Well, actually, I'm not laboring today. I'm finally relaxing a bit before hitting the road home. And, what better place to take in the beauty of the day than here, at the Robertshaw Country Guest House?
The sisters who run this place were so excited to show us the new decor, complete with a new "old" set of fall dinnerware.
Everything that they have here is donated, and there are some very creative spirits here, as I always feel as if I've walked into an edition of "Home Beautiful" when we stay here.
As I've mentioned in the past, we find this place to be a comfortable, spiritual haven to help rejuvenate us. I am so glad that I stumbled upon the Robertshaw three years ago. And, they are probably glad as well, since we've visited so many times, they consider us to be family.
So, you're probably wondering about the "laboring" part of the subject line, aren't you? Well, sad to say, our purpose for the weekend visit was to, once again, tackle my in-law's house in order to get it to sell. Honestly, I really did think that the Memorial day weekend of work was going to do the trick.
But, we had some issues with a leaking roof. And, the sewer line didn't pass the Township requirements, which is actually of no surprise, as it appears that the lines that they originally installed don't meet their new standards, so anyone selling a house in that neighborhood is going to have the same issue. And, the municipality required a certified document at closing. So, there was no choice than to have them brought up to standards.
Of course, that was beyond our abilities, so after some varied estimates, Marty hired someone to complete the task and I'm happy to say that we now have that certificate in our possession.
We decided that it wasn't worth trying to fix an ugly roof that was leaking, so he had an entire new roof put on.
And, Marty decided that he was going to remove anything in the basement that might be an issue, under any circumstances, so he has actually been driving out nearly every weekend and sleeping at the house. I had to laugh when we fell into bed the other night here, and he said, "This is SO much better than sleeping on an air mattress on the floor". You betcha it is, and exactly why I was NOT going to even consider that option, Plus, let's face it, we've taken everything out, so there isn't even a pot to boil water, and forget about a microwave.
So, my job for the weekend was supposed to be aesthetics, but I will admit that I worked doggone hard! First, Marty wanted four shrubs trimmed so that the windows they were hiding could be seen.
In retrospect, I don't know why that was so important, considering that it involved quite a bit of effort on my part using a lopper, but I succeeded in the task in a few hours, using no less than 7 large refuse bags to clean up the clippings.
Then, I moved onto this area near the front of the house.
It seemed to me that people wouldn't want to see grass where a garden probably should be, so Marty mowed down the grass, and I laid the weedblock. pulling up whatever grass and weeds were loose enough to come up.
I managed to finish the entire left side and part of the right side, when the rain began to fall quite heavily, so I moved inside.
In the kitchen, when I began this renovation work back in January, if you recall, I had to remove panelling from the lower part of the walls that had been glued on with liquid nails. I nearly ruined my wrists attempting to sand it off. Marty tried using a hot gun, which melted part of it, but not all. But I thought it was sufficient enough, so I put on a coat of primer. Then, I used paint that included a primer. Four coats.
When we came back for the Memorial day weekend work, I noticed that some "stripes" were bleeding through the paint, so I applied two more coats of the paint/primer.
Well, that pesky stuff just won't die!
It looked like someone had a terrible accident with a cup of coffee.....only along the entire wall.
So, I had to buy a new can of paint, as we had scraped the bottom of the 5 gallon canister on the last go around, and even though it was the same color, I found myself having to repaint the entire wall as I could see where I stopped if I just tried touching up the bottom half. Two more coats.
I moved into the bedroom where the roof had experienced the leak, on the lovely ceiling that I had repaired and painted back in February. That repair took 4 coats of primer before I could touch up with the ceiling paint. Since the roof has been replaced, I sure has heck hope that stays looking white.
Then, I painted the front door. "Why?", you might ask. Because every article that I have read on what to do to make your house look appealing enough to buy, said to paint the front door. I didn't have a problem with the white door. I thought it was fine. But hey, I'm getting desperate here. So, after looking into what people might like, and ruling out most of them, because lemon yellow and turquoise just didn't cut it in my book, I decided on a green door.
And I even went out and bought a pretty fall wreath to hang on the front.
And although I wasn't crazy about it at first, I can see where it certainly does look different than the white door. Now, I'm not naive enough to think that painting the door is going to sell this house, but I sure as hope that it helps!
Moving on, I had to scrub the front hallway and kitchen floors, which did NOT make me happy as they had been newly installed on the Memorial Day weekend. But the front hallway was horrid. I'm not quite sure what people were doing, as there are sidewalks around the house, and a mat for your feet at the front door. So, I decided to move the carpet from the dining area of the house to the front hall, just to protect the floor.
Kind of fits in with the fall theme anyway.
Then, I really tackled the hardwood floors. And, by that, I mean that I scrubbed, scraped, steamed, and scrubbed again, every floor in the house, except one bedroom that we had done last trip. I even redid the living room as scuff marks showed up there as well.
I even did every inch of the LONG hall, and believe me, it is long (this is an 85 foot long ranch house).
In the dining area, we had these two sliding glass doors replaced. The originals had lost their seal, and you could only see through parts of them. I had never noticed, until one day, when my father-in-law was sitting by the window in his chair, I decided to "clean" them so that he could actually see something out there. I soon found out that no amount of scrubbing was going to do a bit of difference.
So, replacing them certainly made sense.
And, we also had the deck repaired and painted, which, of course, was a great idea now that one has a perfect view out of those sparkling windows.
We worked 12 hour days, picking up dinner at a local restaurant and bringing it here, to the Robertshaw as I was way too exhausted to even think about sitting in a restaurant. Plus....the advil was in the room here. And, Lord knows, I needed a LOT of that!
Marty made the mistake of asking me if I thought I'd ever look back and laugh at this, (as I was scrubbing scuff marks off the new floor....not good timing on his part.) I'll let you guess what my answer was to that.
So, now I'm just about ready to hit the road for home. Marty is back at the house. Kind of seems like an old record, doesn't it?
We've had the house off of the market while these repairs were being done, but tomorrow it is supposed to go back on. We can only hope that someone will love the door enough to want to make an offer. (that was a joke, by the way.)
So, here are just a few things that I've learned:
1. If you buy the cheap mulch at Lowes, they stick rocks in the bags. And, they aren't little rocks.
(That could explain why they can be heavy.)
2. When you think you are done with a project, another one always comes up.
3. People don't like green bathtubs. But, we still left it green.
4. People will use the toilets in the house even though the water is turned off. (Believe me....it isn't pretty when we come back for the weekend and find this problem. I wrote notes and left them on the toilets this time.....and I did not use the emojis that my children were more than happy to share with me.)
5. Some realtors do not offer the best advice. I won't elaborate here.
6. Believe it or not, you can have fun while doing doing work. I'd say that Marty and I are proof of that one.
And, finally 7: Nuns can be extremely welcoming and offer some very wise advice.
Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend! I'm heading home!
