Condo Tile and the To-Do list

One of my favorite things about home improvement is getting to work alongside my husband/ best-friend to accomplish something that looks good or functions properly (or both!).  I don't think we're quite to the status of looks good because of those awful yellow-orange walls, but the floor alone looks good!

We're not nearly as "in the groove" with tile projects as we used to be since we hired out the tile in our home bathroom and haven't otherwise done any tiling since Noah was an infant.  While figuring out our groove again, a somewhat surprising separation of roles occurred.  Brian was the mudder, I was the cutter.  What?! The female in the equation is the one operating power tools while the guy does the highly detailed mud and setting job?  Yep, that's how we roll.  Brian has a lot more experience with all types of mud and trowels and I can cut a straight line.  He's also much more picky about the final look and wants to only be able to blame himself if something is slightly crooked or less than awesome.

Enough chatter, here's the progress and the floor.

Bathroom, tile in progress

Hall with coat closet and main unit entry, tile in progress

Fun stuff getting the piece cut to go around the radiator pipe.  This is probably the truest tile color in my pictures.

Trickiest cut imaginable.  I made a template out of cardboard to make sure I could make it work.

Success, it fits!

Getting some grout in there, then wiping it off again.

Finished product as you would see it from the entry door.  Looking sharp!

Finished product in the bathroom.

That's going to look so good when the walls are light gray and the door is not dark green!

Phase 1 as we're calling it consists of the entry hall, bathroom, and the small bedroom (Noah's bedroom).  We really just want to get it painted, replace the flooring, and update the bathroom fixtures.  It didn't seem like nearly as much when we first talked about it, but the tenacious, textured wallpaper that wouldn't come down slowed us down.  The shower-head coming out of the wall at shoulder height slowed us down - when we decided it had to be raised 12-16 inches so that one could stand underneath it, which then involved replacing the shower surround completely.  Selecting a vanity that goes great with our vision for the place, but not so great with paneling on the bathroom walls didn't slow us by much since my dad took all the paneling out... And uncovered MORE wallpaper underneath.

Remove bedroom wallpaper

Install hallway light fixture so you can see something when you walk into the unit

Remove bathroom paneling

Tear out old flooring in bedroom, bathroom, hall

Remove bathroom fixtures

Prep hall and bedroom paneling for paint

Get plumber to relocate shower head and install new tub

Replace electrical fixtures with fresh, modern white ones

Install tile underlayment

Tile hall and bathroom

Install shower surround cement-board

Clean and tighten radiator shrouds

Prep bedroom walls for paint (clean up wallpaper removal dings and fill many, many holes from Suzy)

Prep bathroom walls for paint (clean up wallpaper removal dings and poor initial install job)

Re-hang bifold door at bedroom closet

Prime and paint wood (paneling, trim, door?)

Prime and paint walls

Paint radiator shrouds

Paint ceilings (they've seen better days and a fresh coat of paint can make the rooms look so much fresher)

Tile shower surround

Install bathroom fixtures

Get carpet installed

Then comes the fun part of adding all the things that makes is pleasant to stay there - furniture and textiles.  I think Phase 1 would have come together much faster had we included so many of the other things we did during that time - installing light fixtures throughout the place so we could see, cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning, wall prep on the second bedroom, radiator clean-up on additional radiators, bringing in basic kitchenware and a dining table to make it more functional while we work, bringing in a mattress so we could sleep somewhat comfortably while we work, etc.  There's only so much car space, shopping time, and tools available!

The current goal is to get it humming with Phase 1 finished by June 1st.  Then you all are going to flock to the shore for vacations!

Fun little thrift shop find

I happened upon the "large items" section of a local thrift store after I was lamenting the lack of end tables in our newly decorated living room.  I needed to find something approximately the same height as the couch arm and kind of unique styling, like the rest of the room.  This is what I scored...

 It was only $8.  It was in such great condition that I ran a damp cloth over it and popped it into place.  No re-painting, re-surfacing, repairs.  Just moved my table lamp onto my new table and celebrated!

The room is coming together.  Slowly, but it is.  I'm not really motivated to make major moves in the room because of that lovely lawn ornament we have out front ("For Sale" sign).  I expect to decorate a different living room and have been keeping that in mind when considering the size/arrangement of furniture and art.  We had one house viewer who actually asked if we would sell the furniture with the house, so I feel like that's a huge score in the "finishing" department!

Maybe I can blame the lack of blog posts on that lawn ornament too.  I don't have nearly as much content now that we're not doing extensive projects around the house.

