We've been ripping up a lot of tile

Now that I'm getting caught up on a lot of home improvement posts, I have a more recent update for  you all! Hubs has been slowly chipping away at our tile. In the WHOLE HOUSE. You may have noticed some tool expenditures in the January spending report, and this would be why!

For those of you who don't know, we are removing the flooring for a few reasons:

We don't have tile under our bathroom sink.

When we moved in, we realized that the large cabinet in our bathroom that was supposed to be a bathroom vanity, was just a kitchen cabinet with a bathroom sink on top... and that it was poorly connected to the plumbing. When water damage was in the unit prior to the sell, they realized they couldn't purchase a new bathroom vanity that would work with the old floor layout (they would have to re-do the floors because cabinets aren't the same size they were 20 years ago). Naturally they didn't want to spend that much money to sell it, having the same tile everywhere else, so they tossed a kitchen cabinet in there with a sink, since it was larger than the missing tile portion.

It was horrible. Too close to the toilet, no actual storage space in there. The doors didn't have shelves, just opened to one large space.

We installed an IKEA wall mounted cabinet (the legs are just for "show") but we don't have tile on the floor there... it hasn't bothered us since we moved in, but its missing.   

No tile here...

When we installed our new tub, they took out a couple tiles to make it sit properly on the concrete.

I gave them permission to do this in advance if it was necessary since there was no tile under the sink and i'd rather have my new tub properly installed and level.

We also removed that weird "half wall" glass partition in our kitchen that was an electrical nightmare. 

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If you don't remember the pantry turned office space that was too small for a laptop and contained more fire hazards then I could count, were glad its gone...  We have much more open concept space with it out, but its removal left a fun "gap" in our tile. 

Also, all throughout the house there are high and low gaps, grout lines that don't match, places where the tile isn't even straight with the wall... it was poorly done. 

So new flooring would be in our future.

We got an initial flooring measure and quote from home depot a while ago to replace all of our flooring, which was for $8,762.98, which includes removing tile and replacing it and new carpet in our master bedroom... but there are always "contingencies" with any improvement project and we don't have the full $9,000 right now. We decided a new tub was something that needed to take priority over new floors and every day, we feel we made the right decision. 

The quote above also didn't include putting on baseboards, which we had to remove for the massive ant infestation we endured right after moving in. 

We also found out (because I ask questions) that if they remove the tile and there is damage to the concrete, any cracks, etc more costs get added on... 

Right now, about half the cost is for tile removal, so we decided to start to remove the tile ourselves, and reassess the quote when they can see the bare concrete. It's a good thing we did. 

Hubs started hitting out tile the old cheap way. Hammer, mallet, and sweat equity. He made some progress, but getting the thin set up was hard work so the ground would be smooth enough to walk on... 

 So we bought some tools, hit out a few more tiles and were making some great progress.

Little man and I had a birthday party to attend, hubs thought it might be a good day to do some work in his room, since we would be out of the house.  He planned to only remove some tile that we could hide with his bed and set to work. It was going great so he popped out another row and the found water....

water under our tile.... 

We had no idea if it was a slab leak, prior water damage that never dried, or from the recent rains, so we couldn't stop until we found dry tile... So he kept going... with every tile we popped out, we were left with more water... then a dry tile, then more water... We ended up having to remove all of the tile in a single day from his room.

I even helped out and got a few tiles out after the party, but hubs did like 99% of the work.  We got all the tile up, but not the thin set because it was too wet to come up with tools and hubs wanted to dry it out. We set up fans and sure enough, the next morning it was dry.

 Little man slept "camp" style in the living room and the next day hubs removed all the thin set.

We found 2 cracks in the concrete slab, but we also had 7 days of continuous rain before we decided to rip up the tile. So we don't know if the water came from the rain up through the cracks because the last homeowners DID NOT sealed the concrete before adding tile... No moisture barrier... 

So now we are going to have to wait for more rain to see if we run into this issue again and leave the bare slab... so we just tossed a large area rug from the living room so little man has "most of a floor"...

 If we don't get rain soon, we are going to saturate the outer walls with gallons of water around our unit to "make rain effects" and see what happens. 

So now we do "rug checks..."

Our Ceiling fans broke

I know there have been a lot of home improvement posts as I have been trying to get us caught up on the blog for the stuff we did in 2018 that never got recorded, but alas, we had a few hic-ups already in 2019 which bar more posts.

