Wallpaper 101

So last week was our first dive into the wonderful world of home improvement. After all of our mishaps, we finally started removing wallpaper around 4pm on Sunday afternoon. Seven hours later when we finally left the house, we had only finished half of the kitchen, and we still had the two bathrooms to do. Obviously, we had no idea what we were actually getting into when we first decided to take on that task. It's one of those things that really sucks when you are doing it, but soon after it is all over, it will become quite funny. Anyway, here are a few things we learned:

• Wallpaper is ugly and it sucks. Never, ever put it in your house...ever. You will miserably regret it if you ever decide to take it down. Here are two prime examples (The top one was in the kitchen and the bottom one was in the master bathroom):
• Having a wallpaper steamer helps quite a bit. However, do not expect the wallpaper to just slide off like magic. You also need a really good scraper with a sharp edge. Meet the wallpaper steamer we rented from Home Depot (I named him McSteamy).
  
• Patience is key! The best analogy I can come up with is that it is kind of like eating crab legs. It is hard work to break through the shell, but once you figure out a good technique, it's not so bad. Sometimes the meat comes out in little tiny shreds and you wonder why you are going through all of the trouble. Other times, huge long pieces of meat come out all at once, and that is when it is so satifying and worth it!
• Go ahead and plan on taking about three times as long as you originally planned.
• Don't be surprised if you find out that there are other layers under the top layer. Usually they will be even uglier and harder to remove than the top layer!

• Be prepared for dust, wetness, and a big old mess!

Uh Oh...

Well I was hoping I would have time to finish my story from yesterday, but today has been a loooong day and now it is bedtime because I have to work tomorrow bright and early. I promise I will finish my post midweek after I'm done working! Happy Easter to all!

Home Improvement FAIL

We have officially been homeowners for exactly one week today....Woohoo! I can hardly believe it is true!

Our closing last Friday went pretty well. At least I thought it did. There were a few little glitches in the paperwork that we were able to work out right then and there, although it made the process a little longer than usual. Our real estate agent, who is a little on the hyper side, was about a minute away from smashing her head into a wall by the end of it, because we were there for a good two hours by the time we got everything worked out. Apparently most closings only take about thirty minutes. Oh well, I certainly didn't mind it taking a little longer if that is what it takes to get it done right!

The closing attorney, who was a college friend of Dave's, was very patient, and did a great job of explaining each paper we were signing in simple terms. I still don't understand everything we signed, but I trusted the attorney, our realtor, and our mortgage agent, who were all there to cheer us on. I really don't think they would have let us sign anything that would end up biting us in the ass later. The bottom line of it all was: make your mortgage payments on time, the property is being sold "as is," and make sure you get your property tax bill when it is issued. Oh, and now you are in debt for the rest of your life! Aaaaahhh!! (But actually, it wasn't really that scary to think about. The much more daunting task right now is making the place liveable.)

After our closing, we went to visit our new house just for fun (and we had to go and get the keys anyways). We walked around a little bit, making mental notes of the work ahead of us. As we were standing in the kitchen talking, all of a sudden we heard a scratching noise in the ceiling above our heads. My heart sunk, as I imagined some horrible rat chewing up the rafters and making a nest in our new house! I wondered to myself if we had just made a big mistake. And then to top it all off, when we were pulling out of the driveway a few minutes later, I noticed that we have a fire hydrant in our front yard. Well where the hell did that come from? I totally had never seen it until right then. It's weird the things you notice after it is too late. But truthfully, I'm not sure that would have turned me off enough to not want to buy the house. It is what it is.

The next morning we started out bright and early, attacking the task of.......

Oh wait, sorry, wrong story.

We meant to start out bright and early the next morning attacking the task of ripping the horribly ugly wallpaper out of the kitchen and the two bathrooms. But those who really know us would not be surprised to find out that we actually went out with friends in Decatur the previous evening, stayed out later than we meant to, slept later than we meant to, and didn't make it to Roswell until the mid afternoon. Then, the Home Depot that we were planning on renting a wallpaper steamer from told us that they don't rent tools there. Doh. So, instead we worked on picking out a few paint colors that we thought might look good in the living room and picked up some new locks and doorknobs for the exterior doors. Hoping to make some use of the rest of the day, we drove over to the house, only to discover that we had forgotten the tool box. Damn, we suck at home improvement. So we couldn't change the locks out, but at least we threw some paint on the wall to see how it would look. We also scared the shit out of the poor squirrel that was scratching around in our ceiling, probably trying to make a nest. Take that Mr. Squirrel!

The next day, after sleeping off the double UGA victory hangover, we again headed back to the house, after renting a wallpaper steamer from the other Home Depot store in the area that does actually rent tools. We lugged the contraption home, filled it with water, turned it on, and waited....and waited...and waited. NO fricking steam. The damn thing was broken. So then we had to go and exchange it for another one, which kind of worked out, because we would have had to go back anyway to buy the rest of the other tools we would need. I guess at first we thought we would just steam the wallpaper, and it would fall right off. HAHA! Now that is funny. Looking back on it, I am sooo glad we had to go back the second time, because we bought some chemical wallpaper remover and a scraper, which ending up really helping (but at the time, we bought them "just in case.")

