Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Moving on!
Ch..ch.changes!
"Lot 26" is officially no more. We have moved out and rented that property. My grandfather's home that I have inherited is also no more! It was sold this past January to an investor, who has continued to renovate the home. It unfortunately remains vacant.. We have since moved into our dream home here at the beach. I can't decide if I want to create an entirely new blog or just continue on here under a new name. We shall see! :)
Monday, August 30, 2010
Floors!
We ended up hiring a flooring company to finish out our floors. Our "friend" who was helping us out with our house hasn't shown up for a month, and is not answering phone calls. We have been living in chaos for the past month with only sub flooring exposed in most of the house. We haven't been able to unpack much or really get settled in our new place, which has been extremely depressing.
Today, we finally got a little relief. We now have a kitchen floor, a finished living room, and an office floor. We got a little of the furniture arranged and some of the boxes unpacked and relocated. It doesn't seem so hopeless anymore! The living room we have partially painted, since a lot of the boxes were up against walls.
We should be able to get so much done now!
Today, we finally got a little relief. We now have a kitchen floor, a finished living room, and an office floor. We got a little of the furniture arranged and some of the boxes unpacked and relocated. It doesn't seem so hopeless anymore! The living room we have partially painted, since a lot of the boxes were up against walls.
We should be able to get so much done now!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Progress
I decided to re-name the blog from Sanding Block to Lot 26, as this is our lot number in the mobile home park. And it just sounds way cooler.. :-)
Today, I painted our master bathroom. It's a tiny tiny space, but still took a while to do because of all of the corners, and painting around everything. We finally decided on Icy Blue from Valspar. It's a beautiful pale aqua/turquoise color that's very vibrant.
Our living room floor is almost down. One more session ought to finish it. Yay! We decided on Beach Sparkle for the living room walls, also by Valspar, the darkest sample on the same one as the Icy Blue. The master bedroom will be the "middle color" on the sample, Cincinnatian Hotel Abbey.
Originally, our color choices were all over the place. We were tossing around the idea of painting our bedroom gray or a dark plum, but for some reason, those colors just weren't happy or calming enough. We fell in love with Beach Sparkle for the living room, and decided to go with the whole swatch. Now it's just hard to decide what do do with the office and secondary bedroom. We wanted a pink office for so long, but I'm afraid that it will look too bubble gum, looking from a blue living room to a pink office. Choices choices.
Today, I painted our master bathroom. It's a tiny tiny space, but still took a while to do because of all of the corners, and painting around everything. We finally decided on Icy Blue from Valspar. It's a beautiful pale aqua/turquoise color that's very vibrant.
Our living room floor is almost down. One more session ought to finish it. Yay! We decided on Beach Sparkle for the living room walls, also by Valspar, the darkest sample on the same one as the Icy Blue. The master bedroom will be the "middle color" on the sample, Cincinnatian Hotel Abbey.
Originally, our color choices were all over the place. We were tossing around the idea of painting our bedroom gray or a dark plum, but for some reason, those colors just weren't happy or calming enough. We fell in love with Beach Sparkle for the living room, and decided to go with the whole swatch. Now it's just hard to decide what do do with the office and secondary bedroom. We wanted a pink office for so long, but I'm afraid that it will look too bubble gum, looking from a blue living room to a pink office. Choices choices.
Friday, July 9, 2010
We're in
Moving day came and went with a lot of stress. We were not really prepared for this move and it showed. It took about 6 hours to move a 2 bedroom (third story) + storage garage to our three bedroom mobile home. Most of the time took was loading the truck. Unloading only took the last 45-50 minutes. Then, we had to make countless trips back and forth over the next two days between the apartment and the new place because they sent us the wrong size truck.
During the move, the bottom of our mattress was punctured. Not a huge hole, but non the less it happened. I really didn't think it would affect the mattress, but as luck would have it, the moving company ended up refunding us a little over $100 because of the incident.
Our cats have been doing very well in the adjustment to the new place. Only one of them hid for two days, the rest had little to no anxiety about moving.
