Wow, it's been awhile...

So this is going to be a big update with lots and lots of pictures.

We had some setbacks with me being in classes, M/D being busy, and then of course the funeral and everything that came along with that. However, last weekend and this weekend, M/D were able to take off some days of work and come stay in Manhattan for 3-4 days at a time and get a LOT of work done. Since I last updated, we re-sanded the floors with a more powerful sander that worked MUCH better than the first one. Mom is now putting the finishing touches on sanding by going over everything with a really fine grit to get it all smooth.

See how much fun she is having with her big fun tools?

I'm not actually doing a thing in this picture. But M is sweeping the kitchen (note that the vinyl flooring is torn out and the built-in desk-thingie-weird-green-bulletin-board area is gone too!)
We even set some of Mike's brothers to work when they were here for the 4th of July.
One major project we have done --- the bathroom is all ripped out and everything new to go in is bought!

Tearing out the tub...

No more tub!

Bathroom without anything in it. It needs to be re-sheetrocked at the bottom with water/mold proof sheet rock. Actually, some of that is done as I write this!The toilet found a new home on the front porch. Lovely.

New tub!!!! Complete with whirlpool jets :)
I had to test to see if the tub "fit" me. It did!
New bathroom cabinets being loaded out of Dad's new truck into the house. At night.
New bathroom cabinet (un-stained) and countertop (un-cut)
Among other things, we also did a lot of work on the kitchen. We decided to get a new sink/faucet for the kitchen. Mike took the old sink out......and sawed out the old cabinet where the new dishwasher will go...
Today, I primed the floors in the kitchen and hallway in preparation for the vinyl tiles to be put down.
And I got to pry off all the old trim around the windows since I guess we decided to put new casings on as well as new baseboard. Hooray.
Tonight we had a lot of "decisions" to make - especially regarding the bathroom arrangements. But I think we came to a consensus. I'll let you see it when I have a decent "after" picture to show how everything is arranged. I think we decided to install a Star Trek-esque door that whooshes upwards when you step into it so we can avoid a problem with a doorknob blocking a drawer handle. Very reasonable solution, I think.

(this is D and I making decisions.)We have also....
-Purchased all new appliances that will be delivered and installed the week before we move in
-Purchased a bathroom light fixture as well as sink/faucet/bath fixtures and other things to match
-Mostly patched the walls to be painted, but they still need some drywall mud putty stuff
-Made about 2394802349082304 trips to Home Deopt
-Endlessly debated over a floor stain/cabinet stain color. Mike and I have opposing views, apparently.

ANNND:

-Found a snake staring at us as we walked in and out the back door --- he was slithered up ON TOP OF the door frame to the back door. As we walked in and out of it. And we think he was a copperhead. Mom threw things at him, I whimpered in the distance, the snake hissed and showed his fangs. He disappeared after awhile, so now he's waiting for us somewhere, ready to pounce when he so desires.

And probably more that I forgot about because my brain is fried due to too much renovating.

Floors, doors, and a light

This last week, Mike and I spent every night at the house painting the ceilings so they would be done before we sanded the floors. That was....fun...?

This weekend was the big floor-sanding-extravaganza. We rented an orbital floor sander and set to work. We have to/had to get ALL the varnish off the wood floors so that we can stain them a new and darker color.

We had to replace one floor board that had termite damage, so here is a good contrasting picture of what the floor looks like w/out varnish as opposed to the varnishy gold-red tint that the floor was before sanding.
Mike sands in the living room. Ha. There's mom moving clothes out of a closet....

I had the...uh...privilege...of sweeping and vacuuming dust. At least I got to look dangerous in all of my work-gear. I think Mike and Dad may be scared here...
Mom sands for awhile in the living room. Ugh..Look at all that paneling. We're probably going to have to sand all that too in order for our plaster-faux-finish-paneling-covering-solution to work...
After day 1 of sanding, we finished the dining room, living room, hallway, and about 1/4 of one bedroom. Now on to day 2....

I thought I'd give sanding a try. Big mistake.I added this picture to show how late we worked. Day 1 we were working from about 8:30am until 8:45pm with a few breaks for food. Day 2 started around 8:30am and we didn't get done until about 11:30pm.....In this picture it's probably about 9:00pm. We're really starting to get tired. I took over sanding at one point and Mike accidentally fell asleep at the dining room table.Last room!Unfortunately, the sander, even with a coarser grit, didn't get all the varnish off the floors in some of the low places. We're going to have to go back and either hand-sand with a belt sander or small orbital sander to get those spots off. Maybe we'll try a chemical removal method. Or just burn the house down. I've had that idea several times....

MEANWHILE while others are sanding.....

Dad and I went to Home Depot and bought 6-panel doors to replace the old wood slab doors. We figured out that we'd save money by just buying new ones instead of adding a fake 6-panel look with moulding and paint.

Here's the new doors standing next to the old ones. It will definitely brighten things up and make the house look more clean and sleek.
Mike and I picked out light fixtures for all the rooms (a simple globe-light thing for all the bedrooms and living room and a chandelier light for the dining room). Here's the basic globe light we installed. It was hard to find a light that didn't have 1/2" thick glass that was tinted yellowy brown. We're trying to get RID OF all the yellowy-brown junk in the house, so we definitely didn't want that!
Next steps:
-Get rid of small patches of varnish. Clean, clean, and clean the wood floors from dust. Stain floors. Stain them again for the 2nd coat. Put polyurethane on top.
-Start tearing out vinyl floors while being extra careful not to die of possible asbestos poisoning.
-Destroy bathroom.
-PAINT rooms, do the faux-plaster-paint-thing to cover paneling.
-Put in appliances in the kitchen so I can cook meals while we're working instead of having Wendy's every day.
-and many many many more, each with its own probable road-block in the way....

