The Shire

This is where Hobbits live!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

11-07-2012  Today is Mc's birthday.  Hard to believe that 31 years has passed since we lived in California where he was born.  Happy Birthday sweetie!

Well, the vessel sink for the downstairs bathroom was delivered yesterday.  It is a beautiful iridescent blue.  It plays with the light just like the Caribbean Sea!  It came as a set that included the faucet.  Only this isn't any faucet.  It's a waterfall faucet!  It is operated with a toggle and the water flows over a disc of the same glass as the sink.  Now that I have the sink, I can go to Menards and order the vanity top.

This morning I had to be at the Flagg House by 8:30 since the heating/cooling guys were coming to put in a furnace.  That's right, there was no heat in the house.  There are radiators throughout the house and a boiler in the basement.  We were looking forward to having steam heat.  Last week we had a HVAC guy come out to show us how to work the boiler since it was turned off.  He spent a good bit of time with it.  First, of all it was dry.  He wanted to know if we knew who drained it and how long it had not been used.  We didn't know, so Mk called the listing agent to see if he had any information.  He didn't.  the HVAC guy then started to put water in the boiler and decided he better have another guy come out and watch for any leaking water from the radiators.  Turns out the boiler didn't even work.  Bummer.  That is $3500 we didn't plan on spending.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Saturday and Sunday 10/27-28/1012

Well, J may be a bit upset with me because I forgot to take pictures of the room we worked in this weekend before we tore down the wallpaper.  )-:  However, I will be sure to take pics of the wall BEFORE I prime and paint it.  (-:

On Saturday, we made a grocery run for food to put in the "new" house so we don't have to keep eating out or go back to the "old" house when we get hungry.  We made a trip to the rental center to inquire about wallpaper steamers and perforators.  At $25.00/day for the steamer and $5.00 for the perforator, my husband, M, decided to explore his options.  Off to Menard's home improvement center. 

Things to remember next time:
Rubber mallet (for closing paint cans without making a mess of the lids)
Measure distance of wall outlets in closet room
(I know there's more.  Just can't think of anymore right now.)



Sunday, November 4, 2012

Well I never completed the blurb I started last week (just before Halloween) and I guess it's floating around somewhere in cyberspace.  I'll see if I can catch up.
So, the weekend before Halloween, we started pulling down wallpaper.  The first room in which we started is the little room that is going to be MY closet.  M had bought this wallpaper remover solvent at Menards.  (He was convinced that he wouldn't need to rent a steamer.) and he started spraying and scraping.  I was supposed to be scoring the wallpaper with this little palm thingy with spiky wheels in it--BORING.  I got distracted by a curled corner near the floor.  I grabbed and pulled and the whole strip peeled off of the wall!  Well, I was inspired at this effortless procedure, so I started picking and pulled another strip. Next thing, M put down his stuff and started peeling too.  We stripped that room very quickly! It was so easy!!!  We felt that if things continued to go like that, we'd be done with all of the upstairs rooms in short order.  Next room:  the center room upstairs.  Motivated to go.  Start pulling...rrrrriiiiiippppp!  :-(   Um, this was not going to be easy.  Get out the scrapers.  Score, score, and score some more.  Spray, spray, spray.  Well, this room took more effort.  The top layer of the paper came off, but an underlayer still stuck to the wall; and, no, it was not another layer of wallpaper.  This was all the same paper.  M finally caved and went to Waters to rent the steamer which did a good job of softening the glue and paper.  It was quite labor intensive.  M finished on Sunday, 10-28-2012.