The original ceiling fans we bought for the condo were crap. The one in little dudes room stopped working 5 months after it was installed. We put a box fan in his room with intentions of replacing it this year before summer.... but then, as fate would have it, our bedroom fan just crapped out on us.

We have noticed a little noise from the fan a few months ago when we turned it off to clean it, but it went away. Well Hubs turned it off to clean it this month and I turned it back on later that night to the inevitable pop.

So we decided to replace all three with the old brand I installed in my original condo... How did I remember which brand I bought 8 years ago? Because Hubs would often hit the heavy logo'd pull chain on a regular basis. So when he decided the brand he picked was crap, he just googled photos of fans until he found the logo and then told me to find something like I did in the old place.

The result were three LED ceiling fans that give off more light (which is a bonus for little dudes room), and get this... they were cheaper than the crap we originally installed and paid WAY more for. Needless to say we are now forever "fans" of Hampton Bay.

$258.50 for all three fans and hubs installed them since they were going where the other three fans were.

• We originally paid $382.52 for ceiling fans that broke. 

Little behind on posts...

I'm a little behind on posts and February will be a light month because i'm working a TON with Bunny Days, a grand re-opening and my regular load... but hey, were making magic happen one smile at a time, so it's all good in the end.

I literally just finished painting our dinning room though! I took today off work because i've got an event on Friday, and a training on Saturday and it was the only day I could flex some hours.

Hubs prepped and sanded the walls last night so I could paint them today!!!

Hello pretty Grey!

And these are the only walls I have left to paint... and then we will be rid of the horrible yellow of death...

Memo to self: Don't accept the "invite" to the co-worker "fitness" half hour lunch session the day before you plan to paint your dinning room... 

My shoulders were screaming at me before I even started and climbing down that ladder after a "21-day fix extreme" video was not fun on my booty... or squatting down to remove baseboards... or painting the lower walls....  I thought I was joining in on a little Pilates and stretch, maybe country heat or regular 21 day fix videos... not extreme...

Call that a completed living room

There isn't a whole lot you can write about when you talk about watching paint dry, but with our closets finished in the bedroom, I started itching to finish the rest of the place so we knocked out the living room. 

I edged while little dude played with dad and got half the room done on a Saturday... and since we have late church on Sundays, Hubs and I knocked out the smaller second half of the room before lunch so we could let it dry while we were at church.

 All that's left is the entry way and dinning room and then the kitchen! More of the house is finished then not!!!!

We purchased some casters for the shelves in the kitchen because when we pull everything out to paint, we plan to swap the shelves with the fridge, and wheels make all that work so much easier!!! We want to try out a new layout for our minor kitchen fixes we will be making since the kitchen will be the last thing we think about in project renovation.

I've been slacking off and I'm just now getting our neighbors to sign off on operation front and interior doors... But hubs is on the fence about clovering the hall closet with doors by the laundry room... I'm trying to sell him on the change because NO ONE wants to see a laundry room from the couch and not doing it will make selling this place much harder down the line. but two large doors would make the area very accessible, just not as accessible as its now open design...

After we get the doors in, we can do the floor once they and the trim are all painted... then we can put in the ikea storage built ins for the living room :)

Closets are done!

If you were paying close attention to our "what we spent in January" post, you would have likely noticed that we journey'd up to Ikea and bought our wardrobes... which means...

drum roll...

We have fully functioning closets.

You can see the closet boxes on the floor while hubs and little dude were battling it out with the cardboard boxes.

We did it over a the course of a few days, putting the double center together, then the single that makes up the three mirrored panels...

What followed shortly was the successful completion of emptying every single box we had yet to unpack after the move. We are slowly moving towards a clutter free space!!!!

We are still trying to figure out what we are going to do with the space at the very top and sides... (not sure if it will be best to by some molding pieces and make it look more built in or just leave it as is... 

But getting our closets done also has me itching to finish painting the living room by the end of the month so all I have left is the kitchen and dinning room areas.  

We have a bed...

I can do this... I can do this!

After disassembling our Murphy bed and sleeping on a mattress on the floor for several months, (or weeks? all I know is we felt like it was far too long on the floor)... in order to paint our bedroom walls a while ago... and to rip out the baseboards in our bedroom in an effort to kill the ant infestation.

