Windows... Anderson... UGH

The crew from Renewal by Anderson came to fix everything.  I missed the appointment back in March due to illness, so we rescheduled.  This is was first Saturday they had available.  Well, actually, I had it in my notes as October 12, but they arrived today.  :-/  Anthony and "Earnest" (not his real name) replaced the picture window's glass with privacy glass.  It was relatively painless.  A bulk of the work was just cutting the seal between the frame and the glass.  I just hope the silicon seal doesn't leak now that it's been re done. 

Anthony looked at the dual hung windows and said that he doesn't have any felt strips that can be placed anywhere to seal it better.  He looked at the lower sash and said that he thinks it was made incorrectly, and that's why it's not sealing properly!  I don't know why Rich didn't mention this.  Anthony said that the way the window was now, when it closed, because a piece was upside down, the window wasn't sealing.  He looked at the others in the room and one in the living room, and they were all like this.  He said he'd recommend that the lower sashes be replaced. 

They also redid the caulking in the bathroom around the window. 

Anthony said I should get a call in a week or two to schedule another visit to fix the front windows. 

I'm frustrated by the fact that these windows cost about 3 times what another contractor quoted me.  The reason I went with Renewal by Anderson was because my sister used them, and they seemed to have done good work at her place.  I can't believe it's been three service calls, and almost a year, and the issues I called about have still not been corrected.  I spoke to another contractor about the back wall, too, and he said that if they (Anderson) used an electric saw to cut out the old door (they did), it could have rattle the wall enough to break the seal, allowing water to get into the wall!  Whatever.  It's hard enough to get them to fix the mistakes that are completely clear they made.  Looks like this is another contractor mess that I'll have to clean up. 

Front Bedroom Coming Together

Today, we brought over the box spring and mattress for the bed!  We loaded them into the house with a few other items, then brought the van back home.  We returned to begin cleaning and stuff.  

While I sorted out the items in the garage to separate the two halves (mines vs. my sister's), Sandra steam cleaned the bed frame, box spring, and mattress.  I stopped by and thought it looked really cool when she was steaming the mattress.  The steam came out the other side!

I washed the sheets that we picked up for the bed the night before, so they were ready to put on.

The $1.99 curtain rod from Ikea is now up as well.  The blanket covering the window still looks a bit funky.  we must revisit that soon.  

We picked this steam cleaner up.  If you've ever seen the infomercial, don't believe it.  This is a steam cleaner.  Not a vacuum, not a mop, just a steam cleaner.  It will super heat water to create steam and that steam will kill anything you put it to.  It will also cook your hand or face if you point it there, so be CAREFUL!  It's well worth the $50 to avoid using chemicals on everything!

Adding a Curtain in the Front Bedroom

The west facing window in the bedroom has textured glass on it, but it still lets in a lot of sunlight.  For two people who enjoy sleep in a dark room, Sandra and I decided we should put up a curtain here.  During a trip to Ikea, we bought two curtain rod holders and a throw that would be temporary yet suitable.

The rod is a wooden dowel that I bought for the living room Ugly Bookshelf.

Ikea Long Dresser

We went to the house after work today and built the dresser unit we bought yesterday.  After building the other two last night, we developed a pretty good rhythm.  Whereas the first one took us forever to put together, we barely referred to the directions on this one and just built!

Now to decide who gets what drawers...

Ikea FAIL

We started bright and early on the assembly of the Ikea Malm dressers.  I wanted to get them done before noon, so we could do some painting and return to Ikea to get more stuff.

Talk about FAIL.  We unboxed the first dresser, and started putting it together.  Part way through it, I noticed a piece of wood didn't have laminate all the way across.  What?!  Yes, the laminate was shorter than the fiberboard.  Great.  I called Ikea, and they said they could ship me a replacement piece, but it'd take 3 to 7 days.  3 to 7 days?!  Are you kidding me?!  So I'm supposed to deal with an unbuilt dresser sitting around for a week!?  She ends up telling me that I can go to the retail store and get a new piece if I brought in the defective one.  Cool.

Here's the trouble maker:

We ended up waiting about 30 minutes.  Probably longer, but we grabbed a number then hit the cinnamon rolls.  Sandra got some Swedish Fish, too.  Pure win.  As we sat and ate, we looked at how full of Fail the Ikea return department was.  One lady kept dancing between customers.  One guy would come out, help one person, leave for 15 minutes, then go back to his seat without accepting anyone from the cue.  The other chick looked like she had just about had it for the day.  We got the dancer.

