Bought this light...

...for the office. $25 and not too nipply. Can't really complain.

Our Sunday ups and downs

Literally, figuratively, emotionally. The kitchen counter was probably the project we've most anticipated and most dreaded.

The day at least started out on a good foot; our screws trick worked well with the hardibacker (see previous post) and Adam started laying out the tile while I picked up my awesome laundry room floor slate. When I got back to the house, we started cutting. Instead of buying a tile saw (if we'd known we'd be tiling the laundry floor, too, we might have purchased; lessons learned, I guess), we rented a big one from our neighborhood friendly equipment rental guys; of course, we took advantage of the awesome weekend, 2 days for the price of one, rental special (~$45). I made Adam do all the cutting.

We started out with one of the chipped corner tiles as a test run for our complicated sink corner pieces...And would you believe it? We got it right on the first try!

Emboldened by our shocking and unexpected success, we laid out the rest of the counters and got all the tiles cut. Fit like a glove.

We bought the white mastic that was specially labeled for granite and marble; it also had the added bonus of being advertised as thick and strong enough to build up to 3/4". That way, we could try to work out some of the unevenness that we couldn't solve in the previous several layers of leveling. We mixed it to a pretty loose consistency and started on the left where we had the least amount extra leveling to do. We laid them up to the sink and then wiped them down with a wet rag to get rid of thinset smears. Then we moved into the inside corner of our L-shaped cabinets. This is basically the location that dictated where everything else sat on that side of the sink.

We laid those corner tile and worked to the right; but by the time we got back to the area just left of the inside corner, the first tiles we'd laid were set-- and set too low for the tile we were trying to lay. I don't know if that makes any sense, but the end result is an uneven spot that we couldn't fix. I've talked about the "Oh Shit" moment of a project; this was the, "Not much we can do about it at this point" moment. Most of our joints are pretty smooth, except for this one. I'm not happy about it, but we're not trying to fool anyone into thinking it's solid surface. Obviously that's not an excuse for screwing up, but, as I said, short of tearing up the entire counter top, "not much we can do about it at this point."

Anyway, we put the blue tape on it to keep from sliding; really we put it on there because that's what we've seen other people do ;-). I had nightmares about the tiles sliding off the counter last night and cracking in the middle of surface.

Here's the way we left it Sunday night:


Overall, I'm pretty pleased at this point. We had to trim 2 pieces in the middle of laying the tile-- some grit from the thinset had crept in between the tiles and shifted things a bit. We also have a sink issue that I'll detail later. Maybe someone can help us. Until then, I will revel in the fact that we can grout next weekend and, fingers crossed, move in by the end of February.

We'll start with backer board (and a puppy!)

Since the backer board day was so depressing, I'll start with a picture of a puppy on the porch...



He's 13, so not really a puppy...but he spent the afternoon checking out his new backyard digs and sniffing about the house. When the project got ever more tedious and tragic, I could glance out the back door and see him staring back watching us work. A happy little moment...

Ok, on to the backerboard fiasco. We spent all last weekend getting the plywood on and as level as possible. Weather kept us from getting to the house midweek, so Saturday morning was devoted to backerboard. We cut the boards-- no real problems there. Mixed up the thinset-- it looked a little thick, but we've never done this before; and anyway, the directions on the box were in Rebus puzzle, and I'm a words kind of gal. We slopped it on, laid the boards and went to lunch.



We got back, and the boards didn't really look like they were sticking very well. But we went ahead and screwed them in. Then we started laying out the tile to see where we wanted it all to go. Left of the sink looked good. Everything to the right of the sink acted like it was on a teeter-totter. Nothing was even, the backerboard wasn't sticking any better. It was all wrong. So we removed everything to the right of the sink, scraped off the mastic, bought some thinset with WORD directions, and started all over again with a better, runnier mixture.


This time we got the backerboard in place, threaded the screws part way and used them to raise and lower parts of the board until it was as even as we could get it, and then left the screws only partially in. That way, the thinset could dry right where we needed it without us squishing it around with the screws. When we did finally screw everything down Sunday morning and laid out the tile, everything rocked quite a bit less and we moved on to the scary part of our project.

My biggest deal yet and other tales of the Home Depot

So I've mentioned the bathroom wall cabinet at 30% off...the Moen shower head at 80% off...the stainless steel trashcan duo for $10...our labor day sale granite tile and appliances...our Overstock.com faucet...the chandelier on clearance...We've found some pretty good deals. Well, folks, my bestest bargain so far came along over the weekend.

