The First Improvement

Well, maybe not the first improvement- as Tim has already mentioned, I think the 7 hours I spent cleaning the bathroom may have been the first improvement we made to the house. But, one of the first things that we accomplished was removing the woodstove. For one reason or another, previous owners had decided to install a massive woodstove in the middle of what would be the dining room. We assume that they used it to heat the house- judging by the layer of smokey-grime that was all over the walls. It was also a mere 12 feet from the wood burning fireplace in the living room. Design genius!



I should also mention that before moving to Oregon, Tim and I made a list (it started as a list at least) of what needed to be done to this house when we arrived. For those that know me, you won't be surprised to learn that the list quickly morphed into a 99-line-item Excel spreadsheet- complete with estimated costs, estimated time for completion, and each major project broken down into phases and much...much...more. To bring it back to the story, I had originally estimated that it would take an entire day to remove the woodstove. It was big, metal, heavy, and mounted on a brick foundation. It also had a faux-brick backer board behind it. When thinking about this daunting task, I imagined we may even need to rent a jackhammer to break out all of that brick. At the very least, I anticipated toiling for hours with a chisel and hammer breaking out each brick one by one.

Imagine our surprise when we attempted to remove the brick and found that the previous owner had laid the brick over the existing (awesome 1970's) linoleum! It literally came up like butter- if bricks and linoleum can be accurately described as a diary product. Thankfully, Tim's Dad hadn't left yet, so together they were able to carry the stove out onto the back patio and get it OUT of the dining room. If it had been left up to me, I may still be huffing and puffing trying to push that thing out of here.


So- First Improvement: Woodstove gone! House saved from numerous fire hazards and general ugliness!

First, a word from our Sponsors...

Ok, so not necessarily from our sponsors. I just want to give some quick background. Rachel and I moved to Hillsboro about 3 weeks ago, and many people have been clamoring, positively CLAMORING for photos of our project.

This blog is for you.

Maybe you aren't interested in the photos... and thats ok. You are not legally bound to look at them. You can just read the updates of things we are doing and laugh maniacally at our naivete, our grand undertaking and all it entails... if you want to.

You don't have to do that either.

But why, then, are you here? Yeah, I don't know either...

For the first few posts, we will be in recap, because there is a lot of stuff that we have been doing, but haven't had the internet access until this week, so please, bear with us. After we get caught up, we will try to keep updates in real time as much as possible. That being said, there is a lot to do, so it may not be every day.

For a warm-up, I'll show you some 'before' pics.

One thing these pictures (or any pictures) don't show is the state of cleanliness. It was... not good. REALLY not good. As in, we had to scrub the walls in the bathroom for 7 hours (not kidding, Rach spent a whole day cleaning the bathroom) not good. Eventually, most of the surfaces will be either sealed in or replaced, so deep cleaning is not that big of an issue. Enough surfaces clean that we can live in the house during construction is all we really needed, but even that was a full couple days work...

So there's your teaser! A few pics to whet the appetite, and there's plenty more to come. Right now I have to go play plumber for a bit. More on that later!

Tim