Tomorrow: Wallpaper fun, working with a contractor, and pictures!

I Blame it on the Hops

Last night I met some friends at Muss and Turner's to taste some beers I've never tasted before and to learn all about hops. I'm not sure I retained much of the educational material by the end of it all, but at least I expanded my hoppy beer palate. I enjoyed the presenter, as well as his presentation, and discovered that I might like hoppy beer more than I thought. In the past, most IPA's I have tasted have caused me to immediately scrunch up my mouth and nose and stick my tongue out in response to the bitterness, but I must say I was impressed to find a few that I thoroughly enjoyed last night. To top it all off, the company we were in was even better than the beers we were sampling. It was a much needed reunion with friends that really cheered me up and helped me forget about all of our house worries for a moment.

We ended up staying later than we should have, because we were having such a good time, and we just wanted to have one more beer. I'm not entirely sure what time we actually left, but it was much later than a person having to get up at 5am to work the next day should have been out. I remember passing out in the car, and then stumbling around once we got home, trying to get my clothes ready for the morning. Next thing I know, I'm laying in bed telling my favie that I really don't feel good. About 5 seconds later, I'm vomiting in a trashcan that he had pulled over to the side of the bed, just in the nick of time. I then proceeded to barf my guts out, until there was nothing left inside, and passed out in the bed. Ugh.

Somewhere in the midst of all that, I at least had the sense to tell my favie to call in to work for me, seeing as how I was in no shape to have people's lives in my hands early the next morning. I woke up at 7:30 am with the worst hangover that I can remember. Now, around 14 hours later, I am just starting to feel human again. And I must admit I'm feeling a little embarrassed about my shenanigans last night. I am usually a much more responsible person than that. Oh well, I guess everyone has their moments. All I know is, I think I will just stick with the Rock Green Light for now.


P.S. A word to the wise: If you take Pepto Bismol immediately before vomiting, a chemical reaction between the active ingredient, bismuth, and sulfites, which are in your intestinal tract, will turn your tongue black. Yes, black as the night. I thought I might be dying from a horrible disease when I woke up with a black tongue this morning, but the powers of google solved the mystery for me. Here are some links for more info.

Here We Go

When we first set out to buy a house, we were not looking for a "fixer upper." We know as much as diddly squat about renovating, remodeling, or updating a house. We have the tools to hang up a few pictures, and that is about it. Well then we found our house, and it was just what we were looking for in every way, except for the fact that it needed mainly cosmetic updates throughout. Then came the inspection, and a few more things went on the list of needed repairs. We weren't sure we would be able to swing it, until our mortgage lender found a way for us to not have to put any money up front. We were quite relieved to know that we would then be able to use our money for the needed updates and repairs on the house, instead of for the down payment. Everything seemed to be going just our way, and it seemed like it would all work out according to plan.

Now, suddenly, we are about to be knee deep in updates and repairs on this fixer upper of ours. Yesterday, we met with a contractor at the house to get some quotes on the work that we would like to have done. Mind you, the day before we had made a prioritized spread sheet type list of everything we would like to do in the house. (Guess whose idea the spread sheet was?) The list is 84 items long. Some are big things, like replacing carpet, and some are small things, like capping an unused gas line. We then divided the list into things we thought we could do ourselves, and things we knew we would need a professional to do.

So in the end, we presented Mr. Contractor with a list of 45 items. He was very nice, very professional, and seems like a trustworthy person. He went through the list, making notes, and asking us questions as needed. I'm sure he could tell that half of the stuff we really had no idea about, except that we would like to have it done and have no idea how to do it or how much it would cost. He never made us feel stupid about anything we were unsure about, and even made suggestions for ways that we could do some things cheaper, even if it meant he would not be the one doing it for us. He genuinely seemed to want to help us.

Then Mr. Presumptious Douchebag, the flooring and countertop specialist, shows up. He was neither genuine, nor trying to help us achieve what we were trying to achieve. He only wanted to talk about the options that he wanted to do. Of course, they were the higher priced, higher end options, that we most likely will not be able to afford. The quotes he gave us for the floors and the counters were not even the ones we were originally asking for, but the higher end options that he had suggested. Sure, we would like to be able to afford those things. But the stark reality is that the quotes he gave us for those options would take up more than half of our budget. We really appreciate you wasting our time buddy, but I think we'll be shopping around, thankyouverymuch!

So we are now anxiously awaiting the rest of the quotes from Mr. Nice Contractor. I really hope that the prices he gives us don't make us wet our pants. I really hope that we will have the ability to do at least the higher priority improvements before we move in. I really hope this doesn't turn into a nightmare, a disaster, or a huge ass reality check. And I really hope we are not getting in over our heads. Please Mr. Contractor, help us make our house into a home, not a living nightmare.

Whatever we can't afford to have the contractor do, we'll have to either put off doing or do by ourselves. I am so scared this is going to turn into a horrible episode of a do-it-yourself "Flip This House," where the featured homeowner makes all the wrong decisions and everything goes horribly wrong. Or that old 80's movie, "The Money Pit." And that would just really suck.