I’m here!
Holy mother of Bob, you guys, I’m so spun around I’ve been relying on the label of my birth control container to tell me what day it is. And even then I’m still never quite sure.
From Monday afternoon when we took possession of the house, I have spent every free moment (including some lunch hours) cleaning and fixing and prepping and painting. I must have been kidding myself to think that we’d be taking on a relatively tidy piece of real estate – after all, it was inhabited – because after my third hour of sanding food and grime off of baseboards (even the mighty magic eraser failed, so I resorted to sandpaper), I realized that I was in for more than a few nasty surprises. Like the petrified hairball I found in one of the bedrooms. No, I’m not joking. Gagging, yes. But not joking.
There was an actual charcoal hard tater tot in the oven. Hungry? Yeah, me neither.
One of the many happy little surprises came when we discovered that the dog smell we’d thought was contained in the utility room (we hadn’t been assaulted by it anywhere else) was actually everywhere – saturated in the wood floors. So those? Are getting refinished. We had already planned on gutting the bathroom (and thank goodness, because you’d have to attack that room with a powerwasher before I’d actually consider using it) but between the floors and the investment in cleaning supplies we are hemorrhaging money. And elbow grease. If we didn’t operate on a cash only system in our house, it would be pretty tempting to yank out the credit cards and pay someone to make this all better.
Though, I have to admit, I’m enjoying the labor part. Especially the projects involving spray paint. I think I’ve decided that when I grow up, that’s what I want to do. Spray pain stuff. No, not because of the contact high. Okay, maybe a little because of the contact high, but mostly because it’s so satisfying to change things with a ten dollar can of magic. And at this point, my spray paint projects are the cleanest surfaces in the joint. Too bad you can’t eat off of vent covers and the mailbox.
T-minus one month til move in. Grab yer rubber gloves!
but it will be so great when you are finished. everyone hemorrhages money to fix up a new house. it’s so worth it.
Congratulations on the house Heather! I think you mentioned the previous owners were friends? If so – is it weird to talk about (And find!) all these random things in your new digs?
It’s weird and disappointing, actually. But coworker, not exactly a best friend or anything, and I don’t work there anymore, so it’s okay.
Yeah, the remnants of another person’s life are strange and awful to confront when it is now your house, not theirs – all evidence of prior inhabitants should just disappear, but nope, doesn’t work that way… When my husband and I bought our first house, we had the dog smell too, oh and several heat registers chock full of bird poop ~shudder~
It’s so totally worth it though! Have fun making it your own!!
Yay! So excited for you. When we moved into our “turn-key” house, I think I mopped the floors three times and had to wash the walls. There were several times during the painting every room stage when I wanted to go back to the loft so good for you for giving yourself overlap time!
This brings back a lot of memories of our first house. Cockroach nest in the dishwasher. Burned cabinets. We replaced all of the flooring, gutted the kitchen and bathrooms, painted inside and out, and did a LOT of cleaning and yard work. Several homes later, that house still has my heart. I’m excited for all of your new beginnings!
It’s going to look freakin’ awesome when it’s done – I hope you will have the energy to post photos!!
(Hang in there…. Turn-key is not as great as it sounds – my “new” condo was clean and had new carpet, but it had a bunch of other stuff that fell apart/had to be replaced afterwards. They did the cosmetic work to hide the real problems…..)
Won’t your ex co-worker read this?
Doubt it. I guess I’m not too worried about it – I stopped being worried about feelings when I scraped unidentified brown matter off all the walls.
ack!!???! that is really gross
LOL! Good for you! Maintain that attitude and keep moving forward! It’ll be well worth it.
I remember my folks shopping for and finally settling on a nice place in which to create a home. It was a mess. The previous owners had three huge St. Bernards and this house is situated in Southern Florida. (Oh the amount of dog hair…) But, they saw beyond the dirt, grime and grease. Way past it. And when all was said and done the house did become a home. A beautiful home, which they still reside in today after 33 years.
I wish you and Dork Lord the same happiness.
Paint on!
that’s it, I’m going to have to BUILD a house.
Congrats on the house!
Just have to say, my favorite part of this entry is ‘Holy mother of Bob’.
Good luck with the cleaning…
oh i’m so excited!! will you post pictures at some point, or is that too much info for the internet?
Oh, I’m sure I can muster up the strength to share a photo or two
Ew. How do people live like that? It is fascinating. Makes me feel better about my “filthy house” which only ever needs general cleaning. But gag it’s gross to me then.
When I gutted my bathroom I decided that I wanted to demo stuff for a living. Not the back breaking put it together again stuff- just the large hammer into rotten sheet rock/saw up the bathtub stuff. It is good times. Tiling was fun too but nothing is more satisfying than seeing how big of a chunk of sheet rock you can get at one time.
Good luck! Have fun! And if you aren’t having fun spray paint something and you won’t care anymore!
I hope you post pictures and talk paint colors because it’s my obsession.
Good luck with all the cleaning! When I bought my apartment, I had to completely gut the place – it was a one-bed place and the owner had 4 dogs living in there with her. There were cockroach nests under the bathtubs. All I kept were the floors and windows and only after stripping those completely. But at the end it was perfect and all mine.
