This weekend we had company with the painting

No, not anyone to help us paint. We're still doing all that work by ourselves. The company we had was our neighbor's dogs. They very nicely serenaded us with a chorus of barking and growling. I'm sure it was friendly growling....

Right......?

Actually they are nice dogs, but it was interesting to paint with a constant chorus of their barking. And really no matter what we did, they didn't seem to be any happier with the idea that we were so close to their yard. Ah well, it made for some fun jokes as we worked through the weekend....

Speaking of working through the weekend, we made some more progress to the priming of the house. We are nowhere near where either of us would like to be at this point, but still progress is being made. Most of what is holding us up are all the little things that need to be done before we can even think of painting, like scraping the old paint, filling in cracks, removing old wires that no longer connect to anything (do you have any idea how many wires can accrue on the back of a 54 year old house? A lot), covering windows (can't damage my babies),

and this....

This is our window sill under our bathroom window...or what should be a window sill. It looks like something started gnawing on it and then got bored halfway through. Although I have no idea what would want to gnaw on concrete....I suppose it's more likely that something hit it and no one bothered to repair it. I wonder if it's related to the fact that this window was broken when we moved in.... Like maybe whatever hit this to knock out the sill is also what took out the window itself. I suppose it's possible, but we'll never really know. *Side note: see the new bathroom window....tape window no more!*


Anyways, now we need to figure out exactly how to repair this. As I mentioned before, neither of us are what I would call handy....not helpless mind you, but our knowledge on repairing homes is pretty limited. I'm sure there's a perfectly easy way to fix this (possibly involving taking the whole thing down and starting over, although I'm not sure how that would affect the window, walls, my sanity...), however at the moment I'm at a bit of a loss.

E said he knew how to do it; had watched his dad and grandfather do this type of repair on their properties in Puerto Rico, but his method had one big nemesis......gravity. See his method was to take wet concrete, slap it up there and just nail a board under the sill while it dries. The issue with this of course, is that wet concrete is pretty darn heavy and doesn't so much want to stay hanging under a gnawed-on sill while it dries. In fact pretty much the minute he put it up there, it fell straight to the ground.....so back we go to square one. I'm thinking we file down the uneven parts, get a piece of wood or maybe a solid piece of concrete that's about the right size for the sill, and then just stick it up there with some concrete caulk we got at the depot, or perhaps some sort of putty. I think the board nailed underneath it is still a necessity, unless one of us just sits there and holds it until it dries.....probably not the best use of our time, but I could get some good reading done while I wait if I do that....hmm....


And to finish the post, for your viewing pleasure..... E demonstrating the trouble with being height challenged and only owning a 6 foot ladder. Yeah, the top of that still isn't painted, and there is no way I'm going to reach if he can't reach. Time to borrow the ladder from my mom, or just borrow my mom....she's much taller than either of us. Not sure where my genetics came from. Maybe it's time we had a talk. Uh oh.

Scraping the walls

In prepping the house to paint, I mentioned that we are scraping the old paint off the walls. Here's how this whole scraping the walls things has been working for us.

Step 1: While working on a wall we notice some issues with some of the paint like here


...and here


Step 2: We begin scraping around the small holes the we found to get off all loose paint.

Step 3: We start to realize that the small hole was just a start as the paint comes off the blocks in sheets and slowly start to worry that the scraping may never end.

(See this...it's the same section of the wall as in that first picture. That tiny little hole was just the beginning)

No really....seriously afraid it will never end.

Ever...

We have actually completed stuff...

I have to be honest, I'd say 90% of the reason I quit blogging is because I thought I had nothing to report....nothing to share about out house. Today though, I went looking at old posts and came across this post with a check list of all the things we wanted to do to the house at that point. It was a list of big things, little things and temporary things, but all stuff that we wanted to do to upgrade our little love nest. The list has definitely had things added to it since then, but in looking at the list I see that there's actually a few things on there that we've done. That made me feel really good.

