Monday, January 20, 2014

And Now We Are Those Neighbors With A Toilet On Our Back Deck

The first step of our bathroom remodel involved some serious wall tile, trim, and wallpaper removal.



Arren and I started with the tile around the sink.  It was old outdated stuff and we had it all off in about 30 minutes.


Next up was the baseboard and crown molding.  The baseboard was pretty easy.  There weren't too many nails holding it on and it came off with a few pries of the handy old pry bar.  The newer crown molding put up a fight though.  It had crazy long nails and had been caulked around.  Luckily the bathroom isn't very big so there weren't too many pieces to finagle loose.

Then it was onto the dreaded wallpaper.  This is the only room in our house that had wallpaper.  Notice the "that had" in the previous sentence..  It's all gone now!  After around 6 hours of steaming and picking I managed to get it all free.


I used my mom's clothing steamer which worked fairly well.  It was pretty small and not too powerful so I found it worked best if I peeled the thick paper off first and then used the steam to remove the thin paper and glue underneath.  It was an easy job but time consuming.

We also removed the toilet so we could get to the wallpaper behind it too.  We went ahead and bought a new toilet.  The old one was... well old.  And this new one uses half the amount of water per flush... Hello water savings!  (In a related note our old toilet was removed during a snow storm and was promptly deposited on our deck... 2 weeks later and it's still there... we have sadly become those people with a toilet on their back deck..)


While removing the toilet we thought we'd go ahead and take down the toilet paper holder too.  We soon discovered this was a much larger job than we first thought.  Turns out the people who installed the holder loved it so much they cemented it to the wall... with wire mesh and everything.  This explains the large hole in our bathroom wall in the pic above.  I'm still baffled by the fact some one would cement a toilet paper holder to a wall... I mean who makes that kind of commitment?!


I also have big plans for that used-to-be closet.  I want a built in.  Not just any built in, one made by us!  Here's a little inspiration.


The walls still have a lovely yellowish hue to them.  I'm dying to get a coat of prime on those babies!  But before prime, we still need to take down the lovely ball ceiling lights and replace them with a more stylish wall mount light.  While doing this we are also replacing the vent fan and light over the shower.  The vent fan is old, old, and more old, and just does not do its job anymore.  Then the ceiling get's a layer of quarter inch drywall (but that's another post for another day) and our huge gaping hole in the wall gets patched.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

The Hiatus Is Officially Over

After a long long long hiatus from blogging I'm back!

I'm sure as most of you already know, we are officially first time homeowners now.  Take a moment to let that sink in because it still hasn't sunk in to my head and we've been living here for 3 and a half months.


We are also now a 4 person family.  We added a adorable, goofy puppy.  Well, he's not so much of a puppy anymore (even though he is only a little older than 6 months).



His name is Zeke the all white German Shepard but you can call him Zeke, or Zekey, or Pup-pups.  Ash tolerates him as long as a foot of personal kitty bubble space is allowed between cat and dog at all times... This rarely happens.

We love it here.  It's across from a lake and peaceful and serene and only 5 minutes from Green Acres.  Since it's winter there hasn't been much happening on the farm.  Well, besides 3 calves on the ground, a giant snow storm, busted water pipes ruining a whole room, and digging out the Green Acre dogs and cattle.  It's been a heck of start to 2014.  Oh did I mention a certain puppy chewed up the side of our less than a month old couch...

We've also started a bathroom project on the main bathroom in our new house.  It's in complete middle of renovation mode and will be lightless after this weekend.  It's our first big project and seems to keep getting bigger!

Stay tuned for updates on Green Acres as well as our new house adventures!

I also forgot to mention this post marks my 100th total post for the blog.  Talk about a lot of writing and a lot of reading!  I feel so lucky to have so many people who actually take the time to read little tid-bits of nothing of all that great importance.  Here's to another 100!