The rest of the living room floor is going down tomorrow, as we are having to do a section at a time and move the furniture around to the finished areas. The couch has been at the re - upholsterers for the past week and should be finished sometime within the following week or so. We have also decided on a paint color for the living room! It's been a time of great anxiety, and this place will always be a work in progress, but I think the worst is over and the fun is about to start!
During the move, the bottom of our mattress was punctured. Not a huge hole, but non the less it happened. I really didn't think it would affect the mattress, but as luck would have it, the moving company ended up refunding us a little over $100 because of the incident.
Our cats have been doing very well in the adjustment to the new place. Only one of them hid for two days, the rest had little to no anxiety about moving.
The rest of the living room floor is going down tomorrow, as we are having to do a section at a time and move the furniture around to the finished areas. The couch has been at the re - upholsterers for the past week and should be finished sometime within the following week or so. We have also decided on a paint color for the living room! It's been a time of great anxiety, and this place will always be a work in progress, but I think the worst is over and the fun is about to start!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Moving day..
With moving day looming tomorrow, stress is high in our little apartment. Everything is a wreck. Neither one of us has moved more than twice before this, so we really don't know all of the little tips of the trade. We are both serious procrastinators as well, so this doesn't help the situation.
Another thing that is adding to the stress, is the fact that our mobile home is no where near complete enough to move in comfortably. The flooring was all stripped away, leaving the exposed subfloor in all the rooms. We ended up having to gut both bathrooms because they both had bad leaks and were causing mold. The leaks were so bad that they damaged the back half of the trailer. It would have been wise to walk away, but now we are stuck with it.
We were assured by our real estate agent that the only problems in the home were cosmetic. Wrong. Don't trust your realtor for anything except to do paperwork between buyers, sellers, and lenders.. No matter how small, or no matter if you think things look sound, no matter if you are paying with cash.. It's worth the few hundred bucks for the piece of mind to know what you are getting. The mobile home's previous owner had spent a lot of money covering up problems instead of fixing them.
Thank heavens a lady I work with has a master carpenter for a husband and father in law. They have been very helpful in doing all the repair work for a great price. Since we hadn't anticipated such serious problems in the bathrooms, it pushed the renovation time a lot longer than expected. As soon as we bought the trailer we mistakenly turned in notice with our landlord here at the apartment, which only gave us a month to get everything ready. I wish we had another month, even though it would have cost the extra rent money.
We are going to have to live in a construction zone for at least another week or two, with no finished floors except in the bathroom. Fortunately I think they will be able to get one working bathroom by tomorrow so we can at least shower and use the toilet.
At least we will have some amazing memories and before/after photos.
Guest Bathroom - The shower stall was painted black!
Master Bathroom. Again, with a weird painted shower stall.. When we tried to clean it, the paint scraped off. I'm not sure if the previous owner bathed or cleaned or what... The room is so small it's impossible to get good photos.
This is the kitchen. Pretty nice at first glance. The "wood" countertops are fake, the tile on the floor was applied with thin quickset grout without preparing the subfloor underneath. They just laid the tile on top of the old linoleum. Good layout though. The cabinets are built ins. If we stay here long enough we are going to knock them all out and go with Ikea cabinets or something.
Here's the living room. This is the realtors photo of the previous owners stuff. It is actually a big room. Ugly mirrors on the opposite side though, bolted to the wall. Below are the bedrooms, again realtors photos. The carpet was so nasty and stained, it was one of the first things we ripped out. They are nice size rooms, 12x12 or so, so they should fit our furniture fine. Can't wait to paint!
Well, off to do some more last minute packing...
Another thing that is adding to the stress, is the fact that our mobile home is no where near complete enough to move in comfortably. The flooring was all stripped away, leaving the exposed subfloor in all the rooms. We ended up having to gut both bathrooms because they both had bad leaks and were causing mold. The leaks were so bad that they damaged the back half of the trailer. It would have been wise to walk away, but now we are stuck with it.
We were assured by our real estate agent that the only problems in the home were cosmetic. Wrong. Don't trust your realtor for anything except to do paperwork between buyers, sellers, and lenders.. No matter how small, or no matter if you think things look sound, no matter if you are paying with cash.. It's worth the few hundred bucks for the piece of mind to know what you are getting. The mobile home's previous owner had spent a lot of money covering up problems instead of fixing them.
