Kids Bath

Wow! We have come a long way. I was just looking back at this post and I was encourage and amazed. First, let me give you a little explanation on where I have been. On July 1st we moved into our new house. It was a construction zone and for a while we slept on a blow up mattress in the living room on concrete floors. It wasn't until August that the kids had beds in their rooms and a few weeks later that our blow up mattress was in our room. By September we had a bed in our room. That entire time we had no internet and we still have no TV. So, long story short, we have been working on the house so much that I haven't been able to blog it.

Now we have some rooms almost all the way done. By almost, I mean, there are no decorations on the walls. I have been anxious to get back to blogging so I am going to start posting before I start decorating.

Remember this bathroom?

We were not going to completely remodel this bathroom. We were going to give it a face lift. Well, the second Friday into demo, the Friday we were supposed to be done with demo, Mr. C decides we need to gut it. Yep! completely gut the bathroom. We went back and forth about 10 times that day on yes and no till finally on the condition that it is demoed and the entire bathroom was at the dump by 4 pm Saturday (closing), then I would be ok with it.

Saturday morning, bright and early, here is our amazing crew. I am so grateful NOW for the decision because Mr. C was right, it needed to be gutted. I am also so grateful to this wonderful demo crew who got the job done on my time schedule.

See, up at that first picture? There is a wall between the vanity and toilet. That is GONE! Yay.

The plumbing was completely replaced by our wonderful plumber, A.K.A. Mr. C's dad. Although this is Mr. C getting himself a little dirty after turning on the water to check for leaks. Good thing we checked cause the water went everywhere!

Here is the bathroom with a new tub and ready for paint. Picking paint colors was the worst job for this room. It took me forever.

But, one night I went to Home Depot, (without Mr. C) grabbed my tile and picked the first color that went with it. I LOVE it.

Those glass tiles are what I matched the paint to. There is Mr. C, and our plumber, did I mention he is also the tiler and electrician?

Back to that lovely paint. It kept pealing. Turns out the old stuff was oil based. We pealed ALL the paint off the walls, I primered with a special primer for that purpose and repainted only to paint with a new can that was mixed too dark. So, back to the store for yet another can of paint in the right shade. This bathroom has been painted way too many times. Between multiple coats, scraping, primer, re-paint and re-paint the total comes to 9 times!

Here we are making progress! See that cabinet? That is the second cabinet we got for this bathroom. My husband who is a perfectionist didn't measure the first time and bought a cabinet that was way to small. We realized it after we carried it upstairs and put it in the spot.

Progress and no more mistakes!

All done! Usable, working, clean bathroom. It works great for a family of 4. It gets a little messy, but we still have a lot of work to do in the other bathrooms.

Hopefully, I will be able to update more often now.

Still more to destory

I thought demo was done, or I thought we could start putting the house back together yesterday afternoon when I was leaving the dump. But... today all the drains to the 2 upstairs bathrooms came out. All this came out...

And this:

Friday, Mr. C and I were going back and forth about demoing this bathroom. It was no we won't, yes we will, no, yes, no, yes. Saturday morning it was a YES and there it went. Bye, bye kids bathroom. Hello new demo crew.

Even though it was hard to see another thing destroyed in our house, it was a good thing. When a board was removed by the toilet drain, it fell off. Yep, it just fell off. The drain was just sitting in there not properly attached to anything. DISGUSTING!

I have been passing by the family room day after day with this awful tile that is a pain in the but to remove. The tiny jack hammer wasn't working too well and my mother-in-law suggested this little sledge hammer thing. I tried it and the tile went flying all over the place. It came out so easy, but needed a hard hit to get it good.

You know when you go to the gym and work your legs so hard that you can hardly walk up of down any stairs and they are all shaky? Well, that's how my arms felt after hitting the floor for about an hour. Not to mention the little flying shards that killed my knees.

That other bathroom we took out had a little half wall. We thought no way would that be load barring because of the location. Well it turns out one of the joists was cut, so it was holding that up. Mr. C had to go up into the attic and fix what was cut so that little wall could be safely removed. The attic is not a pleasant place.

Would you like to see some of my crew? From left to right: Hot foreman, Non-stop awesome demo guy, pop in help with what you need guy, electrician/plumber.

Now the better half of the crew. My mother-in-law has cleaned the kitchen probably 20 times in the last week, tried to keep everyone organized and she has cleaned up every mess all those guys have left behind while working in the back yard and taking my kids for some part of every day. We really couldn't do it without all this help! They are amazing.

While we worked yesterday the kids got to enjoy the pool for the first time. It was great for them and now little C doesn't want to do anything but swim.

Can you see, I'm a little paranoid? If I am not the adult watching, he has to wear his life vest.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have a room painted. Maybe Tuesday we will have some bathroom drains back in place. Saturday is moving day. I don't think we will be moving into our house, maybe just the trailer at the side of the house. At least I have a kitchen though and it is roach free!! We did set off more bombs and I was relieved to find the house free of roaches this morning.

