Electric Fireplace

About a year ago we were driving by an antique shop. I saw out front this very beautiful olive green mid-century something. I wasn't sure what it was but I liked the color. We decided to stop and check it out.  It turned out to be this awesome electric fireplace. We didn't have a great place to put it and make it a center piece on the wall but we do have a very chilly family room and guest room in our basement. There was a side wall available in our family room where we could put the fireplace. It helped us make the decision to buy this, knowing that it was something we actually need and would use. We had been using a space heater in the depths of winter when we wanted to sit downstairs in the family room. But, this fireplace looks a whole lot cuter! I'm pretty impressed with how real the fire looks for an electric fireplace. It also warms up our family room quite nicely. I love it!

A Knock On The Door

This morning at about 10am there was a knock at our front door. My husband has a horrible cold but I have this policy about not answering the door if I don't know who is on the other side. So, he got the job of answering. It ended up being the second owner of our house standing on the other side of the door! She wanted to know if she could come back later today with her family to see the house. This is the lady who happened to be very good friends with my mother's best friend and we have emailed about the house several times. I had not heard from her in quite some time. So, we set an appointment for 2pm when they returned.

At 2pm the owner showed up with her daughter, husband, granddaughter-in-law and grandson. It was so interesting to hear what they had to say about the house. They seemed to like the things we had done to it. I am going to type some of the things they told us about the house so that I don't forget. We started in the living room. She said when they moved in, the living room floor had just been carpeted with wool carpet for the sale of the house. We speculate this may have been the same carpet that was in the house when we moved in. She said the living room windows had white sheer panels when they lived there. We think they were the same ones on the windows when we moved in. They also told us they used the fireplace. We were told by the inspector that he thought there was no liner in the fireplace and we shouldn't use it until we know for sure. We haven't had it inspected by a chimney sweep yet but we suspect it does have a liner!

The kitchen was still terrazzo when they moved in but they covered it in linoleum. She thought the kitchen cabinets were white when they moved in and they had been painted due to damage. I was told that the cabinet that divides the living room and kitchen was moved further into the kitchen by them because they thought it went too far into the living room. She said the kitchen had a gourmet freezer/ fridge that was very large and had wood surrounding it. It was not very efficient and when it broke they couldn't find anyone to fix it so they replaced it. We think that was the original fridge for the house. She said it was very tall and flush with the kitchen cabinets. That is what I had speculated. The original owners had a laundry off the kitchen with a washer/ dryer all in one unit. That was removed and the laundry was added in the basement by these people.

The hallway leading to the family room.
The laundry room is on the left. The laundry
room and door leading into the family room
were not always here.

The pink and blueish/green carpet that was in the two smaller bedrooms when we moved in sounds like it was here when these people lived here. The pink was added by them. One bedroom has funny marks in the floor and ceiling right above and below each other. (I have been meaning to do a post about these to see if anyone knows what they are.) All I can think is that some kind of tension unit was in this spot. Maybe a lamp or a shelf. They said they don't remember having anything like this. I had suspected these were the owners who put the wallpaper in both of the bathrooms but they said they did not. The basement bathroom has tile on the floor that was also in the entry way. They said they don't remember this tile. They think the basement hallway and bathroom had carpet when they lived there.

This is the same floor covered in white splotches
at the "floor problems" link  below.

They used our guest room as a den which is also what I think the original owners used it for. The biggest surprise of their visit was learning about the rest of the basement. The rest of the basement had originally been a dog kennel. I know these people had removed the dog kennel. So, I assumed they had also refinished the basement and turned it into the laundry room and family room. But, they were not the ones who refinished the basement. They left it unfinished with a cement floor. What is now the laundry room and family room were all one big room. At one time the entire basement had a long hall that went from one end to a door that went outside. They said that hall was still there when they lived in the house. This was a very big surprise to us.

When you walk in the family room this divider is in front of you.
We assume it's there as support instead  of the original wall. You
can see the door to the carport past this divider.

I haven't included many pictures of the basement. That is where a large part of our floor problems happened. (Remember the story about the floors that got stained purple on accident?) I figure it is about time to post some photos of the basement. I'm sorry I didn't take them in the day when there was more light. We are just about moved in down there. For those of you wondering, our other house still has not sold!! So, we aren't completely moved into this house. We still have furniture at the other house. We do have an offer on the other house. It is supposed to close on June 24th. Hopefully everything will go through without any hitches. We are now in the process of moving the last of our furniture to the new house.

