Delays, Distractions, and Derailments

So, as of my last post, on 10 Feb, i meant to tell you all about our design ideas for the house renovation. And then life happened.

Delay: The floors need to stay torn up for the plumber... who has yet to arrive (all the plumbing is run under the house, which sits on beams laid across concrete piers in the ground). Dan persuaded the guy across the street (plumbing journeyman) to come help him, but he has been sick, so a little delay.

Bathroom and laundry room floors

Delay: The fuse box needs to be replaced with a circuit breaker box and the lines to garage need to be raised (extreme electrocution hazard for anyone over six feet)... and the electricians keep not showing up. Dan recently blew a fuse and now something-Dan-has-explained-to-me-that-i-still-don't-understand has happened to one of the outlets, which now requires an electrician. Have a new electrician lined up for 27 Feb. Little delay.

On the right, you can see the low-hanging wire:

Delay: One of the reasons we couldn't stay in the house when we got here was the lack of functioning HVAC. Nights are cold in the winter, and Dan does not do cold. A couple of companies came by to give estimates, but they kibitzed about our plans for the house more than anything else (more on that when i get around to a post on design). Got a new guy coming on the 28th of Feb... and getting him required several follow-up phone calls to schedule. Delay!

Dead.

Delay: One of the easiest and first things we did was order new windows. Several of the single pane windows are cracked, others have no latch or lock, a few have rotting casements and sills, nearly all lack so much glazing that it is a miracle the glass doesn't fall out in a light breeze. But these windows must be made to order and take time. They finally arrived, but the installers are backlogged. Delay!

Distraction: I finished cleaning the upper kitchen cabinets, though i did manage to knock a side of one out. Minor distraction and already fixed.

Distraction: Umm, and we got the wrong sized range hood... 6 inches too small. A return and an exchange. Minor distraction.

Distraction: The guys at the apartment building who weed whack the dusty puddles of grass growing in the parking-lot potholes offered to cut our grass every two weeks and pick up the large piles of leaves left by the tenants. Halfway through the leaf pick-up, they discovered that the leaves were incubating years' worth of large dog poop. They left saying that they would come finish later... By my calculation, that was two weeks ago, and i have since cleaned the rest of it myself ("poopie leaf bag" reference in the last post). Distractions. By the way, what is this stuff? I'm finding it all over the yard and see it in neighbors' yards. It looks like a sofa exploded.

Distraction: Don't want to buy a lawnmower for the short growing season here (and our short stay here), but we may have to at least get a weed whacker. "Every two weeks" mowing works for the front yard, which is bathed in hot southern sun all day, but the backyard garden area (overgrown with grass) and patches of grass in the rest of the yard, grow much faster. Distraction. 

Distraction: The weather is lovely and i want to get started in the yard. Just tidy it up, weed the beds, put drought-tolerant plants in the front yard, fill the never-see-sun spots in the back with shade-tolerant ones. I want to gather all the random rocks (some of which were used to fill in an old pond) and put them to some landscaping use. Grass can't go in until April... until then, maybe i can put the rocks in the dusty areas the feral cats use as a litter box. Distraction.

Derailment: Old dog poopie piles + feral cats and their time spent in (using) my yard + warm sunny days = Fleas.  All work on everything stopped while for several days we:

• Sprayed the apartment
• Spent hours per day at the laundrymat washing everything we own
• Vacuumed every surface
• Bug-bombed the house
• Sprayed insecticide in the yard (for which i'm going to hell since as soon as the spray brought the bugs to the surface, the neighborhood birds swooped in en masse and dined heartily, putting their young and eggs at risk)
• Poisoned the dog with a topical flea remedy
• Tortured the dog the following day when we put her in the tub and soaped her up to smother the greatly increased number of fleas on her -- during which time she peed blood from the additional stress the poison put on her already diseased and damaged kidneys (yes, i am going to hell)
• Started trapping feral cats to be relocated to the shelter (humane traps baited with sardines, except on Fridays and Saturdays because the shelter is closed Saturday and Sunday) - an ongoing distraction since the traps need to be baited, the cats transported (after 10:00am), and traps cleaned... five times a week.

Finally, after continuing to get flea-bit at the house, we called in the big guns. A professional killer: Rex the bug guy. In true Texas style, the two men began the bonding process by chatting about bass fishing, ex-wives, and boats. Eventually, they get to the matter at hand. The house and yards have now been so throughly saturated with poison, i fear for my own life.

So while we do boring stuff like continue to remove wallpaper (ugh), patch holes, and wait (oh, so patiently) for windows, and heat, and a circuit box, and a plumber... I'll give you an idea of what our options were for the renovation and what we are going with.

