Removing Old Nasty Carpet

Today we tackled a huge, long awaited projects.

We pulled out all of the nasty, dusty, smelly carpet that is all over the top floor.

Except for the places we plan on keeping carpet (NOT this carpet, but new carpet), every piece of it and its dirty little underlay was torn out.

And holy crap, does it look and smell better all over the top floor.

It was so easy. Probably because it was poorly installed (like everything in this house). So all we had to do was tug on the corners.

It's like they never vacuumed... ever.

Ignore the renovation-inappropriate workout clothes.

"Throw it out the window like a giant burrito," said Mike.

And we did. It all went straight out the window onto the front porch area. We did all the rooms.

It looks SO much better.

And finally, from the porch, it went into the truck. And off to a far away land where we hopefully never have to see it ever again.

Picking Up Flooring + Happy Birthday Mikey !

Today... was a very hot day.

I think maybe, that because we had so much to do today, the sun decided to show out. Really make us understand just how powerful it was.

This accurately depicts what today felt like.

It was almost as if we were being punished. Punished for defying the sun by trying to do anything but tan and swim all day.

Ok. That's dramatic, but it was very hot today.

But despite the heat. We did a lot today. And most importantly, we used the hell out of Mike's dad's big truck, picking up and moving things all around Atlanta.

Our first stop. Lumber Liquidators to pick up our flooring. Mike had this funny idea that we would be picking up something like... 10 boxes of laminate. I guessed closer to 20. We learned a lot about math and estimation today.

Not 10 boxes. And not 20 boxes.

It ended up being 50 boxes. And 12 bags of underlayment. And it was kind of like... "Duh, there's only a few square feet per box." But this part was fine with me, since I actually didn't do much but take pictures of Mike and his brother moving things.

If you can't tell, It was still obnoxiously hot.

They did a great job. So great that we were done really fast. So fast that we were at the house before I knew it, and I was suddenly delegated Underlayment Duty... but it didn't take long before we were done.

Organization at its finest.

So we moved on to the next project.

For those who didn't know, Mike turned 27 on Sunday.

We had an amazing time with his parents and their friends that night, cooking recipes from the Neely's, drinking wine and Costa Rican beer, and showing them this blog :-)

He got some pretty cool stuff for his birthday. Stuff that will come in handy in the house, and especially in the kitchen... but the best gift of all... we picked up today.

YES! They got us the most amazing thing you can get to food-loving new home owners-- a new fridge!

This may not be very exciting for the average person... but for Mike and I, this is pretty close to heaven.

Details wise... its the Frigidaire FFHS2612LS (sold here). It's 26 Cubic Feet, and a side-by-side. With water and ice in the door... amazing, no? I've seriously already imagined (and been excited by) the idea of putting groceries away.

So we went to pick it up today.

Getting it in the truck? Easy. Driving with it UPRIGHT (thanks loading dock guys) all the way home? Easy. Getting it in the door?

Easier said than done.

We hit a wall. Well technically we hit styrofoam, which we took off. Then we hit door knobs, so Mathew (Mike's brother) removed the door.

And finally. It made it (very close) to its new home.

After defeating the doorway.

Finally!

It won't actually be operational for while. The kitchen still needs to be primed and painted, and the tile floors are being installed next week... but we are sooo tempted to just plug it in right in the middle of the dining room. But we will restrain ourselves.

Review: Behr Paint & Primer In One

Product: Behr Premium Ultra Paint & Primer In One
Price: $30.98 - $33.98 (1 Gallon, Home Depot)
Rating: 5/5

I mentioned in a post before that we decided to use Behr's NEW Premium Plus Ultra, since it has the Paint & Primer feature. We have a lot of dark colors in our house that need to be covered in the worst way. And since I abhor priming and any use of Kilz (read: lazy), I thought this sounded awesome.

This picture is epic, isn't it? I wish I took it.

I had wanted to try Velspar's "cover the zebra stripes" paint... I watch a lot of HGTV, and Lowe's pushes it almost every commercial break... but the reviews were HORRIBLE. So, I dodged that bullet, and instead stood in front of the fast approching Behr Bandwagon...

And you know what?

I'm SO happy I did.

This paint is GREAT. We truly only need one coat in most cases. I will be honest and say there are a few spots that I need to roll over again, but that's only because I'm crazy... most people probably wouldn't even be able to see the spots I see.

I took some pictures! Below, is a swatch of the color "Roman Plaster" (this is one of their new colors, introduced with this new line of paint), over a swatch of "Caribe" (again, from the new line). These colors have no place together in our home, but I figured using such a light color to cover a dark color would show you how amazing this paint is.

Left: One Coat. Right: Two Coats

Do you see that? The second coat was barely needed.

I almost must say we used this paint in the flat finish, which I think goes on very opaque as a standard... but I'm still very impressed.

