Moving Day

Moving day is tomorrow! Keep your fingers crossed for us that U-Haul has our truck as promised, that we can find a place to park the truck near the house, and that we don't pass out from the heat! Luckily, we have many wonderful friends helping us. Can't wait to be living in just one place!

The Scary and The Ugly

Being the smart readers that you are, I'm sure that you have all surmised that the sellers of our house were not exactly the best housekeepers. While we know that, with some time and TLC, our house will be even more than we hoped for, right now it is definitely a gem dulled by years of neglect. In many ways, this worked to our advantage as buyers, as it's pretty clear that this great house in a fantastic location was overlooked due to its lack of updates and cleanliness, giving us the opportunity to snatch it up at a great price. (Had this house been in the same condition as the others on our block, we never would have been able to afford it.)

While we've haven't found anything yet at the house that we don't feel equipped to deal with, I continue to be surprised and amazed at some of the things I uncover only because I can't imagine living there with things being in the state that they are. As previously mentioned, there was the scary bathroom, the urine-soaked carpet, and the greasy kitchen. While I managed to get the stove pretty clean, the dishwasher and the fridge have been another story.

We've known from the very beginning that the dishwasher would have to be replaced. When we opened it up before we bought the house, there were literally parts of it inside that were coated in black. Black! Sadly (and scarily), this was not due to the fact that they were not using it, as there were dishes sitting inside of it. I cannot begin to imagine how anyone could believe that something put inside a black dishwasher would come out clean. Needless to say, we knew right away that it would have to go. Thankfully, Dad Frank came to the rescue and offered to buy us a new one, so we went and picked out one on Monday. I can't wait to have it installed!

Early on, we also knew that we wanted to get a new fridge. It was apparent just by looking at the one in the kitchen that it was old and on its last leg, so we parked some money for a fridge purchase. Tuesday night, we went shopping around and came back to the house to do some final measurements. We opened the door of the current fridge just to see how far it swung out, and Oh. my. god. The smell was so bad that I ran away and nearly vomited. I understand that the fridge has been unplugged for several days, but I still can't imagine that to be adequate justification for it making the entire kitchen smell like rotten milk within about 45 seconds. It was horrible, horrible, horrible. Under NO circumstances will that fridge ever be opened again, and thank goodness a new one is on its way soon!

Having already sufficiently grossed most of you out, I will spare you further trauma by sharing any photos (and thank goodness blogs do not have a "smell" feature). Needless to say, I continue to be horrified at the thought of anyone not bothering to clean up or deal with some of the things we are finding in our house, especially since there were four children living there!

I realize I've been sharing a lot of less-than-pleasant details about the state of our house, so I can only hope that you haven't just begun to imagine it as the most disgusting place on Earth. :) My goal here is to share everything: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the scary, and right now, as we are getting ready to move in tomorrow, the scary things are definitely the first ones getting our attention. But soon we'll be past the scary, and hopefully one day the ugly and the scary will be no more than distant memories and pictures on a blog. Earlier this week, Dan and I were talking about how sad it is that the house has been neglected in so many ways, and how we can't wait to slowly bring it back to life. Don't worry, darling house! We are coming to rescue you!

Weekend Recap: Dan vs. Carpet

One of the first things Dan and I knew that we would want to do is rip up the green carpet. Not knowing what was lying underneath, we were planning to put this off for a bit until we knew we would have more time to deal with whatever we found. But when we discovered that the carpet in both of the rooms smelled like pee (eww), it had to come out right away! (The smell was indeed confirmed to be urine when Dan discovered pee stains on the carpet and padding underneath. This is yet another lovely representation of the seller's unwavering devotion to keeping a clean and unsmelly house.)

Dan massacres the carpet

Getting up tack strips

Dan victorious over the mountain of slayed carpet

We were really hoping that, underneath the carpet, we would find unpainted wood floors. Unfortunately, it looks like all of the floors upstairs were painted. In fact, it appears that Cal (or C.A.L.), back in 1982, got so excited about painting the floors that he just HAD to paint his name. I find this to be simultaneously funny and a bit creepy.

