Pretty in Pink - Prybar!

Not every gal is lucky enough to have a step-dad (David) who loves tools and makes sure even the feminine types in his household know how to use them. I remember learning how to change a tire long before I even had a permit, fixing a flat on our trash-hauling trailer while my mom stood by.

As part of this handy inclination, David collected a set of tools and toolbox which he presented to me the birthday before I moved into my very own first apartment. The hex set and screwdrivers came in handy, but some tools (saw, level) didn't get much use because of the limited changes you can make to an apartment. One such item was the very cool pink prybar that he found for my set:


Of course, since we got the house, that pretty prybar got alot more use than it had in the previous 6 years I had it. I've used it to pull off trim and pry out nails. The only tricky thing about pretty tools is once you start using them as they are intended, they don't stay so pretty anymore. After assisting Aaron in his vinyl floor removal, it moves from being "pretty" to being "well used." Thanks, Pops, the tools are coming in handy! Now if Aaron would only put them back in their place like you taught me ;-)

Finally, progress!!

After so many projects going slower than expected, we finally caught a break. When the hardwood floor was entirely ripped up, we noticed that the vinyl in the kitchen looked awfully thick.. Turns out whatever wonderful soul (sooo love them!) put down the vinyl decided to put it down on a very thin layer of plywood instead of gluing it directly to the subfloor. As a result, to tear up the old vinyl, you just pry under the thin plywood and TA-DA, it pops up! It took a very short while, broken into two short sessions of Aaron's rapid pry and pop method and all that was left were the little staples that held down the extra plywood.

That was my next task, similiar to when we had to pry up the carpet pad staples to make the new carpet lay flat. I armed myself with a hammer and needle-nosed pliers, plus a bowl to put all the little sharp staples in and spent a good long time on the floor attacking staples. Did you know that your forearm can be worn raw just by repeatedly brushing over the knee of your jeans? I didn't, but I sure know now! Here are the fruits of my labor:

The implements of destruction and the big bowl of staples:

The now smooth, fairly clean subfloor:


The wall where the stove will go was also worked on this weekend and if all continues along well enough, we'll actually have our new appliances delivered this coming weekend! Finally, we only ordered them in November :-)

Aaron gave his little bro, Chris, a short lesson in the use of joint compound:

No worries, we didn't get yet another matching ugly orange hoodie, Chris just borrowed mine so he wouldn't get any joint gunk on his clothes.

Aaron totally finished his very first door last night, from door frame to door knob and now it's just up to me to paint. Don't be fooled, the door isn't crooked, the hole cut by the original installers is. Aaron made darned sure that door was "on the level." :

Now it's just up to me to prime and paint so that the frame, trim, and door are all a nice clean white. I'll probably leave that until after the drywall is completed so drywall dust and joint compound don't mess up a nice finish.

Two more doors for to "fully" complete, some drywall, and we'll really be on a roll!

Two out of three ain't bad...

After much frustration and calculation, Aaron was able to hang 2 of the 3 full sized doors on the bedrooms this weekend. It took lots of work and more patience than I could have managed, but he did it. Unfortunately the last doorframe is looking to be a bit tricky because of the way the house (a modular) comes together at that point. To make things even more interesting, he cut in the spots for the hinges on the wrong side of the door, so we'll probably be experimenting with wood putty to fix up that one. Hopefully everything will get sorted out over the course of the next week.

Also in progress now is the tearing out of the hardwood floor. We'd already torn out a small strip (well, Aaron tore, I carried the rubble) that had buckled from the water damage, but since we've purchased the new flooring and Aaron was "done" with doors for the day, he figured he could start going to work. No pics yet, but coming soon I promise!

I'm still not quite 100% from sinus infection #2 of the year, so I was taking it easy, painting closet doors being my main project, and stripping wallpaper off the walls when I was waiting for projects to dry or Aaron to need my assistance.

When all this will be done.. or done enough to live in.. is still a question. At this point all we know is that we are moving in on or before April 31st 'cause that's the end of our lease. Anything earlier is just a bonus.

There are no "quick" jobs

Last week Aaron spent almost all of our time at the house cleaning and painting the interior doors so that we could rehang them with new hardware and protect our "nearly done" rooms from any mess we would create in the hall/dining/kitchen area we were about to tackle. Sunday we went over to the house, figuring we'd just take a quick hour tops to screw on the new hardware and put up the 3 freshly painted doors.

HA!

3+ hours later we have determined that we have some definitely warped doors and some messed up frames. So now we are stuck with the prospect of another expense - either buying new interior doors, or buying interior doors & frames. The doors seemed fine when they were hung up, but we didn't look all that closely either, so we aren't sure if the warping is from the water damage or from us leaving them out in a garage for 2 months. Either way, the doors don't like the frames anymore, so something has to be done.

One little bit of work that was done was measuring the walls for the trim. I think we did it all properly, remembering to leave out the last 2 1/4 inches for the door trim we'll be putting up and measuring all the spots minus things like the heat registers, etc. Now the task of figuring out how many pieces of what length we'll need and then buying it and laying it all very nicely in our warm dry livingroom so we don't have to deal with warping again!