Day 4 - Welcome Contractor

Another beautiful day by the lakeshore and only minor injuries: one broken nail, one bruised elbow, one nail stepped on, and one purse smeared with paint --oops, make that two :( ...  I was also dowsed with a good dose of nasty, dirty, sandy, dusty, smelly carpet padding on its way to the dumpster (I was trying to HELP it into the dumpster, not have it dumped on my head) leaving my hair feeling like sandpaper all day.  Yum.

Accomplished: blackened water damaged floor from the 1950s ripped out, all kitchen cabinets hardware removed, kitchen cupboards out of kitchen, not just one but (surprise!) two sub floors ripped out of kitchen, kitchen cabinets sanded and distressed, primer and first coat on kitchen cabinets, 3 Home Depot trips, 1 bank trip, toilet moved over, new subfloors glued and nailed down in living room, tediously cutting up old carpet and tossing it in dumpster -- along with ALL of the other nasty garbage!  Today was eventful and productive!  The only minor setbacks we had were 1. nail in foot, 2. dumping primer all over cabinets,  3. needing a de-roofing tile to rip up ridiculously difficult subfloors and 4. not being able to move toilet to back of bathroom. 

It now smells like a new house and is starting to feel like one too!!! (Minus the hole from first to second floor AND having absolutely no floor in the bathroom.)

As we were more meticulously removing the old things from this house to clean/paint/replace, we kept finding odd remnants from previous occupants -- reminding me that this was once someone else's home.  I found the top of a tube of toothpaste in the back of a bathroom shelf, a funny Santa scribbled on the bottom of a subfloor, a letter from a grandmother to a grandson behind the drawers in the kitchen, old newspapers beneath the carpet (???), 3 playing cards, and a fork... amongst other various things I can't recall now.  Makes me wonder what things I left behind in the places I've lived...

Well -- another bright and early day for me tomorrow!  Still brainstorming about what I'd like to do with the ceiling.  So many different options .. but which is the most affordable???

Welcome large dumpster -- goodbye garbage/carpet/padding/flooring!

  No more bathroom floor :)  Only bummer is that the toilet can't be moved to the cubby, so we'll have to just move it over from the tub to make it not look so weird and have the door swing into towards the kitchen.  Also, meet my general contracter/coworker/friend Mike.  He's the brains behind the operation at this point.  I'm like, "Mike, how can we make this happen?" and he tells me where to start.

Luke tackling subfloor duty.  

Mom and I working on cabinets.

Hello Santa! (I don't know how, but these kids managed to write in crayon on EVERY surface of this house -- even the subfloor that faces DOWNWARD -- geesh!

Cabinets with one coat of primer.

Kitchen with no cabinets.

And those are all I have from today.  I couldn't take any pictures of our further work because at a certain point, my blackberry camera doesn't work with the lighting -- so there aren't any pictures of the cabinets with the paint color on them (Behr Swiss Coffee) or the new subfloor!  Darn!  Ahh well, tomorrow.

I ended my day with a lovely surprise from my friend Anna, and it was nice to grab dinner and relax a bit before we hit it hard again tomorrow.  Hey, I'm on spring break too ya know.