This is the divider from the opposite side.
The right side of this divider was where there
was a wall that ran the length of the family room
and created a hallway.

At our old house we had a lot of built in shelving in our family room. We were wondering how we were going to make up for all of that lost space. This past winter we got a shelving unit for the family room that comes in two pieces. They are supposed to be stacked on top of each other but we separated them. One unit is being used as an entertainment center. The other unit is being used as shelving for books. The unit was originally a beverage rack. I will have more photos soon of our guest bedroom. It has also been neglected in my photos. A new bedspread comes this week and we should be about done with that room. We finally had our front yard repaired after the new sewer line. So, be watching for more landscaping photos. We also have some new patio furniture.

It is our hope to paint the exterior of the house this summer. Choosing colors is not fun!! I wish someone could just tell me what will look great.

More to come soon!

This is the new storage unit we got in the winter. The piece on the left is actually supposed to stack on top of the piece
on the right. The top of the piece on the right is actually from our old house. My cousin built it to serve the same
purpose it serves now on top of a built in shelving unit where our TV sat. The two pieces on the right are not attached.

A Mess Until March

Wow! Things have been a mess! On January 22, the work finally began on our house. We had 3 workers here every day until February 25. A whole month!! Our house was a DISASTER the whole time they were here. All of our furniture was piled into every room they weren't working in except our bedroom. There was dust everywhere. There was paper covering much of the floor. That paper was coated in stripper or stain. It was a yucky, yucky mess. We were unable to use our kitchen or sit in our living room for a month.

Our living room a couple of weeks ago

We actually ended up spending a lot of time at home with the workers. I have completely lost count of how many snow days we have had this winter. There were many days we did not have work and stayed home. My husband stayed home with them for a week after suffering through the beginning of anaphylaxis. If you don't know what that is, it basically means you quit breathing due to an allergic reaction. He didn't quit breathing but he was headed in that direction.

Thankfully we loved our workers. They did an awesome job on our house and they were fun to talk to. We don't have one single complaint. It was kind of sad when they left. It was depressing on the last day when they walked out with their radio. I knew they would not be coming back! They were also quite handy to have around. They helped us figure out that we had a basement full of water due to our sewer backing up.

A week later they saved us from having a completely flooded house. The toilet backed up after I left for work. Water went in the bathroom, bedroom, down the hall and through the ceiling into the basement. Luckily, one of them was in the basement and saw the water pouring through the ceiling. They had a shop vac and they were able to clean it up quickly and call me at work to come home and deal with it. So, on top of everything else that was done we now also have a new sewer line. So, not only was the inside of the house a mess but the outside too!

The giant mole hill in our front yard after getting a new sewer line.

 Finally,  everything is done except the two new toilets we will be getting Sunday because of their contribution to our sewer problems and the new roof on the carport which we can't get until the weather warms up. Believe it or not we are forecast to have MORE snow Sunday night. Today we got new vertical blinds in the living room to prevent having so much sun damage again. We also had the walls refinished in the living room and guest room, new very thin molding added around the ceiling in the family room and guest bedroom, new floor molding added in the family room and downstairs hallway, refinished stairs, kitchen cabinets and molding refinished, painted the kitchen, built in grill repaired, stove hood repaired, basement door repaired, new thresholds leading into all bathrooms, bathroom cabinets refinished, all inside doors to closets, bedroom etc. refinished, and new shower door. My next post well be lots of photos of all the new work that was done.

Would You Like An Update On Our Wood?

The very first time I looked at our house I walked in the living room and thought wow this is awesome! Too bad this wood is so pale and ugly. The living rooms walls are redwood paneled along with the stairwells, ceiling beams in the living room and kitchen and walls in the basement room that was once a den and will now be our guest bedroom. I don't know anything about wood but we have been told our walls are heart of redwood which is very, very expensive and we would probably never be able to afford them today. Unfortunately, they were a very pale blonde color. They were covered in some kind of blonde wash that we don't think is original to the house. Then the blonde has faded even more due to years and years of sun damage from a complete wall of windows. The stairwells, which really catch your eye because they are right next to the beautiful fireplace, were extremely worn from years and years of people running their hands and who knows what else (feet, dogs, kids, toys, suitcases etc.) up and down them. Some of the living room beams were almost white from the sun. You could point out every spot on the wall where a photo had been hanging due to the sun damage.

