Standard in 1952 is not standard in 2014

The exciting Friday night of a homeowner... Weedwhack the ridiculous grass and weeds that took over my backyard and begin installation of closet door. Don't be jealous.

I ordered new doors for my linen closet, bathroom, spare room, bedroom, and bedroom closet. All of the doors except for my bedroom closet needed new door frames. Since my house was built a long time ago when 2x3s were acceptable for framing walls, I had to special order them. They're camped out in my spare room for now.

Old strike plate...
 inconveniently painted over.

I thought... "Lucky me. There's at least one door that doesn't need a new frame!" So I only ordered a new door panel for my bedroom closet. Installing that door was something I could do without an extra pair of hands, so I decided to use my free night to start that project. I was making great progress chiseling the door frame for the new hinges and putting my new door knob in to get everything to line-up correctly before drilling the holes in the door for the hinges... but nothing ever goes as planned. The new doorknob latch doesn't line up with the location in the old door frame for the strike plate. It's about an inch higher and may overlap with the old hole, which is problematic.

In case you were wondering... walls are built with 2x4s now and door knobs are higher. I should have ordered this door with a frame too... but I didn't, so I'm going to brainstorm a new solution. Wish me luck!

Why I have no kitchen cabinets

I have yet to tell the story about my kitchen cabinets. The short of it is... they fell on my head. The full story goes like this:

Those kitchen cabinets didn't seem so bad from the outside. I knew they'd need a good cleaning before I put dishes in them so one of the first things I did after I moved in was to remove the shelves and get rid of the coat of grease that had accumulated inside the cabinets. It took a lot of clorox and scrubbing to get them clean so I was relieved when i had finished. A day or two after I cleaned them one of my friends came over for dinner and to check out my new place so I had her help me to put contact paper on the newly cleaned shelves. Once we had finished covering one, I climbed up on the step ladder to put the shelf back in place. When I maneuvered the shelf into place the 10 screws that held the cabinet into place (not in the studs of the wall, mind you) decided they'd had enough and let gravity pull that cabinet right on my head. It sounds drastic, but really it only fell a foot or two. The TRUE drastic part was that the dead bug infestation had reached the top of the cabinet - the part that I was unable to clean b/c it was only an inch from the ceiling - and it was GROSS. My friend helped me take the cabinet outside and remove the other two because I wasn't about to put dishes in them and I wanted the bug grossness out of my house anyway. All my hard work cleaning the shelves was for naught. I ended up buying some temporary cabinets for storage, but they live in my dining room. My kitchen is pretty laughable, but it's a huge project so I am waiting to redo it until I figure out how I should remodel it... or until I can get HGTV to help me :-P

*no cabinets*

Roof Stomp Housewarming Party

Fourteen of my friends confirmed that my new windows are durable during Laura's "Window Bang," which is my Bible Study group's version of the Air Force's "Roof Stomp." Those events begin just as their titles imply... in a Roof Stomp, people get on the roof of the home of the person they are surprising and stomp on the roof. Well, I certainly was surprised when all of the sudden I hear this loud thundering noise that turned out to be people banging on every single one of my main level windows. It's a good thing I hadn't armed the security system because ADT would have been really confused about why all of my window sensors were going off. It takes me a second to realize who's out there (it was already dark that Wednesday night), but when I do I welcome the largest gathering (to date) into my home! We proceeded to have an Impromptu (to me, that is) Housewarming Party that I didn't have to plan! They brought food, drink, activities, cash for a housewarming gift, and most of all FUN!

We ate, drank, talked about the house and what an undertaking it is (but it'll be worth it), played Christmas carols on pipes (think wind chime chorus -- see video), and toasted the house with champagne.

I have fabulous friends!

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:

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.

How has owning a home changed your life?

I was asked this question less than a month after going to settlement and a week & a half after moving my stuff in. However, I still had an answer:

1. I've gotten less sleep. I spent a lot of late nights trying to get the house fixed enough to move in... mainly because of refinishing the floors, which will be a series of blog posts in the future.
2. And I've spent a lot more time at Lowe's and Home Depot.
3. I also could have added that I will learn a lot about home improvement in the next year, so I decided to become a blogger and share that knowledge.
4. Finally, I've already learned that my fingernails will be shot since I'm going to be doing a lot of sanding and cleaning... hence the name of the blog. Until my fixer-upper is repaired, I will be breaking fingernails and undoubtedly more fastener nails just as I did when I removed the shoe molding. (first helpful hint - invest in a pair of work gloves and a good pair of rubber gloves)

Welcome to my blog. I hope you will find it useful.