KILZ on the floors

To seal the floors and kill the smell I am painting all the sub-floors with KILZ. This will also help any water spills in the future from rotting out the sub-flooring. The new laminate flooring will be installed next.

Painting the ceilings

Finally - David starts on painting the ceilings. This is just another phase in the long haul updating.

You can see how dark the original paint had become. The white makes it look sooooooo much better.

Another ceiling being painted.

Flowers

Autumn crocus popping up in the front garden. It will take a full year before we know what we have lurking.....

Roses and japonese anenomes, picked from the garden and making use of a plastic Phillies cup!

The tree you can see through the kitchen window is some kind of magnolia - I think. It has magenta flowers which doesn't seem like a magnolia to me but the leaves and shape of the tree say it is. More research needed. And definitely a pruning.

Washing walls with TSP

Cleaning the bathroom with TSP. Gets the grime off the walls and creates a good surface for painting.

Studio ceiling getting a good dose of TSP. After all this work David needs some TLC.

Sanding trim

Sanding the living room window trim.

Sanding the trim around the walking wardrobe. Always be walking, not walk in - an previous landlord had advertised his rental as having a WALKING wardrobe and ever since then we've had special clothes closets.

More trim sanding - note the rolling eyeballs.

Grouting

Getting out the shower grouting - readying for washing the walls and painting.

Taking out the parquet

David has already taken a picture of the hall floor without the parquet - this is an earlier picture.

Our carpet measuring man was horrified we were taking out the original wood.

This all went out with the smelly carpet, several falling apart shelving units, a huge mirror with missing silvering and the wooden raised bed forms which were leaching nasty stuff into the soil. A good day's haul.

Studio puddle

This is the puddle in the studio which we think was probably caused by an overwatered plant. David took out the particle board to find the stain had gone down to the boards. So, a good dose of drying out, a coat of Kilz and....

......in goes the new particle board.

Good Garbage

Removing the old carpet and junk from the house.
Either 1 trip with the junk guy's truck, or 4,902 trips in the Smart Car.

I didn't envy those guys having to load up the old cat piss carpet. We got rid of that, the old garden rotten raised bed wood, picnic table, shelving, old mirrors, and flooring. Not a bad deal.

Parquet Flooring Up

Got the parquet flooring up in the entry way. Man, that stuff was really glued down! Had to hammer and chisel it all up. The new flooring will cover this area; and I want to put in a little stool for taking our shoes off when coming in the house.

Containers

The first of the plant containers to come over to the new house. Herbs and geraniums. They will probably immediately do much better here as there is plenty of sun. The poor things were struggling in the front of our apartment with only 1 hour of direct sunshine.

More scraping

Thinks - "What next?"

More nasty wet bits being vacuumed up.

Vacuuming....

Hey - guess what? Another really bad spot.

Actually there were 3 really bad spots. Two where animals had peed over and over (there were 1, possibly 2 dogs living here originally), and the really deep spot in the master bedroom.

Note the cool headband/towel arrangement David came up with to stop the sweat dripping into his eyes. Ever resourceful. Also note the grim expression........

Scraping

 Disinfected puddles in the hallway.

No idea what this was originally. Doesn't smell so we think - by the shape of the puddle - it was a plant which was overwatered. Needs cutting out and replacing.

Scraping the swollen surface off the sub-floor, preparing for disinfectant.

More scraping plus a view of the kitchen and front entry, (and David's bottom)!

Carpet

David couldn't take the pong any longer - it was giving both of us headaches. So he went into machine mode and ripped up all of it - and the underlay.

Here it is piled in a stinking heap on the porch.

The Mailbox

The intrepid Mr MacGyver sawing off the old, rickety mailbox with a flappy door. Much swearing involved.

What's left of the old mailbox.

Off comes the newspaper box. We live in the internet age.

Triumph! The old is now new. The post still needs replacing as the box is held on with a whisper. Oh goody. Another job!

Cat Piss Carpet

OHG Really?
OK the place smelled old and like they had cats, BUT...
We have been working in the house with the terrible smell waiting for the flooring guys to pull out the carpet.

Previously, while pulling the baseboard trim, I have notice a wet area on a corner of the hallway. I cut the carpet away to have a better look - well not good. I guess their cat had been pissing there and there was some rotten wood. Shit! I got into a panic and pulled up all the carpet in the hallway and on the other side of the wall. LUCKILY,  the other side of the wall was dry, so now water leaks from the roof. I found and area along the hallway about 6 foot long where the *^$#*(&^$^* cat had been pissing and the (&(^ owners let it do so.

