Foggy morning

Cleaning

I have learned a few things about cleaning in this house.  Being a person who KEEPS a relatively clean house, I haven't appreciated how the power of a scrub and some love can really transform a place or thing.  

This house was dirty.  The floors, the walls, the trim, you name it.  But we cleaned and cleaned.  I have a new found love for the smell of Green Works.  I also love microfiber cloths.  I use a lot in both houses.  

Here's a sample of the power of cleaning.  

Before.   SCAREY.  EEW.  YUCK.  

After.  How its supposed to look. 

More cleaning..the attic

Yep.  You heard me.  The attic.  Our neighbors didn't believe the house even HAD an attic.  Trust me...it did, and it was packed.  If only the pictures could do justice the amount of STUFF.  This was our worst cleaning job yet.  The hot attic, with stuff that had been up there 30 years or more.  Paper just crumbled in your hand.  We had to bring up totes or "good" boxes to put stuff in, since the boxes that had been in the attic for years fell apart to the touch. 

Some of the stuff was so big, we had to remove the small vent cover and throw it out the side.

From there, we carried it to the trailer for another dump run.
 

The hardest thing to believe was that the attic needed VACUUMING after everything got out of there. It's nice that we have an attic floor, and built in shelves.  I can't imagine, though, what we'd store in the space.  At least now we can get up there for fun stuff - like recessed lights in the kitchen.  Or an exhaust fan in the bathroom.  Such a luxury. 

Bathroom phase #1 (or 2?)

I feel like every time we do a job right now, the end result is just a better before picture.  To date, the house has been about making it more live-able.  Running, clean, water.  A dryer vent.  Getting rid of junk we acquired...It's a project, and it has critical path items on it with dependencies.  Like wanting to get to tearing down the kitchen wall.  Before we can do that, we needed to clean, re-wire the electrical panel, protect the well, clean, stop the leaky bathroom sink...etc.

We are quite cozy in our downstairs bathroom.  Not like our main home, where the kids have their own bathrooms, and the parents have their own separate vanities.  Nope, at the river, we are CLOSE.

One shower

One sink

One potty

This is what we saw in our walkthrough.  I swore, I would NEVER use that shower...I guess I am eating my words. 

After some clean up, and getting rid of the nasty STUFF in the bathroom, it is actually very usable.  Very yellow, but useable. 

I was all too happy to get rid of the shower doors.  They were not installed properly.  If you did not shut them JUST RIGHT, you'd end up with water on the floor.  I do see some sub-flooring being replaced in this room when we finally really re-do it. 

This past weekend, Kenny replaced the leaky sink.  Yay!  That sink was a CHALLENGE for the four of us to use, and keep clean.  And every weekend we'd have to empty the bucket one or two times. 

Here's our "new" sink.  I love the function of it, but not the color...I dream of all white with blue accents in this river bathroom.  We are so thankful for the functioning sink, and the extra storage it provides.  Thanks to Kenny's parents for re-doing their bathroom and giving us their left overs.  So much better than our "original" sink.  

And, of course, the built in paper towel dispenser... our kid visitors have enjoyed it.  I guess we'll keep it there till the overhaul.  It's vintage, and the house came with re-fills.  Gotta love it. 

Power Washing

Power washing....have you done it yet?  Wow!  

I remember reading about it on Young House Love, when they re-did their deck.  I had no idea that the power washing would take our door stoops from this..

to this!

No kidding!  (more about the sink on the front lawn later)

This picture shows a closeup of the stairs in progress.  The stair on the bottom is completely done, the middle stair is in progress, and the top stair hasn't yet been touched.  That old weathered gray with very thick old stuff...I never in a million years thought it would look that good after a power wash!

I would like to note, the stuff on the stairs, although the stairs were gorgeous afterwards, my LEGS were not.  Power washing is a wet, dirty job, but check out those results!  I can't wait to see what the docks look like after some time with this power tool.

Garage cleaning

We WILL get to re-doing soon.  I know we will.  First, though, we had to CLEAN OUT.  We did the kitchen, the lower bath, and the lower family room first.  We recently went on to the garage.

The garage was a hodgepdge of stuff, like everything else in the house.  But it was all dirty, or out of use, or hidden in the back.

The garage looked like:

After more cleaning, organizing, loading the trailer, going to the dump again, we got the garage in a much better place. There is still a LOT to go through, but at least now we can put the fun swim toys in it, the lawn mower, all the other stuff we choose to keep.

We even made room for Kenny's truck!  The first time the truck had a home in a garage.  It's very happy.

I, personally, like being able to find a screwdriver.  Or perhaps a level?  We are the proud owners of several, as you can see hanging from the ceiling.

Before and After Family Room: Phase 1

The family room BEFORE.

So, so hard to see the bones of this place with all the junk!

After a clean up, a re-configuration, and opening the wall from the kitchen to the family room, the place is MUCH larger than I expected!

I actually like this room.  I wasn't sure I would like it as much as I do when we bought it.  I was having a hard time seeing beyond the junk.

Yes, that is a laundry closet in the family room.  For now, it will stay there.  Again, I wasn't sure I would like it there.  After having used it a few times, it's actually really convenient!

Family room plans:

Tear down walls
Tile floor
Replace window
Replace back door