Out with the old, in with the new Doors

These are the sad, sad doors that were on the house when I bought it. The back door was especially bad with an inch gap at the bottom that let in bugs, and with a window pane that had obviously been replaced poorly with a horrible caulk job (yes, tape and caulk were the M.O. of the previous owners - - what were they thinking?). Oh... and neither of the storm doors closed.

I got new doors from Home Depot and had a contractor install them and they look a ton better. The poorly painted red door is gone and although I kind of miss the smiley face that my friends painted on the inside, it's much nicer to have that streaky red paint all gone. My place is no longer the McDuplex! Hopefully I'll get rid of most of the yellow by the end of February!
Here's a picture of my new front door in the snow:

Dryer Vents... The Homeowner's Slinky

Imagine, if you can, using duct tape for its actual purpose… taping ducts! I did just that in order to prepare to use for my new clothing dryer. In the spirit of “what were they thinking” I must explain that I’m anti-tape right now because the previous occupants tried to fix EVERYTHING with tape. However, since duct work requires duct tape, I made an exception. The ducts from the bathroom exhaust fan and the dryer needed to be connected together to exhaust out of the house. Those were connected with a T-duct that was in inch too small in diameter. In order to remedy this, I bought the correct size T-duct connector (4 inches, in case you were wondering) and duct tape. Basically all you need to do is put the ducts over the ends of the connector and tape them down. It normally results in the whole connector being covered by duct tape, but there’s nothing wrong with that because it ensures that the exhaust is, in fact, exhausted from the house. 

Fun fact - - Duct tape was originally called duck tape b/c of its waterproof quality according to wikipedia.
Also, I must admit... even though dryer vent duct work looks like a slinky... it's not as fun.

Way ahead of Obama

If you read my old posts you would know that I've been trying to make my house more energy efficient. A couple of months ago I re-insulated my attic and I've also replaced windows and doors. I knew insulation was energy efficient... I had no idea it was sexy. - Check it out.

I can dream...

I was talking to a friend about how I joined the gym at work just after she had viewed this blog. She commented, "between the gym and redoing your house, you will have bigger biceps than madonna."

She may be onto something because a lot of the repairs are physically demanding. Especially sanding. At the very least, it's something to strive toward

The Living Room is livable!

Had to publish this picture so I could show off my floors again...

Once again my friends were a HUGE help! I was able to get the dining room and living room painted and organized. My friends even made it extra happy with a smiley face on the door (which will be replaced next Monday).
One friend and I were able to put one coat of paint on the two rooms in a little over an hour, thanks to a handy edging tool I got from Sherwin Williams and my friend's fast handy work with the roller. However, when we were done with the first coat, I decided it was too dark, so I took another trip to Sherwin Williams to get a small can of base white paint to lighten the paint for a 2nd coat. It's important to make sure you measure the same way each time you mix paint... which is just what I did and my 2 batches turned out just right (Goldilocks would approve).

After letting the 2nd coat dry for a little while, we ended up removing the paper/drop clothes from the floors and cleaning up the dust that had accumulated from all of the touch-up sanding jobs. By the end of the night we had placed the area rug in the living room, which took a lot of furniture maneuvering and measuring/cutting of the carpet pad to get it right. Once that was done we arranged the furniture and were exhausted, but extremely happy to have a comfortable place to relax. My friends were determined to make my living room livable... and I think it's appropriate that the orange paint on the walls is called "Determined Orange." It sets the mood for this whole fixer-upper project.

SLIDESHOW - - What a coat of paint can do...

Paint Progression of dining room and living room
primed dining room painted dining room painted dining room with orange wall McDuplex living room scraped living room wall painted living room with smiley door

How NOT to fix a hole in the wall.

When I took the baseboards off of the the walls in my dining room, I was able to figure out how the former owners tried to fix a hole in the wall. First, I came across a fistful of caulk. Caulk is NOT the answer to everything, but some people seem to think so. Secondly, I figured out that in order to keep the caulk somewhat in place, they filled a plastic grocery bag with paper towels and shoved it in the wall before covering it with caulk.

How I think you should fix a hole in the wall - - I removed the caulk-grocery bag-paper towel combo, got a wall patch, and used joint compound to cover the mesh/metal wall patch. Fancy that... hardware stores actually carry products MADE for repairing walls.