Sunday, January 24, 2010

Limping along.

I haven't blogged in a few days because I've been doing bits and pieces in different areas and that makes it feel like I'm making very little headway. But, I think I am! I think.

Yesterday (or the day before...? I don't know it's all kind of blending together at this point...), I got sidetracked for a few hours of caulk stripping. (Heh heh huh huh) The bathtub in the master bathroom had three layers of bumpy, lumpy, dirty old caulking down the sides and all the way across the top. During that totally awesome process, I went from mentally cursing the previous owners and their evil devil spawn laziness to developing a sort of appreciation for it. Seeing all the half ass work they did - caulking over caulk, painting right over spackle (where they bothered to spackle at all) without sanding, using tub caulk to repair a wood cabinet door (!?!?), using the same ridiculously hairy two inch screws all over the place when the right size for each purpose would have made more sense, etc... - has completely motivated me to make sure I'm doing everything right. So, I still hate them with fire. WITH FIRE. But, when I'm sooo tempted to say ahfuckitgoodenough, I abjectly refuse to. So, there's that.

I've been a spackling fool today. You guys, I used up a tub of spackle. I didn't even know you could do that. So, we had to run out to Lowe's first thing this morning and get more. I try to shop at Lowe's and avoid Home Depot because I had a bad experience there and I hold a damn good grudge. I may not have a penis, but I'm not stupid and don't talk to me like I am or I will spend my whole $30 somewhere else yes I will. And this morning totally reinforced that for me. I had taken my wallet out of my purse last night to do something online and forgot to put it back in. OMG talk about How To Feel Like A Complete Loser in Ten Seconds Or Less. Just say the words "shit, I forgot my wallet." But, I happened to have my checkbook in my purse (I have NO idea why) and they took a check with no ID and with my estimate of my drivers license expiration date. How awesome is that!? Totally awesome that's how.

So, I got my spackle. And I used it. Pretty sure the walls in El NiƱo's room now carry more spackle than dry wall. As far as I can tell, a bull lived in this room previously. An ornery bull with destructive tendencies. I fixed up some of the bad spackling and covered over our nail holes but the close inspection of the walls blew my mind. There are three major patch jobs - and I mean over 6 inches in diameter - and countless 3 to 6 inch spots.

When we first moved in, there were a bizarre number of locks, latches and battery powered alarms fixed to closets, doorways, etc... I was telling a friend with a severely autistic child about it and she said hey we have those! Later, I was talking to my neighbors and mentioned that I thought there must have been an autistic child living in the home and they couldn't stop laughing. Turns out the last renter was a drug dealer who stole everybody on the street's mail. Niiice. I guess they were probably the destructive, ornery bulls, too.

I think I'm going to have some after pics tomorrow!

Technorati tags: home improvement, house sale

1 comment:

Alicia said...

Hahahaha! What a turn-around for your house, then.

This last part that just feels like such small changes is really the kind of stuff that will make a difference in the feel of the house, though. You don't want buyers to come through and say, "The house was nice, there was just something I couldn't put my finger on that I wasn't crazy about." All these last little boring to do details really will show that you guys took care of the house and will be worth it in the end.