So, we decided we would have the walls refinished, re-stained etc. as soon as we could afford it and find someone to do it. We had a very difficult time finding someone and everyone we spoke with had a different idea about the best way to complete the job. Some people thought the walls should be sanded. Other people thought the walls should be stripped. And, of course, the most common solution was that we should just make it easier on ourselves and paint the walls. We were both so opposed to the idea of paint. Why in the world would you want to paint when you could have natural wood that would require virtually no upkeep. I'm finally just recovering from all the painting I did this summer. I don't want to paint more!!! When we were looking at houses I almost got to a point where I quit looking at the photos if I didn't see any wood paneling in the photos. I KNOW I am probably the only person in the world that feels this way. But, I just love the look of the natural wood. I finally got so frustrated I called a guy from my mom's home town who builds homes. He comes HIGHLY recommended. He is in high demand and known for his very reasonable prices.

I called him in hopes of getting a reference for someone who could refinish our wood. I never thought he would be interested in doing such a little job. I just hoped he wouldn't completely blow me off. He came and looked at our house in September and seemed to really like it. He told us he would the job himself (and several other smaller things we needed done) if we could wait until January when the weather was colder and he would need inside work. We agreed to happily wait. After the fiasco with our floors we were absolutely thrilled to find someone of such high quality to do the job. He stopped by last week and tested out several strippers on the wall in hopes of finding one that was not as toxic and would work well since it is the middle of winter (4 degrees this morning to be exact!) and opening a lot of windows is not practical. He then tested out some stain. In the photo below you can see the original wall color. It actually is more pale than in the photo. You can also see three strips where he tested stripper and stain. To the right is the stain color that we decided upon. You can see the drastic difference in the wall and the stain. Also at the right above the stain you can sort of see a faded square in the wood. It looks like there may have been a file cabinet or similar sized item there for a long time. There are spots like this all over the wood.

Test strips

 As January grew closer I was starting to second guess my thoughts on having the walls refinished. I was starting to get used to the blonde. I worried that maybe I was ruining the original style of the house that we were working so hard to maintain. I thought maybe we were going to waste our money. I was really to a point where I thought maybe I would be just fine with the wood if it didn't have so much sun damage and wear. He finally started the job on Wednesday and the downstairs bedroom (formally den) is basically done except trim and detail work. It looks AMAZING! The walls are finally a beautiful brown color. They have done such a professional job. We haven't had one complaint yet! This has been such a change after the floor people this summer. After the first day of work on the job it looked great but I still wondered if we were going to all this work for a change that wouldn't be that great. I asked the workers what they thought. They said all that mattered was what I thought because I had to live with it. I told them I knew that but they looked at so many houses that they know what looks good. Then they let it fly! They said it was a huge improvement. They said you couldn't even compare the before and after. Then they said it looked like someone had smeared mustard on the walls previously! After seeing the completed room today I think we are very happy with the results.

This is a completed wall in the guest bedroom. You can't completely see how it looks because there is nothing else in the room to compare it to in the way of color except the vent and the outlet. But, hopefully you can see that it looks much better!

The people doing the work are so good at what they do we feel like we need to get as much work out of them as we can afford because we will probably never have an opportunity like this again. They are going to put new stair treads on our steps that are finished to match the walls better. The work the people did on the stairs this summer was awful. They look orange now! As I said above, the stairs really catch your eye because they are next to the fireplace. We are looking forward to having stairs that actually look good! If we can afford it we also plan on having them do a few more things. Our kitchen cabinets are white. They will refinish those back to wood. They will refinish our bathroom cabinets that look orange because the varnish has yellowed over time. We will have transition strips added as you go into all of the bathrooms since the flooring people did not finish that this summer. Our basement door is having some major issues so that will be rectified. And, we are looking forward to putting a shower door in so that we no longer get water on our shower floor. I have always preferred shower doors over curtains and was very excited to find out the bathroom originally had one but it was removed. Before I knew that I felt like I was "ruining" the original bathroom if I added a door. I will try to post more updates as the work progresses.

