First, out with some more fug, and eventually, in with the beautiful, restored bathroom. So far, I got about half of the plastic tile off before eau-de-puke scented adhesive (what is that stuff?) drove me out of the house.
Yes, out of the house. Bleh. No pictures, maybe Tuesday. I'm busy all during those precious daylight hours Monday, so I get no cathartic de-muddling joy.
Which brings us to our next subject of discussion: Why "precious daylight hours," you may ask? Well, one of the main reasons this house was such a deal (I'm not naming numbers, here, as we're still in escrow until Thursday, but our home loan is an amount normally financed for buying a new car), is that the wiring is, uhm, eccentric? Very DIY? Very much in evidence of having been done by several people who had no idea how to wire things?
All of the above, really. Twist-tie style connections, poor or no use of electrical tape (try masking tape!), connections completely lacking in caps of any kind, no boxes, 2 circuits, perhaps 10 outlets all told, at least one fixture hanging by the aforementioned twist-tie style connections, a mixture of knob and tube and more advanced types of wiring ... I could literlally go on and on, but I'd like to sleep tonight. Essentially we have ruled it unsafe to turn any lights on, plug anything in, etcetera, until such time as we have rewired everything. That's scheduled for next weekend, when we will have a workparty including some good friends that are also experienced rehabbers over for a day of slavery and pizza, followed by beer.
We've spent about 2 grand so far on materials, but that does cover the replacement tub and sink for the bath and all the fun electrical bits and bobs, including budget-but-acceptable replacement light fixtures. Whee! Bye, bye, money! Thanks, Uncle Sam, for allowing us a tax refund that will make our house livable!
Our dining room is now full of debris, but I did find that the ultra-fashionable 1930's sandtextured skimcoat (badly cracked) under the fuglyfuglyfugly 1960's panelling was poorly applied. Why is this good? Our house isn't a 1930's house, it's a 'teens house, and I really never have liked that sand-stucco-effect stuff, everever. So, being badly applied, it comes off with little resistance - apparently the walls were not washed properly after the original wallpaper was pulled down, leaving a nice coat of paste between the beautiful original smooth perfect (except for a few easily fixable cracks) fine plaster finish coat and the later texture. I practically did a little dance of joy when I saw how easy this was going to be.
Oh, and the plaster? It also shows where the border paper was placed! Whee!
Then, we found a strange mold (not black, some other mold) was growing on but not destroying the lath in the DR bay. Weird, and time to whip out the ol' Lysol.
See you Tuesday.
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