5/31 Thursday – Closed on house and moved in with the Uhaul. Everything was just dragged in and dropped, no organization. Picked up a sweet free couch.
6/1 Friday – Pulled up the upstairs carpet and threw it out the window to the back yard. Still smells everywhere, but maybe a little less. Labeled some of the mystery light switches.
6/2 Saturday – Tore down the ceiling in the living room and threw it in the back with the other garbage. Took up all the tackboard and staples in the two front most rooms. Replaced the locks.
6/3 Sunday – Cleaned the two frontmost rooms with ammonia. Setup kitchen, took down some of the cabinets. Mounted screen door from Janet and Vic. Dremel came in handy to crop off ½” of the frame that over hung.
6/4 Monday – Spent 5 hours pulling up tacks and staples from the stairs. Got all the staples and 1/3 of the tacks. The tacks are what takes forever. Decided to mount the last deadbolt in the front door. Didn’t size up the hole properly and now the hole that is half drilled (drill battery died) is larger than the outer diameter of the deadbolt. Will have to pickup some monster sized washers. Also picked up a latch for the front door but got a spring loaded one. Combined with the spring in the door handle itself there’s not enough tension to hold the door closed, will have to return it.
6/5 Tuesday – Got out of work around 2 and Vic came over to help me out. Showed him the house. He seems to think leaving the blown in insulation but putting up ‘batt’ insulation on the attic ceiling would be a good idea. We replaced the faucet in the kitchen sink with a cheap shitty one from value. Tightened the shut off valve on the upstairs toilet and it seemed to work but leaked when we flushed it. Stopped leaking so we figured it fixed. Gave him the top of the pool filter to see if it fit his and he took off. I went back inside and took another look at the upstairs toilet. It leaked when I flushed so I turned off the water, took it apart, and pulled out any of the rubber seal type hardware. Went to Lowes and purchased replacements for all the toilet hardware; was even able to get a compression type shut off valve that I wouldn’t have to sweat onto the pipe-everything totaled like $10. Also found a solid stainless faucet set for $29, a dollar more than the shitty half plastic one I bought at value. Went back home and replaced the faucet in the kitchen, money. Jason was over so I used my reciprocating saw for the first time and cut through the toilet pipe and installed the new valve/toilet hardware without problems. Then I went downstairs to turn on the water, I was checking out the kitchen sink when Jason starts screaming to shut it off. After I killed the water and went upstairs I saw the whole bathroom was soaked from the ceiling to the floor. Turns out I forgot to connect the pipe from the shut off valve into the toilet and the valve had been open. I put everything that got soaked in another room to dry and sopped up the water. Reconnected the hose, turned on the water, and no leaks…. until it was flushed.
Oh and I also installed the deadbolt in the front door. I got a metal sleeve that goes on the edge for $11 and works fine, adds more support to the door. Now if only I could find a latch for the storm door.
6/6 Wednesday – Picked up the 3 inch belt sander today and returned a few things to Lowes. Gave it a shot on the floor and to do the whole house with the 80 grit sand paper would take forever. However, I sanded some of the base board and not only did the sander work well but the wood looked brand new underneath. Despite the fact that a lower grit would yield better results, I’ll probably rent a floor sander to do the floors but will hang onto the belt sander for the trim and such. Decided to move today’s effort to the basement. The wire brush did a decent job of freeing up the crap on the walls but everything was still really dirty. Fortunately I came up with the idea to use the hose to clean up the walls and floor which worked out really well. I hosed down all the walls basically used the hose to sweep everything into the sump pump hole. The walls look light years better and everything worked out good. I sprayed all the walls down with a bleach solution afterwards and left it to soak in. Now they should be ready to patch up the holes and paint everything with the drylock. I may even pickup some more drylock to paint the floors depending on how it goes. All in all a pretty productive day considering I felt like crap and didn’t head into work until 4.
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