Paint Palettes

We are STILL not quite done painting. We have some trim in the hallways and family room to still do. Thankfully we have had some help from my mom because my back is about shot from painting. We are close so I finally decided to take a few photos. I just tried to get photos of paint colors because we still have dressers with no drawers in them and boxes piled up and weird things like that! I took photos this afternoon at 3PM but the sun was already starting to go down I realized.  :(  So, the photos could be better but at least you get a sneak peak for now. All of the colors were picked from California Paints 20th Century Colors Of America which are authentic shades used from 1900-1985. All of the colors we used were from the year our house was built.

Our bedroom is my favorite color! In our old house our bedroom was a very deep burgundy color. Everyone hated it but me. I was finally convinced to ditch the burgundy because it was not appropriate for our house. But, I wanted something that still would compliment the bedspread, wall hangings etc. from the burgundy room. I decided I wanted a pinkish brown color but I DID NOT want pink. I was scared to death I would think I found something then get it on the wall and it would be pink. It is a miracle that I somehow found exactly what I had hoped for!! It has just a touch of pinkish and I think it also transitions nicely into the pink and blue bathroom. (I keep saying "I" because I tried to include my husband in picking colors but he didn't seem to have a lot of interest. He did give some input but he mostly let me choose.)

 I settled on University Square by California Paints. Unfortunately, the photos of our bedroom are the worst. I don't think they nearly show off how great this color is. I will have to get better ones later. You really should click the University Square link above to get a better look. I really like the way all of the colors we picked bring the outside colors inside. I believe this was one of the architectural goals of the style of our house which is one of the reasons for the large windows. Outside our bedroom window is a Japanese Maple Tree. The pinkish brown paint really brings out the pinkish purple colors in the tree. Unfortunately I didn't realize when I took the photos that the tree is quickly turning brown and shedding for the winter.

Japanese Maple tree outside bedroom window before it turned cold.

The view from our bedroom. The Japanese Maple is looking a bit sorry now. Just the other day it was still beautiful.

I wish this picture showed the paint color off better. I LOVE it! Ignore our horribly wrinkled bedspread.

For the second bedroom (originally the girl's room) that we are using as a dressing room, the family room and the upstairs and downstairs hallway I chose Gobi Desert by Behr. This was a neutral color that was much easier to get from Behr than trying to get a copy from California Paints but there are several similar historical California Paint Colors. It is kind of a khaki color. I love that it is very neutral but just dark enough to have a punch of color. It also goes with the burgundy items from the old bedroom and compliments the colors in the beautiful trees you can see outside from the large window in the bedroom.

The dressing room, family room and hallway colors. I'm not sure if the white trim was the right choice.

The downstairs of the house is a bit more modern than the upstairs since the family room was done almost 20 years after the house was built. I wanted blues in there and thought since it was more modern I might paint it a deep blue color. But, we have lots of blue pillows, wall hangings etc. so I came to my senses and decided to do the Gobi desert down there also. I decided it would compliment the blues nicely. And, my husband was more anti-blue basement than anything else having to do with paint.

The family room is not finished but here is a glimpse of the color inside a white trimmed shelf.

Our "hobby room" (originally the boy's room) is a steel blueish grey color form California Paints called Industrial Steel. I thought this color might go well with some black and white photos I would like to hang in this room. I can see some of the original blue paint color that was in this room peeking out in places. It looks like it might have possibly been a very similar color at one time. There is a beautiful deep, deep green magnolia tree outside the big window in this room. It is so green some of the leaves almost look blue which again makes the blue paint a nice frame for this window.

The kitty looking outside at the Magnolia tree.

The "hobby room"

We have our new dining room set home and we really like the way it looks in the family room. Even the orange seats which I immediately wanted to change look so nice with all of the wood and the style of the house. I would almost be tempted to keep the orange but it just isn't me. It is too vibrant and not peaceful enough. And, we already have olive green living room furniture in the same room so the orange and green would really be over the top! I already have fabric to cover the dining room chairs. Maybe this weekend I can do that. I need to do a little bit of research on upholstering tonight.

New dining room set. Can you spot the sleeping kitty?

New fabric for dining room chairs.

New fabric

Now that all of the colors are starting to come together I am getting really anxious to paint the kitchen. We saved it for last since it has no furniture in it that we will have to work around. Also, we were trying to decide what we were going to do with the cabinets before we painted. I think this winter we are going to have the cabinets stripped back down to their natural wood instead of white. So, I think it would be best if we paint before instead of after they are stripped. Then we don't have to worry about getting paint on the cabinets as much.

