2010-The UGLY truth

OK Friends--I am doing this one with a blindfold on! Or maybe just goggles fogged up. I don't want to write any more negative things. I don't even want to think about them! Nor do I want them to continue being a spot of disgrace--I just want to finish them.
It has been a long long slow process.
Part of it is I have NEVER done this sort of work. I work in an office! I'm good with the keyboard & I'm great at researching!  We don't get this kind of practice. Now learning from the internets... I know what to do... but won't know if I did anything wrong until I finish and that is the point of no return. I will never look back or FIX it. Ok ok--I might try and fix it but I don't want to do it wrong in the first place.


Here it is!!!

#1 
THE UGLY KITCHEN!






This is what I look at on my way to the shower... one quick glance is all I allow myself. Start my day out with disgust and angst. No wonder I want to block it out.

It has seen some progress since this picture

When we moved in I bought new handles! And made a vow to replace the handles before the week was out.
I was so excited! I picked 6 styles and put them up and let my friends vote during the painting party. They all liked this one:

Awesome! Pretty clean and new handles! I can do this! I was ready to put them on... right after I get the cupboards clean.

But they didn't listen. Or maybe they didn't like the new handles?

I make this extra large so you gag too get my point

And this stuck to my arm while painting the wall behind it. *shudder at the memory*
Seriously. Press board, grease, dust, steam + 32 years?

Please go clean the tops of your cupboards now!

So here I am:

Priming with disposable brushes using an oil based Kilz tinted Lavender which is supposed to be a shade of light brown.



This one is for Darth Karen



And my littler(with no head) below likes helping which makes it go faster.

I am supremely grateful for help at this stage, because..... it sucks.

She is just the right height to get the underside of the cupboards.

Wonder what she is doing this weekend?

Meanwhile in the garage (on my awesome work bench made out of a broken ladder) we test paint colors.
The one on the right was my favorite 2 months ago, but someone(Hmmhph Travis?) thought it might be too dark. So I tried some lighter colors... and NOPE. It was perfect all along
(Edit: this picture is missing and I cannot find it. Sorry!)


And if it wasn't enough work already, we decided to get fancy!


Middle is the winner. Sweet Molasses w/ Sweet Georgia brown pin stripes



And back to the garage, Travis fixed the drawers that were falling apart so now I can go back to the cleaning, sanding(by hand this time) and priming of the 7 drawers.

I don't have alot of time or motivation during the week to suit up and waste a paint brush a day so I have been putting it off til the weekends. But some how those fill up with unplanned plans and I get only a few hours in. I did start this in November...In the background are the cupboard doors waiting for the fronts to be primed.

And now we are back where I started. Picking a new handle.

I will post pics later if I have trouble deciding.

So I can have the hinges cleaned and painted to match!

And here I am today:

All one color at least! Now I have to do it all again =/

I thought the pantry was a debacle! I just did not know the meaning of debacle yet.

It just goes on and on my friends... hence my delay in writing this blog. I can look back and laugh once I finish, but since I am still in the middle? It's quite the sore spot for me.

Truly the beams should be on this Ugly list since Travis has worked so long and hard on them...
But you know what?  I am writing this blog :)
And besides, his beams have already become pretty, where I am not quite there yet in the kitchen.







2. Carpet cleaner who needs anger management

I never followed up on the story with the carpet cleaner. He cleaned all our carpets back in March 2010.

Seemed to do a pretty good job on the living room. The pic on the right was a beloved spot by the previous owners little dog. Once they dried some spots are still there, but it feels more sanitary at least.

Here I explain what happened to our stairs.
The man who cleaned our carpets was incompetent.  (Travis approves this word.) He put down "extra water" because the stairs were "extra dirty" but neglected to get up all the extra water. When we found the damage we called him to come see/fix/help/etc but he did not show up.. so we called him back again and he yelled and hung up. Next we wrote him a very nice email and he responded back with a rant, all in lower case, no spaces or punctuation, besides !!!! every other sentence.
Here we realized how unstable this guy was.
We could go after him with small claims court. But he also knows where we live... So we went back and forth on the decision for a while and ultimately decided to NOT go after him in court, but to hit him where it counts. Reviews. ONLINE.
Now yes, I did originally find him thru Craigslistwebpage and somehow I ran across one (old or false ad) that mentioned he was licensed bonded and insured which made me feel confident hiring him.. Now when you do this, you should probably check to make sure they STILL are at the time you hire them. I knew nothing about this at the time. I had a budget and $200 for all my carpets was a fantastic price.
So I made a weekly goal to check his advertisements on several sites and make sure there was a review(nicely written) that mentioned he was NOT licensed, bonded or insured without going in to much detail. Remember, he probably still knows who I am and where I live.
He removed his ads from those sites. The nerve!
Upon googling him for this blog--it seems he has changed his number too. I was going to post his link and name and number just for hits when ever someone searches for him... but with the statistic programs recently--I think he would know... and... you guessed it! He still knows where we live.

I know this sounds paranoid but I really am not. Just this guy seemed angry and unstable and did not seem worth the effort to get our money back.

