janeen – Page 23 – turtle + mole

labor day

plant from genanne new tools for neen

(left) doesn’t the housewarming plant from genanne look nice in the upstairs kitchen? (right) i got my own tools, bag and gloves!

foyer carpet linoleum #1 detail

(left) today i pulled up the carpet in the foyer downstairs. (right) linoleum #1.

janeen and lino #2 linoleum #2 detail

AND under that, linoleum #2! this one will be tricky. it was glued down and there’s major water damage near the door. not sure how the wood survived…

mathew demo 1 mathew demo 2

upstairs: mathew took out the tile, chicken-wire, and mortar floor. noisy.

dust 1 dust 3 dust 4

the dust was thick and photogenic. (yes, genanne, we’re both wearing our masks.)

bathroom floor 1 bathroom floor 2

(left) “i hope the toilet made it down okay.”

just kidding, it’s in the garage. the bathroom is now completely empty.

looking up

there are many lamps on the first floor. and they all look like they’ve been there for many, many years.

office lamp foyer lamp

(left) in my future office. notice the funny dangling teardrop crystals? (right) in the foyer.

second entry lamp living room lamp

(left) in the second entrance. yes, there are two entrances. (right) in the living room. very “pink french poodle.”

bedroom lamp kitchen lamp

(left) in the bedroom. (right) in the kitchen. (ack! that one’s got to go. but the rest are starting to grow on me.)

and there are no lamps on the second floor, just sad naked light bulbs.

my brother justin and his wife najia were in town and they dropped by to see the house. around 5, when they were supposed to be leaving, justin had to know what was under the carpet. i gave him some tools and he got to work in my future office.

justin

under the hideous blue carpet, deteriorating padding and strange linoleum are hardwood floors! and they’re actually quite nice. justin said it was like finding a treasure.

najia carpet be gone

najia, who minutes earlier didn’t want justin touching this stuff without gloves, got down on her hands and knees and started helping too. we were determined to uncover the floor today.

lino be gone curtains be gone

with only one set of tools, justin worked his way around the room removing the tack strips, while najia took down the outdated drapes.

clothes line

meanwhile mathew was outside (risking his life!!) climbing a 30 foot pole to connect his “solar powered clothes dryer. ” i wish i’d gotten photos of the climbing…

gis

but don’t his karate gis look nice drying in the sunset?

office floor

after justin and najia left i continued to pull up the staples and tacks and removed the linoleum. thanks to justin and najia, i now have a hardwood floor in my office!

thursday

mathew spent the entire day at the house, determined to strip the bathroom down to the studs. he got one corner stripped and took apart the plumbing.

studs crawl space

to get to the plumbing he went through a closet wall. and behind that wall was all this crawl space. for deeper built-ins? secret storage space?

more tile

i showed up in the afternoon and helped take down the tile on this wall. we’ve been trying to be careful so that we can re-use the white tile or bring it to urban ore. we’re hoping to use urban ore for as much recycled building material as possible. because home renovation isn’t very earth friendly…

future living room

supermathew

so i went to the house this afternoon thinking i’d start ripping out the tile. it was hard work and going really slowly. a couple hours later mathew shows up in his office clothes and completely takes down a wall in minutes and continues to rip out tile like he’s got superhuman powers…