She looked at the piece, and asked if we really wanted another one.  Uh... YEAH!  We drove all the way out here for it!  She returned 15 minutes later with the same piece, in a different color, asking if that would do.  Nope! Seriously, why would I buy a brand new piece of furniture, only to find that a piece was flawed, drive 30 minutes back to the store for a new piece, then accept a replacement that was dissimilar?!  She left for another 15 minutes, then returned with the replacement piece in a matching veneer.  I suspect they modded a similar looking piece of MDF to make it into the part we needed.

We bought another drawer unit, then headed home to finish the building.  Here it is, finally!

Fan Shopping

Here's another random fan we looked at.  It's hard to make a decision on a fan when you can't actually hear it while in motion.

Looking for Ceiling Fans

We went to Home Depot to price out some ceiling fans.  This one seems to be the fav so far.

What A Mess...

This is what the front bedroom looks like right now.  We moved a lot of the stuff from the dining room into the rest of the house, so we could get to painting it.

Painting the Front Bedroom

I peeled the paint off the doors in the front bedroom.  It looks pretty nice as it stands.

Originally, I was going to fill in the areas on the door up to the beveled edge so the white interior border would be smaller, but I like it how it is.  I'm keeping it!

Cleaning the Hardwood Floors

It seems that the cleaning products we're using aren't ineffective; the floors are just THAT dirty!  We've been cleaning with the Bona mop and the Pledge spray.  The areas that we've cleaned today, are shiny now!  I have to find out how we can get the best cleaning/polishing product, though.  We have to find out what kind of wood this is, and the type of finish on it (urethane, polyurethane, etc.).

The microfiber mop in this kit seems to work really well.  It's machine washable, so once we have a washing machine, we will be able to clean it.











This cleaner smells really good.  It looks great when it's still wet, but once it dries, it has a dull sheen to it.  I wonder if it's because we should be using something else, or if it's due to the floor being really, really dirty.

Sandra was using the H20 bottle and a rag to rub off all the dried paint on the floor.  It took a whole lot of elbow grease, but she was pretty happy with the results.

This website (http://www.cinhome.com/shop/shop.cgi?&page=gapfiller.html) had some pretty detailed information on how to fill gaps between the floor boards.  There are quite a few of them, and I can even feel air coming in from them!  I just need a rug that's large enough to cover the bedroom floor!

Painting the Front Bedroom

We are really close to being completely done with the paint in the front bedroom!  Today, Sandra painted the window frames, and I painted the doors and touched up the base boards.

I just noticed how much bigger the hallway door is than the closet door.  The paint wasn't sticking very well last night, so I'll have to repaint a few areas again today.  It looks good from far (in a small picture)!  Once the tape is removed, I'll keep the white areas if they look clean.  If not, I'll edge the brown all the way to the trim.

State of the House Update

Soooooooooooooooooo close to being done! I finished painting the closet door today. It looks something kinda awesome!

I started on the other door, but I knew I wouldn't be able to finish in time for dinner.  The things that needed to be completed in the front bedroom are just the door and the windows!  We're THIS close to being done with it!

I finished what needed to be done on the mantle.

It looks really clean, sitting on top of the mantle like that!

The living room is almost done, too.  The ceiling is about 1/4 painted and the walls are about 90% done.  Once the bookshelf has had a coat of semi gloss, it'll be good to go!  I'll be drilling in some PVC pipe ends that I cut with the miter saw to hold a rod that we'll be using as a curtain rod for the lower half of the shelf.  We're hoping that separating it from the wall by painting it a different color will make it stand out a little more, and cause less of an eye sore.

Chris Samayoa came through to help paint.  He finished the primer on the ceiling and started primering the stairway walls.

Sandra and Yvette cleaned out the apartment and moved all their stuff in to the house and garage.  They were laughing quite a bit, so I wonder if I should be worried.

