I got my Christmas decorations up with the help of my friend Apryl! (Check out her website, http://www.byapryl.com/; she does gorgeous wire trees!)
Tree in the window!!
I re-taped my heater unit upstairs and eventually got someone to come out and touch the ONE wire that was loose which fixed the whole d*mn thing.
Now I have heat! Muahaha!
Then it rained for daaaaaaaaaaaays and I learned that I have water-front property...
Two inches deep in places!
Complete with my own waterfall!
It was mesmerizing.
Christmas was ridiculously warm but the Parentals came over anyways to enjoy my first Christmas breakfast! Okay, it was more because I said if they wanted presents they had to come over but I also offered to cook breakfast for them.
It's been crazy 'round here. This is what my house looks like:
Welcome!
Let me tell you how it got this way...
So last you heard I got a sofa. There it is in the bottom right, covered and sat upon by Ma' D. (Those two dogs are seriously spoiled happy now that they're allowed on the sofa.)
Well, that following weekend we three Coopers drove up to Alabama to empty Twin Sis' storage unit (and to visit Chad the Brother!). We emptied a 5'x10' storage unit into a 5'x8' uHaul trailer and the Jeep. Management at the storage place wished us luck!
Did I mention it started to rain as a very cold cold-front moved in?
The immediate following Monday (like, the day after returning), I had movers come to bring my furniture to the house! And to help put my new washer and dryer inside (thanks Tiff!). Those things are heavy and I sure as heck didn't want to lift them up three whole steps into the house!
Works in Progress!
I hung up some artwork:
Hand painted by myself!
And made the bathroom presentable:
Secret: use real curtains for your shower curtain and newsprint for your window curtain! (Gives the guys something to read!)
All in preparation for hosting my first Thanksgiving!
Yay for food, family, and friends!
Now, if you did your math güd, then you may have come to the conclusion that I am a crazy person who moved into her house on a Monday and hosted Thanksgiving on Thursday that same week. And you would be correct! I couldn't have done it without my friends and family! I provided the house and sweet potato casserole, they brought everything else, hehe.
After all that craziness, now I am recovering and putting my new life together, one box at a time.
Kitchen is full of appliances!
Which leads me back to the beginning photo of my house being a mess! Lol. I'm planning to put up Christmas decorations this weekend. I'm really excited because I have a street-facing window that I'll be putting my tree in front of (or is it behind?)... I've always wanted that!!!!!
This weekend I actually spent Saturday at the house without Mom! Of course, I had my trusty animal companions but even they were fickle and refused to go outside with me given the rain. But I felt accomplished! My goals that day were to lay down the underlayment in the Middle Bedroom and start work on the crawlspace fencing.
For the middle room, Mom had already pulled up the carpet and prepped the floor for the next stage. Unfortunately, that next stage of laying the actual floors will have to wait for my budget to catch up. So, as a temporary solution, Mom came up with the idea to put down the underlayment to help block incoming moisture, which is a lot on a raised house, and then we'd cover it with rugs to protect said underlayment. That way the room is still usable and the floors are protected.
Again with the 'I shouldn't be allowed to do any of this work by myself.' I very nearly ruined the underlayment but was able to salvage my mistake in the end. But I won't tell you what I did so no one will ever know! So, I had half a roll of underlayment left over from flooring the Master Bedroom and Mom purchased a new roll. With those two I was able to completely underlay the Middle Bedroom with barely anything leftover! Perfect.
Since I did the underlayment on Saturday, we were able to lay down some rugs on Sunday. We also used a bit of extra fancy-fancy underlayment along the entry wall as A) the rugs didn't cover the whole room and B) the daybed is going on this wall so don't need to use up nice rug space underneath it. All I have to do is make sure there are good feet protectors under anything on that blue stuff to make sure it doesn't get punctured.
It's nice and cozy in here now!
