Have you ever watched the Property Brothers? You know, Johnathan and Drew talk some young, starry eyed couple into buying an old broken down home and then they remodel it for them. We watch Property Brothers a lot, and husband and I not only critique the houses, but we also criticize the choices the young homeowners make.
You see, we made one of those bad choices ourselves 10 years ago, but we didn't have Jonathan to fix things for us. We just had the two of us, and the years of experience in home remodeling and renovation that we have picked up volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, Rebuilding Together and Christmas in April. We were young and dumb. We thought we had the skill and know how to fix this house up. We were buying it from our in-laws. Little did we know that the house was suffering from 30+ years of neglect when we bought it.
Over the years, I've shared stories with you about the ongoing attempts to fix the things that are horrifically wrong with this house. It's been 10 years of non-stop surprises. Our friends not so jokingly call this house "The Money Pit".
I thought we were mostly done with the biggest disasters. As far as I knew, we only had the hallway bathroom left to finish. I was setting aside money to get someone to come in and fix it over Christmas break this year.
Sunday morning, we woke up to find a puddle of water on the floor under the kitchen sink. We cleaned up the puddle and headed off to church. After church, husband and I cleaned out under the kitchen sink to see if we could figure out where the water was coming from. We started cringing and shuddering as we pulled out water logged paper towels and boxes covered in black mold. We pulled the trash can close and shuttled everything directly into the trash bag. Underneath it all, when we hit the bottom of this cabinet, we found this. Can you see the damage to the back wall of the cabinet? Can you tell that the bottom of the cabinet has rotted through? Yep, Lord have mercy on us, this is going to be an ugly, ugly fix.
Closer inspection revealed where the leak was occurring. Just below the sink, where the drain joins the pipe. You can see the black mold spilling down the side of the pipe. It's all I can do not to throw up just looking at the picture. And the damage along the back, next to the wall. *blech*
That's a dangerous kind of mold, too. This is going to take some serious work to remediate. We can't take chances on any more of this getting loose in the house.
We spent Sunday cleaning out the kitchen - we pulled out everything we are going to need in order to cook for the however many weeks until we get this cleaned out. We pulled out the dehumidifiers, we pulled out the air filters, and we pulled out the microwave, toaster oven, and crock pots. The microwave, toaster, and crock pots have now set up shop in the dining room. We turned the refrigerator so that it is outside of the tarp, and we have access to it through the "other" side of the kitchen. Everything else has been set up in the kitchen.
Before we even began demolition on this, we had to prep the area. Tarps were purchased, mold filter face masks, trash bags,bleach, and heavy duty latex gloves were purchased. The area had to be sealed off, and the ventilation to that part of this house had to be shut off before we even began to deal with the mold removal itself.
Part of this repair is realizing that we will not have access to the kitchen door. The one that leads directly out to the carport. We don't often use the front door, so we went to open the door so that we could make sure we had a key that worked in the doorknob. If you read yesterday's post, you know where this is going. We went to open the door and the doorknob fell out in our hands. That door knob is original to the house - 1970 - and it wasn't going back together again. So, first things first. We had to replace the door knob.... (This is beginning to sound a lot like the children's book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie", isn't it?) After we replaced the doorknob, I took a good look at the door and realized that I probably should have given the entire thing a coat of paint before we installed the doorknob. We do have more pressing issues on our mind, though.
Now that we had outdoor access, and a way to secure the house, we were ready to tarp the kitchen off from the rest of the house.
Until this is finished, we'll have no access to the kitchen sink, the dishwasher, or the stove. Good thing we're a scouting family, or the challenges of eating without access to the stove might very well be an insurmountable problem when working with a budget that is this tight. We're in for an interesting few weeks of meals! On the bright side - since we won't be using the stove or the oven, our electricity bills should be lower!
So, you know that time in the Property Brothers where they show the reno budget and show you the prices of everything? Yeah, that's where we are now...
So, with a $1500 reno budget, can these homeowners fix this mess?
Money spent so far:
Home Depot, 5/29/16 $198
doorknob, 2 mold approved face masks, 1 large (10' x 25') tarp, reusable latex gloves with extra long cuffs, bleach, tarp tape, small sheet of plywood, propane tank for the grill.
Total to Date: $198
Jonathan and Drew - if you're reading this - 2 not so starry eyed, not so young people looking to fix the house that's been in the same family for 46 years could use some help!
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