For instance:

• Replace all windows with storm strength windows-Done! Well except for the garage, but whatever....it's done. We didn't want a fancy window in the garage anyways.
• Paint outside of house-In progress!
• Rip off railings on front porch-Will be done with the painting. Of course we need to figure out how to rip out railings that have been there since 1955... We already tried WD-40 and a drill....not so much. I think we'll need a saw and some serious elbow grease.
• Purchase island- Done, and I love it.
• Purchase pantry-Sort of done. We purchased something for storage, so it's doing the job I wanted the pantry to do, but it's definitely not a pantry. I like it better than a pantry though cause it houses the microwave, coffee maker, and Kitchen Aid mixer....all kitchen essentials in my house.
• Add lighting near workstations-Sort of done as well. There's a floor lamp we moved into the kitchen that adds the light I need to cook properly, which was sorely missing at the time this list was made. I'm sure when I wrote this though I was hoping for a more permanent and aesthetically pleasing solution.

So look! All sorts of things I could have mentioned and talked about and taken pictures of (note to self; take more pictures of house in progress), and I just didn't. Next time I complain that I have no updates on the house, please remind me of all the little accomplishments that we've made in fixing up our house.

Painting the house

So thanks to very generous in-laws, we are back in business with some home improvements. No, nothing else from my list of 3 (windows -check!, insulation, and ducts), but still something that needed to be done.

We are painting the house!

I don't think this house has been painted in years, and really what better way to showcase our awesome windows than with a fresh coat of paint. So we picked our paint colors, purchased the paints, and started work last weekend; which means I get to blog again. We went with Behr's Nevada Sand for the house, Aristocrat Ivory for the doors and trim, and Hillside View for the accent color. I would love to show you a picture like I did for the interior colors, but for the life of me I can't figure out how I did that.

In the meantime we are scraping off the old paint and priming the house. There's only one issue with doing this ourselves....neither of us are over 5'5" and our ladder isn't tall enough to get us to the top of the house, so looks like we either give our tall friends and family a call to help us out, or we buy a new ladder. We'll see which we break down and do first.

You can see on this first primed wall we did, that the peak of the wall isn't yet primed...this would be due to the height issue I mentioned :) You also should notice that the window is not snazzy and new. That would be because this is the garage wall and neither of us wanted to pay an arm and a leg for a garage window. So that window stayed the old crank kind, and we'll replace it with something else at a later time.


This is the wall that surrounds the front of the house. We started scraping the paint off of that so we can get those started too. I figure it won't take too much time so we might as well start it...plus, no height issue here.

We haven't gotten much further than a few walls primed and some paint scraped at this point, but it's a start and that's exciting. We still have to seal up some cracks and repair some window sills that have seen better days. Plus we're taking down the railing that is around the front stairs, so that will be a job and a half. I think this will keep us busy for at least the next month and a half as we work on weekends and try to beat the rainy season in June. Fingers crossed that we get done before June...eeek. I'll keep posting as we make progress with the painting, but I did want to share another project that we might get started on this year.

When we purchased the house, it came with this really great wooden deck that needed some boards replaced and a little TLC. Sadly, we never did any of this and now the deck is in such a state that it just needs to come down. So we talked for a while about replacing the deck, but it would really require some money and tools we don't yet own to get that done. Then we saw in Better Homes and Gardens an idea to create a tile deck, and decided that would be perfect. A much easier DIY job and it would really open up the back yard since the wood deck sort of takes over.

So here is the deck looking toward the house from the back yard, and you can see some of the new windows and the new door we got put in. You can probably see some of the issues with warping and rotting from here.

Here is the floor of the deck in one of the worst areas for rotting. It's actually the floor right under that row of three windows you see in the first deck picture. When the window guys came to install the windows, the one standing outside nearly fell through this part of the deck. Actually one of these holes was made by him, poor guy.

And here is the deck as looking out into the back yard; complete with black cat and all. Anyways, you can see more rot here too. It's a mess.