My other goal was to start working on the crawlspace fencing. I needed something more secure than the vinyl siding that was placed along the crawlspace. So after extensive Home Depot researching, I found this green garden fencing which is a perfect cheap, short/mid-term solution which will be held in place by metal garden stakes. It may not be glamorous, but it's effective. I was able to get the driveway crawlspace covered. You barely notice it! Just a few tweaks to the end product are needed but I like it.
My other hair-brained idea for Saturday was to start digging a trench along my driveway to redirect the water coming from the downspouts. The driveway tends to flood in just one area but that water eventually creeps under the house so I need a solution to stop that from happening. The only problem with my idea of doing this on Saturday was that it was dark already, raining quite heavily, and I couldn't see the red-ant pile that I disturbed in my grass hacking. Note to all: multiple red-ant bites on your feet is torture and should be avoided at all costs.
Fortunately for me, some people are much smarter than me. I sent Twin-Sis and Mom an email with a whole bunch of edging options to figure a way to channel the water along the driveway to the street where the drains are. Twin-sis sends me back a rebuttal: use corrugated pipe! So I got to thinking, if I can connect the downspouts to the corrugated pipe and run it to the back of the yard where there's a culvert, I can significantly reduce the amount of water pooling on the driveway. Mom thinks I should still send it to the street but there's a fence gate in the way, otherwise I would. Will have to look at the fence to see if there are any options to go around it.
Sunday I was not alone! (Whew!) The three of us started the day by going pick up a free sofa! One of Mom's job's clients was replacing his sofa and so, knowing I was moving, offered to me if we could come get it. I was really afraid she'd gotten me some hideous 1990's style flowers and stripes thing. But not so! This is a really nice sofa! We had a bit of fun getting to the house though.... Note to all: mid-size SUV's do not have the same loading capabilities of old school Expeditions. That said, somehow we managed to shove a 30" x 42" x 90" sofa into Dad's Jeep. I think we were all impressed!
Baby got back...
After a bit of finagling and rearranging at the house, we got the sofa in and set up. I even had Dad test it out, for scientific purposes, to see at what height the TV should go as I have two different level stands. Fortunately, it seems my intended stand will be perfect. As soon as we got it cushioned, we could just feel the change in the house. For the first time the house felt like a home! That sofa is so comfy and inviting. It's actually the perfect color that I was looking for and, although I wanted an exposed wood frame, this style is just right for me and the space. I am soooo happy with this sofa and cannot wait to enjoy many many years with it.
I may cover it with vinyl to protect my nice sofa!
A few more notable things happened on Sunday! Dad reinstalled the front porch light that was damaged! He and Mom fixed it for me which was a lot cheaper than trying to replace it! The light looks good!
The left light is the "new" & improved fixture.
Dad also rehung (rehanged?) the bathroom closet doors! They were sticking in a few places and the screws for the decorative hinges were not strong enough to hold the heavy plywood doors. So Dad got there and sanded down the right spots and reinstalled the hinges with appropriate screws. Then I reinstalled the inside door catches. Looks so much better with the doors back up (and functioning!)!
If I didn't like the handles so much I'd totally go for some fun latches!
So, the house is really starting to come together. It's feeling more like a home. Now I need to decide how I'm going to move all my stuff over!
We had a great turnout for my first Halloween at the new house! The dogs were very curious about all the kids; Ma D even snuck herself out of the front door to do sniff everyone down!
Elvis didn't care for the experience but Ma D was curious!
My first Halloween!
We didn't spend much time at the house on Saturday as we had two parties to attend that night. But I was able to bring some returns back to Home Depot before going over; anything to get some money back in my account! Since we were short on time, I tried tackling a small project in the bathroom: caulking the upper tub surround. "Tried" being the operative word. In truth, I am terrible at caulking. I'd managed to mangle the job up so bad that Mom had to come behind me and wipe it all off to be started anew by her. What does that mean? That mean I loss my caulking job, one of the smaller jobs I probably should have been just fine doing on my own, lol!
