Tile Repair and Carpet Cleaning

I have been doing an extraordinary amount of home improvement work lately. To say the least, this week’s been a doozy. One project turned into another project and so on. I’m a bit worn out.

When we purchased this house, I felt like we got a good deal. And we did. But when you add up the costs of what needed to be repaired or upgraded, the cost of the house ends up to be market value. The reason I thought we got a good deal was because I wasn’t planning on doing any repairs or upgrades. We were going to live in it and through the years, we’d decay right along with the house. Smaller and smaller we’d both become.

Somewhere along the line though, my nature kicked in. I told myself that I couldn’t possibly live like a dirtbag. I remembered my self respect and when I did, I immediately began cleaning things up and doing what needed to be done. And now that we plan on selling the house, I’m glad I did what I did when I did it.

I already told you ad nauseum about the house painting. The inside and outside were big jobs. Like I said earlier, the inside took longer because of all the detail and trim work. I initially thought the outside would be the biggy, but I was wrong. I pretty much sailed through that one.

This past week’s tasks were to get a few tiles repaired in the main entryway and to get every inch of carpet in the house cleaned. When we arrived in Florida, I noticed a few cracks in some tiles and when we first viewed the house, both Laura and I noticed the filthy carpet. It actually had “trails” through it from the previous occupants shuffling around. I’m only guessing here. They did something like shuffling because I’ve never seen trails through a carpet this bad before.

Anyway, on Monday, I had a tile guy come over. He gave me a really good price on the tile repair. I had the tiles, so I only had to pay for the labor, the grout and the thin-set. Good thing I’ve done tile in each and every house I’ve lived in or I wouldn’t have any idea what I was looking at. And I swear, one of these days, I’m going to learn to lay tile myself. It’s just too expensive not to.

To make a long story short, as the tile repair was proceeding, I didn’t like the direction it was taking. A few tiles turned into a few more and eventually, I told the guy to rip up the entire entryway and put down new stuff. While I didn’t have enough extra tile to cover the entire area, I had to make a visit to Amaral builders to poke around their storage to find something similar. I found something, paid them for the tile, loaded it into the car and had the guy put them down. Now we have a brand new tiled entryway. All in one day. I am hoping that I’ll forget the stress of Monday sometime soon. It was a terrible but necessary project. More costly than I had anticipated.

The carpet guy came yesterday. I used “Healthy Home Carpet Care” right here in Palm Coast. At $145, I didn’t think the price was bad. The carpet really needed a cleaning and that’s what it got. Now, you really can’t see the trails because the carpet’s all one color again. I’m actually impressed.

I’m happy this week is over. I’m also happy that the house is in such good shape. Hopefully, all the improvements I made will help with its showing.