Moral to this story?
1. Do not hire anyone named Rob to clean your carpets. I don't care if it is an amazing deal. Pick the next guy.
2. Carpet on shallow stairs is dumb anyway.
3. The lowest price is NOT always the best price.

I should have sent him packing after reading this from his website:
High Powered Truck-Mounted "Quality" Steam Cleaning!
And then he showed up in this old van and advertised in my driveway


I have nothing against advertising in my driveway and I full intended on posting my own review on this blog...
until the stairs mildewed and he yelled at us.




#3 And the things we thought were important before moving in and have yet to get to and then realized how dumb we really are thinking they were the "important things"
(Also see original to do list at bottom of this link)

*Mismatched lighting all thru out

*Mismatched 1978 flooring

Master Bath

 

Kitchen

Main Bath

 

This is the best of them--but I still hate it.

Old carpet vs Older Carpet

*Replacing the ugly window

This was Enemy #1 on our list---ha!

So if that is not enough for you to cry along with me, I NOW can get back to updating regularly. I have lots to catch you all up on!




PS: I have had a lot of trouble during the editing of this blog and uploading of pictures--probably due to the extraordinary amount of time it took me, so blogger is telling me "post was not saved due to form errors, etc etc"  So if it seems something is missing---It probably IS! I doubt I will fix it in less than 24hrs. Sorry!

2010 in review- THE GOOD

Obviously I did not include "Stop procrastinating" in my resolutions or else this may have been posted a month ago. In reality I have even procrastinated making any resolutions!

So going with the December flow and taking the month off of working on the house, this unfortunately counted blogging. So here I am--failing my first year end blog... posting it sometime in early January.

In keeping notes on our first year in our first house a review of sorts is needed. Not a lot has been happening around Castle Debauchery recently due to a variety of excuses reasons.

It is winter.

It is wet.

We are tired.

Work is busy.

We have been slightly depressed  hibernating.

But!!!No more!!! Back to work!

I have tried to write this blog for a month now, editing it 32 times and I am still having a hard time ending it on a positive note.
So I will start with The Good!




#1 The Bills.



What you say? How are bills good? What is a GOOD kind of bill?

The PAID kind.
The Paid on time with no fussing kind.
The kind that is $0

I try not to talk about money here.. but as you know-dirt costs money.
Good weed free dirt anyway!
And so do home repairs, upgrades and just getting our house to a level of cleanliness we can live with.

We have successfully lived within our means even with all the disasters and unforeseen repairs that we didn't notice, and the 'I must do this NOW before I tear my hair out' projects. (Travis does not approve this sentence.)

And the best part:
We even got to entertain our friends many times. Many many times. Maybe a few too many. (I will totally blame my lack of progress recently on our awesome friends)

For this we have made some sacrifices. Some went easily, others are still taunting my dreams.
Some of the things we gave up: sushi together, pedicures, buying books, Christmas 2010, birthday gifts all year, treating friends to dinners out and any dates that don't include $5 hot dog deals at Home Depot.
But those hot dogs ARE fantastic and we are even saving time by multitasking at HD.


#2 The Garden

The one thing we could call finished. No matter how much or how little you plant and harvest- THAT is a garden. It produced quite well. It was as big as we could make in the time allotted and it did it quite successfully.

We harvested from it all summer and fall. It was just about our only true success of the year. I was so thankful to have SOMETHING to take our mind off our other projects. Every time we stepped outside, it gave us something new to think about and look at. Now that the gardener seed has been planted in our heads, we will double the garden in size this year and hope it is as successful as last year.

I had never really planted anything in the earth before we moved here and now I cannot get enough of the garden blogs. In fact I have started following too many to keep up with! I have learned so many things I have never even previously thought about during these last 9 months. I look at landscapes and other yards in the neighborhood in a completely new way. Look at that--I'm growing, like my garden!




Even though it now looks like this:

It once was a source of comfort and joy like this:



#3 The Patio



And let us not forget the garden viewing platform.



Even unfinished and wintery it gives us joy with ice crystal like rorschachs.

Do you see what I see?

A valentine

A partridge in a pear tree

You choose!

 It has truly undergone an amazing transformation all the while keeping Travis out of trouble. At 100lbs a stone, Travis got to continue working out and put his truck to work as well!

 Back when we moved in:

Cinder blocks past.

First snow in March/April 2010

First snow on new patio Dec 2010

It has made us value our money even more than before. Even though we made some money selling used cinder blocks(there is seriously a huge market for this--who would have thought?) we still forked out over the course of its creation at least $700. It made us count our money in stones!

While debating cooking dinner it becomes a battles of stones...

4 stones to eat out vs dinner in with food from garden only costs a 1/3 of a stone.

A tank of gas costs me 5 stones, and Travis 7 stones.

A trip to Starbucks? One. Whole. Stone.

You see where this is going? It is so true.

This patio was one of those surprise projects which stemmed from a terrible problem that cost even more money. But I will save that one for the next post.

Stay tuned for part 2 of 'The Good, the Bad & the Ugly'