What I lacked on Saturday, hopefully I made up for on Sunday. All three of us were back even with more rainy weather in place. Dad worked on getting the bedroom closet doors hung back up while Mom worked on some finishing touches and painting the trim in the bathroom.
Doors are up!
And I started at the interior of a kitchen cabinet for far too long. Why? Mostly because my brain refused to work. But otherwise, it was because I needed to clean up and line the cabinet under the sink and in the dishwasher space. Because the back of the cabinets are the original printed project panel type stuff, we (as in Mom) determined that it needed to be covered somehow. At first I was just going to paint the stuff but Mom convinced me that it would be better to use contact paper. I was like, alright, so I found this stuff. It looked nice and would compliment the global scheme I was going for.
It took me a few hours and a few peel-and-restarts but I finally got these two cabinets covered!
Boy, makes a huge difference! I did the under sink bottom first as it made sense in my head. I had to fill in a few holes from previous plumbing work but then this laid out pretty easily. I was really disappointed at first because the color of the wood was coming through the white of the contact paper and turned it blue, which was definitely not in my color scheme. But there was nothing I could do short of ripping it all out so I decided a blueish tinge was fine... The backs were not very easy to do since I had multiple cuts to make. I think I was able to line them up pretty well though. And I had the bright idea to use extra flooring cuts from the bedroom floor to make a base in the dishwasher part! This will probably be my trash can spot until I do get a dishwasher so it kinda finishes off the space.
The goal is to continue laying this contact paper on the backs of the cabinets and I'll use a non-stick, non-skid liner for the cabinet shelves. Perhaps after painting the shelves; I haven't decided. They definitely need some work but I can do that after I move in.
Speaking of moving in, that's going to happen soon! I'm hoping before Thanksgiving but I've also been hoping to move in before the end of September or before Halloween. So at this rate it'll happen when it happens!
I added some cute pumpkin lights to my front window! Okay, so they're not very visible in this picture but it's absolutely adorable in person. Tonight has been officially declared Trick-or-Treating night by Jefferson Parish in light of some severe storms expected tomorrow night. So now I get to rush home and pull out my bag of candy!
Happy Halloween!
So, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, the mysterious floor decision! As you saw in my last post, I had narrowed my flooring options to three boards! My choices were a light Lakeshore Pecan, reddish Alameda Hickory, and medium brown Saratoga Hickory. Initially I'd fallen in love with the Alameda Hickory. However, I've always wanted dark floors so the Saratoga Hickory appealed to me. But then that Lakeshore Pecan captivated my heart. I'd decided I was 70% for the Alameda Hickory but the 30% in Lakeshore Pecan made me hesitate with my decision. I got some great advice to "follow my gut" which eventually landed me with...
The Lakeshore Pecan!
Tadaa!
That 30% nagged at my gut and really does look good with my furniture. And I think it's befitting to select this board given that New Orleans is on the Lakeshore and we used to have a Pecan tree at our old house. It was meant to be and I am very happy with it!
Once decided upon and purchased, the boards sat in the house for a week before we were able to start with the installation. This was my first time participating in laying laminate boards; I'd missed out on my parents laying their floors. Fortunately they already had the experience, otherwise I would have been putting boards down haphazardly! Apparently a whole lot more thought goes into laying floors than just putting it down and cutting.
First you prep the door frames to make sure the boards and underlayment can fit flush against the wall.
Dad prepping the door frames
Then you roll out the underlayment! I had a bit of a time deciding on the underlayment. Everything I've read says you should not put a vapor barrier on a raised house subfloor. However, the floor instructions and the Home Depot associate said to use a vapor barrier. After speaking with my cousin, a former Home Depot flooring specialist, he confirmed that I should not use a vapor barrier and that the regular 2-in-1 underlayment would be fine. Good for me!
Two underlayment rows down!
