Another weekend, another ridiculous undertaking.
Friday night we went to home depot to buy 2 things:
1) New light switches to replace a couple of dimmers (easy- 10 minutes per switch).
2) A towel ring for our 1/2 bath.
And then we decided that the towel ring wouldn't match the faucet, so we bought a new faucet.
Saturday we decided that we would want to take down the wallpaper in the room and paint using some leftover paint from the bedrooms we painted. The room had wainscoting on the bottom 3 feet and flowery wallpaper the rest of the way to the ceiling.
I started removing the chair-rail above the wainscoting so that I could make sure we would be able to remove all of the wallpaper. And then all hell broke loose.
As it turned out, the chair-rails were glued on rather than nailed on. Gobs of glue were stuck to the top of the wainscoting. Plus- the wallpaper went under the wainscoting. Decision: wainscoting will have to come down. In order to do that, the pedestal sink and the tank to the toilet needed to be removed. So we got the toilet tank and sink off, and I started removing the wainscoting. Most of it was what I expected, but the piece behind the toilet didn't want to come off- and there was a hole for the water run to the toilet cut into it, meaning I had to cut it somehow. Tools available: hand saw, coping saw, hack saw, dremel, power reciprocating saw. None worked particularly well, and the reciprocating saw was downright scary, since I was holding the saw with one hand, and holding the wainscoting off the wall with the other.
After getting all of the wainscoting off, it was time to remove the wallpaper. Sadly, whoever put it up had NO IDEA what they were doing. We scored it all a ton, and went through about a gallon of DIF wallpaper remover, and we still had a ton of wallpaper that was bonded to the paper on the drywall. Soooo much of that paper came up. We also found a nice spot where there was no drywall- just a 2x6 nailed into the wall- about 18" long! So then I used about 10 pounds of drywall compound to cover all of the paperless drywall, the wood, and all the nailholes from the wainscoting. After letting it dry, I sanded, washed, and primed the walls. Tomorrow I'm going to make sure all of the walls are as smooth as we want them, and then I'll paint this week. This project turned into about $250 worth of materials. (Towel holder, new light fixture, faucet, toilet paper holder, drywall compound, paint roller etc).
Oh, and our dryer died. It won't tumble. It hums, but won't dry. I've opened it up, cleaned it out, but due to the non-user friendly steps necessary for disassembly, I can't actually get to the motor to see if it is the belt or the motor. So now 2 loads of laundry are hanging up in our basement and 2 dehumidifiers are running to try to get them dry. We have our new dryer coming on Wednesday. That was another $500 that we didn't want to spend.
So now I've worked myself silly this weekend and blew $750. If this is what home ownership is like, I'm going to be very broke very quickly. (It is a lot of fun, though- and we're excited about not having ugly ass wallpaper anymore!)
Friday night we went to home depot to buy 2 things:
1) New light switches to replace a couple of dimmers (easy- 10 minutes per switch).
2) A towel ring for our 1/2 bath.
And then we decided that the towel ring wouldn't match the faucet, so we bought a new faucet.
Saturday we decided that we would want to take down the wallpaper in the room and paint using some leftover paint from the bedrooms we painted. The room had wainscoting on the bottom 3 feet and flowery wallpaper the rest of the way to the ceiling.
I started removing the chair-rail above the wainscoting so that I could make sure we would be able to remove all of the wallpaper. And then all hell broke loose.
As it turned out, the chair-rails were glued on rather than nailed on. Gobs of glue were stuck to the top of the wainscoting. Plus- the wallpaper went under the wainscoting. Decision: wainscoting will have to come down. In order to do that, the pedestal sink and the tank to the toilet needed to be removed. So we got the toilet tank and sink off, and I started removing the wainscoting. Most of it was what I expected, but the piece behind the toilet didn't want to come off- and there was a hole for the water run to the toilet cut into it, meaning I had to cut it somehow. Tools available: hand saw, coping saw, hack saw, dremel, power reciprocating saw. None worked particularly well, and the reciprocating saw was downright scary, since I was holding the saw with one hand, and holding the wainscoting off the wall with the other.
After getting all of the wainscoting off, it was time to remove the wallpaper. Sadly, whoever put it up had NO IDEA what they were doing. We scored it all a ton, and went through about a gallon of DIF wallpaper remover, and we still had a ton of wallpaper that was bonded to the paper on the drywall. Soooo much of that paper came up. We also found a nice spot where there was no drywall- just a 2x6 nailed into the wall- about 18" long! So then I used about 10 pounds of drywall compound to cover all of the paperless drywall, the wood, and all the nailholes from the wainscoting. After letting it dry, I sanded, washed, and primed the walls. Tomorrow I'm going to make sure all of the walls are as smooth as we want them, and then I'll paint this week. This project turned into about $250 worth of materials. (Towel holder, new light fixture, faucet, toilet paper holder, drywall compound, paint roller etc).
Oh, and our dryer died. It won't tumble. It hums, but won't dry. I've opened it up, cleaned it out, but due to the non-user friendly steps necessary for disassembly, I can't actually get to the motor to see if it is the belt or the motor. So now 2 loads of laundry are hanging up in our basement and 2 dehumidifiers are running to try to get them dry. We have our new dryer coming on Wednesday. That was another $500 that we didn't want to spend.
So now I've worked myself silly this weekend and blew $750. If this is what home ownership is like, I'm going to be very broke very quickly. (It is a lot of fun, though- and we're excited about not having ugly ass wallpaper anymore!)
2 Comments:
At 8:57 PM,
Husband said…
don't worry, it does get better! Once you get things set up the way you want them, and stop "digging", you stop finding surprises you aren't expecting... Can't wait to see the place, sounds like you have done a ton of work on it already!
At 10:06 PM,
Sunshine said…
Ahhh, the joys of homeownership! Welcome to the club ;p Husband is right - things will settle down after living there for awhile. You can actually plan a project and budget for things. Did you not get a home warranty with this place? I know the one we got would have covered something like the dryer. Boo for having to buy a new one. Got your card in the mail today - thanks and congrats!
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