The kitchen will be an olive green color from Behr called Spartan Stone. It is another match to a historical California Paint color. I love the olive green and it will go with the olive green furniture in the dining room and living room since the rooms are all open to each other. My husband might kill me if I ask him to paint that room before Thanksgiving. We have done so much painting!! There are some really high walls in there and he has to do all of the high parts since he is 6ft 5in. But, hopefully someday soon I will have kitchen photos for you! And, some full house photos!! Hopefully you caught a few glimpses of the floors in these photos. Taking photos of the floors requires them to not be covered with boxes!!! Still coming!

Still Here

I have not dropped off the face of the earth. It has just been too overwhelming to think about rehashing everything in a blog post. Tomorrow it will be two months exactly since we closed on the house and the flooring people STILL have a key to our house. : ( They think they are done with the floor. We are not in agreement! The overall look of the floors we are satisfied with but their attention to detail has been less than stellar.

After the last post about how upset we were with the look of the polished cement due to the flaws left from the dog kennel we spoke to them about our options. We decided to have the cement floor stained a coffee bean color. Because they had already sealed the floor before we got to see it that meant they had to strip it all again. We made it very clear that it was not their fault (even though communication could have been better and time could have been saved had we been given the opportunity to see the floor before it was sealed) that at one time there had been a dog kennel in the basement. We felt good about the decision and decided we might like the stained floor even better.

We then got a call one Friday night telling us not to freak out but if we went over to the house the basement floor would be purple and there was purple stain sprayed all over the carport. Apparently the container of stain they used was labeled correctly but had the wrong color stain inside. I was questioning the truth of this to myself but we then saw the container and it WAS labeled correctly. THEN apparently the sprayer broke in the driveway and got purple stain all over the place. We were assured that it would all be cleaned up and rectified on Monday.

After this we felt like they gave up on our house and quit putting in a lot of effort. We could tell they would go days without working and the attention to detail was very sloppy. They had to strip the basement floor a second time and re-stain it. We are quite satisfied with the overall look of the correct stain color but they were very sloppy with it. They sealed the walls around the floor with plastic to protect it from the stain. A spot of the floor about the size of a baseball got covered by plastic and has no stain on it. They went ahead and sealed it!

They also had me go over and look at the floor before they sealed it. (I wasn't able to see the spot mentioned above because the plastic was still up.) I confirmed with them it was safe to walk across the floors. They said yes. The grass had just been mowed and I tracked in a lot of cut grass. They knew I had been in the house and I assumed would sweep the floor one last time before sealing. Nope! I was wrong. We now have grass permanently embedded in our floor. It's not really noticeable but for the price we paid it shouldn't be there! They also didn't finish some of the chipped spots in the terrazzo correctly. We are going to have to add some extra speckles to it ourselves just because we want to be done with them.

The last thing we are waiting for is a spot in front of the doorway to the furnace room where the stain doesn't go all the way up to the door so there is a strip of bare concrete showing in front of the door. It is a shame they were willing to have unhappy customers over such silly careless things. I could go on and on with the little nit picky things they didn't do correctly but I could go on for days. Many of the small things we are just forgetting about so these people will be out of our lives. We had asked them for an estimate on refinishing our living room walls. They never gave us one and never finished the test patch they said they would do on the walls.

Right now we are trying to find out what would be entailed in having the walls refinished now by someone else. We would like to have it done now before we move in but it will depend how much it costs and if we can find someone to do it. It has been a challenge! Yesterday we started painting. We have almost all of the ceilings done and the trim in the family room. We also have paint colors picked out. We have chosen authentic historical paint colors. The only rooms we aren't painting right now are the bathrooms and kitchen.

We had an offer on our house and thought we might have to be moved by October 1 which was going to be pushing it. The offer ended up falling through. The girl didn't really seem to know what she was doing or what she wanted so we weren't too upset about it. Though, we are hoping to sell our house sooner rather than later. We would also like to be in the new house ASAP so that we don't have to deal with getting the house ready for a showing while school is in session. We did get our new living room furniture reupholstered which has been one bright spot in this ordeal of trying to get the house ready for moving in. The guy from Saint Louis who did the cushions for us did an awesome job! You can see the completed terrazzo floor in the photo of the furniture. I will post more floor photos soon.