I'm happy to say we actually slept on a REAL bed the other night and it was absolutely AHHH mazing!!!

Over the weekend we hit the wonderful world of Ikea with little dude in tow and purchased a new dinning room table for our kitchen (solid wood), a bed for our room, and the final wardrobe components for our master bedroom closet (full mirrored wardrobe and a half mirrored wardrobe) that we would need to assemble our expanded built in closet system.

We bought all three on a single day and opted for the glorious same day $59 delivery because, hey, if your paying $59 to have it delivered, might as well make it worth the drive and pick up other items we planned to purchase to avoid paying another $59 in the near future!

It's also the best deal in town not to have to figure out how to get things to fit in a Camry that are WAY too long to fit ... (Trust me, they wouldn't fit) and not having to carry them inside from the far parking lot is another bonus.

While i'll blog about the closet separately after we build it, (And we love our new kitchen table more than we thought was imaginable) our main priority was to sleep in a real bed...

We still have our Murphy bed from our 1 bedroom condo (and loved everything about it) and intend to keep it in our storage closet if needed at a future date... but after looking around and realizing we were seldom if ever lifting our bed up in the new condo, we decided to get a real bed frame.

Cardboard battles with Dad!

It didn't take long to assemble (we finished in in the morning after breakfast before heading to church after making lunch), and Little dude got to dress up as a paper ranger with the ikea packaging materials.

Hubs made a couple of swords by crushing a box insert to make a handle, and I created a crown and armor. It was a hit and kept him occupied for a majority of our building process.

But behold, we have a new bed and it is happy and amazing! 

Paper Ranger!

Ceilings Complete!

Earlier in the month I had a work event that went after hours and I ended up working a double shift... which meant I needed to take a day off to adjust my hours... and being the productive little bee I am, I decided to take a Friday off work so I could make the most of a home improvement weekend.

The end result?

I'm super excited to say that I won't have to paint another ceiling for a very, very, VERY long time!

My right arm is currently in a state of rebellion, and super sore, but I managed to paint the living room, dinning room and kitchen area all in a single day!

But before we touch on painting, I have to throw a shout out to the savior of the home improvement project... HUBS.

Hubs was a super hero helper and during the week before my scheduled paint day, he and I stayed up late after little man went to sleep, despite having work the next day, and together we taped plastic all over the living room and kitchen.

This is one of those things I will hands down say is WORTH the time spend to put up PLASTIC....

Drywall dust and mud get EVERYWHERE if you don't put up plastic and I had no desire to actually hand wash and clean everything I own in the condo... because it doesn't matter what room your sanding... it will find a way to get into the bathroom and down the hall... because dust carries well in the air and the wind.

Hubs looking like santa after sanding
our newly textured ceiling

We also made a point to put up plastic to block off the hall that leads to the rest of the place, essentially creating a plastic bubble.

So hubs used the ladder to hand sand our whole ceiling with a sanding brick in the middle of the night.

He looked like a pretty epic Santa clause when he was done.

If your wondering where I was during all the sanding, I was sitting on the tile in the hallway petting roxy safely behind a sheet of plastic.

My asthma has been acting up lately to the point where I actually got an inhaler from the doctor and have been using it a couple of times a week because I find myself wheezing late at night or early in the morning... the idea of sanding everything, even with a mask, was unappealing to my lungs and unlike painting, is something anyone can really do with little instruction... (We have a rule in our house that I paint... because I will be the worst critic of someone else who paints and that's not healthy for our marriage).

So, since I was hesitant to sand everything, hubs knocked it out like a rock star with his incredibly long and manly arms... He technically didn't need a ladder and could have used the step stool, but he didn't want me to feel like a shorty, lol.

Look what I found mom...

I'm darth vader...

So, since hubs sanded everything, I wanted to make the most of an entire day off of work while our little dude would be chilling at daycare with his little peeps.

So, I told myself I had a single day to paint the living room, dinning room, and kitchen area.

Ambitious, yes, but do-able.

I've learned a few tips and tricks since I've really dented the painting of our condo.

• If you wrap your roller or brush in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge, you can avoid cleaning it for WEEKS and then just re-use it...

Yup, I've had a paint roller in my fridge for around 6 weeks now... or whenever I finished the ceiling in our bedroom. Took it out of the fridge for a minute or two to warm it up to room temperature and then continued on.

