The Money Pit, Part the Next

 It's been about 2 years since the last major house issue, so you know it's gotta be time for the next thing.  I can see you now, sitting there and wondering "what broke down now?" It's not that something broke.  It's that something failed.

To catch you up - we bought this house from my in-laws.  The house itself is 57 years old. They owned it for the first 35 years. Cool, right?  Well it would be if they had ever once, in the 35 years they lived in that house engaged in any form of home maintenance whatsoever.  I assumed that they had.  I mean, I grew up with parents who were constantly upgrading and fixing issues around the house. They never let issues fester in a home that they owned.  I assumed that everyone else did the same.  But, you know what they say about assumptions.  The last 22 years have been filled with misadventures as we have triaged problems and then attempted to fix long standing issues that have mushroomed into more because they weren't dealt with when they first appeared.

The latest problem is water in the basement.  A lot of water in the basement.  It's coming up under the floor in the basement, around the seams in the wall, and under the basement door.  We don't have a sump pump.  My in-laws left us with the parts for a sump pump, in a box.  I remember unpacking that box.  The parts were from something that my FIL dismantled in the 60's.  It had clearly been used before.

So.... water in the basement.  It's been a problem over the past 20 years.  Some  years are better than others, but this has been a very wet year.  It is no longer something we can ignore.  So, we are going to have someone come in and waterproof the basement.  

Step one is moving everything in the basement at least 5 feet away from the walls. Over the past month, I have been moving everything away from the walls.  This has necessitated me going through boxes, sifting through stuff I haven't sifted through before, and getting rid of the stuff we no longer need.  

As of this weekend, step one is now completed.  The permit has been approved and we have scheduled step two.

I really, really hope that this is the last of the legacy problems with the house. 

The Marathon - Home Improvement Addition

 If you’ve been around my blog for any length of time, you know that we bought our house from my in-laws. And they never moved their stuff out. We moved in, our stuff intermingled, and the long nightmare began. It’s been 17 years of cleaning and sorting. I’ve done cleaning challenges. I’ve gotten rid of 23 Things a Week for a couple of years. I’ve participated in the 40 bags in 40 days challenges. And still - there was always more stuff to clean and sort.

When we decided we needed to renovate the house. OK. With the black mold issues we kind of HAD to renovate the bathrooms. And because of the black mold - absolutely everything had to be out of the house.

We moved ourselves out of the house in July. We took what we had to live with us. We had to put the stuff we wanted to keep in storage. And then? There was everything else. For the next three months we slowly sifted through the everything else. 

The paper.  OMG. The paper. All told, we’ve taken over 100 boxes to shredding events around Central Maryland. That doesn’t count the boxes we’ve taken to the Paper Recycling Boxes around town.

We donated to the Habitat ReStore.

We recycled - a lot.

At the end, we hired a junk hauler who came and took the rest away.

Our house is finally empty.  FINALLY.

I suspect that we have many paper loving insects in our house that are slowly starving to death.

Seriously. 17 years. It’s been 17 years that we’ve been in that house and 17 years that I’ve been cleaning it out. And now? It’s finished. I feel like I’ve completed the worlds strangest and slowest marathon.

Cleaning the Basement

I published this wonderful little piece about the disaster that was this house when we moved in 15 years ago. We bought this house from out in-laws. Sadly, they never cleaned this place out. So here is a little piece that I wrote 11 years ago about our attempt to get one of several appliances out of the basement.

Cleaning out the basement in our house proved to be a greater challenge than we were anticipating.

Once we finally got up the nerve to go into the basement, we wanted to run back upstairs again, screaming for our very lives!  Armed with trash bags, rubber gloves, and dust masks, we went down and began sifting through the piles of stuff in the basement.  The mind-numbing job of cleaning out the basement blurs in my mind.  There is one particular episode that stands out very clear.

The basement had turned into a repository of dead and unused appliances.  As we cleared out the trash, we were stunned at what we found underneath.  One freezer, circa. 1959.  One free standing stove, circa. 1962.  Two concrete sinks- you know, the laundry tub kind that your washing machine drain into.  The sinks were broken, but they were still in the basement.  Two old microwaves: One from 1978, and another from 1988.  One old stereo, four old speakers, and two old, broken television sets.  And three dehumidifiers. Somehow, these appliances needed to get out of our basement.

