Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Just a few minutes ago, I finished painting the basement. I feel like this is breaking news or something. Well, with the way I dread painting, I feel like it should be some sort of news.
I have been doing a little bit each day…chipping away at it. Luckily, the walls were in great shape. There were some pin-holes here and there, but no real spackling. I didn’t even have to sand, I just used a wet sponge. That is so sweet.
For this painting project, we bought two gallons of color and one gallon of white. When I began to paint, I noticed that I was going through the color pretty fast. I also noticed that I had no idea how much white I was going to use. We went back to the store and grabbed two more gallons of color and one more gallon of white. Now that the project is done, I have exactly two extra gallons of color and one and a half of white. Isn’t that funny? Not really. Now I have to decide which room gets to be the same color as the basement. I think my office may benefit.
It’s not too much of a change from what was here before. Just a slightly different color. I also changed the trim and doors to white. I love that contrast. It looks soooo HGTV.
The door guy is coming (hopefully) this week to replace the basement door. Also, the tile guy is coming out on Wednesday to give me a price on doing the floor. If everything goes smoothly, we should have a brand new basement in a few weeks. Then, I can call the pellet stove place and have that whole thing set up.
I wonder if I am the only guy on the planet thinking of a pellet stove when it’s 94 degrees outside.
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Thursday, June 5th, 2008
I have been pretty busy lately, between working, planting plants, getting the cars registered and, oh yeah, re-doing the basement.
I believe I told you about it in an earlier post. Then, I had the floor torn up and was considering what to put on it. Now, I am paiting the whole thing up.
I realized something along this short journey. That is, I hate painting. I mean, I can do it in short bursts, but I lose interest fast. One room is fine, two maybe, three weird sections and I’m lost. I have to say it’s getting there though.
We picked out a color that looks very nice when dried. We got a little nervous when I started putting it on the walls, but got over it. I am also painting all the trim and doors white.
You may be asking yourselves, “Why, Jay, are you doing this now? Why so fast…what’s the rush?” Well, I’ll tell you. The whole reason is that we are going to put a pellet stove in the basement. In order to put a pellet stove down there, we need a new floor. In order to put in a new floor, we need to remove all the base moulding. If the base moulding is off, we may as well paint the place. Also, since the moulding is off, we might as well take this time to replace the French doors leading to outside. They need to be replaced and it needs to be done before the floor goes in.
But “why now” you ask? The reason is that you need to get a pellet stove in the summer. Things are slower and more available. Also, pellets are cheaper. We will need at least three tons.
Yeah, all this just to put a pellet stove in the basement and get rid of the carpet. I told you how I feel about carpets. I also removed the carpet from the basement stairs last night. That was fun. I really like pulling up tack strips and pulling out staples. Good thing I am proficient at this type of thing.
I am setting up the date to have the door installed tomorrow. When the install happens, you’ll know about it. I am also having the tile guy come over tomorrow to give me a price on the installation. I was going to do it myself, but I quickly lost interest in that once I started painting.
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Friday, May 30th, 2008
I am going to put this one out to the masses. I recently became stumped with what to do with the basement floor. Unfortunately, the stump”ness” came about after I tore the whole thing up.
If you don’t know me all that well, I oftentimes shoot first and aim later. At first, I thought this was bad, but later on, I realized that by doing this, I don’t mosey around over-thinking the whole thing. Since many of my projects come out very decently, I intend to stay this way.
Ok, here goes. We have this finished basement that is very dry. It has a concrete floor that used to have carpeting covering the majority of area and those linoleum tiles covering the rest. There is a dehumidifier downstairs keeping any moisture in the air down to a nice level.
Yesterday, I decided to peel up the linoleum tile and carpeting. This took me a few hours, but it’s all nice and clean now. I cut the carpeting up into squares and took up the underlayment. Everything is now out in the garage. As for the sticky goo, underneath the tiles, I used mineral spirits and a brush to get that up. Then, I used Simple Green to clean the entire floor.
Why did I do all this? Well, for one, I don’t really like carpet. I like hard wood or tile. Dogs like to pee on carpets and dust mites like to live in them. Also, I never like to think about what’s growing under a carpet, especially in a basement. Even thought basements feel dry, there is always moisture coming through the concrete. That doesn’t sit well with me.
The basement floor is in very good shape. It’s dry (as I mentioned above) with no cracks. There is one small hairline crack, but it’s hardly noticable. There are gaps between areas where they poured the concrete.
My initial idea was to tile the entire floor. We pretty much had tiles all picked out. Then, I started doing a little research on the internet. That may have been a bad move. One guy says, “Yeah, go ahead and tile right over the concrete.” The next guy says, “Sure, you can tile down there, just use cement backer board.” The third guy says, “You can’t use cement backer board on concrete.” This goes on and on across any number of websites. It seems like no one knows what in the world they are talking about, but love to give uninformed opinions. I am going to call the tile guy who did the old house for advice.
Since my reading, I have had some other ideas. I thought that we could put down a bamboo floor or laminate. I promised myself that I would never use laminate again, so that’s going to be hard.
What I am looking for is ideas and advice. Will those gaps in the concrete affect the tile? Will temperature differences from outside to inside make the tile crack or pop up? There is going to be a pellet stove down there too, so the temperature will be quite different from outside, especially when it’s a cold January night.
By the way, we don’t mind a cold floor.
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Monday, April 21st, 2008
Wow, what a long day. Driving over to the new house takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes. It seems longer than it is.