Wait! This just in...
The ease with which the living room wallpaper was removed was a fluke. Large swaths of the rest of the house have water/steamer-resistant "paper" that has defeated me. I *could* remove it all, but this 8' by 36" section was four hours worth of work... and you can see there is still some stubborn paper on the bottom left:

Looks like we might need to reassess our plan of attack; the strategy is to get the house done, livable, and rentable ASAP. What are our options at this point? Back to the drawing board?

Bonus! Two new borders and a new wallpaper:

*sigh*

A little progress

If destruction looks like progress, we got it going on in spades!

This is the dumpster this morning, after the bathroom gutting with a few bags of poopie leaf bags (another story) tossed in.

So, after some renters bugged out in the middle of the night 20 years ago, the disconnected water line for the ice maker flooded the kitchen. All of the stunning, original hardwood floor boards cupped. Dan drove from San Antonio where he was stationed at the time to San Angelo over a weekend to repair it. That involved cutting out as much as he could (around the cabinets) with a circular saw, tossing down some plywood, and covering it with linoleum tile. Here you can see he's pulled up the linoleum and cut out the plywood. Now, how to get the rest of the hardwood floor (2" to 3" around the cabinets) out so that we can install a level pergola floor?

Here Dan has cut all the way back to the base of the cabinets (with his new 

oscillating whatchamagig saw), ready for a new backer board and floating pergola floor. 

Also, there were apparently issues in the corner behind the fridge at a later date, and the "handy" man covered the damage with concrete patch and laid another layer of linoleum sheeting.  Here the bandaids have been removed to show the damage. Will shore that up before putting in new flooring.

After seeing the pecan shells, Dan was sensitive to finding evidence of a mice infestation. He found one... but, upon closer inspection with glasses, it was a steel wool pad.

 In the kitchen, Dan also cut out an access point for the plumbers to assess whether our design was possible or not -- design post coming soon. 

Here is the fun in the hall behind the bathroom/laundry room. Unchecked leaks for months! Beams supporting the house on joists were rotted, somewhat repaired, the plumbing workmanship barely passable. The house sunk almost 1/2 an inch here, cracking walls in the dining room.

After some clean up:

On the other side of that wall, in the bathroom/laundry room, the floor looks like this:

After some clean up:

 Here we (i really did sledge out part of it!) are tearing out the tub and 

exposing bathroom water damage. Halves:

Now quarters:

Destroyed in quarters because it really is that heavy:

Again, mister "handy" was not. Squishy floors, unsupported pipes--including a lead pipe splitting under it's own weight. Only the beginning of exposing the water damage under the tub -- the electrical lines in contact with a pipe rusting from water leaks! EEK!

 Then Dan ripped out the tile and all the subfloor so he could see the extent of the 

f'ed upness and discuss it with our plumber neighbor (handy, eh?). Clearly, when Dan installed the floor, he never intended it to come up:

While Dan is in Destructo mode, i'm washing the kitchen cabinets on the patio.

Reward -- Pork chop dinner!

 

Bonus: Three more wallpapers!

 

Next: Design discussions and random thoughts.

Taking a step back.

I promised a description of the kitchen and laundry floor damage. Dan identified several spots that need joist repairs, but we also need a plumber to assess the kitchen and bathrooms before we can go further on those projects. I'll save that for one post once we get a plumber.

For the next week or so, it will be all about finishing the bathroom demolition, continuing with the wallpaper removal (it's boring, which is why we are dabbling in other projects), and washing out the kitchen cabinets (the weather is warm and dry right now).

The stench faded from most of the house and seems localized by the front door... i hope that it is, in fact, NOT a man slathered in bear fat, wrapped in old raccoon fur trapped in the crawl space.

So let me tell you a little about the people here. We have great neighbors both at the house and the apartment.

Delores lives in the house to the right of ours. She lived there when Dan bought the house over 20 years ago and were happy to see him back. And i think it was more than just because his return meant no more renters for a while. She is very elegant. She recently retired; her sweetheart still works landscaping/garden care (handy, eh?) Delores has been very generous in helping us settle in. She brought a scented candle on the first day to help with the stench (i feel like that should be capitalized now). She's been able to refer us to services, like HVAC work and exterminators, and brought me some of my favorite pastries when she went up to Odessa!

Delores rents a small mother-in-law apartment to Betty and Nate. Nate is very affable and collects the kazillion pecans that fall from our trees. Sunday, he grilled... oh my, and it smelled so good! It reminded me of Belize on a Saturday. He called us over and gave us half a slab of ribs. The man makes some mighty fine ribs, i'm telling you. We only met Betty today and from afar and we were grungy, so we just waved.

The family directly across the street from us is Betty's sister, Edna, Edna's daughter Marian, Marian's two boys and two girls. We've only met Marian, and she is warm and cheerful.