As you can see, whoever painted this floor must have just decided to paint right around the space where they likely had a rug. As you can also see, there are at least two coats of paint here (as well as quite a bit of dirt and grit). It seems pretty clear, thanks to the secret floor message, that the paint layer on top is from 1982. While we don't know how old the other paint is, my guess is that it is from before 1978, which means that, if we want to sand, refinish, or do anything else to the floors, we are likely going to have to worry about lead.

So. . . on Monday we're having a lead tester come to check it out. If the floors have lead paint (which we suspect that they do), we'll probably either have to repaint the floors without sanding them (which will mean they are freshly painted but uneven from the different layers) or we'll just carpet the upstairs. Our long-term goal is to have them refinished, but I doubt that's in the budget right now. At least, after the lead test, we'll know if lead is something we'll need to worry about when we eventually do hire someone for refinishing.

We've left the carpet down in the upstairs hallway and on the stairs for now, but we suspect that's also painted. We figured we'd stop for now and just see what the tester finds. We aren't terribly surprised by any of this, but there was still a little part of us that was hoping the floors upstairs might be unpainted! Oh, well. Onward we go. . . .

Weekend Recap: Handy Dan

Sunday morning, we started with the breakfast of champions. . .

and then it was right to work.

Dan took care of a number of little things around the house that we wanted to get done before moving in.

Adding outlet covers

Removing shelving (which unfortunately leaves no room for a rod) from one of the master bedroom closets

Changing out the entrance doorknobs/locks

One of the final projects for the bathroom was installing a new toilet seat, which only cost about $20 and instantly made our toilet look new!

Having a Moaning Myrtle moment with the new toilet seat! Hopefully it will be a long time before I have my head in the toilet again. :)

In case it looks like I'm doing nothing on Sunday but making goofy pictures with toilet seats, just imagine me cleaning the kitchen. In fact, for the next week, just imagine me cleaning the kitchen, because it's likely to take that long. Good thing I'm not the one who cooks, because once I finally finish cleaning the kitchen, I might never want to step in there again.

Next up in the weekend recap: Dan vs. The Carpet. Stay tuned!

Weekend Recap: Goodbye, Ickiness

After the closing, Dan and I gave ourselves time on Friday to have a celebratory meal followed by an evening of relaxation. Starting Saturday morning, it was time to get down to work!

Our first task: cleaning. And oh boy, was there cleaning to be done. I realize we all have different standards for what constitutes a clean house, but there were some definitely scary tasks to be tackled.

First stop: the upstairs bath. Dan, being the sweet husband that he is, said that he would tackle the bathroom because he knew how much it scared me. And it's true. I was pretty terrified by the black/orange parts of the shower and tub and the toilet that contained an unmentionable number of horrors. Dan to the rescue!

I failed to get an after picture, but let me assure that Dan did a spectacular job. I thought we might have to refit the bath before I would be willing to put even a toe in it, but he really came through. And with the help of a lot of chemicals, a pumice stone, and a lot of scrubbing, Dan has made the toilet shiny and new again. Bathroom terrors, begone!

My task: the kitchen. First up: the stove. The stove was absolutely covered in grease (which also spread to the cabinets, and the counters, and the walls. . . ). The inside of the hood was one big orange, greasy nightmare. In this picture you can see some of the orange grease on the hood, the walls, and the big stain on the stove. . . and that is just what you can see in a photo from several feet away. I was literally slipping on the floor from the grease. It was years of accumulated nastiness.

Cleaning the stove and the areas around it took me no less than four hours. With the power of Krud Krutter, Magic Erasers, and the most elbow grease I've ever put into one object, I finally got the stove looking like something I would be willing to cook on. We will need to put some touch-up paint on the stove, I need to tackle the burners a bit more, and the walls need some paint, but overall it's looking much, much better.

