Here are parts of my old journal, before I discovered the wide world of Blogger and WordPress…
.
Trip to AR
My house was a bargain. Why? Because it’ll take a butt-load of work to make it presentable, that’s why. This is what Suz and I did while we were there…
1) Took down all wallpaper and borders. This was quite a production, and went nothing like the instructions on the wallpaper-removal tools and glue said it would. In the end – this is what we learned. The little scoring tool is a waste of money – don’t bother. We scored away, then sprayed the hell outta it w/ the glue-dissolver stuff, then tried to scrape. Riiiiiiiight. We were getting these tiny pieces at a time – would’ve taken a year to get everything down that way. The proper way to do this – if anyone cares – is to first peel off the top layer of paper. For us it came away in big long pieces – leaving a brown paper layer still attached to the wall. This we sprayed/rolled with the glue dissolver stuff, then let soak for a while. Then we sprayed again as we went, keeping it wet while we scraped. We could get pretty big pieces w/ this too. As Suz said – “Very satisfying.” Then you have to scrub all the remaining glue off the wall w/ a kitchen scrubby. Look how long this description is – now imagine how long it actually took. There was only floor to ceiling wallpaper on 2 walls of 1 room, but the ENTIRE rest of the house had borders. Pulling it all down and getting the walls clean took us the entire first 2 days.
2) Wall repair. You read that right. I know how to paint walls – repairing cracks is not something I’m qualified for. I’d bought spackle for nail holes, but as we took down curtains it became obvious there’d be a much bigger project that needed done. Apparently last year this house had some foundation problems. All that is fixed now, and Joe and I now have a 10 year warranty on the foundation, so I’m not worried about structural problems. Thing is – it left some serious cosmetic problems. I had to go out and buy drywall tape, and spent the entire 3rd day repairing cracks around all the windows, and in most of the corners of the rooms. What a pain in the ass, but now my walls look smooooth and nice, and I’m amazingly pleased with myself.
3) Taping. The whole day I spent plastering, Suz spent taping. She went thru 5 rolls of blue tape and spent several hours doing it. Who knew that taping off the ceilings, doorframes, baseboards, windowsills, etc could be such a big job!
4) I forgot to mention – under wall repair. First you spackle the crack. Then you wait 4 hours for that to dry. Then you apply the drywall tape, and spackle again over it. Another 4 hours and you can sand it smooth. Then you go around w/ a damp sponge and wipe all the walls cause there is plaster dust everywhere. Then you spot prime all over these plaster spots, so they don’t leave the wall looking patchy when you paint – the plaster sucks up the paint more than the old painted walls. Then and only then are you ready to paint.
5) Sanding and priming the walls that were paneling. The wood seemed too glossy for me to feel safe just painting it – I was scared the paint wouldn’t stick properly. So Suz and I lightly sanded the whole wall – all 3 in the dining and 2 in the den, then primed before we could paint.
6) Our last day there was just spent painting. The paint said 4 hours to dry between coats, and going in a loop around the house w/ a food break in between coats the timing was about perfect. We painted the dining, den, living, hall, and 2 bedrooms. The bathrooms I don’t know what to do w/ yet – maybe all new tiles and stuff – so I left them for now. The master bedroom was in too bad condition for me to repair – all the worst cracks were in there – and where the walls connect to each other and the ceiling was a mess. The guy that was putting on my new roof came in to check it out and said he’d fix the whole room for $70 – sold!!! So I’ll have to wait on painting that for now.
Suz and I left fairly pleased w/ ourselves, but a little cranky with the knowledge that it looks like all we did in 4 days was paint the walls. Thank God for before pics and video to show people just HOW MUCH WORK it was.
Joe and I are moving there next Wed. and we still have lots to do. 2 bathrooms and the master bed. The kitchen – all the walls and cabinets. All the trim/molding throughout the house, and ceilings need to be painted. All the carpet needs to come up and the nails/staples removed from the hardwood – then whatever else it needs.
The kitchen and bathroom counters need to be replaced. The garage door maybe needs replacing. We need to decide what kind of flooring we want for the dining and den – the only 2 rooms that don’t have hardwood under the shag (green in there – def. has to go!). Sooooo much work. But in the end – a great house. 1640sq feet. 3bed, 2bath, living, dining, den, sunroom, garage, great yard. $84k. Doing all this cosmetic stuff should bump it up to about $110k resale (that’s what the other houses are going for on that block). I’m so excited. But – tired just thinking about the work!!!
6/19/03
My sister
She’s the absolute best. I had so much fun with her. I just wanted to say that. Even though we were killing ourselves with work, it was great to be w/ her. We listened to BareNakedLadies and sang along really loudly, we talked about everything from my m/c to her boyfriend (she ended up going home and dumping him – wonder what he thinks about me right now!), our family, the house, her future, everything. At one point she says to me – “You know how people say so and so are like sisters? I’ve never had a friend be even a little bit as close to me as you are. Nobody is “like my” sister.” Then she goes on to say something like “Nobody else would sing BNL all day w/ me and quote movie lines and do all this DIY remodeling – NOBODY I know would’ve bought this house.” So I go – what are you saying!!! And she goes – I’m saying I like you! Which shut me up for a minute – but then I say “YES – but what are you saying about my HOUSE!!!”
.
Ok, the very best part of these posts is where I’m talking about how the cracks don’t indicate there’s anything actually *wrong* with the house – it’s all been *fixed* and now we have a *warranty*. Honestly – how can you see 4 bazillion cracks in the walls and ceiling of the house you just bought and NOT have warning bells ringing in your head? Just a little naive there.
While we started with tales of the money pit, most of this journal was about my pregnancy with the Twink, and then tiny baby Twinkie stories. Starting… now –
.
7/8/03
Pregnant!!!
HAHAHAAHAAAAAA! We did it! Joe’s very pleased with himself – his super-sperm got the job done again!!!!! Sweet Pea is due March 11, which means I’ll hit the halfway point, where I feel safe and plan to make my announcements to family and friends the week of FrogBaby’s due date. Sometimes life is just so fabulous.
Interestingly enough, while I thought being pregnant would be the cure-all for my grief, it’s making me miss FrogBaby like never before. Going thru all this again – kinda makes me sad that it’s not with him.
(BTW – I always called FrogBaby “him” and “he” right from the beginning – Sweet Pea has been “she” since I saw that second line. I found a site online – the Chinese gender calendar which predicts the sex of your baby using the age of the mother and the month of conception. It says that the frog was a boy, the pea is a girl. Coincidence???)
I’m so freaking excited and happy. Now – all of you reading this stop for a minute and pray to whatever God you pray to, or just think happy thoughts, or clap and say you do believe in fairies – just send me positive vibes that this baby will stick. Grow big and strong Sweet Pea – I so want to meet you in March!!!!
.
I’ll keep updating this page a little at a time, so check back often for more fun Jenn stories, circa 2003. 🙂
So yeah, just clicked “ancient history” for fun and this is what I got! Hours and hours of my manual labor recounted for me. I almost forgot how much work we did! Also, the little blurb about how great I am was nice too. You owe me, I have written documentation to prove it. =) Hope you see this!
Haha – yeah, I’m trying to remember where the file with the rest of this journal is. It was on the old computer…. I’ll have to ask Joe what happened to it.
I see all comments – they come to my email. 😉