I almost never shop at Home Depot-- they're a little too expensive for poor little me. But they happen to be the only people we've found that carry our base shoe in the lengths we need. So we trucked on out there Saturday night to stock up on base shoe and grab a few other odds and ends we needed for our tiling project (which will get its own very special post, ugh.) and happened upon...



That's 92 square feet of Rajah slate bought at the reasonable price of $0.49/ft2. And it doesn't stop there. Remember I got a little tip that Lowes would be putting a lot of stock on 50% off clearance? After we got that information, we decided to put the search for laundry room flooring on hold for a while, at least until we had a chance to view the upcoming bargains. But when I saw this big stack of tile, I counted it and found that there was much more than the 77 ft2 that I need. I am NOT an impulse shopper, so I had to "sleep on it." Except that sleeping on it meant that before we even got to the car I decided I'd come back the next morning. So I did. And the flooring guy who loaded it up for me said that there 90 tiles, plus 2 broken ones (there were a few more broken tiles than that, but I can use them for edges if I have to) so he only charged me for 84 tiles. I can't even get nice ceramic tiles for that, and I certainly can't get half decent sticky tile at that price. It'll be more work, but I'm so happy.

Now, on the not so nice side of our trip to the depot...We needed about 20 lengths of base shoe. We see the station with a big sign that says, "CUT IT YOURSELF," in all caps, just like that. We think, "Great, we don't have to find someone to do this for us." Well, let me say that the sign should read, "Cut it your DAMN self." It is a tiny ass little hand saw. That kind of ridiculousness gets old after 5 boards, much less 20.

But the slate made it all ok. And the tiling guy was actually very helpful and seemed knowledgeable-ish. Overall, a good shopping weekend. The actual tiling project, however, is another story entirely.

And the tiling begins

Well, it technically begins tomorrow. Tonight, we have to brave the mountains-- bridges, tunnels and overpasses-- and the forecast of wintry mix (it's like party mix, but with ice...and it makes me angry) to get to the house so we can complete our hardibacker installation and begin tiling. At least we apparently have more than twice the necessary amount of granite (partly due to our own overage calculations, since we're bound to screw up, and partially due to a mixup elsewhere that resulted in our favor ;-) ), so we've got a ton of room for the inevitable problems. And then leftovers for an island.

I've reserved the tile saw from our rental place and I'm ready to do this thing. Hopefully this weekend will be more productive than the last.

Either way, thank god it's Friday...

Apparently, this is an addiction

I had to proctor the pilot version of an exam yesterday, and when I got into the room, I realized I'd left my book and other work elsewhere. But, I'd brought a laptop in so that I could closely watch the time (my watch is very fancy and very chic which means you can forget about trying to use it for actual time telling). So I hopped on the wireless network and took a look at which other houses are cropping up for sale in my hometown...just for fun...And I was seriously tempted. Really.

There was a beautiful turn of the century (1901-ish) what I would guess is a foursquare-- looking at the house it had very square symmetry, dormers in the third floor attic, and a shed roof, a broad front porch, and colored glass surrounding the front door; 2500 ft2 with 5 bedrooms and 2 baths. The ad said "finishing repairs" still needed. Now, we all know that's an understatement. But it did seem to have lots of original trim and so much going for it. And with it costing next to nothing, I almost jumped. And then I thought that I must be insane! All I've done for 6 months is bitch and moan about just wanting to move in, and just wanting to live in a halfway finished house for the first time in my life, and just wanting to have a weekend for myself.

But truthfully, after 6 months of literally being able to do little else-- I don't know when the last time I read a book was-- I can't imagine not working on a house. And I wonder if I'll ever be able to leave this house having put so much of ourselves into it; but I also see how people just keep doing this, house after house. It's a little like dealing with kids who are troublemakers. Sometimes, you can see so much potential in them and you just want to bring it out.

So this temptress house...it's in a part of town that I'm not sure is the best, really; but it's not the worst. And god knows the cost of this house isn't much anywhere. But it's certainly not unheard of here. The situation is this...

This town was at one time the western-most point before entering "Indian Territory," so it was a relatively booming "border town" for a while. And then, being on the Arkansas River, and in the 20th Century on a major interstate, it became a manufacturing and transportation center. So it's big boom was mostly the latter half of the 19th Century into the 1920s...then again in the 40s. Then, manufacturing jobs became less desirable and in turn less abundant. And so the heart of the city-- street after street after street of Italianate, Queen Anne and Folk Victorians and Craftsman Bungalows and Foursquares, from simple to elaborate, fell into disrepair and are now the cheap dumpy housing (mostly; there are luckily some very well-maintained pockets, like the neighborhood we are in). In any other city, these neighborhoods would be historic districts; even though we have such an official district, it's small and surrounded by sketchy areas.

