How ((NOT)) to buy a House - Part 2

The craziness of the first week of living in this house continued for awhile. Every time we wanted to do one thing we'd have to completely stop what we were doing to clean up/move a project, paint, or we'd find that we had to fix three other issues before we could conquer the one at hand. Or, my very favorite, we'd need to go back to the hardware store, for only the fourth time that day. No really, once we went seven times in one day. Very shortly, we realized we were in over our Property Virgin Heads and that we needed help. And fast. Little-Mama was quickly becoming Big-Mama and the baby wasn't waiting on us to figure things out. Like many before us, when the going got tough, we called Daddy.

Well actually, J called his Daddy. Who just happens to be a contractor. A real one. Having never really asked his family for anything, when he called, they knew it was serious and managed to throw everything together and get here within two weeks. His Aunt, his Father and his brother, all came to help us fix the SO-WRONGS that were our house. I had high hopes they would at least see the potential in the place, but that was pretty much destroyed when Bob told us we weren't allowed to buy another house unless he was there to inspect it. Speaking of inspections... How did yours go? Well, dad, we weren't actually here for it. *Insert frowny face* Huh. Well that explains the house passing inspection with: standing water and black mold in this bathroom, the hole in the outside of the house, the THIRTEEN stairs ((I guess 'normal' houses have 14 - something about superstitions)) and the shotty job done on EVERYTHING! Yes, dad. We screwed up.

All *frowny faces* aside, They did so much work for us in the two weeks they were here, we never would have gotten it accomplished. Ever. Seriously, we didn't replace the air duct vents for nine months after we got here. That's right we had big giant holes in our ceilings. It took only $40 and ten minutes to solve the problem. But we ignored it. For nine months. While they were here, his family accomplished re-texture the walls of our entire upstairs, His dad put in new baseboards, they tore out ((to studs)) and re-finished our hall bathroom, they re-textured ceilings, they painted, put in five new doors, he built a brand new linen closet. OY! The LINEN CLOSET!! When we got here the "linen closet" was really an old set of kicthen cabinets set into a hole in the wall upstairs. Could you imagine? Not anchored in or anything. Just sitting in a GIANT hole in the wall. They did a LOT in two weeks. And on top of all that, they put up with a very hormonal, very pregnant, me. I tried to keep the house clean, that is very nearly impossible when all of that stuff is going on. I tried to help, did what they'd allow me, but it wasn't much.

The bathroom was a nightmare. I had naively thought it was just cosmetic surgery the house needed, but it turned out we needed a transplant doctor. Let's start with the floor. Peel and stick squares. I HATE peel and stick squares and someday when I'm Queen of everything, no one will be allowed to sell peel and stick squares so no home owner ever has to deal with them again. There was two layers of peel and stick floor. Two. Under them was a nice bubbly layer of water. Under the water, was four more layers of peel and stick squares and then a nice seventies orange laminate floor. I'm not kidding people, we had to add almost an inch of sub floor to make up for the height difference between the bathroom and hallway. In between each layer of flooring was a nice layer of mold.

The picture shows the 'pretty' rose-petal pink tile we removed and the yuck that was under the first two layers of peel and stick floor - white & black mold. We came to the conclusion once we reached the studs, since the house had been built every time there had been a major water issue in the bathroom they had just thrown peel and stick down to cover the problem. No one had ever actually solved it. To this day I wonder how much the previous home owners had to pay to get the inspector to pass the house. Maybe it was a good BJ?

Who knows. But if it hadn't been for J's family, we never would have gotten past it. We were already trying to find an exit strategy when they got here. I was/am so thankful they came. I was really thankful when they left, too. Pregnant-Hormonal me was tired of the banging, sawing, drilling, water leaks, yelling, and all the trips into the hardware stores. They made our house live able and safe to bring a baby into.


Our new bathroom :)