Next door to them are Katie, Ed, their six children, and Katie's mom. The kitchen window in the apartment overlooks their back yard. We've only met once, but really enjoyed the chat. The kids are all very nice, and Katie thinks their daughter is interested in helping with some projects so that she can learn. Ed is also a plumber. Handy, eh?

The house to our left had renters until recently. Hooligans. The owner tidied the mess and put the house on the market. Looking forward to welcoming new neighbors.

We share a stoop with the apartment next to ours. Alfonzo often sits on a chair outside his front door to smoke and enjoy a beer. He is also a wonderful cook and has treated us to potatoes in spicy tomato sauce, chicken in gravy, chili colorado, and tortillas -- all home made. He lives with Virginia and takes care of her since she is ill. She is wonderfully sweet and charming. Unfortunately, today i learned she has been in the hospital since Saturday - i sent lemon cakes with Alfonzo to the hospital for her.

Upstairs are Tony, his wife, and their two boys (3 and 5 maybe?) Tony's here going to school at Goodfellow AFB and will soon transfer to a new assignment. His wife takes him to work in the morning, drops the older boy at (pre)kindergarten, and brings the younger back home. They are active boys who run and jump and giggle and laugh and play games with their parents. Neighbors at the other end of the building aren't so lucky... i often hear yelling and wailing from an apartment down there when i walk Haley (our little old bitch).

Now, across the alley from our front door is the back fence line of neighbor's house. They have several dogs--two Pomeranian types, one beagle-looking pup, and a larger mutt. They are outside 18 hours a day and bark at everything within five yards of the fence. It's like a doorbell. We always know when the other has returned from shopping, the house, walking Haley because our arrival is announced.

I think i'll be able to show you a little bathroom/kitchen progress next time.

Crap. The rodeo is in town.

No, really. Crap.

We were behind a truck with a rodeo trailer. The stuff that fell off was not mud. We drove through it. When you are in my car, near my car, or downwind of my car, all you'll smell is stable. Texas style.

The roaches we knew about:

The mice were a surprise. We found gobs of pecan shells gnawed and discarded under the cabinets when we were removing countertops and prepping the kitchen floor. They say get rid of the food source to get rid of the mice. We have three pecan trees. So we'll have to find another solution. On the other hand, we found no nests or other signs of mice in the 'hood, so maybe we have snakes?

Here's a little welcome note, we presume from the middle schoolers who are forced to march down our street after lunch when the weather is nice.

This is one of several window sills/casements that will have to be replaced:

Dog-chewed/scratched walls:

Finally. I discovered I've been moisturizing with hair conditioner for the past 12 weeks... no wonder my face felt sticky. This little refillable travel tube was conditioner, not "kiss my face" moisturizer.

I promised some info regarding progress. Removing the contact paper in the living room and the moon mural in the bedroom was hard. Instead, I kicked some counter ass and deepened my attack on the bathroom. 

Doesn't seem like much, but unscrewing the counter top from the cabinets was a bitch. The installer used flathead screws. This may not seem important until you are removing 43 of them, on your back, in bug infested cabinets. I worship this guy:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_F._Phillips

First I started separating the vinyl liner from the tile, so I could see what i was working with:

There was green tile (painted white):

And pink tile, painted white:

And rotted wall/wood where backerboard should have been:

Meanwhile, Dan was in exploratory mode to determine the extent of the floor/support damage from leaks in the kitchen and laundry. Something to talk about next time.

Prepared for anything.

Since we decided not to demo the walls, replace the electric, and put in new wall board, we won't need the mondo dumpster in the front yard. But it's there if we need it.

Delivery:

It'll still be handy for the bags and bags of wallpaper, the ceiling tiles from the kitchen and dining room, and the rug, linoleum, and tile from the living room, kitchen, and bathroom.

It's been 72 hours since the rug removal, and the stench is only somewhat abated. I'm trying to narrow down the source.

A respirator and holding my breath:

Filth under the foam:

Bastards GLUED the foam to the floor:

We took the upper cabinets out of the kitchen to been scrubbed and removed the panel board header filling in the gap above the cabinets.

Down comes the header:

Stove and dishwasher await cleaning and to be reinstalled 

once the kitchen floor project is done: 

Removing ceiling tile from the kitchen and dining room was a blast. Three different types of tile, some glued, some stapled (five to six staples on each side), and many glued and stapled. Next, i'll need to scrape the loose wallpaper and paint on the ceiling... then the spray-n-scrape the remainder. *sigh*

 Initial whack at pulling the tiles off (hoping they are not asbestos):

What's behind the droopy tile in the first photo 
(old leak fixed, dry wall needs to be replaced):

Tile, glue, and staple-free, ready for scraping:

Started a little demo in the bathroom to take a break from the ceiling:

These two things--coveralls and that toilet--leave one disinclined to use the facilities:

And i found a new wallpaper! 

Next, some nasties and some progress.