Some of the subfloor is rotted, but only on the surface. Poking the footer of the wall showed it was sound. As you can see from the photo of the hallway there are little pee spots all over. So we are off to get Anti-Cat-Urine stuff to kill the smell. I only found one other small pee spot damaged area in the house.

So, I ended up pulling removing all the carpets and foam padding myself. Hurled it all outside. Man that stuff is heavy, I'm still sore.

Doors, Trim, & Shelving Off

The work begins. I have removed all the doors, baseboard trim, and closet shelves. They are stacked in the garage (nice to have one) where later I'll sand them down and paint them white.

Last weekend I cleaned the garage and decreased the floor, so we can use it as a staging area for the move. As this will become our "business" area with inventory, packing table, packing supplies, my fly rod building table, and fly tying table, we are going to paint it all so it is more like another room.

All the paint in the house and garage will be white to brighten up the house. It is cloudy here in the North West for many months, so the brighter the house the better. We are offsetting the white with some rugs over a stone colored laminate floor. We didn't want wood, but needed something durable, and as inexpensive as we could get - to a point.

Picking up the Keys - Water Main Break!

As we rolled up to the house to pickup the keys from our Realtor - the fantastic John McKay, we noticed a plumbing van in the driveway, "Oh, this can't be good".

Turns out our agent called the selling agent about a water hissing we heard during the walk through. She called the seller about it. The city also called the seller about a large water bill. Turns out the water main to the house had broken. They got it fixed and the seller turned up and paid the plumber.

Neighbourhood

On our right - already met the couple living there.

On our right - a young couple with a little girl.

Opposite - we've already met the lady who owns the rose garden. And her two dogs.

Right opposite our house - a very pretty garden. Haven't met them yet.

The kitchen and living room

Living room. Note the brown shag carpet - you can image how much cats loved this. And so did the little dog. Dear God - what a stink. There's a very nice gas fire which will be welcoming in the cold weather. The windows are aluminium and need upgrading but will do for now.

Solid builders grade kitchen. Lurve those oak cabinets - not. Will think about how to deal with this later on down the road. The fridge is new and probably the biggest we've ever had. Definitely a keeper. The electric cooker is kaput - only one ring works. When we can scrape up enough pennies we'll replace it with a nice new gas cooker. Don't know whether the dishwasher works but we'll find out. At least I haven't forgotten how to wash dishes by hand. The sink looks out onto the side garden and on the right hand side of the fridge is the door to the garage. Lovely - I can take our groceries straight from the car to the kitchen. Really living the American dream here!

Oh - and there's a pantry and utility room behind the wall on the left hand side. Never had a pantry before. Heavens!

Garden

Paved back yard with raised beds. Unfortunately the wood forms are made with treated wood so who knows what poisons have leaked into the soil. There are feral cats in the woods which have been using the beds for litter trays and there were little dogs running around. So.... Master Gardeners here we come - with our little box of earth samples. Quite a bit of soil amendment required. I know some horse owners ...........

This is what we look out onto. A green space. Filled with oak, fir, hydrangeas, hellebore, roses and other stuff we can't even see. Lots of cutting and pruning and I think we'll have another garden on the other side. What a lovely view - and very private.

Covered back porch. Oh boy - we are going to have fun with this. It's basically another room and with some kind of patio heater could be stretched out for most of the year. I see lots of supper parties going on here. (The picnic table has to go - it's falling to pieces).

30 years ago someone planted this redwood tree. We think it is a coastal redwood which doesn't naturally grow this far inland or this low down. They need fog to grow and we do get it but not as much as by the ocean. However, this little fellow has managed a trunk circumference of 14ft and a height of probably 40 to 50 ft. Not bad for a baby.

The side path. Quite wide with lots of sun. Things can be done here - I have plans!

Front of house

The front door and covered porch. To the right you can see through the open garage door into the kitchen.

We have a nice sloped area in the front of the garage, and to the right is another whole section we can turn into - a rose garden - a private garden room - another veggie garden - who knows, but it's a great space.

Mrs Bean parked outside the front by the wobbly and rotten mail box. We have a gorgeous Japanese maple tree.