Sorry for the lack of pics this week. I forgot to bring the camera out with us.
I feel like one of the contestants on "The Biggest Loser" this week. You know, the ones that lose 20 pounds the first 2 weeks, and then week 3 hits and they lose like 2 pounds. Of course they know that's just the way it goes, but it's still disappointing to them after all the progress they made so quickly.
On Saturday we went and rented an electric floor cleaner with some scrubby pads for it. This was a great way to get the liquified mastic up without all the initial mopping, and not quite as nasty as using a squeegee. It also helped buff out some of the spots where the mastic was especially heavy, and required some extra scrubbing to get up. It did, however, leave the floor EXTREMELY slipper once you had used the buffer on it. The buffer itself can be difficult to manage, and combined with floors as slick as an ice rink, the task becomes a little dangerous. I resolved this issue by standing on scrubby pads while using the machine...the extra traction really helped.
Erin and I also ventured to an open house one street over, met some of the neighbors there, and were very kindly invited to their homes to look at some of the work they have done. All three homes were quite lovely, and left us with plenty to think about.
Sunday was an "out" day for us. We drove over to Ikea to pick up a new vanity and sink. Then off to Home Depot and Lowes to grab some tile, tiling supplies, and new lumber. One of the things we ran across was an ultra-lightweight backer board for the tile. We are going to give it a shot and see how well it works. it's 1/2 inch thick, and was only about 80 cents a sheet more. We also grabbed some paint and painting supplies for the interior of the house. We'll lay down a fresh coat of white primer on all of the interior walls for now.
Like I said, visually, we didn't make much progress this weekend, and like the Biggest Loser contestants I feel a little let down. But I've also learned that not every change will be super-apparent. While we only lost 2 pounds, that puts our total at 22, and when looked at in that perspective, it feels pretty damn good.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The Joys of Bulk Trash
Stopped off at the house to do some light work in the evening, and noticed that some Bulk Trash divers had completely torn up our nice neat piles that we set out. I'm sure the neighbors love us right now.
Why on earth would you need to completely tear open a garbage bag to get to the soap dish inside? *sigh* Looks like tonight will be spent cleaning up other peoples mess.
Why on earth would you need to completely tear open a garbage bag to get to the soap dish inside? *sigh* Looks like tonight will be spent cleaning up other peoples mess.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Weekend 2
It's a bit hard to believe that we have only worked on the house for 4 days. We've had it for 10 but most of the work gets done on the weekends (of which we've had 2). Every day that we work though, we get 1 day closer to it being occupant ready.
This past weekend was spent doing some additional pickup of junk that was left in the house. Bulk trash time has started, so this is saving us a bit of money in that we don't have to rent a big dumpster. The city of Phoenix allows us to have an "SUV" sized pile of trash that they will come pick up. We have pretty much already used it.
Erin spent time doing demo on the bathroom this weekend. It's dirty, dirty work. It's pretty nasty behind all of the tile. We are going to have to replace the framing around the bathtub area. Water got behind the tile and damaged the wood pretty heavily. Erin's grandfather made a surprise visit and offered some advice.
A man named Bob also stopped by. He was apparently the owner of the house in the 70's. We invited him in to have a look around, and he pointed out everything that he had done to the house back then. He had done all sorts of lovely things like adding the stained glass doors to the partition in the kitchen, building the outdoor patio cover, and installing the bathroom tile that Erin's grandfather remarked "Could make a maggot gag".
Erin's Grandfather scopes out the bathroom
Mid Demo
I (along with a little help) spent the weekend tackling the remaining tile on the floors. A $60 rental of an electric floor scraper was easily worth the money. I did 3 times the work in 1/8 the time. This thing pulled up the linoleum tiles like a hot knife through butter. Once the tile was up, we used a soy based mastic remover to get up all the glue in the master bedroom. It was applied to the floors with a paint roller, and then we used a combination of squeegee, mop and bucket, and scrubby pads to remove the greasy slippery mess. I think the bedroom looks pretty damn good compared to how it started. we will probably need to do a quick second pass around the edges of the room where the mastic was especially heavy.
This machine is awesome.
After the remover was applied.
clean and drying.
So I had said that I hoped that we might learn some life lessons while we go through the process of redoing the house. This weeks lesson: "Never do yourself what an engineer has designed a machine to do for you."
This past weekend was spent doing some additional pickup of junk that was left in the house. Bulk trash time has started, so this is saving us a bit of money in that we don't have to rent a big dumpster. The city of Phoenix allows us to have an "SUV" sized pile of trash that they will come pick up. We have pretty much already used it.
Erin spent time doing demo on the bathroom this weekend. It's dirty, dirty work. It's pretty nasty behind all of the tile. We are going to have to replace the framing around the bathtub area. Water got behind the tile and damaged the wood pretty heavily. Erin's grandfather made a surprise visit and offered some advice.
A man named Bob also stopped by. He was apparently the owner of the house in the 70's. We invited him in to have a look around, and he pointed out everything that he had done to the house back then. He had done all sorts of lovely things like adding the stained glass doors to the partition in the kitchen, building the outdoor patio cover, and installing the bathroom tile that Erin's grandfather remarked "Could make a maggot gag".
Erin's Grandfather scopes out the bathroom
Mid Demo
I (along with a little help) spent the weekend tackling the remaining tile on the floors. A $60 rental of an electric floor scraper was easily worth the money. I did 3 times the work in 1/8 the time. This thing pulled up the linoleum tiles like a hot knife through butter. Once the tile was up, we used a soy based mastic remover to get up all the glue in the master bedroom. It was applied to the floors with a paint roller, and then we used a combination of squeegee, mop and bucket, and scrubby pads to remove the greasy slippery mess. I think the bedroom looks pretty damn good compared to how it started. we will probably need to do a quick second pass around the edges of the room where the mastic was especially heavy.
This machine is awesome.
After the remover was applied.
clean and drying.
So I had said that I hoped that we might learn some life lessons while we go through the process of redoing the house. This weeks lesson: "Never do yourself what an engineer has designed a machine to do for you."
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