Laura DiFiore

The Junk err I mean Sun Room

Monday, 12. October 2009

Yes, I know, been a while since I sent out the latest House update But despite broken wrist and mental burn-out, I have continued working on the house…just quite a bit slower! Have a four day weekend, so am using the time to knock out the last of the projects…or at least enough of it to get the house listed for sale this week!

The sunroom, or back room as I usually call it, has actually been most commonly the junk room for most of the ten years I’ve lived here.

During the three years I sold books online, it actually was the book room – at one point more than 10,000 books were stored back here! That history actually led to the biggest challenge of this room – filling in ALL those holes in the walls from where I had shelving hung on the walls.  I went through an entire container of wood putty and half a container of spackling to get all the holes filled in! Granted, they were small containers, but still!

The first thing was to clear out all the junk and trash that had accummulated in here.  Brianna and Mark helped me with hauling off the dog sofa, I

sold the futon (not shown) at one of the yard sales, and cleaned up all the just plain trash.  The small window was cracked and broken in a bad wind storm, and I’m having fun (not!) finding glass the right size to fit is, as none of the pre-cut glass available at Home Depot or Lowes is the right size.  But I’ll get it done.

Despite all the holes in the wall, I expected this room to be the simplest room to make over.  The plan was patch the holes, repaint the walls and ceiling, pull out the fugly piece-meal carpeting that was at least 30 years old, paint the floor (it’s concrete), and move all my craft stuff in here.

Of course, just like every other room, this room had an unexpected surprise or two…sigh…the big surprise in this room was a humongous crack in the floor.  Seriously huge.  The floor of this room was actually just a slab, the room was just simply a back patio that was enclosed in 1956 by the owners at the time.  When they enclosed it, they installed two huge single-pane picture windows, and reused a storm window as the side window, and built the small window on the north side that is now cracked.  They didn’t insulate or anything, of course.  But they did build the room right over the existing floor, of which a 2-foot by 4-foot section of the south portion had cracked, broken, shifted, and skewed about two inches off the level of the rest of the floor.

OMG, how can anyone build a room on a floor that is OBVIOUSLY broken, without fixing it first!!  Sure, I know it wouldn’t have been exactly cheap to inject concrete under the broken section, lifting it and releveling it, but to just build right over it without doing ANYTHING at all!  They filled the crack in with gravel and sand, and put a very thin layer of morter over it (thin like in less than 1/4″, all broken and gone now)! It’s amazing to me!

I’m seriously getting sick and tired of finding myself on my hands and knees dealing with floor issues in every single room!!

Well, of course I can’t fix it properly – which would entail injecting concrete under the broken section, lifting it up and leveling it.  For starters, it would be outrageously expensive.  Then there would be the problem of the wall that is built over it – lifting the slab would lift the wall, causing at best lots of cracks and a big broken window, but would probably damage the roof and knock the south door out of alignment completely.

The next option would have been for me to pour a new floor over the existing floor with self-leveling cement.  I seriously considered this, although pricy (about $100-$150 worth of self-leveling cement) it would have corrected the broken slab issue, and would have leveled the entire floor.  But self-leveling cement isn’t recommended for situations requiring a leveling over an inch – and the slope of this slab is 2-1/2 inches.  I then would have had to redo both exterior doors in this room, cutting them about 3/4″ shorter than they are and reframing them, because the floor would then be over the threshholds of both doors.

Forget that.  Too much work.  As it is, the back door will probably need to be replaced as part of the sale of the house, assuming the potential new owner doesn’t want a doggy door.

Sigh… I can’t fix this problem the most proper way, as it will simply lead to virtual destruction of the room.  But I can improve the situation.

So I decided to just patch the crack, and feather it out as much as possible to at least smooth out the juncture between the intact slab and the

broken portion of the slab.  I’m not worried about the slab sinking or shifting anymore – it obviously hasn’t moved since the room was built in 1956.  I suspect the crack originally occured during the first ten or twenty years of the house’s life.  It looks that old. Following the advice of my neighbor Matt, who used to pour concrete foundations and patios for a living, and the advice of Trey, who just simply knows a little bit about everything, I first dug out all the broken crap out of the crack, I then chipped the crack wider, by about an inch, I then poured a layer of resin down the crack, then using repair morter, actually filled in the crack, about 1/2″ at a time, letting it dry and cure for about 2 days between each layer.  It took nearly two weeks just to repair the crack.  Although the slope where the floor is cracked is still obvious, it’s a lot less drastic than it was – no one will trip over it now!

