DIY and Remodeling Update

We have been taking our time with the interior of the house. We are kind of at a standstill due to a variety of reasons. But, I do want to show you what is going on around here concerning the house.

• Exterior of House:

We started painting the exterior of the house. In some places, it was in sad shape. We cleaned up some places and primed those spots. I think only one or two coats of paint without any primer was put onto the house. I primed over many nails that were showing through the paint and becoming rusty. Pathetic. {note: we are using KILZ 2 primer / sealer / stainblocker which blocks out all stains including rust.}

Did you see blue tape? Well, there was a long thin piece of wood that somehow separated itself from the main piece of wood. It was like that when we bought the house. Dan fixed it up weeks ago and taped it down so that it would stay down while the glue dries. We just left that tape up there until we started painting. Ha!

This is the new paint color and the picture does not do it justice. We both agree that the new color is much better than the old and matches the bricks of the house. We still have 1/4 of the back siding and the garage side left to paint. Once that is done, we will paint the shutters and the underside of the porch all around the house (eaves).

• Kitchen:

We are going to paint the kitchen cabinets (after I sand and prep them for painting). As much as I dislike these particular cabinets, I just cannot see replacing them with a style we like as they are still in good condition. After watching a DIY show where they painted these same cabinets, I got to thinking to myself that they may look tons better painted. So, we picked up a bunch of paint chips and taped them onto the cabinets.

It took me awhile to narrow the colors down as most were so similar. I have finally decided on far left for the bottom cabinets and the second right color for the upper cabinets. What is so funny is that after I made my choice, the chosen far left color is called “fudge”. Do you realize what this means my kitchen will look like after cabinets are painted? Chocolate mint ice cream. Ha!

I plan to sand the cabinets during the day while Dan is at work. But, there is something else that I should do first.

• Pantry:

Yes, I am crazy. But, the apron is my inspiration for the colors in the kitchen. I figured that for once in my life, I was going to paint something in a wild vibrant happy color and that is orange. And besides, the door to the pantry remains shut 95% of the time; so, no one will really see the color. Anyway, I have chosen the top paint chip, the far upper right color, for the pantry. Once that color was chosen, we decided to go ahead and get started on it.

At first, things went along swimmingly. We ripped out the old shelves and the baseboards. We are planning to redo the shelves to fit our needs. When Dan ripped out a baseboard, we discovered that builder missed a stud by a mile and hit a hot water pipe.

We had to shut off the water and ended up calling a plumber. Due to the fact it was the weekend, it was difficult to find one to come out and help us with this problem. A minor remodeling project turned into a major expensive project. *sigh*

Once the plumber fixed the problem for us, we soldiered on. Dan decided to put in an access panel instead of putting up new drywall and he will build the panel. I started priming some areas that needed priming before we put up the wall color and discovered an area that refused to be primed. The previous owners spilled something in the corner of the pantry. I cleaned it up as best as I could before moving in the house.

Well, every time I put the KILZ 2 primer on the area, the stains would seep through creeping me out. I have watched too many episodes of Bones. I was thinking things that I should have not been thinking such as a dead body was behind the drywall. Ewww!

After putting two coats on and the stain still seeping through the primer, I still did not want to paint with the chosen wall color. I just knew that the stain would bleed through grossing me (and others) out. Dan was worried that something was wrong behind the drywall. So, he decided to rip out the drywall to make sure that the stains were not coming from the studs or something else. It turned out that the thin paper on the drywall was just soaked with whatever the previous owners spilled. The drywall and the studs themselves were fine. At the very least, we both have peace of mind concerning this issue. And, there is no dead body! A plus! Ha!

The end result of ripping out all that old yucky drywall. Dan is now in the process of putting drywall back up. The difficult part is that one side is one thickness and the other side has a different thickness. So, we had to buy two different sizes of drywall. Ugh!

In the meantime, I will be painting all the baseboards and the shelving that we purchased to build inside the pantry.

• Dan’s office

I originally wanted to do his room first; but, he had a hard time deciding on the wall color. Even with all the colors (and there were tons more that were eliminated), he still could not decide. One day while at the home improvement store, he found another paint chip.

I think he has finally decided and it is the one he recently found – the far right color. We have already started on the pantry; so, the work on the office will wait until that is done.