He loved the home depot car and
didn't want to leave so he tried to
hide from us.

• When painting a ceiling, you don't need painters tape. 

Your supposed to always paint your ceiling before you paint your walls because even the BEST painters tape with "leak lock" and easy clean technology won't prevent drips from the ceiling touching the wall by getting under the tape... 

I know this because I've taken the time to tape it out.. and have bought the so called leak lock pricey rolls of blue tape... and it doesn't make for a clean line.

So it's really not worth it to tape it off until you actually go to paint the wall... (and even then, I don't really use painters tape. I take a very small art brush and hand paint my "edges" to get a constant line that looks clean because in these older condos, the walls with the texture just don't allow you to get a straight line to work with.) 

In other homes where your lines might be cleaner, the tape is nice so your roller doesn't hit the newly painted ceiling...  but if your careful and if you paint your own edge it's not really needed.

But the ceiling is FINALLY one single color... not four different whites or yellows... and it looks SOOOO much better in person. Pictures just don't do it justice!

Bathroom Painting and Ikea-ing!

First I had to prep the walls and the ceiling... which mean I had to hand sand them all (and of course I had the wrong sanding pads so it took forever) 

But then we got to paint!

And start the ikea building...

We got everything done but the plumbing, which will be next weekend...

Thankfully, little man still takes naps. 

Two Bedroom Condo Sale Specs

If your just catching along with our house buying and selling story, you'll want to check out the re-cap post on our 1 bedroom condo. 

Now, we pick up where that post left off and talk about our purchase. 

Our starting profit from the sale of our condo was $181,691.35. 

From there, we purchased a 2 bedroom condo in the same complex.

• Down payment $164,000 (From the sale of our first place)
• Inspection: $300
• Admin/Origination charges: $899
• Processing Fees: $495
• Appraisal: $410
• Flood Cert: $11
• County taxes: $46.78
• Endorsement Fee: $25
• Recording Grant Deed: $9
• Recording Trust Deed: $57
• Notary Fee: $175
• Messenger fee" $25
• Archiving fee: $80
• E-Document fee: $100
• Escrow fee: $798
• Lenders title insurance: $357
• Sub escrow Fee: $37.50
• Recording fees: $150
• Home Owners Insurance: $400
• Prepaid Interest $140.24
• HOA Dues (June) $93.33
• HOA Dues (July) $350
• HOA Processing Fee: $50
• Lender Credits +$6.40
• Seller Credits +$1,200

Money spend to move into the new bedroom: $167,834.96.... 

Remaining Profit after both transactions: $13,856.40

Then we moved in and started the remodel... (yup, after the boxes were out of the u-haul, we ripped out our mater room closet the same day)... Here's what we have spent so far on the remodel.  

• Washer/Dryer/Fridge - Delivery and Install: $2,037.61
• Dryer Hoses: $17.26
• Stove/Microwave - Delivery and Install: $982.82
• Stove plug: $32.31
• Reverse Osmosis System: $233.53
• Stove Outlet Labor: $40.00
• TV Mount for Living room: $135.00
• USPS Change of Address: $1.00
• Bathroom shower rod, curtain, hooks, tub fixtures: $234.47

Current Profit remaining: $10,142.40

We are only just beginning... and i'm sure we will go in the red before we hit the green again, just like the last place... but some things shouldn't wait to be fixed in this place, so we are quoting our and fixing things one at a time. 

• Our current project is the bathroom... 
• We are simultaneously getting window quotes approved by our HOA since that's a "we have to pay" someone to do it job and can't do it ourselves. (We have 2 quotes we are waiting to hear back from. Home Depot and an independent contractor from a trusted friend since the guy who did my windows last time isn't available). 
• We are getting tons of quotes for jobs so we can see how our budget will stretch, including flooring, electrical, etc. We already priced out AC options and decided to table that for the end since the bottom unit is much cooler without the hot attic above us already. A few well placed fans and we are managing these 100 plus degree days. 
• Heat on the other hand, that needs to be quoted for repairs still. 
• Then, we are re-doing all the jenky electrical. We thought this would be a SCB DIY project, but the bottom floor means dry wall work (unlike our other unit where he could simply get in the attic and do the can lights and fans....) and he knows his limits. Plus we want to add and move outlets and knock out a wall... so, were paying someone and he's buying parts from work with his discount. We'll get it done in 2 days instead of a month plus and we won't worry about our toddler electrocuting himself... or us setting the place on fire (there was a reason our stove outlet was removed and replaced within a week of living here....)