Some setbacks, and other things.

The auction is DONE! We're still hauling stuff that didn't sell or didn't get picked up from the yard, but it's over and done with - a huge relief. We even made more $$ than M&D "expected" apparently - that means nicer appliances! Maybe.

We started tearing out vinyl flooring in the hallway before D stopped us and said that it might have asbestos in it. Great. Now we get to send each type of vinyl in the house to get tested and hopefully we won't die in the meantime.

We found a stain that we love for the floors, it's going to look REALLY nice with light colored walls and newly painted white trim! I think we also decided just to buy new cheap 6-panel doors instead of painting the existing ones and putting on fake moulding to make them "look" like panel-doors. We really wouldn't save much money that way.

Since we're leaving for PHX this next week, we won't get much done until the end of May. We have a floor sander rented for May 31st-June 1st so we'll get all the floors sanded off by the beginning of June! The next step will be painting the ceiling and doing the walls (we're going to do a plaster-ish textured wall to cover the paneling since the paneling is proving too hard to tear off without destroying the sheet rock underneath). Mike's co-worker used to do plaster finishing for a living, so she has been kind enough to offer advice and says she'll even come help us when we get to that step. After that, we'll stain the floors! In the meantime, we'll have major demolition going on with tearing out the bathroom stuff and putting in everything-new in there.

I hope we don't have many more setbacks. We've also found old termite damage. Who knows if it was ever treated...

Mike gets to use his new drill

This was last week, but I just now got pics. uploaded. While I was cleaning out the refrigerator (it was quite nasty), Mike got to use his new drill to start taking out bathroom cabinets. We're going to replace all the cabinets with some pre-assembled stain-them-yourself ones we found at Lowe's.

Taking out the shelves in the above-the-toilet cabinet. Did you know that the white paint on them was SPRAY-painted on? It's all blotchy and you can see runs.
Hey, where'd the cabinet go?Now he starts in on taking out the stuck-in-cabinet above the stuck-in-counter. This was fun. The cabinet was glued, tacked, screwed, and nailed to the wall. We have some dry wall repair to do.... Mike had to get out his angry face. He finally got the last of it off the wall yesterday.
Now he's starting in on the lower stuck-in cabinet, but that one is nailed to the real cabinet, so that will be fun.

We've also been working on cleaning out stuff in the basement and garage. We got a new garage door installed (it looks great!) and running, and Dad spent most of one day tearing a bigger hole in the side of the garage to put in a REAL side-garage door with a lock on it. It looks great too! Dad also re-wired the garage for more lighting and he re-wired the laundry room so there isn't a switchplate with 34928023 switches on it and you never know which one to flip. Things for the auction are coming along well, though it's hard to see "progress" with cleaning out all the stuff because it's cleaned out and then stuck in a pile somewhere else in the house. It will be good to get this auction over with so we can see an empty house with room to work! I'm sure M&D are anxious to get it over with as well...

We're going back out to the ranch today to work, who knows what adventures lie ahead of us...

Cleaning and an overwhelming amount of stuff

Well I was supposed to go out and help do some cleaning last weekend, but I came down with the flu, so this weekend became cleaning weekend. The kitchen is all cleaned out so I got to scrub down the cabinets inside and out. I kept having this fear that a mouse would jump out at me every time I opened a cabinet door. I actually only found 2 spiders - one alive, one dead. Oh, and 2 crickets. I still have to do the oven (it's pretty disgusting), sink, counters, and fridge. Most everything in the upstairs of the house has been sorted for the auction. M&D are now working on the downstairs (Mike helped with that this weekend) and will soon move to the garage once we get a new garage door in place.

Here are some pictures!

The kitchen filled with lots of questionable cleaning items...

cleaning...ewww


Wow messy dining room and living room!

"What is this?"

EEEK! This has got to go...
And as we were leaving, we saw a bunch of big turkeys in the front yard! I had to take the pic. through the door window because after I opened the door they all ran off.

The task at hand..

We have decided to live at the Double Diamond Ranch for a few years to keep the land/home in the family. In order to do this, renovations are needed. Many of them. The preliminary stages are underway...M&D have been throwing away old junk, rolling their eyes at some (like the WWJD stamp with the JD shaved off so that Gramps could have a WW stamp - his initials..), and getting everything else ready for auction.

It's quite a daunting project, but we're really quite excited to get our hands dirty and see the finished product.

So far....we've bought a rug. Step one is complete. Next step: Everything else. :)

Rug (to go in living room....picture it MUCH bigger. When we unrolled it I said "WOW Those leaves are huge!" I was used to seeing tiny leaves on my computer screen...)

We've picked out some paint chips that match the blues and red in the rug so we can use those colors as the basis for curtains and throw pillows. We thought the rug was especially nice because it blends contemporary modern style with the nature-cabinesque feel. It reminded me of something Granny may have liked when I saw it, so that was definitely a factor in our purchase!