Tag Archives: home renovations

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Oh, my aching back. And knees. And shoulders… etc.

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Day two of our working weekend consisted of ripping up carpet…

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Which was the easy part…

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Until my husband hit the closet.

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The padding was a bit harder to get up…

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And it left all those nasty little sharp staples which needed to be pulled by hand.

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The spots?

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That would be blood.

Home renovations are dangerous dontcha know.

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Next was the old baseboard trim, parts of which were damaged and all of which was beat up enough for us to decide we wanted new.

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His Lordship?

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Back in the bedroom sleeping with 3 mice on his scratchy post.

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The day ended with a much needed second coat of ceiling paint and two seriously aching homeowners.

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Damn. That’s too much like work..

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When the weekend rolled around it was time for the husband and I to go to work.

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Since having the living room stripped bare doesn’t happen very often we decided to take advantage and paint both the ceiling and the walls.

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Husband did the ceiling…

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I did the walls. Don’t criticize the paint on the baseboard trim, it’s all being ripped out and replaced anyway.

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And no, I couldn’t talk the husband into letting me pick a color other than off white.

Change is not his friend.

🥴

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten was inconvenienced yet again.

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And let us know in no uncertain terms he was not pleased.

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This window viewing platform was nowhere near as comfortable as the couch.

And as the day came to an end with both of us moaning and groaning about sore muscles and aching feet… my walls looked good.

The husband’s ceiling?

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Not so much.

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He actually thought he was done after one coat.

Silly man.

😉

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I’m calling it progress. I have to…

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New sub floor sections have been laid.

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And the old china hutch has gone to our farming neighbor…

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Not for fertilizer storage as I predicted, but to house a mineral and fossil collection.

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Which almost didn’t happen as they lost their grip going out the door.

😳

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Parts of the old sub floor didn’t need to be replaced…

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But they did need to be sanded down to a level surface.

Sooo much sanding.

Sooo much dust.

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten does not like the noise or the mess.

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But he does like having his own personal viewing platform when work is done for the day.

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The blog in which His Lordship is inconvenienced but learns to make the best of it.

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten likes the noise plastic makes when he jumps on it..

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And God knows we’ve got plenty of plastic right now.

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What he doesn’t like is plastic rooms he has no access to….

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And in true cat fashion he’s always on the wrong side of the wall.

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The newly added zippered door helps, though he still has a propensity to sit and stare.

His Lordship doesn’t understand why his house is torn apart, noisy and covered in plastic…

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But he’s trying to make the best of it.

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😉

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Home renovations are not for the faint hearted.

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Due to uncontrolled rampant dust covering every square inch and nook and cranny of our house…

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Another plastic walled room was erected.

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This time carefully avoiding the furnace’s air intake…

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Which had been sucking in dust and evenly distributing it between rooms.

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The contractor also added a zippered door so His Royal Highness could access the room at night without tearing giant holes in the plastic like he did last time.

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I have to be honest…

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I’m beginning to forget what a clean house looks like.

🥴

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It’s the gift that keeps on giving…

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As you know we started the home renovation projects last summer…. and by now? I fully intended to be done, feet up and comfortably seated on our new furniture.

Meanwhile back at Casa River –

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten explores the changes…

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And while our contractor is prepping the floor…

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My husband was roped into cutting in the ceiling paint along the edges of the wall.

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Taking up the damaged sub floor sections, the contractor discovered tar paper …

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And one seriously, not even close to level, major hump in the middle of the room.

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Of course he did.

It’s our God forsaken cursed house after all.

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At this point? If he dug up a blackened corpse in a coffin covered in satanic symbols…

I’d just see it as explanation.

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That hutch is heavy, it’s easier to paint around than move.

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The new flooring?

It’s currently clogging up my kitchen.

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Easy to install?

Clearly it doesn’t know who it’s dealing with…

🥴

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Ceiling repair of the repair, and the plastic barrier that didn’t bar a determined Dudley.

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Project #7 (8? … 9?… whatever, I’ve lost interest in counting at this point) began with dust protecting plastic being draped.

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Once a mini plastic walled room was in place, work on the ceiling began. I wasn’t looking for perfect at this stage, but I was hoping for better.

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After a mind numbing amount of scraping and dusty, lung clogging sanding…

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A smooth surface was ready for texture.

Our poor contractor tries hard to please and he didn’t want to screw it up by applying too much product, so he set the nozzle to fine and let it dry. It wasn’t close to a match so he sprayed it again. And again. And again. Forced to let it dry in between shots.

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Finally, at the end of the day when he was about to run out of daylight…

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With my husband holding a light so he could see where he was spraying….the optimum amount was reached.

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As usual Lord Dudley Mountcatten did not like the temporary plastic barrier.

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He stared it down, but it didn’t move.

Knowing he gets scolded if he tries to rip his way in, he opted for a more subtle approach.

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The old ‘throw your catnip mouse at the wall and see if breaks through’ maneuver.

He gave up for a while because he knew I was watching but as soon as I left the room?

I heard scratching.

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No mere sheet of plastic will keep Lord Dudley from making his appointed rounds.

🥴

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Anything but the scratchy!

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Prepping for our next renovation project… ceiling repair/paint and new flooring… meant emptying the room.

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After stripping it to bare bones, I realized Lord Dudley Mountcatten was not pleased.

Because along with everything else that had to be moved? His scratching post would have to be temporarily relocated as well.

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His Lordship is very attached to said post….

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And did not easily relinquish his grip.

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Next project, though not quite a new one.

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Bedroom windows complete, work moved back to the living room.

Remember when we redid the beam?

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And replaced all the stained and damaged ceiling?

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It looked so much better..

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But it wasn’t perfect.

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There was a clear line of demarcation between the old popcorn and the new.

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And though the stains had been Kilz’ed, primed and painted… they didn’t match either.

At the time our contractor had other customers waiting for work, and knowing that we’d be replacing the floor at some point…. we opted to wait to fix the line and repaint the whole ceiling then.

Then is now.

You know something will go wrong.

Stay tuned….

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I think it lasted about 3 minutes.

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Get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about organization.

After four months, our bedroom is finally back together.

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Furniture is in place and windows are awaiting treatment.

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It’s amazing how much you miss nightstands until they’re gone.

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Lord Dudley Mountcatten was pleased his world was back in order…

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Too bad it only lasted a few minutes.

Because as soon as the bedroom was put back in order, the living room was emptied in preparation for the next project.

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So now the den is crammed full…

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The spare bedroom has chairs, tables and paintings.

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And the office floor has odds and ends.

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His Lordship is no longer pleased…

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But he’s doesn’t let it interrupt his nap either.

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