Here are a few more swatches, with captions explaining.

Dark Olive. Left: One Coat, Right: Two Coats.

Baby Blue Paint with Black Glitter glaze, covered with Kilz. One Coat, then Two.

The same Olive wall, covered with Kilz, One, then two.

Verdict: If you're on the fence, go for it. It's been worth every penny so far.

Granite, Lumber, and Turtles OH MY.

Wow, did we do a lot today.

We started the day at United Corp. International to see if we could find a nice granite remnant for the two sinks in the upstairs bathroom.

The granite graveyard.

We were hoping to find a large enough piece of Baltic Brown granite, or St. Cecelia granite, but since our sinks were apparently NOT made to standard size (shocking, I know), all of the pieces were way too small for what we needed. So our sales guy decided to take us to another part of the warehouse where the larger remnants were located.

We didn't end up finding anything that we really liked, and instead of settling on a $400 piece of granite we kind of liked, we decided to come back to this later. We still have to paint, tile the floors, and refinish the cabinets, so there's plenty of time. But we are definitely going to go with UCI when its time. FYI, we've done a lot of research, and they most definitely have to best prices in Atlanta. And the staff is so nice!

We vowed our next stop would be more successful, so we headed over to Lumber Liquidators.

So many options...

Charisma Medway Park Merbau 7mm

We had pretty much decided on a the Medway Park Merbau laminate when we looked on the website. And since this weekend they were having a Memorial Day sale, we decided it was time to stop stalling and go ahead and get our 1200 sq. ft. of flooring.

The price was originally $1.09 per square foot, but our super-nice sales guy did us a favor because of the amount we were buying. He ended up dropping the price down to $.99 per square foot. It doesn't sound like much, but after that many square feet, underlayment, and quarter round, it helped a lot.

The only thing is we do have to come pick it up ourselves, and some how learn how to install it ourselves as well, but that's fine with us. Considering the $10,000 (yes, THOUSAND) quote Simply Floored gave us to install, we'll take the risk.

So after we made a stop at Wal-Mart we headed back to the house to finish painting. I worked on painting the edges of all of the rooms I started yesterday and painted the master bedroom, while Mike and his friend Brian attempted to install our new garage door opener... then came the rain.

Cats and dogs.

Surprisingly, besides making conditions a little more humid and gross, it didn't stop any progress. We got the motor up, front door locks changed, and all the rooms painted.

The day ended kind of weirdly. When we were getting ready to lock up and leave, Brian yelled for us to come out and see this...

Yes, that is a giant turtle. Crossing the road like its the most normal thing in the world. Considering there is only a tiny man made cement basin of a lake, and a major highway two blocks a way, we couldn't figure out where he was going, or where he came from, but it was kind of neat to see.

Now we're making progress...

During the past two days of renovation, Mike and I have both felt this overwhelming sense that... well, nothing was happening.

We were priming, tearing down wallpaper, cleaning up... but the house wasn't really changing. It was getting hard to visualize this project ending...

Until today.

Yes! Now it feels like we're making progress.

We chose the Behr Premium Paint + Primer. We figured it was the best choice to combat all of the awkward color combinations in the house already. This, plus Kilz, should be a winning combo. Below are the colors we picked (the swatches are from Google Images and may be a little inaccurate).

FYI, Roman Plaster is a LOT lighter in real life.

So ...we started by trying to pick the color for the accent wall in the master bedroom.

Since we decided that the color of this accent wall would also be the color of the kitchen, this choice was a hard one. We decided that the left color (Behr Blue Agave) would be great for the bedroom, and the right color (Behr Caribe) would be better in the kitchen.

 Before we got started painting, we handled the gross task of changing the air filter. It seems that this one hadn't been changed in at least 2 years. We have probably been inhaling plenty of gross, and semi-harmful germs a dust particles... but that's OK.

That's pretty gnarly, huh?

We started in the rooms that don't have lights installed yet, so that we could take advantage of the natural light while we had it.

The first coat of Roman Plaster in the guestroom.

That meant testing just how well the Behr paint covered up the baby blue and navy guest room walls... and I have to say, we probably will be able to get away with one coat in most places. I'll try to get a better picture of this when we paint one of the darker rooms.

Next up was priming the horrible Gothic-style bathroom. We were both really excited to NEVER see this strange wall treatment ever again. But with as many weird patch jobs as there are in this house, we should have known it wasn't going to be as simple as slapping some Kilz up on the walls. This is what was behind the mirror...

I don't even understand why...

We find ourselves asking the question "Why did they DO this?" over and over, every day. There are so many strange things in this house. This is no exception. But even though we now have to patch that up with a piece of drywall, we were so happy to get rid of that paint.

Even if we left it like this, it would be better than it was.

After that was done, we decided to call it a night. We ended up finishing all of our priming and 2/3 bedrooms upstairs. Pretty good even though we got kind of a late start.

