Look up! Fixing up the Farmhouse, Part III

After the interior painting project was completed at the Flown Piggies Farmhouse, next on the 'get that stuff fixed' agenda was lighting.  Honestly, I don't blame the previous owners for installing the cheapest possible lighting. Why sink $$ into a house they weren't planning on living in? But where is the joy of living in a pretty house where you look up, only to see a boob light glaring down on you. The Boob Lights are throughout the house, ten in total, a few are closet dwellers

AKA 'Boob Lights'

There were other not-to-Madame's liking sort of lights as well. 

Tri-Light Unit

There were several of these fixtures referred to as 'tri-lights', not because they conjure up images of glowing sexy teen vampires, but because they have 3 lamp units. Only 2 of the lamps worked for each tri-light. The is only enough wiring in their base power boxes to allow only 2 of the 3 lamps to light. Geez, talk about setting off one's OCD tendencies. 

I decided all lighting needed updating. At first I intended to have them all installed by Handyman Jim II. But I thought, how hard could it be? I've known some fairly dim 'bulbs' that replaced their own lighting fixtures and such so decided I must be up to the task. So armed with knowledge gleaned from YouTube, I ordered a bathroom vanity light unit.  

The realtor photo on left, doesn't quite show the rust, grime and state of 'Ugh!' that was the vanity lighting on the first floor bathroom.   

At right are the genuine, Claire-installed 'lily lights'. Damn, but I think they look great. The whole bathroom has a theme of garden greenery. So freakn' cute.

With one whole project under my belt, I went on to order additional light fixtures. Below is the light fixture style decided on. 

The light below hangs by its grounding wire, during installation. It surprised me how the fixture is held up by its own wiring while one diddles around clamping like wires to other like wires and such.

A bit crooked...

All of the lighting bases were round, and all the new base light units were square, so it was a pain-in-the-bum getting the square pegs into the round fittings. The first couple of fixture bases had to be unscrewed and re-connected which was easy-ish but nevertheless annoying to do.

TADA!  All straighted out... sort of.

With 5 first floor light units replaced, next up was the stairwell lighting. I was sure I could install a new light there myself - that being IF I could reach the stupid thing! As there didn't seem much hope I would grow a foot or two any time soon or ever, so I had to hire an electrician.                                                                                      

Two bulb tri-light stairwell light fixture

I couldn't wait to see what kind of fancy ladder or what-not the electrician would use to reach the old light fixture. Turns out, as he exceeded 6 ft in height, he used a fancy set of tools, called his 'arms' to reach up and get the work done.  

Spiffy new replacement light fixture 

1/2 painted with old light fixtures

While we're up here on the second floor there were yet another pair of  'need replacement' boob lights, one of which can  be seen there on the right. This photo was taken when the corridor was about half done with its paint job.

I got 2 additional fixtures, this time with two bulbs each and I put them in.  As with the other fixtures, these hold those new fangled, old fangled retro 'Edison' bulbs. Yep. Everything old is new again.

Last up for replacement lighting was the dining room and central kitchen lighting. The lighting had been installed haphazardly by someone with no sense of either design or balance. Dead center in the kitchen there was a weird white fan with a light & weirdly short, ten inch fan blades. There are also two boob lights, as well as two tri-light fixture thingies.  

Kitchen lighting... rather unorganized

Deciding the units I'd purchased were too heavy for me to deal with on my own, enter Handyman Jim II. He did lovely job removing 4 light fixtures, replacing them with the 2 new spiffy, fixtures. 

Final kitchen lights.... Aren't they d' lovely?

And that is how the old dairy farmhouse got new lighting, upstairs and down. There are still 3 bedrooms worth of boob lights to be replaced - eventually  - with overhead ceiling fans, but that is a future story for another time. 

Fixing up the Farmhouse, Part II

Unfinished Garage Walls, no insulation, nor walls really

I had a great handyman in Fair Oaks, named Handyman Jim. And now, I have an equally wonderful handyman here in Sequim, and his name is also Jim. I will refer to him as Handyman Jim II for short. Jim II was recommended to me by Diane and Judy, the cousin and aunt of my friend Barbara. Diane & Judy met Jim II when they hired him to remodeling a bathroom. They were totally impressed with Jim II and the work he did for them. I have a ton of tasks for him to do. We started off with his working on my garage.

