Chandelier

Oh, my goodness! Can you see this? The one on the right has been Windexed and the one on the left has not. Amazing!

Confession

I don't think it's a secret to anyone here so I'll just say it. I get distracted. All. The. Time...

What was I saying?

I found this picture on the internet, but it is the exact same
chandelier as the one in our dining room. Gotta' love
the ol' internet.

Oh, yeah. Well, I was dropping off a van load of our stuff this morning when I realized how dirty the chandeliers in the house are. I grabbed the Windex and a rag and started on the living room chandelier.

FYI, we have four chandeliers. :) One in the living room, one in the dining room, one in the entry way and a sconce in the stairwell.

Anyway, the glass is amazing! I forget to get before and after pictures, but I still have the one left in the main entry, so I'll get photos of that one.

I do love my sparkly things. And, these light fixtures are amazing. Pics to come tomorrow...

Unless I get distracted. :)

Cleaning Inside

There really was a lot accomplished inside too, so here's a glimpse into that part.

This is the caked on deteriorated carpet padding that Mom was scraping off the floor in Ethan's room.

Here I am hard at work in the full bath. The carpet is off and I was busy trying to get up the tacked down underlayment and padding.

Remember when I mentioned other people's dirt? Yeah, this is what come off of ONE of the window blinds after it was scrubbed in the tub.

This is the front living room. The large wooden box is one of the radiator covers and the window coverings are down for washing. So, we are looking out the front of the house toward Main Street.

Mom hard at work using the carpet cleaner in the Fireplace Room.

Tracey still hard at work now cleaning the inside entry door.

Garage pictures

To help document the project, here are some pics taken. Note: these are cell phone pics so the quality may not be phenomenal.

You might be able to notice the torn and ratty shingles along the bottom half of the roof. Those shingles are the reason why we took on this project.

This first picture was taken when all the old felt and shingles were removed from the garage roof. I think Dad and Kevin would agree that this was the most difficult part of the process.

Dad and Kevin installing the shingles.

 So, I have to comment here. By now, surely, you have noticed the massively overgrown shrubbery. You should know, this pretty much surrounds the house.

See? Documentation! I really did help!

We agreed to pay Ellie and Ethan 2 cents for every nail they found and picked up in and around the garage. So far, Ellie has raked in $2.22.

First Round

It is amazing how different a house looks when the former owner leaves a house empty! The good news? We love it even more!

This last weekend was a whirlwind of projects at the house. Big priority? Get it clean! Oy! Thanks to Kevin's mom, our friend Tracey was on hand to work her magic. Tracey was such a blessing. She loves to clean and see the fruits of her labor, and boy, those fruits were abundant! The dirt that came off the walls was ridiculous.

The carpets too. I think we all have no idea how much dirt and nastiness hides and thrives in our carpets and rugs. Thank goodness for my mom's carpet cleaner. Whew! Really, you should have seen the rinse water she was dumping. Totally gross.

I would be amiss if I did not stress that it was really the purpose of my parents' visit to have Dad help Kevin with reshingling the garage. The garage roof was showing significant wear and tear and it was estimated that it would not successfully weather another northwest Ohio winter. Thankfully, Dad was a roofer in a former life and was able to share his experience with us.

Kevin started early in the morning to tear off the old felt and shingles. The unexpected bump on that project was that it took until noon to clean off the roof. Originally, the plan was for them to return home early Sunday morning, but with this bump, they decided to stay longer and get a lot further on the roof. And, that's exactly what they did. When it was time for Mom and Dad to leave, there was just one side of the roof left and I could help enough for Kevin to finish it up. Well, except that we ran out of shingles. But, we fixed that Monday morning and Kevin officially finished the garage roof Monday night.

Roof? Done. Whew!

Oh, yeah. And, we also wanted to tear out carpet in two rooms: Ethan's bedroom and the full bathroom upstairs. Mom did most of Ethan's room. She and I pulled up the carpet, but the padding underneath had completely deteriorated and was giving my allergies major grief. So, Mom finished that room, scraping up the lingering padding with a putty knife. It really worked wonders.

I worked on the bathroom. Yuck! You know, I just want to take a little break here and say that we all deal with our own dirt. And it's gross, but it's your own so it's mostly okay. It's much less okay to work with someone else's dirt. Not cool.

So, the carpet in the bathroom was gross.

Anyway, I pulled it up after some major wrestling with an abundance of carpet tacks. Oy! Seriously, there was no need for so many tacking strips and nails. And underneath it? ... Are you ready for it?? ... Marble! No, I'm just kidding.

There is lovely vinyl tiles glued to a wood floor, which means if there really ever was marble under there it was torn out long ago. Bummer, dude.

That being said, it's vinyl which means it will do until we can renovate that bathroom. Mission: Accomplished.

All in all, a very successful weekend.

Schedule

Here's the plan.

Saturday AM: Kevin arrives super early in the morning to start scraping the old shingles off the garage. I arrive at a reasonable time in the morning to start on our inside projects. Our friend, Tracy, arrives and begins the overwhelming job of cleaning the house top to bottom. Our friend, Andrea arrives to help. My parents arrive by 9 am to start helping. Dad goes to the garage and Mom and I begin taking out the carpet in two rooms upstairs.

My dad estimated that the garage roof is not likely to make it through another winter and this weekend works for he and my husband to replace it.

Except for Tracy (sorry, my friend), the rest of us women will be taking out carpet in Ethan's bedroom and the full bath on the 2nd floor. Ethan's bedroom is the only one with carpet right now. The padding has all deteriorated and there are wood floors underneath. (I checked.) I just hope they are in excellent shape.

The bathroom. Ugh. It will eventually get remodeled, but for now the carpet is coming out. Who carpets the bathroom?? Gross. So, we're pulling that out too and planned on just throwing down some cheap remnant of laminate flooring to make due until said renovation. However, rumor has it there may be marble under that carpet. Marble! We shall see...

It's done

So, we bought the house. We are scheduled for our "walk through" with the most recent owner this coming Friday at 3:30 pm. He wants to share with us what he knows about the house.

I'm a little nervous.

We had the home inspected by an old house expert, but I'm worried about what he'll tell us. The plumbing is on its last leg and all needs replaced. Oh, the electrical nearly fried the house last week. The roof leaks everywhere and is about to cave in.

You know, things that could really happen. :)

I am trusting that what we know is all there is to know and he wants to fill us in on personal stories and experiences in the house.