Guest suite first?

When we looked at the house, the first room we both thought needed our immediate help was the downstairs guest suite. After all, we live far from our friends and want them to have a place to crash when they come to visit, and this room was giving me the heebee-jeebees. It was also a good place to practice our DIY skills and learn some lessons. And boy, have we learned some lessons.
The guest suite is where the former owner had moved all of his things and lived after his wife passed. He left a ton of stuff behind- a bed with mattress and bedding, clothes, towels, and two hideous tiki-type lamps. There was also a minifridge and ancient microwave, which we used in our kitchen until my husband almost started a fire heating up some dinner for way too long.
Our second bathroom is part of the guest suite, and it's tiny and gross and half functional. The toilet and sink work, but the shower is just drywall on top of tile. Which means there's no waterproofing. It's a head scratcher, for sure. But our guests can not shower. Or shower upstairs. So the guest bath can wait. Back to the room!
The room also features two very old and dirty windows, outdoor access door, a thin plywood closet that sticks to the floor, plywood "desk," blue-gray linoleum floor, and the oddest feature, a faux drop ceiling with gold specks. Yuck.
First step: Remove all items except for the fridge. This step was gross but necessary. We donated pretty much everything to the Salvation Army, who picked it up for free! I kept a large pine dresser to refinish for myself, and then got my husband up on a ladder to begin the demolition of the ceiling.
Imagine our surprise when we discovered that the tiles were not a drop ceiling like we expected, but were actually glued to the ceiling with a ridiculously strong adhesive! Y'all, there is a BEAUTIFUL hand plastered ceiling up there! Ripping the tiles went quickly, and I swear the ceiling looks a foot higher. I was so excited. Then we tried to remove the glue. And this project came to a screaming halt.
To be continued...

How Not to Handle Acetone

The front of our home has a beautiful set of windows looking into the living room. I call this my "Christmas Tree Window" as this is obviously where the Christmas tree must go every year. For some reason, sections of this window has pieces of opaque glass glued onto the outside. Someone at some point tried to chip it off, but still, sections remain. And it bugs the hell out of me. So one weekend I decided to arm myself with some acetone and a flat head screwdriver and pry those suckers off.

Problem number one: I purchased acetone in a large metal can. Pouring acetone from the container directly onto a window wasn't going to happen due to spout placement, and soaking a rag wasn't getting the job done.

Problem number two: I neglected to arm myself with protective eye wear and quickly realized that shards of glass would soon be flying through the air. Should have thought that one through.

Problem number three: There was a large brown spider who had set up camp next to one of the windows. Yeeeaash!

So in my infinite wisdom, I toss on a pair of sunglasses and yell at my husband to bring me a red solo cup. He obliges, and I promptly fill half the cup with acetone. I begin to pour it in between the window and glued on glass. It makes an excellent vessel for pouring until I notice dripping. More dripping than what I'm pouring. Dripping all over my flip flops. I jump back and exclaim to my husband, "There's a hole in the cup! You brought me one with a hole in it!"

When in crisis, your first reaction should be to blame your husband.

The poor man looked at me with half pity and more patience and said, "Acetone eats plastic, dear."
Oh. Crap. Make no mistake, I am very lucky to be married to this man.

In the end I used the metal cap from the acetone can to pour the product, which ate enough of the glue away so that I could slowly pry the glass from the window- no shattering occurred, my eyes were not impaled, and that spider stayed in his corner so long as I stayed in mine. I also threw the red cup into the front yard, where the bottom promptly fell off and it stayed for two days until I realized I was a grownup who needed to clean up her mess lest the neighbors think we are trash throwing partiers. Which we are. But never in the front yard...

The gas smell we couldn't blame on the dog

Our house is heated by a gas furnace located in the basement. It has some really cool floor grates that really need a polish but look great (haha pun, get it!??) in the livingroom. When we went through the home inspection, the inspector wasn't able to fully access the furnace because the previous owner built a drywall case around it. Since home inspectors won't move or destroy things in the home to create access, we received only a flashlight lit "it looks okay" check and a recommendation to remove the case since it's a firehazard. After we bought the home, our gas company came out to turn on the gas and the guy red tagged our furnace for the case (for those who don't know, "Red tagging" is exactly that- they tie a red paper tag onto the appliance that can't be used until it's fixed, and the tag is supposed to remain there until then. It's effective. And unsightly.) He lit it through the grate and told us it worked fine, but he shut it off until we could remove the box. So Drew clawed off the box.