No wonder nobody has moved the carpet pieces in this room in decades!  I’ve lived here 10 years and never noticed that the floor was different there either – wow!

I found a gallon of “oops” Behr floor-and-porch paint at Home Depot for $5, tinted the most perfect shade of light blue with just a bare touch of green to it – very 1950s.  I love the “oops” paint shelf I wish the guys in the paint department made even more tinting mistakes … I swear almost all the paint in my house is “oops” paint   Anyway, $5 for a gallon of paint that normally runs around $28 is awesome   I painted the floor, and used Behr’s paint chips ($7.95) to “fleck” the floor to give it some interest, and also to detract from the crack

I must admit this room was the most fun to paint   Whoever last painted it was a total slob – they painted right on the glass, dripped all over the floor.  Since I knew I was painting the floor, I didn’t care if anything got on the floor. No need for drop clothes!  Since I was going to have to

scrape 30 or 40 year old paint off the windows anyway, I didn’t bother masking them.  When I painted the floor, I just poured the paint right on the floor and rolled it out   Very fun   I managed not to paint myself into a corner, too

Of course, I kept forgetting to CLOSE THE DAMN DOOR!  Both dogs and Lassie the Cat all stepped in the wet paint at least once!

When it came time to paint around the windows, I discovered that the caulking around the windows was cracked, brittle, and even missing in some places.  I also discovered that one of the picture windows wasn’t framed in at all – the caulking was the ONLY thing holding the window in place.  I’m stunned the dang thing hasn’t fallen right out.  Lucky, too.  Using some scrap wood, I built a quicky frame around the window, painted it, and after cleaning out what little remained of the existing caulking, I caulked both windows.

I then moved the white cabinet that used to be in the kitchen into this room, and moved all my craft and sewing stuff that was previously strewn around the entire house into this one room.  It’s all organized now… which is really quite scary   I even repurposed a bunch of small plastic containers and sorted through all my notions, storing them into containers that are now labeled and stored in the cabinet

Yes, I said *organized* and *labeled*.  Yes, two words not normally used in conjunction with me!

I put all my patterns into a binder.  Did the same thing with all my stencils

On the other side of the room (not pictured, batteries died in the camera, gotta recharge them!)  I put the dog and cat food into to large plastic bins and set them up neatly in the corner.  I then hung my aluminum can crusher on the wall next to the back door, and set up three other plastic bins for my recycling – paper, plastic, and aluminum.  Looks nice and neat, and is colorful, if I don’t say so myself

I cleaned all the thermal insulated curtains I had hanging up over the windows, they look much nicer now, but I have not rehung them up. Although they do a remarkable job of keeping this room warmer during the winter and cooler during the summer (the room isn’t heated) I decided the room looks much nicer with the sun shining in – it’ll show better.

Voila!  The notorious junk room is now a multi-purpose craft and recycling room   As you can see in the pictures, I do still have some craft stuff to finish organizing – that’s the pile on the cabinet – and the window still needs to be repaired.  I’ve got all my tools sitting in there right now, those will get stowed back in the garage when I’m done with all this house rehabbing stuff, but it’s nice to have the tools in just one place now while I finish up all the work I’m doing on the house.

Costs:
$5.00 for “oops” floor and porch paint
$7.95 for Behr paint chips
$7.98 for a gallon of white paint for the walls and ceilings
$4.90 for spackling and wood putty
$12.80 for repair mortar, which will also be used to patch some small fine foundation cracks.
Total: $38.63

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The Kitchen, Day 3: The Pantry Wall

Friday, 7. August 2009

About eight years ago, I moved the refridgerator from next to the oven over to what I call the pantry wall.  The so-called pantry is actually a small area under the attic stairs, you can barely see the door behind the fridge.  I never used it as a pantry, didn’t like the fridge next to the oven (I like to have some counterspace next to a stove for me to clutter up), and needed a place for the microwave and shelving for cookbooks.  That’s all fine and dandy for me… but it looks, um, well, crowded, to say the least, and makes the kitchen look about four feet smaller than it really is.

So I pulled out the cabinet I’d previously installed, moved the fridge yesterday, and discovered yet more broken, fugly green plastic tile to clean, repair, patch, and cover with the silver stuff.  Although you can’t really see it in this picture, the wall had been previously painted in several areas three different colors – I could never decide which color I liked best.  I’m going to repurpose this cabinet as a dresser in the bedroom later on.

So I patched the holes in the tile and the wall, and put the first coat of paint on  the wall.  This is my first experience using those new “Low VOC” paints, the ones that are supposedly more “environmentally friendly” because they have  “low volatile organic compounds” in them.