Insulation in place

The drywall installed and note one of two electric sockets, added for 'moi' convenience.

All the nails & seams spackled & readied for painting

Nice coat of 'Cameo White' paint

Yeah, yeah, not exactly the completion of the Statue of Liberty, but I'm sooo stoked by seeing the work getting done. So now the garage should stay at a temperature that won't freeze me come winter when I launder my skivvies & such.












I've long dreamed of a pretty & practical laundry area, looking perhaps something as charming and pretty as the perfectly twee laundry room on the right here:







Yes, who am I kidding. Here, below, is the starting point of my dream laundry area on the north side of my garage.

Yeah... loads of electrical wiring, styrofoam water pipes and ugly old water heater

Whomever put in the laundry area here gave not a jot of care to the placement of the water pipes (seen here encased in yellowing styrofoam), nor to the criss-crossing electric conduits that were about as high up on the walls as you could get them. WHY? I mean WHY put electric conduits so freakn' high? I mean, WTF!?

So Handyman Jim II's task was to lower the pipes and conduits and to make the dryer vent a straight line shot to the vent, instead of that sharp right turn.

Here is transitional work.

First up peeling the wall back to reveal the original wooden farm house walls, but really to access the various pipes and thingamajigs... uh... Jim II told me what the stripping was for but I done fergits.

AH HA!  The wall panel replaced and the uggy, yellowing, styrofoam pipes are replaced. The water lines now run a straight line over to the the future spots for the washing machine.

The water heater is probably on its last legs, as was my last water heater when I'd moved into the house. Or, like that last water heater, it might just last another 23 years.  Fingers crossed, right?

TADA!

Yeah, I know, not ready for Sunset Magazine, but it's on the way. First note the wall above the washer & dryer are now free of styrofoam and electrical crap, and probably awaiting a coat of paint, as soon as I decide on a color scheme. There sits an adorable new sink in the center, with a cool spigot thingie. Both newly acquired washer and dryer are atop dollies, so they can be rolled forward and back to retrieve dropped sponges or skivvies. The uggy old water heater is still obvious. It is slated to be walled off so you know, give it time. And no shelving or cabinets as yet, but that is on the 'to do' list. Happy for now... but loads more work to go.

Fixing Up the Farmhouse, Part I

There's an old, 1980s movie, The Money Pit. It starred Shelly Long and Tom Hanks, and was about a couple who purchased an old house, sunk all their money into trying to get the house fit to live in. I never saw that movie, but I don't have to see it. I've lived it. Twice.

I'm not saying I have spent every dime I have on the 3 houses I've owned, but I've learned that buying an old house, most of the time - means buying problems you didn't realized existed. It also means buying problems that no one else sees as 'problems', other than yourself.

As much as I loved my Fair Oaks home, I mostly refused to spend $$ on it, unless whatever was wrong seemed super urgent to me. I spent a lot of $$ on that cute old 1950s home, but only to make myself happy with it, nothing done to impress the neighbors so-to-speak.

So when I bought my adorable bit of Sequim property, I was well aware there would be 'things' about the 1947 farmhouse that were not emergencies, to anyone other than myself. I was right. DAMNITALLTOHELL, right?  So here's the quick run down of where some the $$ earned from selling my Fair Oaks home of 23 years went.


WTF:  Yes, wtf, indeed. Every room in the house, and one of its closets had one of these saucer-sized thingies on it, for a total of 5 'whats-its' for the entire house.

The house inspector told me they were state-of-the-art, 1940 & 50s era, air fresheners.  The white disks tunneled through the wall, to a small vent on the house exterior. Each disk has a cord, that pulled, rotated an inner foam disk  presumably sucking in outside air, through the scented (?) filter, to refresh the inside house air. Not even one of the 5 thingies was in working order. I made an immediate mental note, "If I get this house, the fancy schmansy air fresheners will be the first to go."  True to my word, as soon as I got the house, one by one, I pried every freakn' damned disk from the walls, revealing... gaping holes.

