Renovating 407: The Ugly

Even with a brand new roof and fully landscaped and clean yard, this house was still under $125,000. So I really did get a good deal. Most changes have been cosmetic so even though my extra savings is gone, it hasn’t been that much to change everything. I was smart enough to keep a daily journal of my progress on Facebook. So I am going to share with you the things that can go wrong.

Diaries of making a house my home/ Day 3: I called NM Gas to have them check the smell from the water heater. Silly person that fixed the issues with it left the valve where you can’t use a wrench on it and the gas guy had to bang it around to fix it. He even helped me move a buffet so I could pull up the carpet padding my dad and son left.

Just for a funny one…Adventures in renovating/Day 12: I started off at DMV. The minute they opened. Needed my current address on everything (finally). People who use this much adhesive in a house should be shot. There’s even weird places of hidden duck tape. I’m surprised it isn’t falling apart from removing it. 

Adventures in renovating/Day 13: There is progress people. Carpet people are due to come measure the bedrooms tomorrow. My dad only has the ceiling in the den left. (And I will paint the bathroom ceilings as I paint in there.) Tomorrow my mom and I will start tiling, in the hall bathroom. I got the last of the wallpaper out of the master bath. Bad part is it had a cloth backing which collected moisture and pulled a lot of paint away with it too. I’ll just have to put some joint compound all over that wall. And glad there wasn’t mold everywhere. Only some small patches. I haven’t mentioned that we thought it only needed a good deep cleaning and was basically move in ready. I had thought I could salvage the bathroom cabinets as open shelving type vanities, but they were made out of plastic and stuff. That and the fact I hated the popcorn ceilings and the carpet was harvest gold. As soon as the carpet is in, and the bathrooms are done, we can move in and work on the rest slowly.

Adventures in renovating/Day 15: I find an email in junk mail this morning (I only check junk mail on the computer) stating that the plumber will be out first thing to fix the hot water heater. Shoot. I better hurry over there, not really knowing when first thing is, I go over at 7. I think he showed up at 8:30. Maybe. He ended up not having the right collar and had to go back into Albuquerque, apparently. I cleaned the mortar off of the tile while he was gone. Poor guy, forgot his ladder at my house. So I had hot water for maybe an hour. Then I mentioned the washer and dryer that came with the house had to go before my mom tiled that part of the hall. Drama of the week. Water went everywhere because my dad couldn’t get the water shut off. Striped valve. And the sellers put a new faucet handle on this valve per my request. Haha. Dad and bro had to turn the main water line off. No water the rest of the day. No tiling today. When the plumber came back for his ladder, he put a new valve on for me. So nice of him.

Adventures in renovating/Day 17: Hall bath didn’t get finished today. The toilet flanges both my brother and I picked up were the wrong thing. But after several stores, Adam the plumber realized it wasn’t my fault. He’ll be back in the morning. My hand kept falling asleep painting again so I did what I could, but was too tired to figure out what to do next.

Adventures in renovating/Day 30: it was an adventure for sure. I get through 1 side of 3 doors and the sprayer stops spraying. Mr B and I go get a new hose. Really long one because there were only 2 options (the other was way too short). Hook it up. Nothing. But the hose sprays into the bucket without the gun. My mom goes and gets a new gun. Hook it up. Nothing. Hose stills sprays into bucket. Meanwhile, paint has gone everywhere while my mom tries to remove the gun. So I go get the old hose back out of the trash to try with the new gun. My mom even hooked the hose the opposite way from the first way it didn’t work. Again the only spraying it did was the hose at the bucket. Yikes. I got soaked with painty water. Needless to say, the $50 hose went back to Lowes and only the 3 sides of doors and 6 vents got painted.

Adventures in renovating/Day 31: Paint sprayer still wouldn’t work. My mom picked up the shorty short hose and it had a male connector, so does the spray gun. Which is weird, because the original hose and the really long one I got yesterday both had a female connector. So I painted 1 side of 4 doors with 2 coats, using a little roller. Lol. That’s all I could handle. At least the hall bath door is done and can be hung back up tomorrow so there’s some privacy when using the potty. At this rate, I better put these doors in order of importance.

Adventures in Renovating/Day 37: I put in a new light switch. It worked. But it’s partner switch at the other end of the hall doesn’t. Bah humbug. This particular switch had a black wire, red and white. I didn’t unscrew the last two so didn’t know where they came from. I reattached the red and the white and capped the black. Finally realized that is what the 3-way switches are for. Two switches, one light. As for all the other single way lights in the house, they are double black and hard wired. I am not at the I want to call an electrician point. I want to figure this out.

Adventures in renovating/Day 39: And (hopefully) the hot water heater is finally fixed. Two plumbers and 3 trips later they found the problem to be what Adam said it probably was, without even looking, over a month ago. Glad I didn’t pay for it. Mind you, I had not had hot water for this long because every time it was lit, it would blow out.

Somewhere in here I also decided to remove the shower doors in the master bath. Mind you, we had already had to removed the old tiles and replace the green board on the front of the shower, and re-tile. In removing the doors, I found loose tiles. I removed a few and found very damaged things behind there. Which led to pulling off more tiles. And my shower now looks like this.

Adventures in renovating/Day 43: Oh haha. Went to rehang the first closet door (they are the sliding kind) and the height of the carpet and padding makes the doors unmovable. So my parents went home and got their table saw and we got one door cut down. Took the painters tape back off (the tape keeps the cut cleaner) and it took off a huge chunk of paint. Of course. 1 door down, 5 to go. And then all the paint touch ups. But all the bedrooms doors are back up.

Adventures in renovating/Day 57: there’s a major electrical issue. Ok maybe not that major but there are outlets that short out. The ground wire to them is damaged or something. And there is plywood blocking access to the bedrooms in the attic. A hole has to be cut somewhere. I tell you. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. I don’t recall the inspector testing the outlets.