First thing I noticed, is definetly a good thing:  No smell.  I mean like no smell at all.  If anything, there is a slight odor best
described as “fresh,” if that makes any sense.  I was able to paint the first coat on two walls without having to leave the room at all!
Usually I can only paint about half a wall at a time, and take about an hour or so break between painting sessions, thanks to allergies and asthma.  Hrm, wonder if that’s why I never seem to finish any of my painting projects!

The next thing I noticed is not a good thing:  Coverage sucks.  Oh my, this stuff goes on like really thin.  It pours out of the can
with the same viscosity, the same thickness, that I’m used to with any standard latex paint.  But once you start brushing it or rolling it on
the wall, it’s THIN.  Goes on like water – it doesn’t drip (at least no more than latex paint does anyway) – it’s just really, really thin
coverage.  Just about everything that I am used to a single layer of paint covering up (stains, other paint, small hairline cracks) is
showing right through.  I’m going to have to do two coats, for sure.

But I like the stuff

Meanwhile, I added a project that wasn’t on my original list:  Make the so-called pantry an actual, usable, pantry.  Would look good to see “walk-in pantry” on the house-for-sale flyers, after all   I repurposed some of the shelving I used for books in the back room, I cleaned all the dust, and fashioned a cover out of some scrap wood to cover up the bathroom waterpipe access that is on the lower right wall of the pantry. 

I discovered when I moved the fridge yesterday that the shut-off for the ice maker water line is broke, so I’ve got a trip to Home Depot for tomorow to get something to cap it off.  Meanwhile, I just kinked the line so it wouldn’t flood the kitchen.

The floor under where the fridge and cabinet was is a problem… I do have plenty of spare stick-on floor tile, but the floor’s buckled from a prior water leak… I’ll have to tackle that tomorow.  Great…

Regardless, quite a lot of progress done today.

Posted in Life, Selling the House by Laura - No Comments

Getting the House Ready to Sell

Tuesday, 4. August 2009

Now that I decided to try to sell my house, I really have my work cut out for me.  I mean really.   I’ve lived here for ten years, which means I have ten years of clutter to get rid of, ten years of accumulated minor repairs and cleaning and long-delayed painting to do, ten years of projects started but never finished to complete.

It’s a huge project, especially if I am to get this house listed within 4 weeks, which is the timeline I’ve given myself.  I want to list it before labor day. 

I’ve never actually sold a house before, but I’ve seen enough shows on HGTV to know I need to make the house look as good as possible, and to maximize my sales price, I need to get as much actual work done as possible.

To make it even more challenging, as if selling a house isn’t a challenge enough, I have zero money to spend and pretty much have to do all the work alone, by myself, while also working as many extra hours as I can to get as much money together as I can to either pay the past-due mortgage payments, or put aside to move once the house is sold.  Or foreclosed upon. I will use some of the money from the yard sales towards necessary items for repairing and repainting the house, I figure at best, I’ll have about $300 to spend.  So a tight budget both time-wise and financially.

On the plus side, it’s good exercise   Anyway, after doing a really hard look around my house, leaving the rose-colored glasses in the trash, here’s my list of things to do to get the house ready to sell.  Be afraid, be very afraid *grins*

In the kitchen:

• Repair broken wall tile – it’s “Tri-Bond” plastic tile that was installed in 1958. It’s cracked, broken, missing, and just plain grungy.  I can’t replace it all – I looked into that ten years ago, and it would require pretty much gutting the walls.  The plastic tile was mortared directly onto the sheetrock with this rubber stuff, anytime you attempt to remove it, the sheetrock comes off with it. done.
• Finish recovering the kitchen floor (started 8 years ago) done.
• Replace several out-of-code electrical outlets.  The house was wired for electricity in 1928, quite a few of the existing outlets and light switches are the original ones installed in 1928, made from “BakeLite” plastic.  Very nifty, very unsafe.  Fortunately, most of knob-and-tube wiring was replaced in 1956 (don’t ask why they didn’t replace the outlets and switches at the same time), I replaced the remaining 1928 wiring in the house about nine years ago.
• Install a GFCI
• Rearrange appliances done.
• Remove shelves, patch walls, repaint done.
• Declutter and clean done.
• Replace the shelf lining on every cabinet shelf (it’s Con-Tact paper installed approximately mid 1960s).
• Replace the door handle on back door done.
• Clean the ceiling – since I don’t have a proper exhuast fan, dust-laden steam has accumulated on the ceiling.
• Figure seven days of work.
• Added and done: Put shelves up in pantry to make it a proper pantry. 