So we're thinking if we tear down the deck, and then tile the concrete slab that's underneath the wood deck we'll really make that back yard start to look nice. Plus then we'd have a great view of the fire place. That's right, we have an outdoor fireplace. I can't wait to lay some more pavers around that and then set up some seating so we can have friends over to enjoy a fire and some wine. Good thing this probably won't happen till fall cause there is no way anyone is going to want to sit near flame any time soon as we continue to heat up down here. Oh and my apologies for the sideways picture, I can't figure out how to flip it to the right way up. Hmmm....

So I disappeared again

Sorry...but as you know, financially we are in no place to make fun updates to the house, and when you create a blog that is specifically to showcase home upgrades, well it's depressing to update that blog without any real updates. I will say though that the big decision we made for the house is one that has been awesome for us.

We got new windows! They are these super strength, even superman couldn't break them windows, and really have been awesome. We can open our windows on cool evenings. The glass is low-E so it helps keep the house cooler on hot afternoons. The whole thing is pretty cool. We ended up getting a really great deal on them that we couldn't pass up so the whole house, minus the garage, has new windows (including the scary bathroom), and we got a new back door thrown in for free basically. It is lovely, and really awesome to be able to not have to go through the garage to get to our back yard. Of course now, because we hadn't done anything to stop the deterioration of the back deck, it's pretty unstable. Ah well, we wanted to replace the wood with composite decking anyways. Composite decking lasts much longer in our hot, humid, rainy Florida summers. The deal, thankfully, gave us 18 months no interest financing so we are free from freaking out about paying for these for a little while. I have no idea what we are going to do when the bill comes due, but we have over a year still to figure it out and I just pray that the answer will come to us before that time comes.

If our financial situation ever improves, I will try to start blogging again about the house and progress we make. Until then, a shot of the new windows...

House update...

...coming soon.

We have made a big decision on something for the house. It will either turn out to be the smartest thing we have ever done, or the dumbest.

Stay tuned...

What I Iike about my house

So I realized the other day that all I have talked about on here since buying the house is what I don't like about the house and what I want to fix in the house. I mean sure there is a lot to do, and a lot that I want to see improved but I have decided to start a regular post on what I like about the house, cause there are a lot of things. Plus this will help me stay positive during this time of our serious financial crunch that is not allowing us to do anything on the house besides live in it.

So the "what I like" topic for today....

Location, location, location.

Reason #1: I love where we live. Oh sure the neighborhood is still in transition, so there are some odd little houses and odd little neighbors, but I don't feel unsafe there or anything. What I love though is that it's a diverse neighborhood. I have all kinds of neighbors. Neighbors from all different cultures, and different ages, and backgrounds. You go down one street and hear the Spanish language radio station going as some one works on the yard, and then turn the corner and there is an Asian family having a barbecue while the kids play in the front. I really love it.

Reason #2: I love that we are less than a minute's walk to a great park. This park has two fields that are used for lacrosse and soccer, it has a nice little pond where birds hang out and dance their little mating dances, and it has a great path that goes around the entire thing where everyone comes to exercise or just hang out with their families. There are also picnic benches, little barbeque's, and shaded docks out to the pond. We go out there every evening and just walk around and always meet friendly people who are doing the same. It's really fantastic.

Reason #3: I love that we are a five minute bike ride from this fantastic trail that goes for miles and miles up and down the coast. We go for these long bike rides on the weekend and just enjoy being outdoors and not having to fight traffic or bad sidewalks to get some exercise. The best part is we can ride the trail for less than 10 minutes and get to downtown and if we ride about 30 minutes to the north we get to this great small town main street where you find all sorts of boutiques and restaurants. How about this part....if we ride to the west from our house for about 15 minutes we find ourselves on one of the nicest beaches that Florida has to offer. Bike....to the beach....amazing!

So there you go. Post number one on what I like about my quirky little house.