The Trials and Tribulations of Home Improvement: What I Did With My Summer Vacation

The original plan was to go to Las Vegas for my mother's birthday.  Well, life happened and these plans were postponed. I had already requested and been approved for the week off so I decided to take a stay-cation. I then decided that this would be a great time to do some long delayed home improvement projects. On Monday I was talking to my brothers about the loose and cracked tiles in my living room and kitchen and they said that since I had extra tiles on hand they could replace them easily.  I agreed to have them come over the next day to replace 15 saltillo tiles.  So the next morning my brothers show up with an angle grinder and set to work.  It turns out that the tile was originally laid by either people on drugs, or the terminally lazy.  The tiles by the front door were over cemented, which led to a raucous pounding of hammer on tile to break them to tiny bits while the tile in my kitchen was under cemented and pulled out with no resistance at all after the grout had been cut. They had also been laid over a variety of flooring. We found two colors of concrete and some linoleum.

 

         Red concrete in the living room                                      Plain concrete in the kitchen

Linoleum outside of the bathroom

   

Speaking of grout cutting, if you ever have individual tiles replaced make sure that you cover all surfaces within dusting distance.  I ended up with a layer of black grout dust over every uncovered surface in my house from ceiling fan to rug. In the middle of all of this dust the GH came home early from work due to a stye.  For the record, a plethora of free floating dust and eye issues don't mix well. By the end of Tuesday all 15 tiles had been laid but only 14 had been grouted as the grout had run out one tile short. The reason the grout ran short was due to the state of the spare tiles that had been sitting outdoors, in the Sonoran desert, for the last 9 years.  It turns out they had become so dry that they sucked all of the moisture out of the grout mixture, rendering it chalky and useless. After feeding each tile over 60 ounces of water, which it soaked up at an amazing pace, the grout was finally usable. My brothers came back Wednesday and finished the grouting.

The finished product

You might be thinking that it wasn't so bad, two days and the tile job is done. If the only work to be done was the tiling you would be right, but I wanted to finally paint my office.  When we moved in to our house in 2007 I was not a fan of the color in any room but my primary focus was on the living room.  I painted this room and the trim before we were fully unpacked.  A few years later I painted the bathroom thanks to the help of my friend J.  She knew that I had been sitting on an unopened gallon of paint for more than a year and the reason I hadn't opened it is because I HATE prepping to paint. I find the act of painting itself very enjoyable.  The act of taping off an entire room, trim included, is one that I truly abhor.  So J came over and helped me scrub and tape and I finally painted the bathroom.

This time around instead of J, I had the GH.  We had five days off together and it seemed like the perfect time to do some painting.  Not only was my office an ugly color, it was also overflowing with stuff.  Somehow it had become the house dumping ground. Piles of books, CDs, paperwork and a random assortment of other things obscured the walls and the floor.

 

 
The before shots. Dull brown walls and piled high with stuff, all covered in a layer of grout dust.

The GH and I spent the rest of Wednesday moving everything out of the office and into the living room where it took over and looked like an episode of Hoarders.

 
Everything from my office now in the living room.

Now that my office was empty the prep work began in earnest. Huge patches of paint under both of my windows were peeling off due to underlying moisture damage.  I asked my brother how to address this and he recommended buying stucco to patch the worst of the cracks and holes.

 
Patched with stucco

The thing about stucco is that it takes a while to dry. Which meant that we couldn't paint that area for another day. The GH and I went to get the paint and supplies on Thursday afternoon after having patched on Thursday morning. The stucco was nowhere near dry yet so we proceeded to simply paint around the patches hoping they would dry quickly. That did not happen.

 
Thursday night, patches still wet, edges smoothed with plaster.

Before calling it quits on Thursday we pointed fans at each of the stucco patches hoping they would be dry by morning. On Friday morning the patches weren't quite dry yet so we decided to tape what we could and paint the ceiling and most of the trim.  After five minutes of standing on a stepladdder with a regular short roller the GH decided that he needed a roller extension. So I made my fourth run to Home Depot in three days to get the extension, and it was worth every penny.  The GH whipped out the ceiling in record time while I focused on the trim. By the time the trim was mostly done the stucco patches were truly dry.  But because of the texture of the stucco I had to add a layer of plaster on top in order to have a smooth finish.  Friday ended with the fans pointed at the plaster over the stucco patches and a hope that they would be dry in the morning.

 
Saturday morning, who knew the cat would be so fascinated by a rolled up ball of painters tape?

Luckily the plaster was dry by Saturday morning so I sanded, primed and painted in short order. By Saturday afternoon the painting was, mostly, done so all of the plastic and tape left the building, much to the disappointment of the cat. Now that the painting was complete it was time to clean the carpet. The GH rented a rug doctor and made two passes on Saturday.  When the carpet was dry around the edges we moved the bookshelves and my desk back in, again leaving fans on overnight to help dry out the carpet.  On Sunday morning the GH did one more pass and the carpet looked great. Now it was time to move the stuff back in. I started with the books. Three bins worth were books that had belonged to my Dad that I had put aside a year ago to look more closely at later.  Now was the later.

 
Surrounded by books and furry helpers.

I admit it is a full week later and I am still working on moving things back in to my bright and shiny office.  I am trying to be mindful about what to keep and am still putting things into piles to donate, sell or give away. But it looks so much better than when I started.  Even though it took more than twice as long as I thought it would, it was very much worth it.

 
Nothing has been put on the walls yet but here are some after shots.

Thanks for reading about my summer vacation room makeover.

See you soon.