The Money Pit

Poly is on the floors! Before I started, we planned to apply somewhere between six and 10 coats to ensure the high-traffic kitchen floor received uber protection. One second-degree burn and many aching muscles later, we decided the manufacturer-recommended four coats are more than sufficient for our floors!

Yes, I said second-degree burn. [Insert headshake of shame here.] This will go down as the strangest DIY injury in history, I’m sure. No one but I could possibly manage to hurt herself in this particular way.

I stood, leaning over, polying the floor with a paintbrush. Evidently I was unconsciously propping my arm, just below my elbow, on my leg to support my back. Unbeknownst to me, the repetitive motion of pushing my arm against the material of my shorts for over five hours was causing a rug-burn-like injury, but here’s the rub (sorry, pun intended) … I didn’t feel a thing, not a twinge … until the next day.

I’m surprised paramedics didn’t arrive, or cops assuming the worst in a domestic dispute, or possibly a priest prepared for an all-out exorcism. Because when I went to apply the third coat of poly and I unconsciously propped my arm one more time against my leg, I screamed an inhuman scream like I have never screamed before.

I had literally come out of my own skin.

I am now sporting a lovely, 2-inch-long, oval, second-degree burn on my arm where skin used to be. Nice. But the good news is that the kitchen and conservatory floors are done! And Rush has gotten some plumbing done and moved the majority of his belongings to the house. Right now it’s a stack of boxes in the living room, but it’s a start! If we’re not careful, we may one day live in this Money Pit! You know, if I can manage to not fatally injure myself first, that is.

Although there is still a daunting list of work to be done, we’re feeling renewed. Having had some down time to relax and some social time to reconnect with our friends, we’re feeling more energetic again.

We’re also excited about the projects we’ll be working on because it’s finish work that makes a big visual difference, as opposed to all the drudgery that actually made things look much worse for so long: “Hi, welcome to our home. We’ve torn that floor up and made a mess of those walls and we gutted that room and, no, eventually you won’t see through to the crawlspace there.”

While relaxing recently, we watched a few episodes of Dream House on DIY. (How sick are we??? We FINALLY get time off from our DIY project and what do we do? WATCH someone else’s DIY project on TV!!) One couple in particular had us laughing out loud several times. We decided they ARE us. (I know, “They are we,” is grammatically correct—and for the record, I knew BEFORE the little green line popped up on my computer screen—but it sounded so uppity I couldn’t bring myself to write it that way.)

So anyway, the couple like us on Dream House … First there was the discussion over paint samples. Her, in frustrated tone: I need you to look at these for a minute. Him, in exasperated tone: OK, but I really need to be working. Her, in I’m-going-to-suddenly-be-all-adult-and-calm tone: I like this combination but I know you’re not crazy about it. Him, in screw-being-an-adult-I’m-over-this-crap-tone: I really don’t care at this point. You just need to pick something so we can get it done.

If he had just added, “This project is your baby,” I would have LOST it!! I can’t count the number of times Rush said those words to me.

The same couple uttered many other true-to-life statements that made us laugh:

The inspection is looming closer every day, and I’m just worried that we’re not going to be ready.

Now we’re having to pay people to do things that we are perfectly capable of doing, but we just don’t have time.

We’re exhausted. We just can’t wait to get this inspection behind us.

We keep working, but somehow the list of things to do keeps getting longer.

It feels like we will never be done.

It was fun to watch other folks ride the same roller coaster, now that we’re back on terra firma. And after a few weeks of dragging our heels, we’re back work. We’re set to poly the floors and plumb the laundry room on Saturday. Then Sunday we’ll move his stuff from his brother’s place to Munro.

Exciting!! Feels like progress!! (This is my cheerleader routine that I use to remind myself that this is actually fun.)