After getting the underlayment down (which gets tricky around the closet!), Dad started with the floors! So, apparently you're supposed to have two cut boards on a row, and the smallest a piece can be is 16" long because of stability issues. I let Mom and Dad figure all the numbers out; I just told him how I wanted the boards staggered! Also, I'm terrible at connecting the boards. I struggled with that. Lesson of the day: don't let me help you install click-n-lock flooring!
The first two rows!
I don't have any more "in progress" photos. We put in about 4 more rows until calling it quits before having to do cuts around the closet. Also, there was a tropical storm raging outside! Okay, it was more like the remnants of Hurricane Patricia, but that was a hefty system that came through and my first experience of rain and tropical weather at the house. (Before then it hadn't rained in the city in over a month. In fact, it was the week after I bought the house.) It was kinda scary. We had to pick up things at the back of the house as that's the direction the wind was coming from and was driving the rain. Fortunately, the street or property never flooded, unlike my parents's neighborhood which flooded a mere two hours after we got home. I'm so proud of my little house for standing up to that bad weather!
My folks went back to the house on Dad's next day off to finish the floors. Either they couldn't wait for me or thought I was that bad at laying the floors so they went ahead without me, lol! So, I get home after work and discover this beautiful vision!
Whoa! Almost done!
They'd managed to lay the other 2/3 of the room in one day without my help which reinforces my belief that I am bad voodoo with laying floors. But how exciting is this! It looks great. Dad only had a few pieces left to cut; he's such a pro at this. Here's the video of Dad laying in the last piece!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Finished!
The photos really don't do it justice; they're a lot lighter and less reddish in person. All that's left to do is put in the baseboards, which Mom has been cleaning up for me. Once those are back in, I'll be able to move furniture in! That's pretty exciting in itself. I've opted not to paint the walls just yet (paint's expensive!!!) but fortunately these colors (the room is two-toned, Baked Scone and Cup of Cocoa) will work with my bedding and furniture so it'll stay brown for a few more months. I am no stranger to painting walls with furniture still in the room!
Here's a picture of Sully modeling the board next to the living room floors. I'm interested in continuing the Lakeshore Pecan into the rest of the bedrooms and the kitchen so I had to be sure it would go with the already existing floors. I think they're enough of a contrast to the red oak floors that it'll work well.
Sully almost blends in!
Well, that's what we've been up to with the house. This weekend we'll finish up some outstanding and high-priority projects. Then maybe next weekend I can rent a Uhaul and have a moving party! Well, maybe just Sunday; on Saturday there's a big Bama game where we get to beat LSU ;)
This weekend the focus at the house was the bathroom! This room is definitely high priority as it's the only bathroom in the house! Mom and I specifically focused on finishing the closet and the bathtub surround.
I had previously primed the linen closet so on Saturday Mom painted it with the final white wall paint. On Sunday I finished painting the shelves and put them in! The original closet color was a greyish green, making it look dark and dirty. The white paint really makes it look so much brighter and cleaner! Mom said she already has something to put in it: the first-aid kit!
The bathtub. Holy mold-y. It was easily the grossest part of the house. I mean, I just don't understand how you can let the bathtub get that disgusting. I sprayed the tile and tub down with Simple Green® Lime Scale Remover. This stuff is amazing. I've used other products from this company and I highly recommend them. In this case, I left it sit for about 20 minutes before getting there with a stiff scrub-brush and scrubbing the heck out of the whole thing! My goodness the amount of nasty dirty residue that was running down the tiles. I could see before my eyes the grout changing colors. It was an amazing almost spiritual experience for this clean-freak! Now, because of the damage along the tub/tile border I opted to fit a peel and stick caulk strip along the border. This is just a short-medium term solution until I decide down the road to remodel the bathroom.