You can see on the right, the disk holes, the and the vent on the outside house siding. You can also see the yellow fiberglass insulation inside the wall.

To remove the holes, I insulation-foam filled the vents (to stop anything from crawling into the interior walls) and stuffed the rest of the hole with fiber insulation. The last step was to just slap on a wall patch, & spackle over the hole. The spackled holes were then painted over and voila! Weird thingies GONE. Bonus: I was my own labor pool, so the total cost, to replace all five ugly thingies, was under $25.

Interior Paint:  Previous farmhouse owners decided the house required a paint job. The painting job was so 'slap dash' that nothing was taped over or covered or removed for the painting. If something was in the way, it got painted. Honestly, six year olds with ADHD  could have done a better paint job, but I digress.

I have no clue what the color previous to the gold walls was, or why a LOUD & HOT shade of... uh... 'butterscotch' was selected. I crudely referred to the paint color as 'Mariachi Gold' because it made the farmhouse look like the inside of a Mexican Restaurant (forgive my sarcasm my Hispanic brothers & sisters).

Enough whining, here is the 'We gotta sell this house' paint job pictured below. Bright enough there for you Skippy? See what I mean about it not being particularly awful to anyone but myself?  Oh, and note the white 'air freshener' disk to the right of the central window.

Living Room in Butterscotch

And below is the living room repainted in a color that doesn't make me break out in a sweat just looking at it.

Living Room repainted in a hue that soothes my soul

 The overall interior painting happened over about 3 weeks. It's lucky only the kitchen, living room and upstairs hallway needed painting, and one upstairs room only needed painting on one of its four walls. My former housemate Curt was hired on to paint the rest. The entire house feels cheerier and cooler with its newly painted interior.

Kitchen/Dining area, half way through transition from Butterscotch to 'Cameo White'

 

 

Flooring: With the house interior in soul soothing colors, next up was a larger job - flooring. I have seriously begun to miss the hardwood floors in my old Fair Oaks home. If only I could have brought them along, right? After deciding on a flooring budget, I then proceeded to blowing it 3 ways from Sunday. Oh hush! I bet you've blown up a budget yourself once or thrice.

The flooring company, did a great job... ok except for the stuff they effed up, but I'll get to that.

This entry area photo, shows both the ugly, cheap, 'dried blood' colored laminate floor, and the v. new, but - in my eyes - uggy, cheap carpeting. Yeah... I just have a thing about carpets - I hate them. And that blood red laminate made me wonder if an axe murderer ever lived here.




I informed the flooring company I would be away for a week. They told me the flooring would be done by my return. After leaving, I got a call telling me the floor materials would be delayed so nothing would be even started by my return.

So when I drove back home from California, backing into the garage I had to suddenly skid to a sudden halt - so as not to run into my toilet! The toilet was dead center in the garage because flooring was currently being installed in the downstairs bath, and overall, the flooring project for the big house was about 90% complete.  Yippy Skip... uh... well, not quite 'yippy skippy'.

The installer 'in charge' was a kid that did his own thing, instead of, you know, reading the effing instructions his bosses gave him?  

Instructions: Cottage is of the first priority, and must be completed ASAP. Rip out carpeting in front room and replace with new laminate. Leave rear of cottage (bedroom) alone. 

So, what did the millennial do? The opposite. He ripped out the back room laminate, and totally ignoring the cottage's front room. ARRRGGHHH!

So that was this topsy turvey mess I arrived at on my return from California.

The errors caused a lot of headache (for me) and as the old laminate could not be put back in. So the kid's error added to my expenses as I paid for the unasked for additional flooring, though I did not pay for the labor. Sing this to the tune of 'Bye Bye Birdie':

  ♫Bye bye Budget! Why did you have to blow?♪

All whinging aside, the flooring in both buildings is now complete and, for my tastes, beautiful.