So like I said, we'll hit the red sooner rather than later and we'll slowly crawl out of the hole from there. 

New house Pictures

We didn't take too many pre-moving in photos, but we have a few to share with you all. (Including what we plan to do with each area)!

We purchased a long term rental unit -- which means from a far away shot, the place looks great, but when you live in it and plan to live in it long term, you realize a lot of things that need to be changed... and areas where there needs to be a whole lot of love.

Few things for the whole place:

• New windows and slider doors and window coverings (they have the original, thin, heat up your kitchen like a box windows... and yes, the sliders were installed backwards like my last unit.)
• New floors
• The tile is very old and has gaps in the second bedroom where flooring should be in the closet. They also placed an oversized vanity in the bathroom that really too large for the space (you hit it using the toilet) -- this was put in to avoid having to redo the floors before the sale of the unit after the original vanity was damaged in the water leak.
• We are hoping we may do the flooring ourselves if we go with a laminate... but we are currently living with the flooring for now (it's not on the priority list).
• We also plan to remove a wall where we know there is not tile underneath, so that will require new floors for practical purposes.
• Cooling and Heating
• No wall units or fans in the unit... and we inherited a broken heater. Depending on what cooling method we go with (Traditional AC, Ductless, or Wall Unit) will determine what additional repairs we make to the property. 
• Recessed lights or ceiling fans with lights throughout the unit. The only "can" lights are in the kitchen and the placement needs to be fixed.

Now, for the pictures. We tried to find something that would be move in ready, so we could pick one project to complete at a time. 

Living Room

We will put a wall unit entertainment system from Ikea and mount our TV on the left wall like we did at our other place, but the floors and electrical will need to come first. -- this is last on our list. We can live with a few boxes stacked up for now.

The decorative "pony" wall right by the front door is going to be removed. This is supposed to be the kitchen pantry but it was removed for a computer desk set up (you can see it in the right of the 2nd picture). We are going to remove it entirely to open up the floor plan since it serves no real purpose. The wall makes the dinning room table too cramped in the space.

Kitchen 

We purchased a fridge and washer/ dryer, but the electrical behind the stove was actually worthy of the "hall of shame" at my husbands place, (It wasn't in the wall and was held together by duct tape...) and the stove was unclean able... 

So this week we purchased a new microwave, stove and fixed the outlet so it's actually in the wall and safe to use. We have put some temporary shelves next to the pantry for most of our kitchen gadgets for the time being until we can figure out if an additional cabinet is what we want and if we want to re-locate the fridge so it's not in front of the dishwasher. 

Eventually, we hope to re-configure the kitchen so its a "U shape" ... but for now, we will fix the lighting and use it as is since it is newer construction and we can get a sense of what we need.

Master

There are double doors that open up to the master bedroom and a three mirrored closet... which we ripped out after the uhaul was empty. We will be putting our wardrobes "in" the closet and adding some new built ins along the wall instead of the mirrored closet.

The mirrored closet barely opened and I knew within a week, Hubs would break it, so we took it out. 

Lights and a ceiling fan will go in.

We will need to re-carpet the bedroom since we are now missing 3 inches of carpet by the closets, but that's apart of the new flooring plan.

We will put our Murphy bed together initially and hubs has his computer station all set up.

We are contemplating removing one of the two doors into our bedroom because right now, both doors just takes up too much space. 

Bathroom

Oversize bathroom vanity...

Bonus problem to the oversize vanity...  There are no shelves so the whole thing is just a giant open space... that's wayyyyy to close to the toilet. The medicine cabinet also has exposed drywall on one side closet to the wall.

Shower has a single layer of subway title put around the edge of it... I've already removed it. It was cracked, ugly and was not actually serving a purpose. The doors will come off, a new vent fan with light installed and we will have the tub resealed.

2nd bedroom

It's so cool to write "2nd" bedroom... 

We didn't take pictures before we moved in because it was pretty basic. Tile floor, bad closet... so these are some after shots with his crib, toys and our stand alone wardrobe in place. You can't see the closet in these photos, but I think we will take it out, put his closet in there and then build some stable shelves for toys and storage. Right now, the shelves in are no load bearing, so we have a few things just on the floor in there until we can go to ikea.