I Repeat: I Will Never Wallpaper Again

I know it's hard to visualize the rooms and depths from still shots. So I took a couple of videos yesterday of our new master bedroom and Annabelle's room. For a short while, they had part of the wall open between the two bedrooms; so when Annabelle saw that it was closed off she thought her room was gone. Between her telling that Bob "broke" her room and now this--I see SO much therapy in her future. Bad mommy!

You'll notice the lovely border in Annabelle's room that now has to come down. I bought it online at a site called, Wallpaper-inc.com. The border was pretty easy to put up--even for a first timer like myself. I wanted the paper to divide two shades of pink in the room. I used a level and long ruler to make small dots around the perimeter of the room. You can either measure up from the floor, or down from the ceiling. I made small dots about 18 inches apart.

Take the border and put it in warm water (a specific tray is recommended, but I just used a wide bucket). You fold the border like an accordian--glue side touching glue side as you pull it out of the water keep the wet glue sides touching each other and gently unfold and stick it to the wall. As you do it, you should have a smoothing tool that has a somewhat firm edge to get out the air bubbles. I also liked using a wet handiwipe (handiwipes have got to be one of my favorite all purpose purchases from walmart). Keep the border somewhat wet and you can slide it into place pretty easily. Once it dries; it's all over.

When we first bought this house the very large kitchen and back hallway had wallpaper from floor to ceiling (with a chair rail installed on top). My mother in law and I took it all down ourselves. Even Max, who tends to be destructive in nature, grew bored of picking at the paper. The best way to get it down is to skip all the fancy chemicals and tools. Just use warm soapy water and wet the crap out of it. After it gets wet enough, use a spackle tool to start and edge and pull, pull, pull. After removing paint, you have to prime the walls before painting or the glue residue will bleed through.

I was afraid that when Annabelle got older she would pick at the border and eventually it would fall down. As it turns out, the border is proving to be very stubborn to remove. We had to get out the steam iron.

After this final border removal; I'm sure I will never wallpaper or put up borders again. Painting is SO much easier.

Deadlines

Last week Bob told me that he was pretty sure he would be done with the house by this Friday. He said he’d work through the weekend if he had to—he’d be done, which included installing hardwood flooring in the master bedroom. (As it turns out, he did not work over the weekend)

We’ve been under construction since September—even though they haven’t been working all that time, we’ve been pushed to our limits. Dave and I have been sleeping in the living room. Before you say, “Oh.. it’s like camping out” or “like a fun slumber party,” let me remind you that I will hurt you.

My dresser was stored in the back room. The walls and ceiling were stripped to the studs and it was cold, lighting was bad, flooring was the old nasty sub floor, and miscellaneous stuff was piled high on top of my dresser. Dave’s dresser is stored in my daughter’s already very tiny room—I have bruises on my elbows from all the times I pulled her clothes out of her closet. Our hanging shirts are in our sons’ room. So, when getting dressed in the morning you have a few different rooms to go to in order to scoop up your clothes. It’s fun.. it’s like a morning brain teaser.

I can’t invite anyone over to the house—where would we sit? Should we all go in the living room and recline on my bed? How about we all tell ghost stories?

The kids still treat the living room as our living room. They eat on my bed (and I’ll tell ya, smeared chocolate on a bedspread looks a LOT like something else), play on the bed, take my pillows and throw them around the room. At night when I just want to sit down and relax, I have to first clear the slew of wooden puzzle pieces, Mr. Potato head, matchbox cars, Melissa & Doug wooden fruit, Dora china tea set, and oh my god... that’s an uncapped magic marker.

The last couple of weeks I’ve totaled and re-totaled how much I would owe Bob and how much we actually had left. I decided (and Dave said, “ok”) that I didn’t want to tack on the fee of hardwood floors right now. I was worried that it would be one of those things I’ll regret later though.

Putting in floors means taking every damned thing out of the room. When we bought this house we stripped the bedrooms of the nasty cat-pee-stained rugs and left them as sub flooring. I painted all the floors with Kilz (the best thing to get rid of stains and smells) and we moved in. I didn’t want to even CONSIDER the cost of new flooring after having spent so much money on the house.

