2010: long wrap up

This weekend while I was in the midst of a well deserved Saturday morning veg out session on our couch. While relaxing I thought back about this last year in terms of home renovations, construction and major house based changes.


All those thoughts made me tired.


and they made me realize why we're totally broke.


January:

Started the year off with a 30% renovated bathroom in our beach condo that was running longer than we anticipated thanks to a run of extremely frustrating set backs that included the wrong tile color... and realizing it at 2 am.

We also chipped away at demo on our not-heated-at all wee house where I learned the art of layering gloves.

February:

It was the month of spending weekends at places with acronyms.

A valentines day trip up to NYC that included a quick stop at the C&B outlet. The weekend after our jaunt to NYC I took a sibling trip to DC for some quality time with my sister and step brother. Following weekend was Pete's birthday which we spent in AC and then drove down to OC for some more worker bee action on the bathroom.

March:

Finished working on the beach condo bathroom! 15 seconds after bathroom completion we ripped up the carpet in the bedroom at the condo. I painted the living room in our Wtown house from a raisin purple to a fresh cream color. We got notice that after 8 long months and close to 40 showings our house had its first offer.

April:

First offer fell through. Got second offer. Felt amazingly optimistic that house would sell.

Worked our tails off on getting the marble tile floor down in our condo bedroom. Included bringing 27 boxes of tile, 7 sheets of plywood and cement board up three flights of ( no elevator having) stairs. Also discovered the wonder of the Craigslist free section for getting unwanted and extremely heavy furniture out of said third floor condo with no exerted effort from your own muscles.

Loaded up our old bedroom furniture, on our open trailer, and brought it the two hours down to the condo during a raging spring thunderstorm. Yay for plastic wrap and lots of tape.

May:

Kicked off the month jumping through all the house selling hoops, in anticipating of a end of the month closing. Combed through the house and got rid of some bigger ticket items on Craigslist.

Spent all free weekends down at the beach condo and worked multiple 12 hour high stress days on the bedroom floor. All in an effort to get the whole place ready for our memorial day kick off for a season of renters. The 26 year old A/C blew up on the deck (seriously, I thought a car hit our building), got emergency HVAC work done that resulted in a new A/C. & Heater for the condo.

Get news that house sale is DOA. Crushed.

After failed house sale: Buy new headboard since old bed is now at the beach house and the mattress was living on the floor. Buy new dining room table, cause it was awesome and 50% off. Start my epic dining chair hunt.

June:

Built a raised veggie garden bed, of what was a very successful tomato and basil garden, and put it in all.by.myself. ( still so flipping proud of my DIY raised veggie garden box )

Our one and only outsource, the concrete contractors, started and finished the Wee house garage foundation. Marvel at the speed of contractors while lamenting the price.

Got a peek at the damage that was done to our college rental after the tenants moved out. Not pretty. Curse at poorly painted orange walls and subsequent orange wall cover up job.
Curse college students that 'sneak' having a cat. Cat that uses the floor of the bathroom as its own litter box. Start the massive project of deep cleaning while Pete renovates half downstairs bathroom of rental. Buy new fridge for the rental, as other fridge has one too many beer pong balls clogging the inner workings and leaks a strange liquid substance.


July:

Officially took the house off the market. Bought new furniture at Ikea, and turned our office into a walk in closet. Finish up working on college rental. Move right on to prepping the garage site for building! Start buying our massive amounts of materials that are needed.



Got news that the lock on our condo door malfuntioned on the 4th of July and that a locksmith had to get called out.... a 3am. Balls.



August:

Working on the garage framing, learned that "hey! I can build a wall! Who knew?". Get the trusses up. Start to prep the trusses for the roofing materials by marking and installing ~10,000,000 purlins.



Get news that beach condo washer/dryer unit has up and died on our renters, estimated replacement cost of $1,400. Friend happends to have old washer dryer unit that gives it to us, Pete takes the day off of work to install everything himself.



September: Continue to work on the garage. Started putting up the fiber cement siding panels.

Bought the garage doors from craigslist. Learned how to install a window.


October: Started roofing the garage. Averaged about 6 panels up per 8 hours of working. Drove off to the south for some much needed R&R.

November: Finished the garage roof. Helped my Dad move out of his house in prep for his new life traveling the country in an airstream, took lots of Dad's cool house and tool stuff. Spent rest of free time getting garage winter tight.

December: Start working rejuvinating the staircase and hall of the beach condo.


Lose track? Here is cliff notes version....

• New Bathroom
• Laid marble tile floor
• Tore out old house
• Cleaned, painted and put a new 1/2 bath in rental
• Bought, re-homed or recieved over 12 items of furniture
• Built a garage
• added a "closet room"
• painted the living room
• didn't sell our house