Do Fun Stuff

Everyone should buy this album and support the efforts for more research in SMS.  A long time anticipated album compiled by Ryan Marshall of Pacing the Panic Room.

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Guess who can finally shower

We can! The tiling of the bath surround is complete! Oh how I missed the glorious days of showering at our own home.

PS. We hate sanded grout.

Road block

We ran into a few problems recently. First was involving the sink we picked out at Overstock, it was out of stock. No problem! For seven dollars more we found it at Plumbers Surplus. After ordering it and waiting for its arrival, no sink, no email stating they shipped it, nothing except the bank statement saying they took our money. G checked the status on their website and it’s on backorder! Estimated ship date is May 13.

Problem number dos. Bullnose tile. We learned that subway tile comes with two bullnose options, the short side and long side. Traditionally when subway tiles are installed the tiles are placed vertically along the perimeter then you start the brick pattern. Hence using the long side bullnose. Both G & I decided we didn’t want to break up the brick pattern along the perimeter so we needed the bullnose on the short side. Little did we know people don’t “commonly” do this, so Lowes or Home Depot didn’t sell the bullnose we wanted. I found a local tile company that sold US Ceramic tile and had the color and bullnose we wanted. But we have to wait 3 weeks for it.

And since all things are thrown at you in threes, a leaking waste pipe. We love our life right now.

Life Without a Bathroom – Part 1

Our bathroom renovation has started full fledge, as in we are living at G’s parents because we are without a functional bathroom. The plan for the weekend was to get the new bathtub in, plan was a success. The success came later than hoped but we have a tub

Removing the bathtub and surround was a hassle. We tried to remove the bathfitter. Let us just say, once those puppies are glued down they are stuck on there for good. We tried prying it off and cutting the front side. Nothing. So we just quit and figured let’s leave it until we are ready to move on.

G and I started this weekend with removing all the excess plaster out of the bathroom . Demo of the old bathtub began. After my unsuccessful attempts at hitting it with a hammer G took over. He was able to knock of the porcelain coating and we found out that the old tub was cast iron. The cast iron was too much for a measly hammer. We had to move onto bigger and better things, the SLEDGE! After about a million blows we broke through the cast iron. After all that force, the bath fitter was still pretty much in tact! We were able to break the front of the cast iron tub enough for us to move it out from the wall. Now it has a nice resting place on our front porch. Classy!

The new tub install was defiantly harder than removing the old tub. Of course the drain holes didn’t line up so G had to notch out the floor joist to make room for the new plumbing.

The directions for the tub install suggested 2 ways of adhering the tub. 1) mortar or cement 2) construction adhesive on the 4 leveling boards. We choose to go with the mortar approach. We thought it would give us a more secure hold and sturdier tub base for our ginormous over weight dog. After carefully measuring where the leveling blocks were, adding shims to the leveling blocks we were ready to start mixing the mortar. 1 1/2 bags and a 2″ thick bed of mortar the tub was installed. Leveling it was a entirely different story. But it is done and in!

Sorry for the crappy iPhone picture!

It’s been awhile

Don’t worry, we are still alive and well.  Things haven’t been too exciting over at casa 207. We are in amidst a bathroom renovation or shall I say more at a stand still.  We haven’t done much to the house recently, except a few little things, change out switches, outlets and covers.  I, yes me, K even messed with the electrical! We have been trying to get the condo finished for its new renters.  It’s been a long tedious process!

This past weekend we made a trip to Ikea, got some curtains, new dishes ( I am in love!) and other odds and ends.  Found an oversized chair for the living room we are in love with, not so much the $650 price tag though. While in the area we stopped by Jungle Jim’s International Food Market.  One review describes it perfectly, “Trader Joe’s on steroids.”  Now if only the two were in Columbus we would be set!

We promise to update more regularly.  We are neglectful blog parents!

Adios Paneling

One of the things we dislike about the house is all the paneling, especially in the dining room.  It was so dark, accompanied by those black baseboards we knew it had to go.  Right after closing G grabbed his pry bar and got to it.

Goodbye gross paneling! Hello robin’s egg blue!

After removing all the paneling we found that gorgeous wall color underneath.  The walls were filled with liquid nails and nail holes.  G and I were just planning on doing a lot of sanding to remove the glue.  Thankfully my parents were out for the weekend and my Dad brought along his new tool, the Dremel Multi-max, accompanied by a scraper attachment.  Three replacement scrapers later the glue was mostly removed.   We filled in the holes, the cracks, G fixed the walls at the windows, and sanded our butts off several times. Well, more so G than me.

After we got everything sanded down for the millionth time it was time to prime the walls.  We went to Home Depot, (Shhh…) and at the suggestion of the paint specialist walked away with 2 gallons of primer and 2 gallons of paint, which we thought was more than what we would need.  Were we ever wrong.  The walls soaked up the primer like a ShamWow does soda.  After one coat of primer we noticed there were spots that still needed more attention. More spackle, more sanding, more prime. Repeat.  I think we ended up doing 3 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint.  I even did the “cutting in” work, which I believe, did a pretty darn good job!  I’d like to say because of the suggestion from Young House Love of using the Premium XL Tight Spots 2″ Angle Short Handle Brush.

The paint color we picked was Behr’s Ocean Pearl. We still have work to do in the room, fill the cracks of the crown molding with caulk, install baseboards, hang curtains, and fix the hole in the wall from the removal of the closet door.

Welcome home.

Meet our house:

Isn’t she charming?

We found this house after tons of searching and were almost at the point of giving up. The house was built in the 1940′s and we are its second owners. After seeing past the lack of style we pretty much fell in love with it.  The house has really good bones, a finished basement and a 2 car garage (Hooray for storage for the ever growing bike collection!).  We defiantly knew that the house had a ton of potential for making it our own.  The day we looked at the house G’s mom and I arrived first and there was a little black cat sitting in the yard.  I told her not to tell him because he would say something along the lines of “a bad sign because of the black cat” (someone’s very superstitious) She reassured me that black cat’s are actually good luck, oh, and it was raining.  Do they have a similar saying for houses like they do with weddings, if it rains on your wedding day it means the marriage will last… what about the house? We made an offer the next day but had to wait the weekend to find out if she accepted or not, nothing like having a chance for other offers to come in and sweep our dreams away. Turns out there were 3 other offers besides ours.  I guess it was “meant to be.”

Living Room- You got to love the color and those curtains… oh those curtains! Sorry Mom! You see that fancy little rectangle next to the door it is our mail slot. Ike stands next to it when he hears the mailman come.

Kitchen- Yes, that is basket wall border.

Dining room- Right after closing we started ripping down the paneling. More about that in the future.

Bedroom 1st floor

Bedroom 2nd floor

Laundry Room-  That is a hole in the ground where the washer drains into. It’s pretty intense.

Basement-  That fireplace, it’s fake with faux brick. The logs were lit from behind by a light that spun to give it the illusion of real fire.

Basement Bar

Stay tuned for updates on the dining room and our ongoing bathroom renovation.