We borrowed a heavy-duty hand truck from my brother-in-law, and we borrowed a pick up truck from a friend.  My husband took a Friday off work, and we were ready to run to the dump.

The first things we hauled out were easy.  The microwaves, the dehumidifiers, the televisions, and the old stereos.  We had no problems hauling them out of the basement and out to the truck.  We loaded up our first load and hauled it off to the dump.

The large items in our basement presented more of a challenge.  The stove and the freezer.  Due to the odd turn at the top and bottom of the interior stairs, we could not take them up through the house.  We were going to have to use the walk-up from the basement.  It’s a tight turn from the door up the stairs, but the basement door opens towards the concrete wall, so we thought we could get everything out through that door.  Husband managed to get the stove out and up the stairs with minimal help.  My job was to stand at ground level and hold the storm door on the basement open from above while he attempted to get the stove out and turned up the stairs.

And then came the big challenge.  The freezer.  That monster was heavy.  Much heavier than what we were anticipating.  We attempted to move it towards the door, but it was too heavy.  Husband pulled out the tool box and took the door off the freezer and hauled it out to the truck.

The freezer was still heavy, but with the two of us- we managed to get it onto the hand cart.  He took one handle of the cart, and I took the other and we carefully moved it over to the door.

Now, there’s a problem we hadn’t anticipated with the back door.  The door does not open all of the way.  When my in-laws finished the basement, they put a wall next to the basement door.  The interior door only opens up 90* from it’s closed position.  It doesn’t open all the way.  Try as we might, we could not get the freezer through that door.

We looked at each other, aghast.  Were we going to have to chop the freezer into tiny bits with the sledge hammer in order to get it out of the basement?  As we sat on the floor and pondered our options, we looked again at the door opening and the freezer.  It looked like we could get the freezer door through if we pulled the door off the hinges.  So, husband pulled out his tools and we took the basement door off the hinges and set it aside.

Once again, we wiggled and waggled the freezer, trying to figure out the magic angle to get it through the doorway.  No matter how we worked it, we could not get the freezer through that door.  It kept catching on the freezer hinges that had previously held the door.  Muttering unmentionable things under his breath, husband took the sledge hammer to the hinges on the freezer and pounded them into submission.  After 10 minutes, both hinges were pounded flat against the surface of the freezer.

Before we decided to attempt moving the freezer again, we took a good, hard look at the storm door.  It did not look as if we were going to be able to pull the freezer out of the basement without doing serious damage to the storm door.  Our biggest fear was that if we dropped the freezer while we were hauling it up the stairs, it would go hurtling down the steps and destroy the storm door.  Once again, out came the tool box and husband took the storm door off the hinges and gently set it inside, next to the door.

Muttering silently, we managed to pull the freezer out of the basement and turn it so that it was ready to be pulled up the stairs.

Heaven help us– we were not prepared for the weight of that freezer.  I’m not certain how much it weighed, but I am willing to say it weighed at least 300 pounds.  It took two of us over to pull that freezer up the basement steps.  We tilted the hand cart back until it would go back no more.  And then, we pulled it up a step.  Panting, we looked at each other.

“What do we do next?”  I asked.

“Slowly”  husband said, looking at the freezer and back at the 12 steps we still needed to haul the freezer up.  “Shift yourself up a step.  I’ll hold the freezer while you move.  Then you hold the freezer and I’ll shift up a step.”

We moved ourselves around and then, on the count of three, we pulled the freezer up the next step.  We continued on in this slow and painful manner until, two hours later we finally pulled the freezer up the last step and onto the level ground.  Too tired to even talk to each other, we pulled the freezer over to the truck and stopped dead.

We were going to have to lift that freezer over 2 feet at once to get it into the bed of the truck.

“I’ve got an idea” said the husband.  We live on the top of a hill, and the driveway slopes down steeply from the carport to street level.  He had the truck backed up the driveway.  He pulled the car part way down the driveway, until the back of the truck was only a little above the carport.  He then found a heavy duty piece of wood that he used as a ramp to cover the short distance from the carport pad to the truck bed.  We pulled the freezer up into the bed of the truck with minimal effort and tied it tightly down to the bed of the truck.  Husband left the freezer standing on the hand cart, and put blocks under the wheels of the cart.