I smelled gas. And this time it wasn't coming from our Boxer puppy.

Funny thing about the gas company- if you call the main line and tell them "I think I smell gas in our basement," they're at your house in under an hour. Such service! Sure enough, my nose did not fail me. We had gas leaking from around a connector. So our gas was shut off while the gas man capped off our furnace and told me all the things that needed to be fixed.
Three plumbers later and all dreams of saving for a new kitchen seemed to be dashed. Each one insisted that our furnace could not be fixed, that it was not to code, and that for a mere $3500 to $4000 they could install a new dual wall heater upstairs.

People, we just bought a HOUSE. We don't have money for a doormat- where are we going to find four grand for a new heating system!??

This is when I discovered the power of whining about your problems. Everyone knew about our furnace problem. My mom even bought us one of those fake fireplace electric heater media centers to keep us warm. Finally, I whined to the right person. My uncle worked at the gas company for 30 years, and as I relayed our sob story once more, my dear uncle boldly declared that we were being screwed. Right away he picked up the phone and called a buddy of his who still works for the gas company. He came to our house within two hours, fixed half the problem, took the other half back to be welded, and charged us a mere $130 for the whole project.

Are you kidding me?

Here's the lesson I took from the whole debacle: I could be angry at the previous owners for the shoddy DIY. I could be angry at the three plumbers who saw us as fresh meat they could upcharge. But instead, I'm going to be thankful for the $3870 I still have in my pocket and the man named Dave who did a favor for his old buddy's niece.

PS: An interesting side note to this story- Dave and my uncle have known each other so long, Dave attended my uncle and aunt's wedding, where I was the flower girl. Talk about a small world!!!

Cleaning the Old to Make Room for Our New

So as I mentioned before, our house was built in 1947 and hasn't changed much since then. The previous owners lived in the house for 40 years and were big DIY'ers. Unfortunately, that means we've discovered lots of little surprises as we've settled in. According to our neighbors, the previous owner sold off most of their possessions after his wife passed away, but he left two rooms completely full of furniture, pictures, bedding, and clothing. So we spent the first few months of our ownership just going through these things and cleaning everything out. It was way more work than I thought! Multiple spiders lost their family homes as four boxes went in the trash and the Salvation Army received half a truckload of donated goods. It was also just a really weird thing to do. I'm pretty ruthless when it comes to cleaning out my own things, but going through someone else's stuff was just odd. I felt seriously bad throwing out someone else's memories without their input. Everything was also really dirty as the house had been empty for several months and those rooms had been sealed off. It was icky. And sad. My one hesitation to buying the house was that it had a sad energy to it. I'm not one who really believes in "energies," but something in this place was off. As we've finally finished cleaning out the old stuff to make room for our new, I've noticed the place finally feeling more like ours. But maybe burning some sage wouldn't hurt...

Location + Square Footage= $$$$

Welcome to East of the Five! The 5 freeway, that is. My name is Annie and, along with my husband Drew, I'm a first time homeowner. Why east of the five? Because we live in beautiful Southern California, where the weather is gorgeous and the property values are sky high. Going to college in this beautiful area and having grown up somewhat spoiled in my world property view, I boldly declared at a younger age that I could never live east of the five. Ten years later, I not only live east of the 5, but of the 805 and 15 freeways as well. I learned a hard, brutal lesson in our property search: Location + Size= $$$$.
So my husband and I wound up with a 1947 fixer-upper with a quarter acre lot (which, for southern California, is unheard of), right on the edge of our budget and slightly over our DIY skill level. This blog is an attempt to provide a humorous and realistic view of first-time home ownership and "do it yourself" remodeling. It's also a way for me, a notoriously failed journal-keeper, to have some accountability in chronicling our journey as newlyweds and homeowners. Together we'll see if that journey leads me to love where we live or if it sends me running back to the other side of the five!

A map of our area. 

Note the 5, 805, and 15 freeways we do not live west of.