In the living room:

• Get rid of futon that is acting as a couch – it’s just too big, looks sloppy done.
• Rearrange furniture done.
• Patch walls, repaint three walls and the ceiling done.
• Remove the almost-room-sized carpet remnant (it’s fugly, to say the least, but works for me) done.
• Clean and oil the gorgeous 100 year old solid oak flooring that is under that fugly carpet done.
• Get rid of the big dresser I have the TV on, repurpose smaller wood shelving as a TV stand.  Will look better, take up less space
• Remove shelves behind front door currently housing my DVDs done.
• Fix front door, it is starting to fall off the hinges (it is original door!)
• Finish the front window replacement – replaced the window five years ago, but never finished putting the molding up around it nor did I finish staining, varnishing and painting it.
• Rehang the doorbell
• Rehang the smoke detector
• General cleaning done.
• Figure two days actually took 8 days.

In the office/small bedroom:

The house is considered a three bedroom house, however, I converted the small front-facing bedroom to an office.  Since I already decluttered in here just before I decided to sell the house, there’s not too much to do, fortunately.

• Pull the carpet out – carpet in here was installed in 1984, and it’s threadbare, to say the least. 
• Oil the gorgeous solid oak hardwood floors laying beneath that threadbare carpeting
• Rehang the original door
• Stain the built-in shelves
• General cleaning. 
• Not going to repaint the office, instead, I will offer whoever buys the house the option of my leaving this room as an office (the desk and far wall shelves are all built-in, the desk is just plain gorgeous if I don’t say so myself, considering I built it myself!) or converting it back to a bedroom.  If the potential buyers want it converted back to a bedroom, I will remove all the built-ins, patch everything, and repaint, before closing.
• Figure two days of work

The Bathroom:

I started to remodel the bathroom almost immediately after I bought the house ten years ago.  As is, obviously, normal for me, it’s a project that was never finished.  It is, fortunately, almost done.

• Finish hanging the remaining two rows of ceramic tile on the wall
• Finish patching where the new wonderboard and the ceiling meet
• Grout tile
• Grout marble floor
• Paint walls, ceiling
• Hang remaining molding
• Stain the bifold doors
• Install locks on bifold doors
• Stain threshhold
• Hang medicine cabinet
• Hang towel rack
• Buy and hang mirror
• Install the new wall light that I bought a decade ago but never installed
• GFC was installed by electrician but has never worked properly.  Need to get it fixed.
• Declutter and general cleaning
• Figure three days of work

The Master Bedroom

• Rearrange furniture done.
• Get rid of ugly, falling-apart dresser, repurpose the white cabinets I pulled from the kitchen as a dresser not doing.
• General cleaning and decluttering done.
• Repaint entire room
• Check the CO detector – it’s ten years old, probably should replace
• Install smoke detector
• Pretty it up, so it looks more like a bedroom and less like a place I read books and watch TV
• Sew new curtains.
• Figure just one day

The Utility Room:

• Remove the broken linoleum flooring, it’s all loose and chipped.  Then just paint the concrete floor that will be exposed once the linoleum has been removed done.
• Clean the walls, if that doesn’t do the trick, repaint the room.  Total hassle, hope it is not necessary done. Cleaning alone worked.
• Replace the lock on the back door
• General cleaning and decluttering done.

The Back Room

• Get rid of the piece-meal carpeting that is back there.  There is a bunch of various shapes and colors of carpet scraps on the floor, all mismatched and loose. done.
• TSP the floor, paint the floor (it’s concrete) done.
• Patch all the screw holes from the dozens of bookshelves I used to have hung there back when I used the room as a bookstore.  Huge project done.
• Clean, declutter done.
• Paint walls, ceiling done.
• Clean windows
• Replace glass in small window (broken)
• Clean the thermal curtains, consider just removing them for showing house. done.
• Figure two days took 8 days! Ack!.
• Added: Fix doggie door so it will latch securely
• Added: Fix the HUGE crack in the floor that I discovered when I removed the carpeting. done.
• Added: Recaulk all the windows done.
• Added: Repair/replace south windowsill that has dry-rot. done.
• Added: Repair broken wall panel below south window. done.