One Month...(I think)

Basement floor on Friday

So, (I think) today is one month exactly that they have been working on our floors!! And, yes, they are still working. There have been some minor hurdles but at this point we are really not sure what is taking so long. Every time we go check things out it looks like things have very minimally changed. I am starting to feel like I might never walk in the front door and see gorgeous terrazzo that reflects like a mirror. The glue that they expected to have problems with came up fine we were told. We were told it would take an extra day to get the white circles (floor leveler) up in the basement but it wasn't a problem really. The cork has been done for almost 3 weeks! The terrazzo looks pretty fabulous but the other day they said it has been giving them fits. We don't really know why. It looked pretty darn good to start with. They said something about yellow glue stains from the tack strips around the edges. We saw the stains. They weren't that bad. After many weeks there are still numerous chipped spots where the tack strips were that need to be repaired. They aren't that bad and there has never been any indication they will be a problem. They just need to be done!!! The terrazzo still doesn't have that mirror like shine. I think it still needs to be buffed or something.

Friday we went and the basement was finally done (or close to done). It was very disappointing. There were dark grid lines in the cement where the old tile had been. There were white holes that had been filled with floor leveler. Because they were white they really stood out and looked horrible. It just DID NOT look good. I was very unhappy and felt like I could cry. They had already put a layer of epoxy down. We were a bit disappointed that no one called to communicate what the floors looked like before they proceeded with epoxy. It wasn't their fault it looked so bad but they should have communicated what it was looking like. After several phone calls and finally a stop by their office on Monday we decided to have all of the epoxy stripped off the basement floors. We will have the cement stained a brown color which will hopefully help a lot of the imperfections blend in better. Then another top coat will be added. They acted as if they thought we were going to be angry about something which we were a little confused about. We just wish they would have communicated better before proceeding. We then discovered they put a big gash in our fridge. We were planning on replacing it so it's not that big a deal but it is still a bit upsetting. At this point we are feeling frustrated and concerned with what the final product will look like. We are thinking they surely have not been working straight through for the entire month. Luckily we aren't paying by the hour!!

Strange front door lock

It is hard to sit by and not be able to do anything else like paint or move anything into the house. In two weeks I have to go back to work and the summer days I had planned to work on the house will be gone. All of the floor work is so messy. We just have to wait. We have been looking at paint colors. We made a trip to Saint Louis to get some samples of some historical paint colors. We also planned to go to several retro antique shops looking for living room furniture. They were all closed! Don't go to Saint Louis hoping to look at antique shops on Tuesday. It kind of feels like that is how our whole summer has gone. We went to a few antique shops around here today and saw a few promising items. We did find another unique little item in the house yesterday. There is a funny little piece of metal on the front door frame. It kind of looks like the strike plate but there was nothing on the door that would strike it. It also kind of stuck out past the door frame a little bit and could be flipped back and forth. We finally realized it is a strange little lock! You close the door. Then you flip the extra piece of metal over the door. Then you can push it down to hold it in place. It creates a lock. On Sunday we were able to go to the house and get some of the windows that had been painted shut open with a razor blade. In the process we think we uncovered the original exterior trim color of the house which was kind of interesting.

Strange front door lock closed and locked

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

Well, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. We are STILL waiting on the floors to be finished and we can't do much else until that happens. They were supposed to be done in 2 weeks. So far it has been 2 weeks and 2 days. It is supposed to be another half a week to a week. At this point I'm not sure what is taking so long. The glue in the basement seemed to come up fairly easy. I didn't hear of any problems like they expected. There was a bit of a scare with the cement in the family room. I got a call to come over and discuss our options because they didn't think it could be polished due to those big white circles I posted photos of. It turns out the spots were just floor leveler that was put down to make the carpet lay smooth. It popped up fairly easy and ended up not being a problem. So, again, I'm not sure what the delay has been. I see very little difference every time I sneak in to take a peek in the evenings. There is always some progress but it never quite seems like a day's worth of work. Thankfully we are not paying by the hour! We have been told there will be some extra labor added on for the basement glue and the floor leveler. I hope it isn't excessive.

Right now the curtains have been pulled in the basement so I can no longer peek in the windows to see what is going on down there. The cork upstairs is done I think. It doesn't look as nice as I had hoped but it will do for now. After they sanded it I expected it to look much newer. It looks very much like it initially did when we pulled the carpet up. It now just has the polyurethane coating on top. You can still see a lot of wear but most of it will be covered with furniture. We will eventually put in newer cork I think. There is a spot in front of each bathroom door where there is a gap between the cork and the threshold. I'm not sure what is going to happen there. I was supposed to get a phone call to discuss the plan but I haven't received one yet.

