Archive for September, 2009

Tonight wasn’t the best night for remodeling. A few issues stood in my way:

• I got busy after work and started late
• My plan changed because the asbestos test results are not in yet
• I wasn’t really prepared for removing linoleum

Removing the linoleum required hammering and is very time consuming. Since I didn’t get started until about 8:15pm I didn’t want to hammer for very long. I don’t want to annoy my neighbors before I even move in After a little bit of linoleum removing Kate’s dad and I thought there has to be a better way. That is when the extra piece of particle board in the kitchen looked very interesting. We always knew it was there, but started toying around with the idea of just taking it off. If we took it off it would produce a much nicer result and we wouldn’t have to worry about the laminate. It was nearing 9pm so we called it quits and we will look into removing the extra piece of particle board tomorrow.

Today was the first day of the remodel. After work, I went to Kate’s parent’s house and borrowed some tools. Then immediately went over to the new place and get started. First, I like to open all the windows, because cat urine remnants are still hanging around. It is also nice to get some cool air flowing through the house. Next, I started pulling out the carpet. That was pretty quick and easy.

After Kate had stopped out home to take care of the dogs she brought me some dinner. Yay Pizza! We ate and then we went our separate ways. Kate had water aerobics and I had to pickup some stuff at Costco. When I got back I started ripping out the gross carpet padding. Kate’s parents showed up shortly after that and her dad and I cleared out the rest of the padding. Meanwhile Kate’s mom was trimming back some of the plants in the back yard.

After the padding was out, Ron and I pulled out all the tacks and swept the floors clean. The next step will be making sure all the staples and debris are off of the sub floor in the daylight and either priming the sub floor or scraping off the popcorn ceiling.

So yesterday we got the keys to our new home, horay!!!!!!!

We’re so excited to get to work on it, fix it up a little and move in. Adam is heading straight over from work tonight to rip out the remaining carpet and padding and shellac the sub floor. Then over the next week or two he’ll scrape the popcorn off the ceilings, we’ll paint the whole interior and lay laminate everywhere but the bedrooms, and lastly, have the carpet put in the bedrooms. Then we can move in. Adam took tons of before pictures so we’ll post them and keep you update on our progress.

The only trick will be trying to keep adam focused on the tasks indoors, since yesterday he was having a grand time in the yard finding spiders that had caught bugs and watching them wrap and eat their prey. EW! Maybe he’ll post a picture of his favorite spider for you.

I’m trying to get over a gross cough that started last weekend. Going to bed really early and drinking tons of fluid. I want to be fully recovered before I leave for my conference in Nashville, TN next Tuesday.  Weird to have worked only 2 weeks, and both of them 4 days weeks, and then be leaving for a week. Nice that my employer made that exception so I could still go to the conference. Its cool how they have things set up here so everyone is covered in case they are gone.

Adam’s work finally got the results from the drug screen he had to do on Tuesday, so he actually got to go work today. Hopefully he’s learning lots and enjoying figuring out a new work culture. We had fun on Monday going to Value Village (like goodwill), they were having a 50% sale, so it was crazy. We just tried on shirts over our clothes since the line for changing rooms was super long. Adam got 5 work shirts and I got 4 maternity shirts, all for less than $35, pretty cool. He’s sporting an orange dress shirt today in honor of us being beavers living living in duck town. Maybe I’ll find something orange to wear tomorrow since Saturday is a UO  day and a few of my co-workers are pretty big fans.

Okay, back to the staff manual and more learning. =)