We put the "no vacation" in renovation...

 Hi there, Becky here again.

Another productive and exhausting weekend is behind us and I think we're both starting to appreciate Mondays as restful back-to-the-office days!

Emilio already posted a bit about the progress we made, but while he was working on all that stuff, Sully and I had our own agenda.


First off, hiking in the woods.  I've found a nice little dog park near the house and they have trails through the forest where people look the other way on the whole local leash law thing.  So, luckily, the weekend started with Sully getting nice and tired.  Oh, and MUDDY.  Did I mention muddy?  So, the second thing on the list for Saturday wound up being bath-time for Sullivan.

Then, to work!

I went on a bit of a cleaning rampage.  I didn't get pictures, but the kitchen was extra super gross when we started this little house project and, since renovating the kitchen is FOREVER* away, I felt the need to start removing some layers of scum from the cabinets.  Then, windows and doors.  Once I got started it was really hard to stop.  Throughout the weekend I stopped working on the wallpaper, etc. periodically to clean a little here and there.  It's making the whole place start to feel slightly less abandoned and icky.
[*Forever may be an exaggeration]


The worst of the ick is really the mildew issue that is rampant through the house.  A little bleach-water and elbow-grease is helping, but I think the house gets bigger every time I put on my work gloves. 

These rails are almost covered in mildew.  It's silly that I decided to attack them, since they will have to be removed eventually anyway.  The banister is absurdly low (read: dangerous) and will need to be completely replaced.  Although, we do hope to save the top rail and newel-post. 

I'm not sure how well you can see with the cell picture, but here's a before and after:

Looking at the bottom of those posts, you can get a sense of the treachery lurking in almost every room of the house: evil tack strips.  They are sharp and pointy and painful, and did I mention...

 

They are GONE!!!!

Wow, Emilio did a fantastic job pulling these things out.  He was super-robot-awesome man this weekend- tirelessly prying and ripping and tearing these things out.

Don't the floors look nice without them?

My toes are much happier!

 We do still need to haul them all out to the garage trash-heap eventually, but not today.



Also on the list this weekend was detailing the Dining Room.  We did the basic wallpaper tear-down all at once, but the little scraggly bits here and there needed to be seen to.

This work was mostly done by Emilio, but we'll just ignore that for a second and talk about our safety getup:
Goggles, gloves, full-length sleeves and pants... and most important of all: Respirator. 

And here's why the safety get-up is needed:

Holy dust-mask, batman!

OK, so here is the BEFORE:

 And here is the AFTER:

Why, yes!  You are correct.  The after looks WORSE than the BEFORE.  Get used to it.  This place is all about patience.  We have spent hours making this room look worse, and we are darn proud of it.  That ugly is proof that we've been working.

We've also been working in the Living Room:


This is what the living room looked like while we were pulling out the carpet.

Here it is right after we pulled all the carpet, but before anything else:

SCRAPING:

Look at that beautiful wall and that tack-strip free floor!

And that, young friends, is how we spent the weekend.

Tired yet?  I know I am. 

Send us your encouragement in the comments or email us at bungleohno[*at*]gmail.com

Good night.