On the main floor the terrazzo looks really good. The spot we were told about in front of the stove is hardly noticeable. I don't think I would have noticed anything if I hadn't been told. The terrazzo is not done and doesn't yet have that super glossy look like I am expecting. They have been working on it since almost day one so I'm not sure why they haven't gotten further with it. It looks great. It just needs to be finished!! They have pulled the laminate off of the steps but I can't tell what the plans are there. The stairs will be wood but I didn't completely understand how they are going to do it. They are also going to sand a small patch of the wall next to the stairs so they can get some idea of what will be involved in refinishing the paneled walls. We were not going to jump right in to painting but now we are changing our plans. There is a big spot along all of the baseboards where it wasn't painted due to the carpet. It doesn't look great so we are going to paint sooner than planned. Hopefully soon I can update and say the floors are finished. I feel like it is never going to happen.

Getting To The Bottom Of Things

Yesterday, the flooring people finally began on the floors in the house. I decided to stop by at about 3PM and see what was going on. The entryway tile was pulled up and the terrazzo was looking good on the main floor. All of the upstairs carpet was gone. The cork up there looked good. It was very worn but I'm sure when they sand it, it will look good. There was a gap between the cork and both bathroom thresholds. I'm sure it can be filled in or covered with some kind of transition strip. I just hope the floor people will take care of it so that we don't have to. There is a corner broken out of just one of the cork tiles in the master bedroom. Hopefully, they plan on filling that also. So, upstairs and and the main floor are looking good. Though we haven't seen the kitchen yet. The top layer of the linoleum is gone but the paper backing is still stuck to the floor. There was only one layer which was a good thing. They are going to use a chemical to remove the paper and doesn't sound like they are expecting any problems with that.

This is the pile of carpet, padding and tiles under the carport that have been removed from the house.

The basement is another story. The carpet has been pulled out of the basement den and the cork has water damage which we were expecting. The plan is to remove that cork but it hasn't happened yet. All of the tile in the basement hallway has been removed except right at the bottom of the steps. There is gross, gross, gross glue coating the floor completely where the tile was. You can't even see the cement. This glue was the biggest concern the flooring people had. So, hopefully it comes up fairly easily with their chemicals and other magic tricks.

The family room has 5 (I believe) spots on the floor where the dog kennel fencing was. It looks worse than I expected. There was one exposed dog kennel spot in the laundry room and it isn't bad. They already told me it wouldn't be a problem. I was hoping the spots in the family room would be the same. I haven't been able to look at the spots in the family room close up because the floor is too yucky to walk across. I could see it through the back window though. There are big white circular spots on the floor. It looks almost like paint but we think it is actually cement that was used to fill in holes were the dog kennel fence posts were. Maybe just a different color than the rest of the cement. So, again I hope the flooring people can work some magic because right now it is a pretty big mess.

The circles in the family room floor taken through the back window while standing outside. There are 2 more circles not in the picture. The dark strip at the top of the picture is glue from tile against the back wall. That strip used to be tiled hallway

 We are not sure what we are going to do with the steps right now. They are covered just on the top with some kind of linoleum. It actually looks very nice and we don't mind it. It could use buffing or whatever they do to make that stuff look shiny and new. One of the workers recommended getting oak stair treads to replace the tops of the steps since there is plywood under the linoleum (we think). I am supposed to get a call from the "boss" to discuss the steps. Hopefully they can help us decide what would be best. Speaking of the workers. They were these young boys who loved our house! They were totally intrigued by all of the weird little gadgets it has.

The steps with linoleum on them. The right corner of the bottom step is the only damage because the flooring people pulled on it to see what it was and what was underneath. There are still tack strips down and you can see the entry way tile to the right which has now been removed along with the tack strips.

Owner Number Two

This week I received an email from the second owners of the house! We will be owners number four. So, I have now had communication with every family that has lived in the house! It turns out that the second family to live there was very close friends with the family we grew up next to until I was in the fourth grade. The old neighbors are still close friends of our family. When they heard about the house we will be buying they contacted the second owners who they still keep in touch with even though they have moved from our town. Our friends had shared this blog with the previous owners and then they contacted me.

