The House, Part 2

Part 2 of my house saga...

Well, the house is almost complete. I have some family coming in that haven't seen the house since I started the renovations, so the deadline for completion got moved up. It has been pretty crazy.

And for those who were wondering when it would finally happen, it has. The house broke me. It finally made me cry. Keep reading for the full story.

My uncle Jimmy, who is a genius and a God-send, came to take a look at electrical line and put in some new outlets. Well, while he was there, we asked if he would take a look at the plumbing. He went under the house to tighten something and all of the pipes fell down. So I had to get all new plumbing. Then I wanted to switch out the back door for another in the house. The back door was hanging crooked and had been shaved one too many times. Well, it was a different size than any other door in the house. And, they don't make doors that size anymore. So, a new door had to be installed and a new cutout for a new frame. It was like that book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie". We tightened something the plumbing fell down. We fixed the plumbing, we discover the septic system is kaput. But all that is fixed now.

When whoever built the house put the sheet rock up in the living room, they didn't put any joint compound or tape at the edge of the sheets. So there were these nice cracks all around the sheets. So my sister and I texturized the walls and put a fresh coat of paint on them. But the old plaster kept coming off while we were working on the walls. It was very frustrating.

Next was the bathroom. Still. I don't know if I mentioned it, but putting paneling up sucks. Since the walls were these hard planks, everytime you would try to hammer a nail in, it would bend. There were so many crooked, bent nails discarded, you just had to laugh. I finally took to drilling guide holes for my nails. I am just not a good hammerer. I experienced the same problems in the living room. I tried to nail the linoleum in the living room back down where it had pulled away from the wall but did not experience great success. In fact, things were even worse in the living room. Every freakin nail bent. I could take no more and burst into tears. My mom and sister were laughing at me, not understanding how someone could have so much trouble with a nail. Hey, it was very hard wood. Carpentry is probably not going to be a fall back career.

The next room to do for the showing was the bedroom. It looks pretty cool if I do say so myself. Gold walls with reddish-magenta trim. And there was this little cabinet above the closet that had all these toilet seats. You never know what you are going to find. In fact, in this old, run-down shed, I found an awesome dresser with a big round mirror to match the furniture I already had. I am sure some of you remember my ugly brown furniture from Austin. Well, I refinished it. Sanded it all down and black distressed it. It is like a whole new bedroom suit.

Then, it was back to the bathroom. I found this shower curtain and decided that the coolness shouldn't be limited to the shower. So the fabulously talented sister duo copied it onto the wall. For those that have been to my apartment, that is obviously the shower curtain. But all those scenes of Paris and London that I am always drawing were Sharpied onto the bathroom walls. Pretty awesome! If anyone moves into this house after me, they are going to think I have very strange taste.

Well, the entry room didn't turn out like I wanted. Originally, I wanted to do blue and green stripes over the wood paneling. So I did a coat of white paint over the dark brown walls. Then decided that I didn't want stripes after all. It seemed like a great deal of work and besides, the rest of the house used reds, so I need to stick to the theme. Since I wasn't going to use the stripe idea anymore, I decided to fill in the paneling for a smooth wall look. No one told me that the joint compound would shrink. I put the joint compound over the gaps and smoothed them out. I left them to dry for a day or so and formulated my plan for the walls. Well, I thought, if I can't have stripes, then I can have fabulous walls anyway. I decided to add gold sparkles to the paint. I got a beautiful red color, dumped in the sparkles and set to painting. First, the paneling sucked up the wood. It looked like I had used watercolors instead of latex paint. Second, that filling in I did? Didn't work out so well. Due to the shrinkage of the joint compound during the drying process, the gaps were still apparent. But I didn't want to start over with the painting, so I decided to ignore the failure. I bought another gallon of paint and package of sparklies and set to painting again. Still not smooth. I bought another gallon. I mixed the sparklies but had to leave before any painting could begin. Well, sparklies have to be fresh. Once they settle into the paint, they become invisible. I did not know this either. But little matter, since once again, this gallon of paint had failed to completely coat the walls. Off to Lowes I went for yet ANOTHER gallon of paint. Yes. FIVE GALLONS of paint on those four walls. And it was the room that mattered the LEAST! In the end, it looked very nice.

Well, that is the end of my house renevation tale. Things I learned: hammering is hard, oil based paint sucks and takes DAYS to dry and ruins everything it touches, joint compounds shrinks, ceiling paint does not make a good primer, and, if it is ugly, paint it black.