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.
As work started on our next living room projects, (new flooring and ceiling repairs) it was time for the familiar refrain to begin chiming in my head.
More work.
More time.
More money.
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Because when carpet and padding was removed in the bump out addition section of the room…
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Damaged floor was discovered. At this point in the continuing saga our renovation nightmare? I expected no less.
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One section was particularly troubling.
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It’s a complete mystery to how or even when this damage occurred.
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The door we just replaced on the right leaked at one time so that would explain water damage on that end…
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But we found bad spots here and there under the windows as well… which could have been caused by the old windows we replaced years ago because though it was damaged, it was completely dry.
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But while the bad spots to the right were dry, that nasty black spot on the left was damp.
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.
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.
The long awaited and apparently hard to find doors finally arrived.
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On a rainy day of course, so they were placed in the garage…
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Which is already filled to capacity with the yet to be installed windows and has become increasingly hard to maneuver with my car.
Not wanting to hit anything, we moved them to the bedroom the next day because that room is torn apart already.
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It’s not ideal, but I can stand it for a week until the contractor gets back to work.
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And in case you’re thinking, yay… glad that went smoothly, it actually didn’t.
I unequivocally told the contractor I wanted white painted doors.
He says he unequivocally told the supplier I wanted white painted doors.
These are not white painted doors.
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They’re primed with an off white, pale creamy color called ‘mill finish’ and are clearly ready for stain or paint with special trim tape in place around the glass.
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The contractor doesn’t like painting doors but I don’t care, he’s going to do it because we’re already over two months behind schedule on this simple stupid project and I’m ready to move on.
I drove home under some ominous skies the other afternoon.
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And woke up to our first dusting of snow.
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It was gone by mid day just in time for our contractor to drop by between jobs and seal up the new windows with some not so attractive foam.
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He’s finishing off a barn next door that’s taking longer than planned but as soon as he’s done he’ll be back over here to finish our nightmare project.
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As usual, Lord Dudley Mountcatten couldn’t care less.
And as much as I shudder at the idea of another potential disaster, replacing this floor is the next project on my list.
The carpet is old and was put in by the previous owner in 2002.
It’s time.
We’ll be replacing the carpet in our bedrooms, but for the living/dining room and main hall we’re thinking luxury vinyl plank.
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Since I refuse to replace every baseboard, door and piece of window trim as well as the built in bookcases and fireplace mantle …. I’ll need to stay in that honey tone of wood.
Question is – do I go light?
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Or dark?
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I love online stores who have this app. Visuals are everything when choosing floors.
Our contractor says he might be able to install the floor in late December so I need to start shopping seriously now.
Armed with a broken piece of trim, my girlfriend and I hit a few floor retailers.
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Too grey.
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Too brown.
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The frustrating part? I came home with three samples that all looked different at home than they did in the store. Heck, they look different from room to room.
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Nope.
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Ugh. Even worse.
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This has the same hue, though it’s more rustic than I wanted. Pulling it up on the app, it looked muted.
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Though in this picture the color striations are more pronounced.
I’m having a hard time believing it myself and I live here.
When last we spoke… I still had two new windows with large air gaps, we’d gotten into a pissing contest with the store manager, were waiting on the report from the second supposed expert and our contractor was going to fight management for a full refund.
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Fast forward a week and I’m out shopping with a girlfriend. I get a phone call from our contractor who says the store manager bumped the problem up to corporate… who slid it over to the manufacturer… who wanted to come out and inspect the windows that day, right that minute. Thankfully the husband was home teleworking so off they went.
I heard this second hand, but gather it went something like this –
The top Marvin window guy arrived with the store manager we bumped heads with in tow. Husband wasn’t pleased with that, but managed to be civil.
Our contractor was there and went through all the steps he’d taken to fix the problem. The window parts were examined, measured and proclaimed well within acceptable limits… because hey, nothing’s perfect. The Marvin window guy asked my husband what he wanted… fully functioning windows or a full refund? Since hubby has been spitting mad for over a month I thought for sure I’d come home to gaping holes in the bedroom. But we’d chosen this particular product for a reason… good insulation rating, ease of tilting for cleaning, wood interior, low U factor, etc and no other window we looked at checked all the boxes…. so he said if the windows were installed properly and operated as advertised he’d be happy.
Agreeing that the two sashes were slightly off square, Mr. Marvin said his company would replace them and we could keep the others as spares.
And then?
Then he did something that left my both my husband’s and the contractor’s mouths hanging open.
He removed the right window sash and replaced it with the left.
He removed the left window sash and replaced it with the right.
The result?
No more gaps.
No more air leaking through.
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Oh, he’s still going to order replacement sashes for us… but as of this minute? The windows seem to be fine and my mind is blown. The one on the right is a little stiff and harder to close, but it’s airtight and a little silicon spray on the sides should help it glide more easily.
What the hell!
Was that all it took? Why didn’t the other “experts” think of this! A simple switcheroo solved the problem we’ve been fighting since October 6th and I don’t know whether to scream or cry because it’s so ridiculous.
Needless to say our contractor was dumbfounded. He spent all that time trying to make things right and never thought of swapping sides.
So…
The contractor is the middle of another job for our neighbors which means we’ll have to wait a week or more till he’s free to come back over here and finish installing the rest of the windows and buttoning these up.
I’m shaking my head as I type this and still can’t believe a month and a half of frustration and inconvenience was completely unnecessary.
Someday…. I’ll laugh about this.
But I’m not there yet.
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 