The DIYers Second Home

People told us this would happen. And we kind of believed them. Kind of.

We figured they were just being dramatic. Home Depot? Everyday? No way.

We lose.

Not only have we been there every day, but I think we kind of like going... I think. What did we get today?

• A new garage door opener, since the current one is deceased. And also allows entry from a very random outside button (see right).
• Rollers, extenders, trim buckets, tape, etc.
• A brushed nickle peephole. The old one is brass, with cracks in the glass.
• A new brushed nickle door knob and deadbolt.
• Eco-friendly light bulbs for the garage.

Once we got back, it was time to prime two more rooms: the guest room and the kitchen. The guest room was previous painted baby blue with a dark blue accent wall. Sounds nice in theory, but not in application. So it had to go. The second room to be primed... the obnoxious red dining/living room.

Don't worry, the floors are leaving too.

 We finished the dining room and called it a day. It was hot and we were hungry. And we felt like we had maxed out on accomplishments for the day.

Scenes from a DIY Rennovation...

We CLOSED!

I was so tempted to start a bonfire with these signs.

Finally, after what seemed like a year (but was actually about 2 months) of back and forth over this house, Mike closed on Friday, the 20th. With NO incidents, which was amazing. Considering that closing had been pushed back twice already. If he hadn't closed, we would have to file a second extension, but thankfully we avoided that.

So, as soon as today came, Mike (who had the day off) got started on the DIY renovations. First step: Paint.

Mikey and his paint sprayer.

 Since we had to prime a LOT of walls with Kilz, Mike bought a paint sprayer (this one by Wagner) and got to work. He started with the strange dark green accent wall in the master bedroom.

Things were going well. Really well. He managed to finish the whole wall and spray the trim before it started making this ridiculous sound. Almost like it was choking to death. It completely died right around here...

The wall that killed the sprayer.

 We decided that since we were new in the neighborhood, it would be easier to make friends with people if we DON'T keep them up all night wrestling with a dying power tool.

So we moved on to another project. Taking down all of the awful wallpaper in the kitchen and half-bath.

How awful you ask?

Green cheetah print has always inspired me to cook.

And images from the pilgrims at Plymouth Rock have always inspired me to... nevermind.

So we started tearing it down. Using a sponge, warm water, a box cutter (my tool of choice) and a putty knife. The kitchen was a piece of cake. It all peeled off with little effort.

Our new trash pile.

Working hard.

 Oh, and by the way... did I mention that the AC unit stopped working as soon as we started work? Yeah, it was blowing ice cold every time we toured the house before closing, but it's almost as if it new that we had closed, and it no longer had to perform. So it was near the temperature of hell in this house the entire time we were there. Which is evident in Mike's shirt. But despite this, we finished!

Goooodbye green cheetah.

After that triumph, I felt pretty ballsy. So I decided to tackle the half-bath's (terrifying) wallpaper. Piece of cake, no? No.

Is that lead?

This wallpaper may or may not have been applied around my date of birth. And under it? 4 more THICK layers of paint, that may or may not predate the birth of my parents. Needless to say, this was not easy. And I gave up. I tried, really hard. Got about 3/4 of the wall... but after peeling away a new color of paint every time I tore the paper... I was over it.

We're both off during the week... so maybe Nicole v. Pilgrims will continue tomorrow.

Before Pictures

Since closing has been delayed until next week (& we didn't have anything else to do today), we decided to go take some before pictures of our townhouse. We're in the process of buying a better camera, and I wanted to wait until then, but I also really wanted some before pictures on the blog. I figured that way, we can really get a good idea of what all needs to be done.

The house is about 1700 square feet. It has 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths on two floors. As well as a small backyard and garage.

The view from the street. Our garage, mailbox, and front door. 

This is the "front porch" area. The patio door in the sitting room opens to this lovely view.

The Sitting Room and front door, as seen from the kitchen.

One half of the kitchen.

The other side of the kitchen.

Half of the great room on the first floor; this half will serve as a living room.

The hallway from the living room to the front door.

The other half of the great room that will serve as a dining room.

View of the backyard from the living room door.

Another backyard view.

The downstairs half-bath aka. the scariest bathroom ever.

The hallway between 3 bedrooms at the top of the stairs.

The master bedroom.

The 2nd bedroom/office.

The 3rd Bedroom

Bathroom #1... (Ew.)

And Bathroom #2... and its EdgarAllenPoe-style decor.

FYI. The paint jobs only appear half way decent.

There is paint everywhere.

Baseboards, ceilings, carpet, laminate.

Oh! And the laminate downstairs is Costo-grade, and covered with bubbles due to water warping.

We can't figure out what kind of people lived here before, but decorating/painting/cleaning was not their forte.

We have a lot of projects ahead of us, but every time we walk through, it only makes us more excited to get started on renovating.