Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Weekend House Remodeling
Scott and I are about to start remodeling the weekend house. It has been a hassle getting quotes for jobs because everything down there moves at a snails pace. Also, folks who don't want a job don't bother to call back with estimates. Then to complicate things, there are not many people to choose from. We have been working on getting estimates since December. It is even more frustrating than the adoption wait!
However, next week we hope to get a new roof put onto the house. We are waiting for a quote for a deck and new windows. We also need a new septic system, but can't put it in until an electician gets back to us with a quote. Such a vicious circle. Well, the task of getting quotes is up to Scott. I got tired of it and I suspect he didn't think I was doing a good job because we couldn't get anyone to show up to get quotes. Now, he feels my pain.
(WHAT IS UP WITH THIS BLOGGER?? I can't find the buttons to make bold and underline text! I'll have to check my settings. I don't remember making any changes. FIGURED IT OUT. I have the most up to date version of Firefox. Switched to Internet Explorer, now I see the usual page. Very strange. I wasn't even able to save an entry in Firefox. Thank goodness I pasted it to a notepad. )
Well, Scott and I decided to pull up carpet in the "very" small hallway. SEE PICTURE ABOVE. So, we had to tear out the old tile. Turns out the people who owned the house really give home improvement ingenuity a new meaning. The house was built in the 70's and particle board was popular to be used as an underlayment for carpet. I think? Since the house is in a humid area and more than likely has suffered hurricane damage in the past, the particle board swelled and warped. So, they really wanted to put tile in the bathroom and the hallway. Instead of replacing the particleboard flooring, they instead nailed wire mesh (which is used for stucco) on the floor and then used grout to float the floor and leveled it. Then layed down the tile. The problem is the floor expanded and contracted which caused the grout to crumble. It tooks us nearly 2 hours to pull up an area smaller than 30 square feet. We had about 150 pounds of grout, wire mesh, and tile put into 8 contractor sized garbage bags. I can't believe that much material came out of such a small area.
The bad news is it looks like we eventually have to pull up all the flooring and replace the particleboard with plywood. That would explain why we feel the floor is bumpy underneath the carpet. Scott isn't look forward to pulling up the tile in the bathroom. It has the same flooring as in the hallway. It will probably take a whole day to pull up the floor.
Our goal is the have the house renovated by mid-November. Scott and I made an agreement that after Father's Day, we will have no guest over so we can concentrate on the projects we are going to tackle ourselves. However, we still want to have time to go out on the boat. So our rule is work hard on Saturday and have fun on Sunday.
