We Can Fix That

That was our mantra when touring the condo we currently own prior to its purchase. It was our first home purchase. I loved it right away. The huge south facing sliding doors/windows leading out to the deck, the high ceilings with big dark wood beams, upgraded kitchen, tons of light, great view (at least for what you could get it our price range) and a perfect layout. Sounds great right? Let’s just say there were some things that got overlooked in he excitement of making our first offer. Never mind all the stuff that we made the bank fix prior to moving in (it was a foreclosure). We looked at a lot of the issues with rose colored glasses.

“Oh. We can fix that.” “That’s not that big of a deal.” This is rarely actually true. It’s usually a big deal. It’s usually more work than you could ever imagine. What started as the simple task of painting the great room turned into replacing the lower three feet of plaster, drywalling that section, and three or four weeks later, painting the great room. Taking our a propane stove and it’s associated faux rock hearth? Giant pain in the ass. Not a weekend project. But I’m pleased to say, aside from a $10,000 bathroom remodel (new showers/tub, new tile, finishing work in both bathrooms), we’re on the home stretch in terms of things that we can’t live with.

This last project is the Master bedroom. It was important to get this one done prior to the kiddo’s arrival for many reasons. Any of you remodeled anything with babies around? How did that go? Wish you had a sitter or a nanny, or even a well trained St. Bernard to keep the little booger out of the drywall compound? I bet. And we needed a place to sleep while we remodeled and with the holidays and houseguests, we’re kind of down to the nursery at this point. Because even though I said this would be done by thanksgiving, that was crazy ambitious given that we’re both working, and I’m growing a human, which makes me tired a little, and there’s some stuff I shouldn’t do a lot of like breathe in weird fumes and dust and bend over a lot. So Jon picked up a lot of tasks.

This, I have to admit, was another one of those projects where I said the words, “it won’t be that hard.” I thought it was pretty straightforward. Pull the faux wood panelling, scrape the popcorn ceiling, put up drywall, finishing work and trim, done. I neglected, much like I did when we bought the place, a few critical steps. Here’s how it’s really gone do far. Empty out entire room. Set up sleeping quarters in nursery. Pull faux wood panelling. Painstakingly pull every tiny little finishing nail. If five are good 55 are even better. Pull trim and try to salvage. Break brittle trim. It was put up in the 1960s. Increase project budget to include new trim. Cut demolished panelling into dumpster sized pieces. Dump. Scrape popcorn ceiling. This job sucks. It took two partial days. Motivation was an issue. But it’s done. Hang drywall. Mud and tape drywall. Caulk between drywall and ceiling. Run out of caulk. Go buy more. Finish caulking. Let dry. Start painting.

That’s finally where we are today. Finish painting. Thank goodness! Believe it or not, that’s the easy part. The goal was to finish this by Thanksgiving. We’re not going to make it, but we’re close. And it’ll totally be done before the little guy gets here. Relaxing sanctuary of warmth, here we come! And it only took twice as long as I thought it would. This morning I suggested we redo the tile in the shower. It’ll only take a couple of weekends. Jon then reminded me we don’t know anything about tiling. Okay, maybe it’ll take longer. Maybe a post-baby project. For now, I’m psyched about the master bedroom. More pics of the semi finished and finished product to come.