Once we got to the dump, we used the same board to make a ramp from the truck bed to the ground, untied the freezer and pulled it down the ramp.  When the freezer was halfway down the ramp, the wood splintered, and the freezer came crashing down to the ground.

At that point, the staff took pity on us.  They took charge of the freezer and the splintered wooden ramp.  We put the remains of the hand truck in the back and headed back home.

But what about the basement doors?  We so desperately wanted that freezer out of our lives that we left the house with the basement doors sitting in the middle of the basement.  We finally got the doors back on and working after midnight.

Plumbing Woes, Redux

This seems to be the year of plumbing issues.

Look at those pretty new pipes!

In spite of replacing the toilet, the pipe, and the plumbing out of the house to the septic tank, we STILL had a leak in the basement.  After calling out 3 plumbers, we finally found a plumber who was able to find the source of the leak that was filling a large trash can every day.  Now there's a story - the first plumber is from the company we have our home warranty with.  He told us to replace the toilet.  Since the toilet was new, we called the company that redid the bathroom and installed the toilet.  They said "It's not our work, we're not fixing it."  The third plumber is the same one who replaced the line out of the house this summer.  The whole thing sounds a little like a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, doesn't it?


The third plumber spent an hour tracking back through the plumbing and finally found a hairline crack in the copper plumbing just below the toilet.  In addition to that leak, he found three other leaks.  (OH BOY!  More leaks!!!)


Keep in mind, it took over a month to find a plumber who was capable of finding this issue.  In the meantime, we were turning the toilets off when we flushed them, and then turning them back on again after we used them in order to fill the tank to flush the toilet.


Let me tell you, the fun never ends in this house.


Another $1,000 and I believe that we are leak free.  I've got my fingers crossed - because this house is full of copper plumbing, and I know that it can go at any moment in time.

In the meantime, I'd really like to put money into something other than plumbing.....

Bathroom Remodel (FINALLY!!!)

I have pictures!  I have stories!  It is finally done!!!  HOORAY!  Years after the walls fell out of the
shower, we finally have a bathroom that not only can we use - but we can be proud of it!

As a reminder - THIS is what happened to our bathroom, pictures and all.

After more years than I want to count, we finally got ourselves together enough to pay for the remodel!  HOORAY! 

We went to one of the local home improvement stores, and had them do the big jobs - tub and tub surround, vanity, toilet and flooring.)

Husband re-enameled the wall tile.

We replaced the baseboard heater.  (C'mon, these things were installed in 1970.  You can't convince me that they're any kind of efficient.  I've got 6 more to replace in this house.)

We replaced the light fixture over the sinks.

And painted the trim and the doors.  I really didn't want to be painting anything over new flooring!

Now, here we are.  A fully functional 2 bathroom house.  I still can't believe that all 5 of us were sharing the master bathroom for as long as we have been.   What a long time this repair has been in the making!  Below, you'll see the pictures of the bathroom.  It's quite the change, isn't it?  And the best part of all of this?  We were able to pay for this renovation out of pocket.  Yes, it's taken years, but we paid cash.  Husband was able to do much of the work himself.  As a result, we saved a LOT of money on the overall cost.

If you'll excuse me, I'm off to go take my first bath in almost 10 years!

Indoor Plumbing

Finally, finally, finally.  Our indoor plumbing is up and running!

The plumber had to come out and dig the line out from the house to the septic tank, and then replace the line from inside of the house, through the foundation wall, and out to the tank.  Our plumber showed up at 8 am this morning to begin work on what I thought was going to be a massive undertaking.  3 hours later, the line was replaced, water was running out of the house (instead of into the basement) and we are able to use our indoor pipes once again!

The bonus?  Our plumber upgraded the plumbing on that line to meet current building code!  Who-Hoo! One less thing to worry about!

Backhoe coming up the hill.

This is where the pipe failed.

 

Pipe is gone!  There's sunshine coming through that hole!

New pipe in place, cement around the hole.  Now to clean up that wall...

Pipe from the outside - house to the septic tank.

We lost the bush here. The pipe you see coming up from the ground is the clean out for the plumbing. Building code met.

Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes.
Ability to use indoor plumbing: priceless.

BTW: This is where I wanted to fix the landscaping in front of the house.  Do you remember my resolution to fix the landscaping here?  This is the spot!  I'm glad the backhoe took out the bush instead of us! (He wouldn't agree to take out the rest of them, though.)

We Have Running Water in the Kitchen!