Aside from a trip to Home Depot, this was pretty much our entire day on Saturday. These two cleaning projects took hours, and we were both bone-tired by the end of the day, but having a place we can a) comfortably shower in and b) comfortably cook in was definitely at the top of our priority list before we move in on July 30th!

We Are Homeowners!

Here we are outside our house (in the absolutely blistering summer heat) just after closing. See posts below for pictures of our new place! (My apologies to readers, but I failed to take a picture of everyone's favorite feature of our house: the dark green toilet in the basement bathroom. I'm sure you'll have future opportunities to see it in all of its hunter green splendor.)

Exterior

Welcome to our house on Front Street, built in 1928 and right in the heart of Media, where we can walk to just about everything: Trader Joe's, library, post office, train station, trolley, shops, restaurants, coffee spots, salon, etc. The location is one of the very best things about our new place!

Standing in one of my favorite places in the house--on the enclosed front porch!

More of the porch. If you look out the window, you can see the elementary school right across the street.

Back deck

Back yard, complete with shade from a few lovely trees!

Living, Dining, Stairwell

View when you walk in the front door; you walk into the living room, with the dining room on your left and the kitchen at back

Living room. Refinishing the floors will be a long-term project.

Dining room

We are hoping to part with this green carpet as soon as possible.

Kitchen

Kitchen, aka the room I'm not sure yet what we're going to do with. We think we'll be doing some painting of the cabinets and perhaps replacing counter tops; new appliances are also most likely going to be in order. One day, we'll gut the whole thing and start over, but that will probably be a long time from now.

If you look to the left of the stove, you can see one of the lovely cabinets with an unattached door. You can also see that the stove is kind of ick. Apparently the sellers liked their grease, because right now the house smells like old grease (yuck).

It's hard to see here, but the sink has a little window box above it--a perfect place for herbs!

Another missing cabinet door (with a missing drawer to boot). The little picture window there actually used to be an exterior window (the kitchen is an addition). Right now it just looks over the stairs into the basement, which is weird.

Eat-in area with skylight. Back door leading to the deck. Am not a huge fan of the kitchen floors, but we'll probably be living with them for some time (that's what rugs are for, right?).

Upstairs Beds & Bath

Master bedroom. This room gets amazing light, and it has two closets (finally, one for myself!). On the downside, the closets have no doors. And oh how I wish they had never painted the floors (which we will just repaint for now).

Hallway on the second floor, with the bath the first door on the left followed by the two additional bedrooms. As you will see, green--particularly in the form of ugly carpet--is a common theme.

The upstairs bath. On the surface, it's not too bad, but the vanity isn't really attached to the wall and there is some SCARY stuff going on in that bathtub. On the upside, the mirror is nice!

Second bedroom. Lovely green carpet theme continues. It's hard to tell here, but the walls here are paneling (which will get changed eventually, but I have a feeling the walls will be paneled for at least few years).

Back bedroom. The arched window and bench (with a little toy box inside!) is one of my favorite things in the house. More green carpet. Unfortunately, this room only has ONE outlet (one of the joys of an older house.)

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day and we are. . .

excited and a bit nervous!

ecstatic with a small dose terrified!

Really, though, we are so happy that the big day is almost upon us (and so relieved that it is finally here, as we are two degrees shy of completely exhausted). Settlement is tomorrow at 2:30. . . please keep your fingers crossed for us that everything goes without a hitch!

Welcome

Dan and I close on our new house on Front Street this Friday (yay!). After many requests for house pictures, we've decided the easiest way to share photos--and to share stories of our home adventures--is to create a blog. We have lots of big plans for our house, and lots of plans for do-it-yourself projects, which will inevitably lead to some mishaps and funny stories as well as (hopefully) some nice transformations. Since we know many of our readers are far away and won't be able to see our place in person, we hope you'll use this blog as an opportunity to cozy on up, take a seat, and "visit" us in our new home!

We hope to post some house pics on Friday or Saturday. Until then, we'll be doing a lot of this:

(And, just for the record, I will NOT miss that purple carpet.) Stay tuned!