Thank heavens a lady I work with has a master carpenter for a husband and father in law. They have been very helpful in doing all the repair work for a great price. Since we hadn't anticipated such serious problems in the bathrooms, it pushed the renovation time a lot longer than expected. As soon as we bought the trailer we mistakenly turned in notice with our landlord here at the apartment, which only gave us a month to get everything ready. I wish we had another month, even though it would have cost the extra rent money.
We are going to have to live in a construction zone for at least another week or two, with no finished floors except in the bathroom. Fortunately I think they will be able to get one working bathroom by tomorrow so we can at least shower and use the toilet.
At least we will have some amazing memories and before/after photos.
Guest Bathroom - The shower stall was painted black!
Master Bathroom. Again, with a weird painted shower stall.. When we tried to clean it, the paint scraped off. I'm not sure if the previous owner bathed or cleaned or what... The room is so small it's impossible to get good photos.
This is the kitchen. Pretty nice at first glance. The "wood" countertops are fake, the tile on the floor was applied with thin quickset grout without preparing the subfloor underneath. They just laid the tile on top of the old linoleum. Good layout though. The cabinets are built ins. If we stay here long enough we are going to knock them all out and go with Ikea cabinets or something.
Here's the living room. This is the realtors photo of the previous owners stuff. It is actually a big room. Ugly mirrors on the opposite side though, bolted to the wall. Below are the bedrooms, again realtors photos. The carpet was so nasty and stained, it was one of the first things we ripped out. They are nice size rooms, 12x12 or so, so they should fit our furniture fine. Can't wait to paint!
Well, off to do some more last minute packing...
Monday, May 24, 2010
not so fab..?
Our new (to us) mobile home is turning out to be quite a mess. Of course, the number of things that are wrong with it keep going up and up. DW and I went over on Saturday and ripped up the old carpeting and laminate floors in the living room and bedrooms. We discovered a lovely water leak and termites that have damaged the sub floor! Unfortunately, it's too late to turn back now, since we paid for the place in cash and it was an "as is" sale. In my "careful" inspection of the house, I did not notice any structural problems. Chalk it up to one more of life's lessons. Our friend who is doing most of the repairs for us thinks he can keep it well within the budget without a problem, even with the plumbing repairs. He came over yesterday and did a walkthrough, and is going to give us the full rundown as soon as he finishes pricing out everything. He is even going to paint it for us. He has a sprayer so it will just take him an afternoon. We decided that would be best so we can move in quick, then we can take our time and do room by room makeovers.
I still see the place as our little diamond in the rough, even though we have some unexpected problems. I know we can make it a wonderful home.
I still see the place as our little diamond in the rough, even though we have some unexpected problems. I know we can make it a wonderful home.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Pre-fabulous
We are closing on the perfect mobile home on May 14th. It was very inexpensive, about 2-7 thousand dollars less than everything else we were looking at.
It needs new heating/air unit, paint, flooring, and the bathrooms need to be ripped out. Luckily, we know a carpenter who is going to help us do a lot of work. We will be doing the painting ourselves, and of course all the planning. Move in day will be on or before June 30th so we have some time to do the floors, paint, and at least one bathroom before we get in. Fortunately, the kitchen is in fairly good shape and just needs to be cleaned really well. I have pictures saved from the MLS taken by the realtor but I feel better about posting my own "before" pictures. :)
As soon as we get this place under control we are going to try to work on my grandfather's house again. We both have too much on us to handle everything all at one time.
It needs new heating/air unit, paint, flooring, and the bathrooms need to be ripped out. Luckily, we know a carpenter who is going to help us do a lot of work. We will be doing the painting ourselves, and of course all the planning. Move in day will be on or before June 30th so we have some time to do the floors, paint, and at least one bathroom before we get in. Fortunately, the kitchen is in fairly good shape and just needs to be cleaned really well. I have pictures saved from the MLS taken by the realtor but I feel better about posting my own "before" pictures. :)
As soon as we get this place under control we are going to try to work on my grandfather's house again. We both have too much on us to handle everything all at one time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)