As we join the continuing story of Ye Olde Broken Down House, we recall that our heroes had found a massive water link under the kitchen sink. Not only did they shut off the water to the kitchen, they also tarped off that side of the house so that mold removal & remediation could be done without endangering the residents of the house. 

Our heroes were able to replace the cabinet under the kitchen sink last weekend. This weekend, the challenge was to bring running water to the kitchen. 

Now, let us join the saga already in progress:

We found a sink that covered the existing hole in the counter. It looks funny when its not in the cabinet, doesn't it?

The sink was carefully lowered into place, and properly sealed to prevent water damage to the cabinet. 

Look at that back splash. Seriously, we really need to do something with it. It doesn't look good.  I also need to paint that windowsill.

The pretty new sink with the pretty new faucet!  You turn on the faucet, and water comes out & doesn't leak!

You know there's a catch here, right?  There's a leak in one of the new pipes. Husband is diligently tracking down the source of the leak. While I've kind of enjoyed the experiment, he really wants to be able to use the sink in the kitchen again!  (Picky, picky, picky)

I'm now eyeing that back splash. We really need to do something about that.  It did not weather the counter top lifting well. I also REALLY need to paint the windowsill.  I didn't realize how bad it was until I started looking at the pictures.

Hey, Property Brothers, we still have a massive problem in the form of our hallway bathroom that needs to be dealt with!  Seriously, that project has been a thorn in our sides for 8 years.  I'd love to have somebody who knows what they're doing step in to help us fix that!

Our budget for this home repair was $1500.

Here's what we've spent so far:

Kitchen Sink:  $316.94  (faucet was included with the sink)

Home Depot Run #1: $20.90

Home Depot Run #2: $15.78

Total This Week:  $353.62

Total Last Week:  $396.

Total to Date: $749.62

Other Posts in This Series:

Progress!

Progress of One Kind and Another

It Only Looks Like We're Not Making Progress
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Progress!!

This weekend was a great weekend for kitchen progress!  We were able to get a new cabinet in under the old countertop without breaking the old counter top!

I can't tell you how happy I am that this worked out so well! After pricing out counter tops at Lowe's and Home Depot on Friday, saving the existing counter top became a priority. 

Before we go any further, let me state that we have a laminate counter top over particle board, which gave the counter some "play" - or an ability to bend without breaking. This never would have worked with a solid surface counter. Even with this thought in mind, we were prepared for the whole counter to break while doing this. 

Husband began the day by measuring out the holes for the pipes, and cutting out the corresponding holes in the bottom of the cabinet. He measured out the interior height under the countertop and then cut the base of the cabinet until it was the correct height. (Power tools are crucial with these steps.)

You remember the mantra measure twice, cut once?  Husband measured 5 or 6 times before he cut anything.  Thankfully, we had no cases of  "cutter's regret!"

He then removed all of the screws holding the counter top to the cabinets, so that there would be some play with the counter - and the ability to lift it up, if need be - while trying to slide the cabinet in.  This is where he got very creative.  He used a car jack on either side of the opening - and a very large board - to push up the front edge of the counter while pushing the cabinet under.  This is the part we weren't certain would actually work!  We were expecting things to break here, so he cranked it up just enough to give him the under counter space he needed.

The jack and board combination.

Here, you can see the very scary bowing of the counter.

Slow & steady, he slid the cabinet in under the sink. The water under the sink has been turned off since we discovered the leak, but the hoses still have water in them, so he hung the hoses out of the kitchen window while sliding the cabinet through, and then he put a plastic trash bag in the bottom of the cabinet & put the hoses inside of a bucket, on top of the trash bag, just in case if there is any water that wants to sneak out. 

Hey presto - one very tense hour later, and the cabinet is in place!  

 Pushing the cabinet in just a little more....

That's all he got done this weekend. Next weekend he's going to install the sink, and then we'll call in the plumber to attach everything in here AND the plumbing in the shower in the hallway bathroom!!  Two birds with one stone!  Can you believe it?  We might actually have a working shower in the hallway bathroom by the end of the summer!!!!

Okay, one teensy problem, that backsplash along the back wall ended up coming loose.  Husband is going to pull it off and reattach it to the wall.  He's waiting for everything to settle down, and he wants the weight of the sink in the counter before he does it, though.