As it turns out the rooms were small and the cost was not that great. So a year or two later we had the pleasure of moving furniture out of each of the rooms to put in new laminate wood floors. The good thing about installing laminate was that we saved money (Dave could put in the laminate), it is pretty inexpensive & durable, and can be removed and reinstalled. So, now Dave can reinstall it in Annabelle’s room. I don’t know if he knows he’s doing that this weekend or not yet—I’ll have to email him. He’ll be so excited.

I still want hardwood floors in my new bedroom but I don’t want to spend the money on it right now AND to be perfectly honest. I can’t take another day of this renovation. I want to move the furniture back. I’m tired of living like we’re moving—boxes of stuff line all the hallways and surfaces—I’m NOT exaggerating. The kids eat dinner on one end of the dining table since I’m now using half of that surface for the clothes that can’t go back into the closets. The power gets shut off at random (and no alerts are given) times when they have to rewire something. Ever yank the plug from the TV in the middle of a really great episode of Dora the Explorer? The windows are left wide open because the workers are hot, throwing crap out of the windows, or smoking (more on that later). It’s enough already.

Bob said he be done by Friday. This Friday. The one coming up next. He’s been showing up at 7:30am (such fun) and working like crazy all day long. There’s still one more room to be sheet rocked, trim and doors to go up, more coats of spackle, and oh—that pesky vinyl siding needs to go up on the outside of the house. I’m not contractor but I think he means next Friday.

I brought Max home from preschool today and he growled and cried when we pulled into the driveway. Confused, I asked, “What’s the matter?” He angrily pointed at the truck and said, “I don’t want those guys here anymore!” You and me both, baby.

The Heat Is ON

I’ve had three children so I know what I’m talking about—I feel very much like I’m in the final (over due) days of pregnancy. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought, I’m not excited to see the slow moving and painful changes, no—it didn’t just fly right by, and I can’t wait for it to all be over.

Yesterday they installed the roof and baseboard heating throughout the new extension. Today they hooked up the heat, wrapped the extension in tar paper, and broke through the two rooms joining the extension to the old part of the house. Lots of progress and yet I’m still finding it somewhat difficult to be dancing a jig just yet.

We have a boiler system for heat and hot water. The boiler is in the basement (runs on oil—have they made hybrid boilers yet?) heats the water nice and hot and flows through all the pipes in the baseboards through the house. In order to connect the heat to the boiler, you must drain the system of all the current water, connect the pipes, solder a tight seal, refill the system and check for leaks. This process takes about an hour.

Each time the plumber Kevin would come up from the basement, walk through the kitchen and into the extension I would stop moving, hush the kids, and wait to hear Bob’s reaction. Bob is not shy or reserved—I was sure I would know if he was happy or not. When I heard references to God’s son Jesus, I knew he wasn’t talking about last week’s church service. Kevin would come back out and go back to the basement for another hour. As the day went by, our home temperature went from a whopping 65 degrees to 54.

Around 5:00pm, they had finally got the heat to work. Everyone rejoiced and Bob and the gang started cleaning up the extension area in record pace. The plastic drapes came down—we needed the heat from the new part for the old part.

I know I’ve been grumpy and knocking Bob a lot but I really do think he’s a good contractor and decent guy. It’s the town I pay taxes to that can kiss my… you know. Anyway, as they were getting ready to leave (it was 6pm on a Friday) Bob said, “I just want to go down there and check again to make sure there are no leaks.” Bad news. There was a drip. Bob admitted it could have probably waited until Monday but he yelled to the guys and back down to the basement they went.

The heat is on now and things are warming up. We are topping out at 65 degrees and after this past week—particularly today—it feels like a sauna. Although, it could have something to do with the three sweaters I’m wearing.

Permits

You know, there’s an area in the country (psst… it’s New Jersey) where people tend to say, “here’s what you have to do” and they go on to tell you how to do something—whether you asked their opinion or not. I’m not that type of person. I rarely like to give advice (mostly because I’m not a fan of getting it) and every situation is different. My answer is usually, “it depends.”

Listen to me. Seriously. Listen. Never ever do any work on your house until you have the permit hanging in your window. Are you listening to me? Repeat it back to me so I know you have it.

When I hired the contractor back in July (oh my god.. I want to cry when I realize how long ago that was) he told me that the permits would be issued in three weeks. I was skeptical---I had heard so many horror stories. Then he brought over the architect/permit EXPEDITER who was an outside/impartial/objective person on the project.