We’re still a good month away from living at Munro, however, so this is only the beginning of another long stretch of work. The kitchen and master bath will take most of our time, but we also need to get final coats of paint on the den walls and a second coat in the master bedroom. Another BIG project will involve stripping all the baby-poop-brown paint off the window and door trim, doors and mantle in the master bedroom and repainting it all white before we move any furniture in there.

I think I just settled on my new mantra: Is it October yet???

Rush and I spent four and a half days doing nothing but working on the Munro house. We barely slept. We subsisted on pizza, drive thru burgers, trail mix and Cheetos. We drank our weight (no small feat in our case) in Gatorade and Coke Zero. We worked like zombies, pushing through the mounting exhaustion, stress and fear.

The inspection for the final draw of the rehab loan money was bearing down on us and we were nowhere close to done. Despite the ravaging effects of sleep deprivation, stress and physical exhaustion, an incredible amount of work happened in those four days.

Master bath finally completely covered in tile!! Glass panels and grout still to come.

My folks came down from TN to cut, rout and install countless linear feet of base, window and door moldings. Butch replaced all the door hardware throughout the house. Julie spent two days painting, Barbara gave up time from her own DIY project to paint for a couple evenings, Richard made an appearance and painted for a while, Donna worked for a week cleaning hardware, painting and running errands, and Amy gave up a date and two days of her life, even working past midnight on Sunday to help us try to meet our deadline.

Back entry: Tile, trim and paint make all the difference.

Luck did not seem to be with us at times. We had 100+ temperatures for three of the four days, making outdoor work nearly impossible in the afternoons, halting trim work for several hours at time. I flooded the upstairs bath—and drenched myself head to toe—when I inadvertently popped off a pop-on water valve. My parents and I wasted half a day frantically cleaning up my house for an impromptu showing, thinking we were on the verge of a contract, but it fell through. My mother even got a call on Saturday that my grandfather went into hospice care. Sigh …

Nevertheless, I FINALLY finished putting up tile (the grout may NEVER be done), put in the marble threshold, rehabbed flaking walls in the kitchen and upstairs bath, and painted. Rush helped my parents with the trim, put up a slew of light fixtures, replumbed and installed the water heater, installed the master shower fixtures, put up the kitchen back splash, attached all the outlets and switches to their boxes, removed the upstairs sink, and probably did 97 other items I’m not even aware of. He schlepped tons of tools and materials up to the attic and trash out to the dumpster, and we cleaned for hours on end.

Aged copper color still to come on upper cabinets. Counter now has chocolate brown finish. Cool recycled glass project to come...

We went home at 1:30 a.m. only to return at 6 a.m. for the day of inspection. In those final few hours Mom and Dad finished some last minute trim while Rush and I cleaned, organized, and camouflaged questionable areas. We were worried we might fail, but hoped the inspector would take mercy and give us time to finish whatever he deemed necessary.

Then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

At 40 minutes past deadline, I ran home to check email. Sure enough, the inspector had sent a note saying he was ill and would have to take a rain check. In lieu of his visit, we sent in photos of our work, and he forwarded our photos and the paperwork to the bank.

That was that. Inspection over. Final money released. All our worry and stress for naught.

Got a great deal at Habitat for Humanity store on a brand new LG range. Love it!!!

Now, thankfully, we can proceed at our own pace. (And that pace currently resembles a physically challenged snail’s pace.) Of course we’ve put many hours into returning favors. We helped Donna secure some fragile furniture for her move, hauled off unwanted items and packed up her kitchen. I did a bit of proofreading for Amy, and we’re helping Barbara move this week. I spent two weeks helping Amelia prepare to leave for college, so I shopped and sewed and worked on financial provisions with her. Rush put his truck up for sale, so he’s been preoccupied with that.

Now that I think about it, I don’t feel so bad that in the past two weeks at Munro we’ve only put one coat of paint on the countertops, put up some crown molding in the conservatory and put stain on the kitchen and conservatory floors. No poly yet. We’ll get to it … eventually …