Hey, Property Brothers!  Take a look at what we just did!  We managed to save the kitchen counter and remaining cabinets and cut down on kitchen waste!  Only one cabinet was toasted - the rest is still working, and everything is level now.  BLISS!

So, Johnathan and Drew, the 2 not so young, not so photogenic homeowners could still use a little help with that hallway bathroom.  And then there's the matter of the master bathroom which became an official problem over the weekend..... 

This week didn't involve any expenditure of money - just expenditure of physical labor.

As of right now, we're still under our max budget of $1500.  We've spent $396 to date.

Next up?  Purchasing a sink and a faucet.

Other articles in this series:
Progress of One Kind and Another
It Only Looks Like We're Not Making Progress
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Progress of One Kind and Another

Our poor kitchen.  Pity me and my husband.  We've been locked out of the kitchen for close to a month now.  Granted, I'm not the world's best cook, and I don't always enjoy cooking, but when you can't get into your kitchen you really begin to miss it after a while.

We're making significant progress now.  The pace is picking up, and I am so very, very excited to see how fast things are moving along!

The sink has been removed from the counter.  We were both very surprised at the condition of BOTH of the joins underneath the drain in the sink.  Both were corroded.  The left sink bowl hadn't started leaking yet, but I honestly think it was only a matter of time before it started leaking.  The sink itself is only 12 years old, so I don't understand the corrosion and deterioration.  You might want to have a look at the pipes under your own sink and see how they're holding up. 

Wow, isn't it pretty?  We left the lower pipes, and more importantly the "U" bend, or trap intact.  This allows water to remain in pipe and keep sewer gas from coming back up into the house.

The view from the front. FYI - we DID turn the water in the sink OFF before we began taking this apart!  If we hadn't, we'd be dealing with even more water.

The sink and the faucet, out in the carport.   I'm also very concerned by the amount of mold and mildew behind the faucet and behind the drain/vent for the dishwasher.  I'm concerned that there is going to be damage to the drywall.  I guess we'll find out soon!

This week didn't involve any expenditure of money - just expenditure of physical labor.

As of right now, we're still under our max budget of $1500.  We've spent $396 to date.
The crucial moment is now.  The next bit hinges upon our ability to get the counter top out without breaking it....

I've stopped all mention of the Property Brothers around my husband.  He's feeling stress enough about this without my harping on how much faster/better Jonathan and Drew (and their crew of many tradespeople) could get this done.  Right now, it's just one guy with the help of his rather inept wife and overeager sons.


Other Posts in this Series:
It Only Looks Like We're Not Making Progress
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

It Only Looks Like We're Not Making Progress

We found a leak that had gone on for far too long under out kitchen sink last month.  Husband pulled out anything that was wet and biodegradable from that area and threw it out.  We put up a big plastic tarp on this side of the kitchen and walled it off from the rest of the house.  We have the dehumidifiers going in here constantly, but for the last week, no water has been in the reservoir. I'm taking that as a good sign.

All the wet wood is gone, gone, gone.

While this part of the kitchen has been drying out, we've pulled out all of our scouting skills, and have been cooking out on the grill and propane camp stove a lot.  It's been a challenge, and not in the way you might think.  Do you like bugs in your spaghetti?  The bugs like spaghetti.  They fly over the pot, get zapped by the hot steamy water and fall into the pot.  We've put a lid on the pot, lifting only to stir the spaghetti, but those little guys are wicked fast!  I keep telling myself it's extra protein....

We are very fortunate that the water damage didn't extend to the sub floor, into the basement, or under the hard tile floor.  (Although I really wouldn't mind getting rid of that tile.... but I am not ready to put out money for that expense at this time!)

We were out looking at cabinets this weekend.  Our biggest concern was that we were going to have to rip out all of the old cabinets and replace them.  I had hopes of pulling out just the damaged cabinet and re-using the existing cabinet doors and faces.

On our scouting expedition to Home Depot and Lowe's, we found an exact match for the cabinet size.  We might end up switching out the doors so that they match the existing cabinets, but the wood on the face is an exact match.  (Thank you to the previous owners (OK, my in-laws) for using stock cabinetry when they remodeled the kitchen!)

Hey look!  It's a new base cabinet!

We are going to replace the sink and faucet when we replace the bottom cabinet.  I have hopes of getting a garbage disposal installed, too.  And a plumber to make sure it's done correctly.   This part of the job will not be a "do it yourself" fix.