Veg

I've had a few comments about "what do you eat, then?" recently.  This post is as much for my own menu planning help as it is for answering that question.
We've recently reduced the amount of meat we eat, substantially.  We've both read a few things from a variety of sources about diet and health and what the healthiest people eat.  Then I found a couple movies (available on Hulu), you could watch them too.  They are pretty convicting - "Forks over Knives" and "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead".  They are documentaries that fall into the same category as the famous "Super-size Me", but tell a useful story.
Anyhoo...  Brian reports sleeping better since this change and my digestive system seems to appreciate it.  It makes me feel better to think that I'm actively reducing my probability of having a serious medical issue like we've had a few friends deal with recently (at ages younger than us!).  25% of people with "heart disease" only find out they have it when they have a fatal heart attack - scary!
Now here's a list of main meals that we're cooking up:

• Chili - meatless, of course
• Stir-fry (with any variety of vegetables, "fried" in vegetable broth, served over brown rice, covered with our favorite sauce)
• Mexican or Tex-Mex if you prefer
• Tostadas (corn tortilla popped in the oven for 5 minutes) covered with refried beans and topped with lettuce and tomatoes
• Burritos filled with beans, rice, salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.
• Sweet and Sour (you could almost put this with Stir-fry, but this time I build the sauce in with the meal and it has pineapple!)
• Stuffed baked potatoes - I'm working on figuring out what to stuff these with in place of butter, cheese, and bacon bits.  I've put on salsa, corn, and roasted red peppers.
• Pasta with marinara, here's where you can put chunks of zucchini in place of the meat
• Veggie soup - I haven't won the boys over yet on any of these recipes, good thing we usually have bread around.

I've found myself having headaches after eating "normal" food recently.  I guess when your body starts being fed "real" food for awhile, it screams out against processed foods.  The other interesting thing I've noticed is how un-appealing certain processed foods can become when you aren't regularly consuming them.  On the other hand, cheese is really, really hard to eliminate - all things Italian beg for it!  I've been putting it on much more sparsely and hope to find an organic source for cheese so I can feel better about it.  I'm not sure I'll be able to reduce Noah's cheese habit, it is a major part of his diet.

If you're interested in reading more, these are the recent books:
Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn
The China Study by T. Colin Campbell
Forks Over Knives (the companion book to the documentary)

Anyone else out there "rebelling" against the modern culture when it comes to health and diet??  Let's share!

Doing a little knitting business in the car, amigo

Last spring, my reading list included several Debbie Macomber books where the main characters were avid knitters.  The tales peaked my interest in giving this craft another try; I don't think I've touched knitting needles since I was a child trying to learn from Grandma and her dear friend Harriet.  I didn't even have knitting needles in my crafting stash, just one lonely crochet hook that I used a few times in college.

So, I checked out YouTube and bought some supplies.

I finished Noah's sweater shortly after Christmas.  He isn't very interested in wearing it because he claims it's too big.  I think he'll get some use out of it next winter, and he has wore it a few times so far.  It sure looks handsome on him!

Knitting projects to date
- Doll blankies for Hannah's birthday
- Infinity scarf for mom for Christmas
- Infinity scarf for Carla for Christmas
- Leg warmers for me :)
- Noah's sweater

I got a few more projects queued up now.  I have a whole collection of knitting supplies that came from Grandma, including a project that was started.

Back to the title of the post - when we make the long car trip from home to the Superior condo, I have a substantial amount of dedicated time to keep my hands busy knitting.  When it's an easy pattern to follow, I can keep conversation going with my sweet driver and just knit the miles away (minus the frequent interruptions from the back seat).

Wallpaper: the gift that keeps on giving

The room we're calling Noah's room came with a relatively nice, plain textured wallpaper, except that there were peeling edges, lots of holes to patch, and some globs of something on it.  With the peeling edges, I looked at it and thought it would pull down relatively easily.  You know, it's starting to fall of the walls in a few small places, it's prime to just come right off.  Ha ha.  Joke's on me.
I started the job inside the closet where the paper did peel right off - yay!  It left a yucky, yellowed glue texture all over the walls, but the paper itself just came right down.

It turns out, the inside of the closet is not built with sheetrock, it's built with melamine (that pre-finished white shelving material).  As soon as I turned the corner and made it around to a wall that's in the room, this happened...

Do you see the little bits of paper that I'm getting off?  I was working in square inches instead of square feet.  This was definitely not going to work for us.  I calculated the cost of panelling the rest of the room (one wall is panelled already), considered the time/mess/expense of pulling the walls completely down and putting up new sheetrock, and generally got grumpy about the fact that we were not going to be able to paint these walls on our next visit...

Enter new tools.  Brian bought all the best tools of the trade for me to conquer my wallpaper demons.  The other problem that we discovered very quickly into the process was that they wallpapered pre-trim.  We had to take all the trim off from around the doors and windows to get to the corners of the paper. Sigh.

Paper's down, now what about all that glue?!

Ugh, they applied the glue thick in some places and thin in others.  The drywall job behind the paper isn't the best, we're going to have to clean up that job quite a bit before we can declare the walls ready for paint.

Finally, I can see white walls!!  What started out as an expectation of a day or two turned into 3 visits to the condo, probably 40 hours all total and lots of aching arms and shoulders from scrubbing the glue off those walls.

In the meantime, Brian went to work on getting the bathroom next door ready to update.  It was fully panelled and a pretty small space.  After looking around at cabinets/sinks and styles that we want, we decided that the style we want doesn't go with panelling in the bathroom, too much competition.  So, the panelling came down...  And he found more wallpaper underneath!  It was obvious that the people who put the panelling up attempted to take down the wallpaper, realized that it wasn't going to just fall off the walls, and covered it.  Next visit - wallpaper removal in the bathroom.  I expect that we'll have a slightly easier time with this one because we learned a few techniques from our initial experience, the wallpaper is a different variety (not textured), the glossy surface of the wallpaper is mostly down already, we just have to pull the paper backing and glue, and we now have the tools/supplies ready to go!