Today was the big day…not only for us, but also for the sellers. It must feel great to sell a house. I mean, your mind is most likely on your new one and all you want to do is to get the process over with. Congrats.
We are thrilled. I think it is a very good move. From what we gather, people tend to move around in the same town a lot, meaning, they like the town. That’s a good thing.
We met the realtor over at the house at 2PM for the final walk through. The house was nice and clean and everything was just as we expected. We dabbled for a bit and talked for a while and then we went to the closing at 3:30PM. Everything went very smoothly and yes, the sellers are just like us. You can almost tell by the way they kept the place…clean, tight and when something broke, they fixed it. As a buyer, I definitely appreciate that. They were actually very personable people.
Ok, enough of that, now for the pictures. I mean, who cares about the writing anyway? It’s not like anyone reads it anyway.
Here is the front of the house. I think it has a nice “Connecticuty” look.
This is the rather large kitchen. There is room for a table in there and it also has a nice island. The door that is open goes out to the garage. Also, there are doors that go out to the back deck.
This is the fireplace. I am very happy there is a fireplace. I plan on getting a pellet stove insert for this and using it as a main heating source. Since the house heat and hot water are run off the oil burner, I am going to get an electric hot water heater and solar panels. I just have to figure out a way to make the look good and fit into the neighborhood.
These are pictures of the main entryway. Do you know how hard it is to get good photos of two floors up close? Not easy.
This is the blue room, AKA, the dining room. We have no plans for this room right now beyond walking through it. We don’t have much furniture.
This is one of the upstairs bathrooms. It’s pretty big and has one of those tubs that bubbles.
If you want to come over to visit, you can stay in the guest bedroom. It has a large walk-in closet and a full bathroom.
Here’s that bathroom I was talking about. So that’s two full baths on the top floor and one half bath on the main floor.
This is going to be Laura’s office. She gets the purple room. It’s pretty soothing. The girl that this room belonged to has a nice little setup. Perfect for a young girl.
I also got a picture of the room that’s going to be my office, but it came out blurry. It’s pretty much like this room, but different colors.
Here are some photos of the master bedroom. It’s a large room with a dormer facing West. There are two closets and a cable hookup. I am starting to sound like a realtor myself.
This is the one of the finished downstairs rooms. It is really comfortable and cool. It’s going to make a perfect…something.
This is the other downstairs room. This used to have an exercise machine in it. Laura wants to use it as a Pilates room. I have to buy her one of those exercise balls.
Can you say, “garage?” It’s about time. Yes, I am going to like the garage very much. I know that almost all homes now come with them, but I have yet to have one. I am quite excited about the electric garage door openers too.
Ok, last one. This is the little patio in the back that comes out of Laura’s exercise room.
You want to hear a funny story? You know how much I have grown to hate barking dogs, right? I never used to hate dogs, it’s just been lately, since so many people don’t seem to take care of them. Actually, I love dogs, especially my old dog, Mickles. I really really love Golden Retrievers.
I had a hunch that the only close neighbor had a dog. I wasn’t sure, but I did notice a fence around the back yard. They have an in-ground pool, so it may have been for that. I didn’t think so. I kept on telling Laura that there was a dog next door. I was really hoping it wasn’t a yappy little white dog.
Today, after the closing, we went back to the house to drop off a few boxes we brought with us. We were trying to loosen the load for moving day on Thursday. I parked the car and started walking in the back yard. I noticed something moving inside the neighbor’s fence. I quickly turned around and told Laura, “THEY HAVE A DOG!!!” I turned back around to see what kind it was. My stomach almost dropped through the floor. Upon closer examination, I noticed that it was a reddish dog. I then realized is was a Golden Retriever. I am not sure how it happened, but I found myself over there petting the dog. The neighbor called me over all excited, “Are you my new neighbors?” I say yes and both Laura and I walked over to talk to her. Then, out of nowhere, three more Goldens came trotting over…all offering tennis balls. I was in heaven. I was on my knees, petting them and shaking their fur all over the place. I was really excited. They are fairly quiet with the ever so often bark while looking at the ball. In Golden talk, that means, “Hey stupid, throw the ball.” I threw the ball a few times and what a riot it was watching the four of them jump all over themselves trying to get to it.
I am really happy that both Laura and I met the neighbor so soon and got to know the dogs. Now, we can go over and play with them without actually having to own another one. That’s fine with me.
So, now we have two houses. Anyone want to buy an 1,150 square foot cape on 1.25 acres? Just remodeled…You let me know.
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Saturday, November 10th, 2007
This is getting pretty bad. I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I noticed there was snow on the ground and immediately thought about writing a blog post about it. Yes, I probably should pursue therapy.
In any event, yes, it did snow last night. It was the first snow of the season for us in this part of New York. It actually hasn’t been cold really and there are still leaves on the trees…green ones on some. That strikes me as weird. Laura keeps telling me they are on the trees until after Thanksgiving. It’s nice to have a little brain so closeby.
When I woke up in the middle of the night, there was more snow on the ground. I guess some of it melted. I have to say, the sight of snow does give you a nice feeling. With all the Christmas commercials on TV these days, it is starting to feel like the season. Also, just a word of warning, these are the days that I start dreaming. These are the days of reflection on what I want to do with the rest of my life. I probably think this way because snow calms me down and gives me some breathing room.
We have had the pellet stove burning for most of the month of November and some of October. I am so happy we got this stove. It’s clean and very easy to operate. Gone are the days of splitting wood, dust and a mess in the house. I don’t think I will ever forget all the bark in the living room when I was a kid. I did like burning it though.
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