Hope you manage to get everything done just the way you want it!
I seek out projects which involve spray paint. I LOVE spray paint. I think I’m a graffiti artist at heart.
Congrats again on the house. My first house (a townhouse) I bought new and still had interesting issues to deal with. Then again, I was a bachelor at the time. I got married eight years into the house and the wife did a lot of “makeover.”
Our second house was a bit over 30 years old when we bought it. The house presented nicely, but soon we found some interesting maintenance issues left by the former owners. I think they did a lot of stuff themselves and did them wrong.
Not to rain on your parade too much, but you will be doing work for more than that month. I gather from what you were saying that some of this is finance related. Believe me, there is always a new maintenance issue or something you REALLY want to change. (You know, while you’re at it fixing stuff, you kinda want to add to the job because the incremental cost or effort seems so small, right?)
So if you guys are reasonably handy, that’s a good thing. You can always buy one of those homeowner basics books from Home Depot or a similar store.
Helpful hint: If you have oven or bathroom fans that vent to the outside, make sure that the vents have some sort of screening to keep out birds and bugs. Be sure to have a cap on the fireplace (and make sure the chimney is clean as well if you have one). We had birds fly into the oven vent in our old townhouse and sneak into the kitchen. Yeah, my wife felt like she was in a Hitchcock movie!
Oh, for lawn stuff, buy a mower and other outdoor equipment from someone on Craigs List. WAAAAY cheaper than new!
Remember, be careful! Wear eye protection if you need!
Oh, this is so familiar. When I bought my house, I had to overlook horrible worn down carpet. My first project was to rip it all out. The red oak hardwood underneath was covered with this weird sandy stuff thaqt I found out later was crystallized urine. I try not to think about how many years it must have taken to create the mountain I swept up. So I got the hardwood refinished, and now I have beautiful floors. And two new bathrooms, a completely gutted and refinished kitchen, newly finished basement…and if that wasn’t enough, I painted two rooms with striped walls, learned to lay tile, and had a sun room built.
If I were in Texas, I would volunteer hours of labor for you!
Sounds like a good time. Hey, if you need help I’m pretty handy and I have my own tools.
Aw, Coug, you’re awesome. Thanks for the offer. I’ll let you know if we wear out Chris’s dad (and his tools). Hee.
Good luck! I remember washing walls, stripping wallpaper, tearing out carpet, scrubbing floors on my hands and knees and fighting the ant infestation. Ugh.. Was definitely worth it in the end though.
No fooling, when we bought our house from a little old lady, she tried to negotiate us taking her aging and sick cat with the house into the deal. She actually offered a small amount off if we agreed to let the cat stay so she wouldn’t have to haul it down to Florida with her. I guess that should have been a tip off as so what condition the hardwood floors under the blue shag carpeting were in, but foolish us, we were unpleasantly surpised by cat piss stains on them. At least we had the foresight to demand a professional cleaning crew come in before closing. This was requested after veiwing the state of the refrigerator upon home inspection. Ugh, other people’s mess is the worst.
The feeling you will have once everything is moved in and set up the way you want it will be worth all the elbow grease.
*Funny side note* When I was younger my siblings and I took turns doing the dishes. One night I was dealing with stubborn stuck on food and told my Mom I couldn’t clean it off. She said to use some elbow grease, and I asked where do we keep that?
One of my friends and I have a saying that was borne when we both replaced the baseboards in our houses. When we pulled baseboards off, we were positively MORTIFIED at how much dirt was behind them. We cleaned it up, put up new baseboards, and now we say, “well, they probably have dirt behind them again already, but AT LEAST ITS MY DIRT!” Ohhh we laugh so often about that. But it’s true…
I did what you’re doing nearly 2 years ago — also in Dallas. It is rewarding and exciting, but it also can be really really gross. So different when it’s YOURS though. Congrats again!
I think the mess is always shocking when you buy your first home. It’s because you’re so used to apartments/rentals, where you have to clean like crazy when you move out or you lose your deposit. I’ve spent many a late night scrubbing out window tracks with an old toothbrush and washing down walls. I’m sure it will shock me too when I buy my first “real” place. Good luck Fish! We all believe in you!
Oh, also Greased Lightning could become your best friend. Magic erasers are great but nothing cuts gross like spraying some Grease Lightning and letting it sit awhile! When I moved into an old (and I mean built in 1925 old) apartment the kitchen walls & ceiling were so nicotine and gas stained I thought I was going to have to paint. But a bottle later it was WHITE again! I still would have painted had it been a house I owned but I didn’t want to break my back for a rental.
Ooh, thanks for the recommendation!
So happy for you, and so glad that you have some time between to prepare the house! Yay!
We spent over six months fixing up that rental we bought two years ago- and I shudder to think what we will have to do when our current tenants move out.
Wait, working on projects on your lunch hours? I know you quit your job. . .do you already have another one? I was thinking you were going to get a week or two in between (which would have been handy for moving into a house, huh?).
I quit on Monday and started on Thursday. I couldn’t afford to take time off since starting a new job means taking the honeymoon unpaid. So, yes, it would have been handy, but impractical.