Back at the big house, the upstairs hall, showing pre-laminate, old carpeting, and half done paint job.

The upstairs hall showing new flooring 'Seasoned Oak' (without even a hint of old dried blood) and with completed paint job .

That is nearly the whole shebang! Newly painted walls that don't make me want to crawl into a hole to digest my enchiladas, and a dirth of carpeting to suck up dust to aggravate one's allergies. Can hardly believe so much work on the new property happened so relatively quickly (considering how freakn' long it took to get the place in and out of escrow. But wait folks, more to follow!

Farewell Gulag Garden.

My home whose street name translates as 'Place of the Mighty Raven'

Haven't mentioned a word of this previously, but I'm leaving California. I've had it up to my sweaty armpits with the summers here. Since there is nothing holding me to Sacramento, so as I do not have the zillions of dollars necessary to live on the cooler California coast, I'm out.

Leaving means selling my home of past 26 years. I momentarily considered renting it out but the thought alone nearly gave me a coronary. Therefore I must leave my dear Gulag Garden - the place where good plants come to die. I must uproot my 26 years of accumulated 'stuff'' & puzzle out how one goes about selling one's home while still living in it. UGH! I hope I survive this.

Had a realtor look the place over. She thinks that the kitchen devalues the house by a huge chunk of $$ to which I retort: B.S. When I moved in, the kitchen was in its original condition. Since then I painted & re-floored it with slate-look pergo, and had granite countertops installed. The realtor poo-pooed the granite countertops as 'de classe'.  If new owners decide to redo a kitchen, there is zero difference to them how many birthdays the cabinets have celebrated. And anyway, the kitchen is well up to MY liking. Stupid realtor...

Despite the kitchen 'issue' (and believe me, it's my way or the highway) there are a few things that must be brought up to snuff prior to the house going on the market. As I type, my awesome 'handyman' Jim is fixing a previously badly handled repair of a ceiling crack.



He will also fix the hall bathroom to the tune of a new floor and some new underpinnings to the base under the magical 'sinking toilet'.





On the hall bath re-do, the sink was removed for the work, the toidy stashed in the tub and the tiles partially ripped up.

GAK! The toilet definitely was sinking, and no, it wasn't because of my fat bum. The particle board under the tile is disintegrating. Particle board does that when it gets wet. NEVER put particle board in as underpinning to your bathroom floor - too much chance of water getting under there, and why didn't I know that umpteen years ago?









Jim pulled up the tiles way faster than I expected. I thought it would take days, but didn't even take a full afternoon. Either this shows how much I know about this sort of thing.

You can see the disintegrating boards the toilet sat on were removed and thick wood beams were put in to support the new floor boards.

New floor boards in, and the whole floor was sort of spackled over and it was left to dry for a couple of days. Soooo happy I have more than one toilet, I can tell you!

Well, TA DA! The floor is finished & the sink & toidy are back in place. The floor looks quite different with this 'aged wood' pergo look, but I really like it. I'm fond of the pale-yellow & grey color scheme.








 As luck have it - I was born in the year of the rabbit -  the house hasn't gone on the market yet, but through word of mouth I already have two couples interested in buying my house.  If they don't, oh well, then the house will go on the market - as soon as I can complete packing. I think people like my house because it's a nice quiet neighborhood and it has great neighbor's to boot plus that 'Location, location, location' thing.

Anyway, selling without going on the market first is just a best case scenario. Even if that isn't the end story, I must admit, a new adventure begins.

OMG, OMG, OMG!

Home Sweet Crap

Over the decades, my garage evolved from a lovely open space with function for laundry & work space into a pile of... uh... crap. You know how that happens. Nature abhors a vacuum, so under Nature's command, empty niches in the garage begin, inexplicably, to fill up. Things purchased with goodly projects in mind and trapped by innocent intentions entered the limbo, aka 'Out in the Garage'.

Where Feng Shui snuffed it

I've tried for a couple of years to cut back on 'stuff' and tidy up, but experienced zero success. I mean, things just refused to tidy themselves up, thus I had to give in and do something about it. Ergo, a couple of weeks ago I hired a living, breathing professional de-clutterer. Her name is Becky, and she agreed to help a sister out.