This is combined with the fact that we never had the housing burst that the rest of the country did, or that even Northwest Arkansas did-- they've seen housing prices as much as treble over the last 10 year or so...but in the River Valley, I'm still seeing houses Adam and I looked at a year ago still on the market and priced 20 or 30 thousand dollars lower, and 1/3-1/4 the cost of homes less than an hour north. At one point, we saw an Italianate-ish house in horrible disrepair, completely gutted, but absolutely gorgeous for 30k. We considered it too, but we hadn't really committed ourselves to redoing a house yet, nor did we want to live in a transient neighborhood-- there are 2 boarding houses within a block. That's right. Not apartment complexes; boarding houses.

It's been nice that my family has always been able to afford older, character-filled houses. And it's been nice that my friends and I were always able to rent these same historic homes...However, it wasn't so nice that we were stupid kids, bored in a dying manufacturing town with nothing better to do than get drunk and trash the places we lived in. I never appreciated that these little dumpy bungalows were as great as the big Victorians-- they're everywhere here. I mean there are miles of them in every direction.

My hope is that one day, someone else will want to improve these neighborhoods-- someone with a little more to invest than me-- and that I can get in there somewhere with all my good old sweat equity. Right now, we have a 10 year old and so we bought a house in the best neighborhood of older houses that we could get into, one of only a few locations here, so we really had specific needs in a neighborhood. It breaks my heart driving through town, though, and seeing what's become of these houses and their neighborhoods. I want these places to remain affordable-- beautiful houses shouldn't only be for the rich, but sometimes they need some TLC.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that I'd love to renovate them all! So if this temptress house goes down in price, as it might seeing as how it appears to be a foreclosure, and even the grand old (affordable) houses here are sitting on the market for many months, if it does indeed go down significantly, I'd be willing to do it.

Now I can see what happens when my unmedicated obsessive compulsive streak goes unchecked. I'll be so bogged down in house repair. I can only hope that I'll reach the fed up sick and tired phase here sooner than later. I know it's coming. It just needs to hit before I spend more money.

Deals, deals, deals

Looks like progress, right?

Well, I think the bargain shoppers out there will know what I'm talking about here...You know when you're shopping at places like TJ Maxx a lot, and you get some really great deals...after a while, you realize you have a totally skewed view of the appropriate pricing for anything. $10 for a shirt starts to sound like waaaay too much. You could get one on the clearance rack at TJ for $2.

Maybe I'm stretching it here, but after several weeks of what seemed like steadily moving progress, this weekend felt like a $10 shirt. In reality, I know we got a lot done; but relative to the last few weeks, it didn't seem like much of a deal. We only got done about 1/4 of what we wanted (plywood and hardibacker installed and base shoe cut and installed), and about 1/2 of what we deemed our bare minimum (plywood and hardibacker). I think we had some delusions of DIY grandeur.

Anyway, while waiting for Adam to get to the house on Saturday, I managed to get one coat of paint on the bathroom walls; the second coat was finished on Sunday after he left to get the kiddo back to her mom's house. At first, it went on very, very red, and all I could do was say, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." Don't really know why it worried me-- it's just paint. But it turned out to be a very nice color match. I love it.



Then we made the trip to Lowe's for all our countertop supplies. We left with some great inside info, so take note if you've got a tile project on the horizon: the girl at the counter said she overheard the guys in flooring say that they'd be putting a lot of tile on sale soon-- 50% OFF!!-- to make room for new product. I'd resigned myself to sticky vinyl in the laundry room in the interests of money and time. But now that I know I could get a good deal if I just wait, I'll probably keep an eye on the tiles.

The countertops were a nightmare that I'm not going to detail too much-- basically, the cabinets and the plywood and the floors were all uneven in their own special ways. Lots of shimming, screwing, unscrewing and the addition of a support beam in the far corner, finally got us to a point where we feel at least ok with the levelness and evenness of the plywood underlayment. But that, including cutting out the sink and adding supports for the sink clamps and supports for the plywood to screw into, took a long time. We didn't really have time left to install the Hardibacker. Hopefully, we'll get to it later this week.

This morning, I really had no energy for major work. So I went shopping! For house things, of course. Sales everywhere, people, I'm telling you: every place I went had great bargains. The best was the stainless steel step trash can I bought for $10! It was dented, but it took me 5 minutes to even find the ding; and it included a mini can for the bathroom.

Then I spent some time filling nail holes in our trim. They look diseased now.

So that's the progress. Looking back at it, it seems like we actually got a lot done. We're just back to projects where we don't know what the hell we're doing. Guess we just got a little spoiled.