Here’s what happened. My contractor wanted to start the work immediately so he could get our additional bathroom out of the way before putting on the extension (it was all about what made life easier for him I think—I was dying for a clean bathroom and easily sold). That’s fine except now my boys would have no bedroom (since the new bath was going in there). He said by the time they finished the bathroom, they’d have the permit, and they’d start building.

Still not sure I looked at the architect and he nodded and said, “Yes, shouldn’t be a problem. Three weeks is plenty of time.” The boys moved into the living room.

Well, we didn’t get our permit in 3 weeks but we did get fined $400 bucks for a bump out on our garage. The bump out (which ISN’T nicer than it sounds) was put on our garage about 18 years ago. This little nugget did not show up on the closing documents and basically, we were sold a house WITHOUT a clear title. (By the way, the title person is the one you’re supposed to “tip” at the closing. Gawd I’m so glad I stiffed that b$#@!)

Boys not handling the “camp out” thing so well so we moved them into their “new” bedroom. Their new bedroom is our old bedroom. So now we’re in the living room.

Now, I received a letter around Christmas time saying that we had been given permission to add an extension to our house. Yay! Still no real permit though. You know, that white slip of paper that says, “Town of Brookhaven, PERMIT” and you hang it in the window?

Apparently more issues came up and I’m really curious who has become so damned thorough at the town that all these items, which were there since 1991, are being noticed NOW. Did you know that our house was recorded as larger than it actually is and we had to file paperwork saying we were sorry about that—and oh.. here’s another check to make sure we all stay friends. Oh.. and that little porch on the front of my house? It’s supposed to be 4 x 8 feet and it’s 4 x 20. Oh shoot.. what’s another check between friends?

(Here's a picture of the house with the big offensive front porch.)

Who should I be yelling at? My lawyer? The title company? Seriously.. I want to know. (and they actually all have… err… ahem… “heated” messages on their office voicemails right now.)

The bottom line is that you can’t do any work until you have that paper. Don’t listen to anyone—ever. They’re all out for themselves and not looking out for your best interest. I can’t believe I’m going to say this because I rolled my eyes at my stepfather my whole life for saying this but—that’s how they get ya.

The Extension is UP

Well, when I last wrote we had a nice little ditch. We left for our vacation (who goes away when their house is under major renovation?) our house looked like this:

When we returned it looked like this:

Pretty major difference done in one week, right? Well, let me tell you about the inside.

Bob the builder (seriously, his name is Bob and he’s a builder) wanted to surprise me with how much he had completed.

Whenever I leave for a trip, I go the extra mile to make sure the house is as clean as possible. I like to come home to a clean house. Also, if someone needs to get in while we’re gone; I don’t want them thinking (knowing) we’re a bunch of slobs.

I asked if they would put down tarps from the back door to the bathroom to limit the dirt in the house. They did put down tarps but perhaps I had to let them know they should not smoke in the house, flick their cigarette ashes all over the bathroom floor, and oh by the way, we like the toilet flushed. No water shortage here… so let her rip.

Part of the surprise was to give me access to the new area.
It is nice and fun to be able to walk in the new structure, but I don’t think Bob thought it through completely. Covering what used to be windows and sheetrock with heavy duty plastic just doesn’t have the same insulation rating. I mean--you can’t beat the look of draped plastic in the living room for a design element. It gives it a great lived-in feel and the fresh air is nice. But... Bob... it’s 30 degrees out. I’m freakin’ cold.

Can we just insulate the house and get some heat flowing in the new part of the house?
Well, once a-freakin-gain, we need to wait. We have to call for an inspection of the frame and foundation. They cannot seal any part of the new structure or they may make them tear it down so they can ensure it was done properly. I am grateful to have another pair of impartial eyes look at the work, but I can’t stop thinking about the fuel oil I’m burning at an alarming rate either.

So, we’ll see when an inspector can get their butt over here and review the work. Until then, we’ll bundle up with extra sweaters and blankets at night. Sure, the sound of the plastic sheeting blowing back and forth isn’t quite the ocean surf crashing, but it’s kinda peaceful in a way.

Go ahead and tell me it will all be over soon and worth it in the end—I dare you.