House Update: Round 2

Memorial Day, in itself, was designated to remember all of those military personnel who lost their lives defending our country.  And, of course, there were tributes and parades and special events centered around that theme as part of the weekend.

But, let's face it....Memorial Day Weekend is often considered to be the beginning of Summer, and most people take the opportunity to have some fun. And there was certainly a lot of family enjoyment going on around us, which was obvious from the sounds of kids laughing and playing games, and the smells of hamburgers on the grill wafting in through the windows.

But partying was certainly not on our agenda for the weekend.  Nope.  We had an important mission to carry out instead.

If you recall, I posted a blog in early February, entitled "Flipping Geismom" which detailed the efforts that we had made to spruce up my in-laws' house in order to get it sold.  There was still more work to do, involving trips every other weekend, and, finally, the house was listed in early April.  The realtor was sure she could sell it in a month.

Well, sadly, after several weeks on the market, and a price reduction to encourage a buyer,  we found ourselves with absolutely no interest, despite a record number of people viewing the house.  In fact, the reports that we were receiving reminded me of episodes of Caspar, the Friendly Ghost.  And, when the word "scary" came up on a realtor review, we realized that any dream of a quick sale was out of the picture unless we went back in with a discerning eye and made some more updates.

And making that 8 hour drive every other weekend wasn't accomplishing much.  We needed a block of time if we were going to do something effective.

So, Marty took yet another vacation day (some vacation......right?), and I drove out on Thursday to get a jump on some of the clean up in the garage, which had been last on our list of priorities.

There is a room off of the garage which, to be quite honest, I had dubbed as scary a couple of years ago, when I was attempting to do some clean up and found myself exposed to rat poison.  I'm fairly certain that this house never saw a rat (well....maybe that was due to the presence of the chemical?).  But, that incident was enough to make me wary every time I would go in that room on one of our monthly trips over the years.  And, then there were the Carpenter Bees.  Which had made their presence known about a year ago, albeit dead.  But even dead Carpenter Bees are creepy if you ask me.

So, with gloves on my hands, I rolled up my sleeves, took a deep breath, and headed in for the challenge.

I had stuck a lot of things into boxes, in an attempt to organize this room, quite awhile ago.  And it appeared that a box is the perfect hang out for these creatures. 

Apparently the Carpenter bees had found a new home, although it does appear that it didn't work in their favor.  But, to make matters worse, I could hear buzzing in the room.  Ugh!  Luckily, there was a can of spray handy, and I did manage to wipe out a couple that made their presence known. 

I voiced my complaints to my husband, who seemed to think that it would be entertaining to play Buzzy Bee songs at breakfast the next morning.  Do you know, not one bee showed up the rest of the weekend?  That's why I take photos.  Proof is in the picture! 

It took several hours, but I finally managed to move most of the items out, and start a huge pile for "Got Junk", and then I made the mistake of looking up.

Apparently the rafters above the garage had been used for storage, and, I distinctly recall asking if this area had been cleaned up two years ago, when Marty and his brother had taken a full week's vacation to clean up the house.   And I do remember being on the "catching" end as items were dropped from above.  Do you suppose this stuff multiplies on its own?

I can happily admit that the rest of the weekend did not involve bugs, except for one stink bug who seemed to think that playing in paint was an enjoyable past time.

So, here goes the home improvement:

The kitchen walls and cabinets were part of the phase one improvements.  At the time, we decided not to replace the floor because we thought a perspective buyer would want to put in new flooring according to their taste.   We were obviously wrong.

Amy came over to help with the initial install and replacement on Friday, after work.  (That's me in the photo)

 Jim drove out and performed his magic touch on the countertop in the kitchen

(If that stove looks shinier, it's because I spent a couple of hours cleaning it.  Let's just say that Easy Off is over rated.  There was no "easy" involved.) 

How is that for a transformation?

The flooring extended into the front foyer, and a new light went up on the ceiling.

I scrubbed that floor on my hands and knees and added a coat of floor refinisher polish.

In the meantime....Marty was working on cleaning out the junk.

In trying to decide what we should do regarding making the house more appealing, we used our kids as our lifeline.  At one point, Marty and I had been standing at Lowe's wondering which kitchen sink to buy, and he said, "Ask the Millenials".  So I did.  And they were quite happy to appease us.   We've got great kids, for sure!

The girls had suggested new toilets and mirrors to replace the well-used medicine cabinets.  That prompted us to upgrade lighting as well as countertops in the bathroom.

This was the one bathroom after our first overhaul.

The room had originally held a double bowl sink as was obvious with two sets of lights and medicine cabinets, so why not restore the room accordingly?  New lights, mirrors, and double bowl sink.  Painted cabinet and windows.  

I'm not going to post the original condition of this tub/shower.  But I was able to clean up all of  the little tiles, remove the metal strip on the side that once held a door, and was lucky enough to find extra little tiles under the sink to fill in the gaps that had been chiseled out for the door frame.  

Painted the door for a clean look.  The original had been stained a very dark brown.

Amy painted this room and laid most of the flooring.  Marty installed the new vanity, sink, mirror and lights. 

And, I cleaned up the shower. 

I had originally intended to do a lot more with this shower, but by 6:30 pm on Monday night, I realized that somethings just have to give, and this is one of them.  I really just wanted it to look brighter. 

Got Junk came on Sunday and filled another 3/4 of a truck.  That company is great to work with as they actually come into your house and move the stuff out for you.  Marty took advantage of that and had the guys carrying tons of items that had accumulated in the basement and had been stashed in the rafters. 

At the end of the day, this was the last room that needed to be cleaned up.  It had started out clean, except for a desk and cabinet, but ended up being the "catch all" room from the weekend.  Now it holds only a rolling desk.  Unfortunately, things were getting too crowded in the garage. 

So, the garage still looks scary, only loaded with a ton of stuff.  But, all of that "stuff" is localized and kind of sorted. 

And, believe it or not, there was still even more trash to put out on the street!

I realized this morning, that I only sat down for 5 minutes yesterday, to eat half a sandwich, which definitely explained my exhaustion this morning, so I decided that it was in my best interest to relax a bit this morning before making the drive home.  Our original plan had involved us driving home yesterday, but, believe me, the house was in no condition to leave, and I did not relish the thought of returning next weekend to complete the task, so we altered the plan and added another day to the trip.  Marty left at 4:00 am to drive to work this morning, and I slept in until 7:00.  Great plan on my part!

As a final note, the best result of the weekend was finding a home for this photo.  It is a chalk painting that hung on the walls of my in laws' house since 1994.  We learned that Marty's Dad actually mounted the painting and made the frame.  But no one in the family had an interest in taking it and it was way too big to hang in Marty's Mom's apartment, so, with her blessing, we brought it to the Robertshaw B&B, and asked if they  might be interested in it.  Mother MaryAnn was thrilled and has already thought about a place to hang it. 

And that made Marty, me and his mother, very happy.  And, I'm fairly certain that his dad is smiling down on this decision as well.