Demo - Day 4 and 5

I was hoping to be done with demo by now. But between Mr. C and I, more projects keep getting added to our list. I decided I wanted recessed lighting before the wood floors go in upstairs. If we don't do it now, we never will. Then Mr. C decided to take apart the kids bathroom just incase it leaks too. Everything leaks! I think we are almost finally done with demo, and we should be painting by Tuesday next week.

 First up are more roaches! The night after the bombs we set off, the termite tent went up.

Apparently the bomb didn't get all of them. I am so glad we did both and now we have roach bate out for them. See all those little dots? Those are babies.

All the tile in the entry is a much bigger job then I thought. It finally got finished today. I am so happy about that! Thanks Reed!

Here is a quick before of the entry to jog your memory.

And now, look what we have done.

Here is our master bath. All gone. Plus, the squishy sound board is gone along with millions of little staples. That was a days job. It's ready for plywood.

That bathroom leads me to the dump. I had a pick-up truck full of concrete to unload all by my self. It was so heavy, it went over the usual fee of $20 for a pick-up. Now, THAT was hard work. I think the guy working there felt bad for me because he went and collected all kids of things to give to me, I got a new hose, 2 new toilet seats still in their packaging, a towel bar, paint supplies and perfume all in their original packaging. All that from the dump!

Yes, I understand, that pile doesn't look so big when it is on the ground, but there is part of it on the side of the truck.

See how dirty I am, it was only an hour and a half into my day. Yes, I know it's blurry, but it's the only picture I have of me. I need proof I'm doing all this work.

We have fossils in our house.

You never know what is in your house till you tear apart walls. Now we know that everything is done right and there are no more leaky pipes, the pests are all gone and our house will be like new.

It's messy, but the trees are cut WAY back!

Now, I need to go to bed so I can get up early and work some more.

Tomorrow:
Finish removing tile in family room.
Demo kids bathroom.
Drywall prep

Demo - day 2 and 3

It's starting to get a bit overwhelming! Day 2 went really well, then things got added on day 3. Let me just show you...

Do you love that picture? We knew there were roaches because we saw a dead one months ago with a can of raid next to it. When we got the keys, that same roach was in the same spot. Nope, they never picked it up. Monday night we let off 9 roach fumigators in the house and garage. Those are what I found in the entry and kitchen! They were still twitching! Tuesday the fumigation tent went up and Thursday night we will do more roach bombs incase there were any eggs that hatched.

This next picture, I was not posing! Really, I stood up and was kind of helping myself stand because my back was hurting. Maybe I should see my chiropractor. Oh, wait, he is working with me on our house! Maybe he should take a break to adjust me. :-)

See that big hole behind me? It was fun when I started it, but it got a little overwhelming when I couldn't finish it all in an hour. That is the master shower growing into the linen closet. The heater was moved to the attic, so I have the old heater space for a linen closet.

Here is what exploded through the bathroom as we sledge hammered the back of the shower.

Once I gave up, Dr. C decided to finish the job. He was a little better at it then me.

This was a little surprise. A couple me drive up asking if we have any metal, C up there told them to look in our dumpster and come look through the house. We didn't want the counter top or sinks so they took it. That saved us about an hour.

Here is a little extra something that got added. Under the carpet was this spongy sound or insulating board. It was kind of gross, some parts were soggy and we didn't want pee smell coming through. We also didn't know how the wood would lay over it. So, C decided he didn't want it. That was a day project in it self with only 2 people working on it.

Another not so good surprise, under the carpet was this old 70's tile. This room is only about 1/4 cleared of it. SO MUCH TO DEMO! Will it ever be over?

At least C finally hired someone to do work. I am so happy about that. The over grown trees in the back yard are getting cut WAY back and some down completely.

I love that we can see some sky, but not the neighbors. Oh! and there used to be a rotted out deck there where the dirt is darker with 2 huge bougainvillea plants. Thanks Reed!

With the house tented, we are at a stand still till tomorrow. I bought paint today. I can paint the kitchen, but there is still a couple days of demo left. We won't be living in it when we have to move out of here in 10 days. Hopefully we are only a week behind!

Demo - Day 1

Yay, we got our key!!!

First thing, carpet!

My little helper, he works hard and loves doing it.

Tack strips are a pain.

Can you smell that through the computer?

Look at the amount of animal urine on that carpet I am holding! The next day when I got in my car, I couldn't figure out why I could still smell it. I had showered, double washed and I had clean clothes on. Then I realized, I didn't wash my shoes. The smell is in my shoes!

One of our new neighbors' (already a friend) brought us left overs from their dinner. Yum! Thanks Sarah!

Nails and staples, what a pain!

Lots of trim...

Break time.

Stay tuned for Day 2! Lots of progress.