I also made a big decision! Seeing as how we pulled up the carpet in the bedroom, I have to replace it with something before I can move in the furniture. So after agonizing over three completely different colored laminate wood floor boards, and lots of advice to follow my gut (which preferred a hamburger over this decision), I finally said Yes to the Floor. Here's a sneak peak of the boards I was choosing from, in their almost natural environment. The furniture, espresso colored, and bedspread, blue and white, are coming with me, so I needed to make the best decision to work with what I already own. I'll reveal my decision after we've laid it down!
And finally, it's almost Halloween! To celebrate, I put up some decorations :)
So to save myself some time and effort (because I'm lazy!), I'm just going to combine 4! before & after projects into one post! ! ! Also, it gets us a bit more caught up on what's going on!
1. Outdoor Outlet - before having the electrical work done, one item needed to be completed to pass inspections. Since it was just an outlet, I opted to tackle this project myself. It only took me an hour! Lol!
2. Hall Closet - Also potentially my pantry and general everything closet, the hall closet was kinda drab and dirty looking. Whoever thought it was a good idea to paint a small closet a puke color was not thinking right! Now, a fresh coat of white paint transforms the space into a bright space in which I won't fear to store my food!
3. Bathroom Vanity - The victim of mediocre MDF and a leaky faucet, the vanity interior was in bad shape. The bottom piece was stained and the MDF bubbled. Fortunately a few coats of Kilz primer cleaned it right up!
4. Master Bedroom - While I don't have a good Before photo, I can tell you that the carpet was nasty. I'm not a fan of carpet, and this stuff was a case-in-point why I dislike it. And vacuuming. If you have carpet, you have to care for it. These people didn't and had a dog to boot. So, we decided that it was better to rip up the carpet rather than leave it down and attempt to steam clean it. I'm kinda really liking this plywood flooring look!
I hope you've enjoyed the photos! I'll try to take better pictures and notes on the many before & afters I have ahead :)
I've had water for quite some time. Apparently there's no issue turning that on after they collect your deposit money... But gas and electric need to have vacancy inspections when those utilities have been off for more than six months, which mine was, and that involves lots of coordination and professional work. So on Monday the gas company and electric company came out to officially turn on those utilities! I tested out my gas stove and I am soooooo excited to start cooking on it! Now I'm teasing my folks to not turn on the lights because I have to pay for it now :)
This is a great milestone for me because it means I can really move forward with getting the house ready for me to move in. I've got some spaces ready to be primed. The kitchen cabinets are almost done (more on that later!). The plumbing and electrical work is done (definitely another post for this!).
Of course, it seems every time I go to the house something else comes to light that should/needs to happen. For instance, the carpets. I hate carpet and these are disgusting (smells like dog!) but I was going to attempt to just shampoo them to keep my costs down. Well, we've come to the conclusion that the carpet really does need to go however replacing it is not in the budget! Guess I'll just have plywood floors with rugs for a while :)
I must say, it wasn't easy getting to this point. I've lived with my parents for four and a half years, six months of those I spent in England with TwinSis. (You can read about my travel adventures at Flew da' Coop!) Due to this extended travel, it took me a while to get back on my feet and to find a good job. Despite this, I was determined that I would own my own house by my 30th birthday in August!
After a few botched attempts at house hunting on my own, and seeing two houses that I liked, I got a tip from a pair of good friends who suggested I contact a mutual friend of ours, David Madaffari. I will admit that I procrastinated and didn't call him immediately. Fate would have it that one of my best friends was talking with him and mentioned my house hunting. Next thing next, I brought David on as my agent!
Between David's inside listings and my (and Mom's) Zillow searches, I was able to narrow down a few options to go view one weekend. We visited one of my previously visited houses, at which I'd fallen in love with the kitchen. Unfortunately, I didn't love the termites. We walked through three different houses and passed in front of another, all of which I crossed off the list for multiple reasons. Before giving up entirely from the futility of finding a house (after one day), I pulled out my last playing card. There was a house that came up on the listings very late the previous night. Could we maybe go see it? I already knew the area; I have friends that live right down the street; I'd probably passed the house hundreds of times and never noticed it.