That brings me to this morning. Becky showed up bright and early at 9 AM, bearing empty lidded boxes, lots of giant garbage bags and her own lunch and drink. At, so help me, 9:06 sharp, she stood in the southeast corner of the garage. She picked up a 6 ft wooden stave and with great kindness, asked, "Would you like to keep this, donate or trash it?"

I was almost too happy to answer.

I mean, that was it for most of the day. I sat in comfort while Becky acted like the kindly extension of my will, magically zooming about, stacking, sorting, bagging... while what did I do? I answered questions and sat. You know, that's what Claire-Bears do best.

Soon the 'stuff' piled up, in their categories, in the garage center. It was like I was the homeowner in one of those popular DIY reality shows.

Stuff piled up in categories - 'keep', 'donate' and 'dispose'

Hard work is wonderful. I mean, I could watch it all day. Becky work was amazing. She did what I seem to be incapable of - sorting, organizing, etc. Unlike me, not once did she stop, wander away with a blank look on her face, forget what she was about. Go inside the house to watch that incredibly random episode of Big Bang Theory, or suddenly google a random thought of earth-shaking importance. In short, she was capable of sorting out the garage, a skill that is beyond my ken.

There was a break for lunch of course, and when I deemed to return, Becky was bagging, boxing and continuing to organization.

As pre-arranged by Becky, around 4 PM a junk hauler arrived. He & his little boy arrived with a truck which I took one look at and thought, "No way he's going to fit all my garbage in one truck load"

There was, after all, several junky cabinets of metal and rag-tag hungs of wood. There were not one, but two HUMONGOUS water bed bases that had served as a massive chest of drawers at the rear of the garage. With deft skill, the hauler neatly dropped the drawers on their edges, flattening them. Same for junky cabinets, same for all manner of wooden thingies. In the end, the 'stuff' did not even fill the vehicle to it's summit. Hogwarts couldn't have done a better feat of necromancy.

The driveway full of 'stuff'

The clean sweep did not just include the garage. It also included the Gulag Garden out back. It's been two summers at least, since I've watered anything back there. Anything green, maintains that color on it's own volition. Over the years I discovered that no matter how much any gardening company brags and boasts of its wood raised bed's long levity, I can assure you, they are lying. My pressure treated, linseed oil permeated, turpentine treated raised bed was no match for the hellish intensity of the California sun. And worse, the raised bed wasn't worth anything at all once the neighborhood cats decided it was the best litter box e-ver. I know. I feel vauguely ill when I think of that too.

Raised cedar bed in its happy, pre-kitty hay-day
of heritage melons, cukes and cutting flowers

Sad, sorry state of raised cedar a frighteningly short time later

Alas. Today the raised cedar bed is no more. *melancholy sigh*

Seeing the empty space, where for several years my fun, raised gardening bed sat, makes me want to cry. Stupid effing neighborhood cats. Ultimately the evil felines did it more damage than any ultraviolet rays. If only I'd had the forethought and good sense to own a pack of slightly underfed Rhodesian Ridgebacks.

Enough pouting!  Note: there were lots of other things outside that went tossed, from the Great Trash Hauling of twenty-sixteen.

Farewell too, yee olde vestige of chicken husbandry
and other assorted bits of gardening gewgaw

Hello once again tidy patio with no evidence of former projects of various time periods

By the time the hauler disappeared on the horizon with the remnants of 'Claire's Follies', Becky had begun the final sorting of odds and ends, ending with an ultimate sweeping up all the dirt, and debris remaining on the garage floor and patio. Then it was over... my garage and the back patio were clean, sorted and looking like I didn't live here, and that, trust me, is a good thing.

How cleared and clean is the garage? OK, those who have visited me here, this is a shocking revelation: I no longer have to back out of the garage for people to get into the passenger side of my car. Yes. Let that shocking fact sink in and further, let me state: Best money I spent all year.

TA..

DAAAH!