Day 4 - Even Lighter House Work

First, I will apologize now for forgetting I promised to take photos of paint and carpet samples! 

I did, however, take photos of the clean garage in its “before” state, as well as the front door that neither of us like very much.  I’m fairly certain the door is original to the house which was built in 1973, but it looks like a door style that I would put in the ‘50s, but more of that later; I digress…

Not a whole lot of actual “work” got done today because there really isn’t too much left to do until we line up all the contractors to do the big stuff.  Even though we weren’t working, it was a very busy day full of lots and lots of information.

First came the meeting with the technician from Columbus Handyman.  He spent over 2 hours going through the house with us and discussing every little thing we wanted done.  Even at that, we forgot to mention at least 3 items to him.  We talked about paint, adding bead board, lighting, bathroom vanities… from one room to the next.  We started in the garage and worked our way from room to room with a very long list. 

At one time Hubby and I discussed the possibility of somehow fixing or covering the garage floor.  It’s not really too bad for a 40 year old garage floor, but it is somewhat pitted in the center from salt, and my fear is that it will just keep crumbling away until there is nothing left, unless we do something now to cover it or seal it, or otherwise repair it.  We’ve explored lots of options, and everything we’ve discussed is either too expensive (Nature Stone or those rubberized squares that snap together that they use in fancy car shops), or too time consuming like the DIY Epoxy treatment.   As of now, we’ve decided to stop worrying about the floor.  We do want to have the garage walls painted (not the paneling) – nothing fancy, just decent and durable.  Time wise, that is our first priority, and once that is done, we can put up shelves and start moving some things in from the storage unit.

Here is a "before" pic of the garage.  

We want to change out the ceiling fixture with a 4 tube light instead of the 2 tube fixture that is there now.  We will also put a similar new florescent fixture in the Pantry because the light fixture that is in there now actually overheated and went out the first day we were working in there.    We can’t have that!

A big discussion point with our technician was the front door.  He said that the door we have is no longer considered a standard size, so we may need to have a door custom designed to fit our opening.  Obviously that is going to be more expensive and time-consuming.  We were NOT happy to find this out!  However, neither of us like the doors and we are going to change them to something better.  Just about anything we could choose now would be better.  

Remember my mentioning our dissatisfaction with the customer service at Lowe's, well let's now add Home Depot to the list.  About 4:15 this afternoon, I called to talk to the man who works in the door department (called "millwork" at HD).  Of course, the man I'd talked to before wasn't in today, perhaps I could speak with someone else in that dept?  Oh... well, the other man back there left at 4 today.  Ok, so let me get this straight... it is 4:15 on a Monday afternoon, and you have NO ONE in the "millwork" department who can help me spend hundreds of dollars in your store for a set of new front doors?????  Are you KIDDING me?  AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!

Here are the "before" pics of the "dated" doors:

While this last photo is right here, I will mention that we finally found a decent mail box to replace this awkward little white one.  (No thanks to either Lowe's or Home Depot - we got this one at Meijer!)  The old one is up so high, that I can’t even get my hand down in it to make sure there isn’t anything small lurking in the bottom.  That is one job Hubby worked on today.  He got the new mailbox ready to hang.

We also had a long discussion with the CH guy about flooring for the entry way.  We are changing out what is there and putting in porcelain tile.  In light of the front door issues, he wanted us to be sure to talk to the flooring guy about how the thickness of the tile would affect the measurement and installation of the door.  Clearly all this door and floor stuff was new to us, and that’s why we are hiring professionals to do it all! 

Discussion proceeded about putting up bead board wainscoting – 1 wall in dining room, 2 walls in living room, 1-2 walls in Hubby’s Man Cave, and 2 walls in my Craft Room.  We are also going to do crown molding in the living and dining rooms. 

Then there are the doors…  This house has dark brown hollow core doors that were very popular in the ‘70s.  We have them in our current house as well.  I INTENSELY DISLIKE THEM – they really “date” the house.  We are switching them all out to 6 panel white doors.  (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 linen closet.)  So, at some point we will pick those up at HD – at least THEY are standard sizes – along with all the doorknobs and hinges for them.  We are also changing out the 4 closet bifold doors – from the dark brown ones to louvers (the ones that look like shutters). 

Then there are the bathrooms.  The hall bathroom doesn’t even have a vanity – it just has a plain sink hanging on the wall – the kind they have in old restaurant restrooms.  BLEH.  So… a new vanity for that bathroom.  We are still discussing the master.  There is a vanity in there, albeit old, but Hubby feels we can get away with just painting that one.  

After the CH guy left, our next door neighbor came over to give us a price quote on just the painting.  It sounds like his schedule is very busy, and I think CH can get us done faster, so that may be a big part of the decision.  We also like the idea of having 1 company coordinate all the construction/painting with the bead board, etc… However, if he can do the garage this week, we may have him just do that much.

Then came the flooring-measure guy from Lowe’s.  He had his computer and his fancy little laser-light-wall-measure thingy.  He wasn’t here long and didn’t say much.  We did have a short discussion about the possibility that there might be asbestos tile under the carpet, and if we rip it out ourselves, we don’t want to disturb it.   This possibility was brought to our attention by our neighbor who has heard stories of many homes in the ‘hood having the asbestos tile put in when the homes were built.  The Lowe’s guy said that Lowe’s will not let their installers touch anything asbestos.  So, now we need to find out more about that.

While all this paint and flooring stuff was happening that the new house, the lawn care crew showed up at the other house to mow.  I saw them go to the front door, so I had to jump in the car and run over there to let them know they were in the right place.  They did both yards in less than an hour - a job that would be an all-day event for Hubby with his push-mower.  I think this lawn care service is going to be well worth the money we pay them!

We got "home" about 5, after being "home" all day.  HA HA!  After doing a few things and watching the news we went out for a nice Chinese meal.  SMASH was on tonight - I couldn't miss that.  It's time for bed!  Tomorrow it is more paint-related stuff!!