian and Brenden! I left work a little early to get the place ready...I wasn't sure how early the little kids would be coming by. I decided to rake the front lawn so no one slipped on all the wet leaves but about 60 seconds into it, my brand new rake snapped!

I guess I don't know my own strength!

I should probably splurge on a sturdier one anyways! Here's another pic of my front door decorations:

I think the spookiest thing is the gross screen door

I will say that I'm excited to get all these big projects out of the way so I can decorate a little better next year :) But I'm also VERY excited to decorate for Christmas! I'll need to decide if I want to go for white lights or multi-colored lights...so many decisions! :)

As per my kitchen renovation schedule, Stan helped me start laying down the vinyl tile on the kitchen floor yesterday! It started slow but we quickly got into a rhythm and got it almost all done:

Here we gooooo!

Mostly finished!

The most annoying part was that my fingers got sticky because of the strength of the adhesive on the backs of the tiles! It was hard to put down the spacers without them sticking to my hands, so Stan helped a lot with that part. He also pulled the backing off each tile for me because it was hard to do one-handed! I still need to finish all the tiles that need to be cut around the edges, plus a couple more rows on the other end of the kitchen (not pictured). I plan on doing that tonight & tomorrow night...hopefully all tonight but I know how frustrated I'll get :) And then at the very latest I'll grout the tiles on Wednesday night! I'm trying to set up the gas range conversion/hookup hopefully for late this week or early next week, and then I'll be cooking with gas! ;)

One last pic to share...Stan snapped this while Kahlua was keeping an eye on the neighbors:

Guard kitty!

Until next time!

-Megan

Cabinet Demo & Clean Garage!

Made a lot of progress this weekend! The drop box was dropped off on Friday while I was at work, and I came home to this beauty in my driveway:

Dumpster chic!

On Saturday a bunch of friends came over to help clean up all the crap that Todd demo'd in the garage, and knock down all of the kitchen cabinets! It's so weird (and awesome) to have all that gross rotten cabinetry gone. And the barfy sink! Yay!

Before (sans doors)

After (sans everything! :P)

I'm not sure if I'm going to rip out all the flooring or just that part that was under the cabinetry before I put down the new vinyl tile that arrived Friday. I hope I hope I hope I get the floor finished before I leave for Disneyland (less than 2 weeks!!) but I'm not going to do a crappy job trying to rush it. I'm also still undecided on whether to grout it or not. It's "grout-able" vinyl tile, so if I so choose I can do that to make it look a little higher end, and also ensure no moisture can get between the tiles. But, especially if I leave the existing vinyl underneath, that won't really be an issue that I'll have to worry about. Either way, I will be using an additional adhesive underneath, even though the tile is already self-adhesive. The bathroom tile that I used is also self-stick vinyl but I didn't use any additional adhesive and there are a couple of tiles that are kind of peeling up at the edge...it's not that big of a deal, you just step on it and it goes back to flat. I think I may be making it sound worse than it is haha!

Annnnnnyways! The garage is all nice and VERY clean and I'm VERY happy with it!!

Yaaaaay!

Before picture for reference:

Booooo!

I can actually walk around in it now! And I can start putting boxes in there! Although there are a lot of spiders and creepy crawlies that I don't want to crawl around in my stuff :( Time to invest in some more plastic tubs for storage!

Oh, and the one thing the seller left that I'm not mad about is this little guy:

Punkin'!

Ain't he cute!? I think I'll name him Jerry. And then carve him up for Halloween! Mwahaha!

Well, I still don't have a bathroom sink BUT I do have a utility sink in the garage that I forgot about! So even though it's not the most cosy, I can brush my teeth and stuff in the garage until the bathroom is complete :) I'm going to try my hardest to get the kitchen floor done this coming weekend. I'll need to move the refrigerator, scrub the existing floor, score it, then apply the additional adhesive before I can put the tile down, but that seems like it could be done, right? If I decide to grout the tile it will definitely affect the time it will take though. Eh, we'll see!

-Megan

Very Productive Weekend!

Okay, first thing's first: I got my lawnmower and mowed the lawn for the first time ever! My grandma offered to buy the lawnmower for me as a housewarming gift - awesome! I ended up going with a Greenworks corded electric lawnmower, and it took a little getting used to...I'm not sure if it was better to go the long way or the short way, and it was a little difficult to maneuver but I got it done! I also did what I could of the backyard, but there were a lot of obstacles so it still doesn't look that great!

Ain't she a beauty!

First mowed lawn!

The other big HUGE thing I tackled this weekend was sanding the floors! I rented an orbital floor sander from a local company and man, was it heavy! I think 115 lbs or so. The rental place put it in my trunk but it was an ordeal to get it out once I got to my house :P I had originally rented it through this morning, but it turned out I only needed it for about 5 hours, which saved some money! The sandpaper was actually more costly than the rental itself at ~$6 a sheet!

I used the big floor sander to sand the middle of the floor to about 3 inches from the baseboards and used 3 different, progressively finer grits to get it down to smooth. Then yesterday I used my new (refurbished) palm sander to do the edging right up to the baseboards, as well as go over any stubborn spots like right inside the front door, which wasn't covered with carpet, but was covered with disgusting grime! Trying to get the sander back into my car to go return it was the same comedy of errors as getting it out, but I did it and it's DONE! I also got a shopvac and tack cloths to pick up all the sanding dust which I will be doing shortly. This week, probably Wednesday, I will be putting on the first coat of polyurethane, then hopefully the second coat before the weekend so it has time to cure by Saturday and I'll be able to start moving things in!

Sander and "before" picture of the floors

It was so vibrate-y!

Palm sander for the edging and "after" picture of the sanded floors

Oh yeah, and the last BIG SUPER HUGE thing from this weekend...my friends Courtney and Travis from the gym came over to help knock out that wall between the kitchen and living room! Travis used to be a contractor and has done stuff like this a million times before, plus he has all the tools :) We unfortunately ran into electrical wires so the studs are still there, but I'm having an electrician come in this week to re-route them, and then Travis will come back over to knock out the studs and do finish work on the open parts.

Travis pulling off sheetrock

View from the living room

View from the kitchen (with annoying wires that need to be moved!)

It looks so open now! I can't wait until the studs are gone! Well, the plan for this week is to get the electrician in there, put the finish on the floors, and maybe start tackling the bathroom (did I mention I ordered a new toilet and vanity?) and hopefully be done enough with that other stuff so that this weekend Travis can come back in and knock out the studs, as well as move in all of my furniture!

Oh! I forgot to mention, another friend of mine from the gym, Todd, came over to look at the wiring since he has some experience but deemed it was a bit much for him, BUT he was able to switch out that dryer outlet so now I have a working dryer! Thanks Todd!

Until next time...

-Megan