Owners number two lived in the house for only 6 years. They seem to be the ones who made some of the more obvious changes to the house. They said, "We did not cover the terrazzo floors in the kitchen but remember that the terrazzo was damaged in front of the double ovens - perhaps by a spill of some sort.  The rest of the house was carpeted though.  The great room was newly carpeted when we bought it and the rest of the house had wool carpet from the original owner.  We removed all of the indoor kennels and two of the outdoor kennels. The outside of the house had been painted (not stained) a redwood color before we bought it. We then painted it brown. The small room off the kitchen contained a washer / dryer unit. We removed it and put a washer and a dryer in the basement.  I used the small desk for a sewing machine. The kitchen had a "gourmet" refrigerator and freezer (two separate units built in). We removed those units and replaced them with a "normal" refrigerator / freezer."

We will be very relieved to see what the condition of the floors are under the carpet. Hopefully the stain mentioned can be sanded down. I also started thinking that there might be flaws in the basement concrete where the kennels once were. We were at the house the other day and noticed for the first time there are the remnants of old fencing posts from the kennels in the patio concrete. Again, hopefully anything like that inside the house can be ground down or filled in with new cement. I took some photos of those places in the concrete were the posts used to be and the places in the brick where the old outline of the doggy doors can be seen.

If you look closely you can see the outline of the three doggy doors in the brick. One is behind the pile of stuff. One is directly under the middle of the window and the last is to the right of the water spigot. We believe the window was added when the kennels were removed but we are not sure. It is definitely a newer window than the others.

You can see at the edge of the patio, next to the cracks, a circle that is the remains of a metal post from the kennels. There are several of them along the edge of the patio. I am wondering if there are more of these inside under the carpet. Or, maybe the kennels inside had walls instead of fencing. Another mystery!

The patio- You can see three circles from old fencing along the edge of the patio and you can see the doggy door marks in the brick.

We also decided that there were definitely trees that were lost in the big storm four years ago. The fence in the back has been damaged by a tree. Someone told us this but I can't remember who. It was very obviously crushed by a tree falling right on top of it. It was obviously a large tree. You can tell right where the tree used to be by the way the ground slopes, the grass grows and where some ornamental rocks are placed in the area. Yet, there is no stump to be seen. The owners must have had all of the stumps removed after the storm. We have also been told that so many trees were lost the day of the storm because the ground was so wet from a previous storm the night before. All of the trees came over with large root balls still attached. It would make sense that a tree in the spot fell since it is a low spot where water would collect. We have talked about planting another tree in the same spot.

In this photo you can see where the fence is leaning next to the gate. It has been crushed and is no longer attached. We think there was a large tree in front of the rocks in the sloped area that fell on the fence.

More On The Floors

A couple of weeks ago we had a company come in and measure and look at the floors. They seemed pretty excited about what was under the carpet. I guess it's not that common. Terrazzo, cork and polished cement will be virtually maintenance free and so much better for the allergies. We heard multiple times. "It is amazing what people will put carpet over!" We were waiting to hear on a proposal from them but we got a call saying "the boss" wanted to come look at things since the tile over the cement in the basement hallway is potentially asbestos. Ugh!! When I arrived and walked in the basement den "the boss" was pointing out to his employee that water had come in the basement and the cork underneath the carpet had some water damage. GREAT! At this point the house had already been inspected and no one said a word about water damage. There seemed to be some pretty obvious tell tale signs the flooring guy picked up on right away. The water issue doesn't seem like anything significant. I have always grown up with a basement and I just accept that water comes with the territory. As long as I'm not wading in it I'm not really concerned. But, it would have been nice to know. The multi-talented flooring people are also going to be able to take care of some landscaping that lead to the water issues. But, this now means the basement den will no longer be cork. The cork will also have to be pulled up and the cement underneath will be polished. The tile in the basement hallway won't be a problem. But there is a big question about how easy it will be to get the glue up and the glue from the linoleum in the kitchen. So, at this point we are praying the glue comes up easy and there is no other damage to any of the floors underneath. The flooring company also forgot to give us a quote on doing the steps which seem to be wood. Hopefully they will give us a reasonable deal on that. Immediately after we close we plan to go to the house and pull back as much of the carpet as easily possible so we can see the condition of what is underneath. Last week we put a 50% down payment on the floors. They are supposed to begin the work on July 3. The day after we close. We will be nervous until we know for sure exactly what is under the carpet and the condition it is in.