Upstairs:

Upstairs is a large attic that was converted to a large room in 1956, then remodeled/finished in 1978.  I actually have barely used the room at all during the ten years I’ve lived here… it’s been kinda the junk room, and occasional spare bedroom for drunk friends needing a place to crash   However, it was occupied by the ex-boyfriend’s 16-year-old son three summers ago, and he did a real number on the room.  We let him put a small window air conditioning unit in the window so he could stay cool … well, he tilted the back of the unit “up” so that the cold air would hit him on the floor… he broke the 40-year-old cast-iron bedframe at one point, so the mattress was laying directly on the floor because I refused to buy a new bedframe.  Well, when he moved the AC unit, all the condensation started pouring down the wall and floor, instead of out the back of the unit and outside as the unit was designed.  This resulted in some serious water damage – I had to pull out an entire section of wall, floor, and carpeting that still needs to be replaced. 

• Finish replacing wall sheetrock
• Finish replacing carpeting and padding
• Repaint as needed
• Replace broken glass in window that he broke done.
• Replace window screens that he knocked out
• Replace insulation in the wall where it was water damaged (soaking wet insulation was removed at time of incident)
• Replace ceiling light fixture that he broke
• Replace smoke detector, it no longer works
• Tighten the handrail on the stairs, it’s become somewhat loose
• Cleaning and decluttering, as needed
• Figure five days

The Basement:

The basement is more of a root cellar than a proper basement, it’s small, only about 8′x8′, enough room for furnace, water heater, and some storage. When the house was built in 1904 or 1910 (not entirely sure, both numbers show on various paperwork) the original foundation was done by rough pouring concrete using dirt berms as a “mold” instead of plywood framing as we do now, which means the interior-facing surface is rough and uneven, with up to a one inch difference in depth.  In 1958, the owners at the time had the house lifted and the foundation replaced, and they refaced the interior of that one wall by simply mortaring on another layer of cement, about 3/4″ thick.  No adhesive used, no lathe, nothing.  Over time, that refacing has flaked off, re-exposing the original interior of the wall.  The exterior side of the foundation has never been sealed, which was never a problem as we really don’t get much rain here… never a problem until this summer.  We’ve had a ridiculous amount of rain this year, the foundation has been seeping water through it into the basement.  Not a major problem, as structurally it’s still sound, but it means I have work to do.

• Call Mark – a structural engineer friend – and have him inspect the foundation, double-check that the water issue this summer hasn’t caused any structural issues (I’m sure it hasn’t, but having a proper structural inspection won’t hurt, and he’ll do it for a home-cooked meal!) done. Good news, house is structurally sound!
• Seal the exterior of the foundation all around the house
• Added: Knock out old, loose mortar in cracks from improper/badly done repair job done probably in the 1950s and remortar the foundation cracks.
• Remove the remaining sections of the interior mortar refacing, then reface it properly
• Fix broken window
• Replace the window well (clean it out too, as it is leaf-cluttered)
• Patch hole in heat duct leading to master bedroom done.
• Rehang the duct leading to the office/bedroom that has fallen can’t be fixed .
• Consider painting the floor, or the walls, with sealant (ask Mark about this also)
• Fix crack in stairwell (not a structural issue, as it’s just stucco) done.
• Replace the one wooden step that has cracked (but still sound, just looks bad) done.
• Declutter and clean
• Figure four days

The Garage of Doom:

• Get rid of all the crap left behind by the ex-boyfriend that is still in there done!!!!
• Get rid of all my own junk that has accumulated mostly done.
• Get garage door realligned so it closes properly
• Fix garage door lock
• Figure one day, plus one or two yard sales just for the stuff in here ended up having eight weekend’s worth of yard sales.

The Potter’s Shed:

• Fix two broken windows
• Fix door so it closes properly
• Clean and declutter
• Figure one day
• Added: Repaint around the windows and along the ground, as paint has chipped away due to weather damage.

The Exterior:

• High-pressure wash the exterior, clean the windows
• Install gutters.  I have no gutters. Got quote of $680 for gutters – OUCH! Need to price materials and talk someone into helping me hang the gutters myself. Got Mark to help me, have it half done.
• Fix the one steel siding panel on the front porch that has fallen
• Finish the exterior molding of the front window that I replaced
• Mow, rake, clean up done, but thanks to storms, needs to be raked again!
• The privacy fence is falling down.  I don’t have the money to fix it properly, but need to look into some sort of repairing. Front fence done, still need to do south yard fence.
• Figure four days

Well, not too intimidating… I am lucky that I’m such a pack-rat, I have most of the materials and tools already that I need to get this all done.  And when I’m being honest with myself, I realize this is all stuff that I would need to do anyway should I continue to live here – or frankly, should have already done!

How the hell I’m going to get it all done by myself with no money in four weeks … but I’ll get it done.  Somehow.

 

Posted in Life, Selling the House by Laura - 2 Comments