The bathroom looks REALLY nice with everything painted.  Well, almost everything.  I didn't have a steady enough hand to paint the inside of the window frame without taping it, and it was getting late the night that I had painted, so I didn't want to tape it and just leave it.  The bathroom needs to have the 3/4 inch part of 3/4 pieces of the inside of the window frame painted, and possibly inside the built in cabinet.  Grout, the vanity, and the mirror should be going in this weekend.  The new light looks great in there.  It's REALLY bright.  I still have to get some wood for the door frame.  I should get it sooner than later, so I can paint it before mounting it.  Everything's just so much easier to paint when you can move it around (and nothing's next to or behind it!).  About four more rows of tiles need to get laid down, then it's a wrap!  We're getting pretty close to finishing.  I'm pretty excited about it all.

I still need to figure out what I'm going to do about the kitchen sink.  I got an outlet installed for the garbage disposal, but I forgot to get a switch put on it!  I might have one just installed under the sink, so it's easier to deal with for now - no new holes in the walls or tiles.  I also have to either get a new faucet fixture (something that has a pull down spout), or cut a hole in the sink to vent the dishwasher and garbage disposal.  Like this one to the left.

Painting the Front Bedroom

I was painting the ceiling, and Sandra opened up the closet. She asked what I was planning of the inside of the closet. I laughed and said the same as the walls. She was like what?! And I said, "Yeah, so when you open the door, it disappears! AAAAAAAAAAKAKAKAkaakakaakAKAKA... We are too funny.

And yes, the inside of the door got painted to match the walls.

Painting the Front Bedroom

Sandra removed the tape from the walls today in the front bedroom. I touched up the dark brown along the edges, and finished painting the ceiling. Some of the paint bled under the tape. Sandra touched those up to straighten out the lines. She also noticed that when she taped paint that wasn't a few days dry, some of it came off with the tape. Next time, we have to make sure we let the paint dry completely before taping.

The three colors actually look really nice against each other. The only things we have to finish are the window frames and the doors!

Painting the Front Bedroom

Sandra edged out the window frame today in the front bedroom. I thought it looked really, really nice. The Sherwin Williams brown paint really looked better than the Valspar, and it dried! In under three weeks! I still can't believe they told me it'd take that long for the paint to dry. I'm just glad I was able to return it!

Painting the Front Bedroom

Sandra was painting more of the walls in the front bedroom. The more we think about it, the more likely it is that we'll use the back bedroom as our bedroom. It's just further away from the street, and a lot more convenient. The only down side to it is that 9 foot sliding glass door.

Anywho, with the Sherwin Williams paint up, we started with the dark brown for the far wall.

My phone's camera is still giving me washed out pictures. I think it's time to pop out that screen.

The brown is Valspar eggshell from Lowe's . The coverage is horrible, compared to Sherwin Williams. You can literally see through it with just one coat, and when applying the second coat, the roller even removes some of the first coat! I've got two cans of paint from Lowe's, and they'll be the last two I ever get.





Another issue we found is that when applying Valspar with a roller brush, it leaves air bubbles everywhere! I initially believed that the air bubbles would pop or subside on their own, but they don't! Sandra had to manually pop every single tiny little air bubble! Such a pain in the butt!

Plaster Bubbles?

In keeping with tradition, I forgot to take a picture before I started. The plaster beneath the front bedroom's west window had a bubble right underneath it that was roughly one inch high by 18 inches across. It was maybe 1/32 of an inch deep. I cut it out with the utility knife and applied joint compound to refill the void. One application of joint compound filled it well.

Paint!

We painted most of the front bedroom today. Three walls will be this tan color, the ceiling will be lighter, the base boards and crown molding will be white, and the west wall will be a dark brown. The curtains in this room will be a dark brown as well.

This is the first color on the walls!


I masked off the center parts of the doors. I wanted to paint them so they'd be similar to the older homes with the really nicely detailed doors. The inside will probably become tan.




The SW paint covers very well, evens out nicely, and there are very few drips. It makes me wonder how bad the others are!

Primer!

Sandra started applying the primer to the front bedroom with a roller. I touched up the edges with a brush. It took about 2 hours, but we finished the room!

Craigslist>Free (Part 6)

We finally got our schedules coordinated (from the posting mentioned here), and Sandra and I picked up the dressers today.



The funny thing is that they were the dressers from Ikea that I was thinking of getting! The two smaller ones fit perfectly on the sides of the bed.


The other one was the smaller one that I wanted to place a mirror above.