So here goes. There have been a lot of things happening on the home front that I just haven't found the gumption to put into words. But here goes. You asked for it (OK, not really, but you're reading it, right?!).
OK. Study the picture, above, and then answer the questions below.
See the ugly miniprint wallpaper?
See the black mildewy ickiness on the wall and the floor?
See where our bathroom vanity used to be?
Remember all these things as I relate the story. It all started when we decided to paint our Master bedroom. Easy, right? We have lived in this house for 7 years, now, and have been house poor until this year. We finally have some breathing room in our budget, so we have decided to finally take some of the extra $$ to make the necessary changes in order to make this house feel more like ours, rather than the previous owners'. (That, and we've both finished our Masters program, and so have all this extra time!)
Well, the walls had more of the ugly miniprint wallpaper pictured above. Fortunately, that came off in nice, tidy sheets. The glue, however, did not. So I tried scraping. Then I tried DIF stuff. Then I taped plastic over all the openings, donned a respirator, and used my sander. Fianlly, I gave up and replastered the whole thing. BTW, it looks great! I put a nice texture into it and painted it 'Toasted Wheat' per my wife's color preference (more on THAT later!).
Three days later...
Oh! Forgot to mention the trim. The people who built this house (1971) did it right, which is one of the reasons we bought it. Therefore, the trim in the bedroom consisted of baseboards, chair rail, and crown molding. The chair rail is off for good (anybody need some?!), and the crown molding went from dark brown stain to white (5 coats? Maybe? ...lost count). The base boards, however, were nailed on before the carpeting was laid down. Therefore, the tack strips were in front of the baseboards, necessitating the removal of the carpeting before the trim.
There I was, plastering the wall, singing along to the radio, when my wife calls in from the bathroom, "Uh, honey...?" Uh-oh. I walk into the bathroom, and she has pulled back the carpet under the bathroom vanity only to find a ring of WET (OK, very damp) subflooring in front of my sink. Long story short: the water pipes are in an exterior wall, and must have frozen some years ago when it was really cold during the winter, and had been slowly leaking since. Suddenly, what had been a 'one-of-these-days' project was now a 'yesterday!' project.
Out came my plumber's hat, and I cut out the old pipes and capped them off without incident. Since then, the floor has been drying nicely. Tomorrow, I will be taking out subfloor, sills, and studs and replacing them all. Wish me luck!
So, what had started out as a 3 gallons of paint project has turned into the 3 gallons of paint, lumber, tiles (more on THAT later, too!), solid bamboo flooring (I'm sure there will be a story there...), custom order vanity and top, plumbing supplies, and about a month of sleeping in the dining room.
Pastel (and home remodeling) Guy
www.matthewweld.com - pastels
www.studio206.etsy.com - handmade jewelry