The bigger question includes the existing counter top.  We're going to  have to pull it up and out in order to replace that cabinet.  The counter tops themselves are in good shape.  I really don't want to replace them if we don't have to, because we've got a significant amount of counter top space - it's a long "L" shaped piece of counter right there, and then there's a very short "L" shaped piece of counter top on the opposite corner of the kitchen that I don't want to replace - because nothing is wrong with it - but if we replace that counter top on one side, we'll have to replace it on the other side, too.  The counters themselves are 12 years old.  I know they aren't the "hip" thing, but they work.  I guess we're going to have to wait and see if we can successfully remove the existing counter top without damaging it when we go to replace the base cabinet.

Middle child is back at work this week, but he'll be home for a couple of days next week.  He and husband are plotting to fix this on Monday and Tuesday of next week while he's home.  Another week without a kitchen.  Another week of "interesting" meals.  I see more salads in our future.

You know, I don't think the Property Brothers move this slowly.  I watch their shows all the time, and it's less than an hour from start to finish.  Obviously, we're doing something wrong!  I can mention this here, because I'm afraid that if I mention this, even jokingly to husband's face again, he's going to file for divorce....

Here's my Property Brothers moment:
Can the homeowners come in under their $1500 max renovation budget?

Total spent so far:
Lowe's, 6/12/13 $198
New Base Cabinet for under sink.

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 Spent to Date:  $396


Other Posts in this Series:
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

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!

One step forward, two steps back.

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!

The Hall Bathroom

So, this resolution has been on my list for 2 years now.  I keep saying that I am going to write about what happened in this bathroom.  Today is the day.  I am going to tell the tale of the hallway bathroom.

We bought this house from my in-laws 10 years ago.  They picked up what they wanted and moved out - leaving us with a house full of trash and a promise that they would "fix" everything once they moved out.   Our friends call this place "The Money Pit".  Since the day we've moved in here, we have thrown good money after bad, and spent money we don't have trying to make the place liveable.

Anyway - onto the bathroom fiasco.  This particular disaster began several years ago - we'd been in the house a little over a year at the time.

We have a 2 bathroom house,  1 bath in the master bedroom, and 1 in the hallway, that the kids share.

We were sitting in the kitchen one evening, eating dinner, when we heard a horrific crash from the back of the house.  We rushed back to the bathroom to find that the walls in the shower had collapsed.  Thank heavens none of the kids were in there at the time!

This is what the bathroom looked like:

Tiles in the tub.

At first, we thought "all" we were going to have to do was put a new tile backer on the wall and then put the tile back up.  Wrong.

Mold - scary black mold and mildew had built up between the walls, under the tile.  This is an idea of just how bad it was.  That wall that you see is the wall to daughter's room.

 

So, we moved daughter out of her room, sealed off that end of the house, and had contractors come in to remove the affected drywall and do mold remediation.  Once it was declared safe, husband decided that he could finish everything himself & save some money.

He slowly got the drywall back up in her room.  Within 12 months, she was able to move back into her bedroom.  (During this year, she had her bedroom set up in the dining room.)

But, the bathroom was a different story.

He replaced the drywall - but he never took the yellow tile off that the contractors said did not need to come off.  We put in a new tub - but the plumbing doesn't line up, and he can't figure out how to fix the plumbing so that it works.  There's no tile backer around the tub yet.  He keeps saying he's going to put "something" up, but it hasn't happened yet.  For several years now, we've had a non-functioning bathroom.  Oh, wait - the toilet works - and the sinks - but we have 5 people sharing 1 shower right now.  (I know, first world problems, right?)

Pictures of the bathroom in its current state:

That's styrofoam between the studs.  It's to replace the fiberglass insulation.

A view from the sink area.  Don't you just love all that yellow tile?

You see the solution that failed - adding a row of white tile on top of the yellow tile to seal the raw edge.

Moral of the story: NEVER buy a house from your in-laws.  (Do you think they've helped us fix anything in here?  Seriously?  If they had, don't you think we'd have that bathroom finished by now?)

I do have affiliate links in several of my posts. From now until we fix that bathroom, any and all money raised through my affiliate links is going to go into the "remodel the hallway bathroom" fund.  So, for those of you who click on a link, or buy something from one of my links, all I can say is:  THANK YOU!!!