A good day's work

Today Mom and I rolled up to The Dump around 11:30 and got down to the business of cleaning in a way this place has probably not experienced in 20 years.

We removed the rail and bracket shelving in the living room and large bedroom as well as some random-ass shelving and weird things attached to the wall. Then some sweeping and vacuuming throughout and hands and knees floor scrubbing in the big bedroom to reveal some much-improved hardwood floors:

As a reminder, this is what they looked like before. They are still pretty icky with a lot of wax buildup, but it's a start. I had only enough elbow grease for one room, so the other rooms will get the same treatment tomorrow.

Mom scraped soap scum off the bottom row of tiles and removed the bits of decrepit caulk that were left around the tub. Then I impressed her with my mad-crazy caulking skills (hey, I like having good looking caulk, so I'm pretty well practiced) so that the bathtub can be cleaned tomorrow for the first time in goodness knows how long without risking sending more water into the rotting subfloor (the contractor who visited on Friday said there's no risk of me falling through any time soon, so I might as well clean the bathroom so I don't have to look at this nastiness any longer than necessary). Photos to come for sure!

Also up on the agenda for tomorrow: removal of jasmine from the front porch and carport to open it up and demolition of the infested wooden shed at the back of the house.

I'm also getting some help from Nancy who has given me some 1920's oak flooring salvaged from her house remodel. I sure hope I can put it to use! For now, it's going to live in the garage and hopefully not get eaten by my resident termites.

Jackpot!

So, I met another contractor out at The Dump this morning. We talked a bit, took a tour and then discussed goals/objectives, budget, timing etc.

He liked my ideas for the garage/kitchen expansion and in general agreed with a lot of my objectives for The Dump.

The bonus feature is that he does design work too. That means that I could work with him on a basic design plan, keeping construction budget and timing at the forefront before I spend time and money with an architect to do the actual drawings.

He really listened to me, didn't suggest anything wacky or crazy, and said that he would find a way to work within my budget. The plan/phases he suggested were logical and optimized for cost savings, which I appreciate. Instead of coming in and gutting the place at the start and doing everything all at once, he thinks it's better to spend some time designing, get the plans and permits in place and then start work, moving one section at a time.

He said the foundation looks good and that we could level the house where needed, but not go crazy-expensive on foundation corrective work so that the money could be put to other use. He also said that there is no sense rushing to replace the roof right away (it's watertight) since the garage plan directly impacts the roof.

In general, I really liked him. I think he is knowledgeable, honest and that I can trust him to listen to what I have to say. I'll be really interested to see his preliminary quote and next steps. I think he's the one I'd really like to work with, so I sure hope he doesn't break the bank.

Oh yeah...

I almost forgot! As suspected, there was junk in the shed. Two rakes and a plastic shelving unit which I will adopt, an electric weed eater (Craigslist), and a sump pump with hose (not sure what to do with that one). All in all, not as bad as I suspected.

That sump pump worries me though. I know I'm going to do other work to resolve the drainage issues and keep the crawlspace dry, but I'm sure that pump was previously used to pump water out of the crawlspace. I didn't even stick my head down there to see what it looks like after last weekend's rain. I'll let the contractors sort that out.

First steps

Yesterday afternoon was GREAT! I was able to go do a few things around the house that were really satisfying.

Let me start by saying that I found out yesterday that San Mateo County has a subsidized composting program. For $35 I get a really nice composting bin that retails at Smith and Hawken for $129. I'll send in the order form and check today and will get the bin in 1-3 weeks. I figured that it's a great way to plan ahead for spring planting, and a good way to dispose of all the fall yard waste. However, it doesn't resolve my apple issue in a timely manner, so I was prepared to send them to the trash.

When I got to the house, I discovered that the yard waste bin was already full with leaves and grass, so I had no place to put all those apples until the next yard waste pickup (every other Friday, and the next one is 10/5). There are two normal trash cans, so I left one on trash duty and took one to the back yard for the apples. I filled it and still have apples on the ground. However, I have raked them into nice little piles, so you can actually walk around the yard a bit.

After that, I dead headed the roses , raked the gravel driveway smooth, raked all the magnolia leaves into the flower beds (no room in the bin), and swept out the mini-garage, sidewalk and porch before making my first stamp on the place:
Then I went to work on the inside for a bit. I decided to start at the front of the house and will work on one room at a time, gradually working my way to the back, giving it a good cleaning. Even though it's eventually going to be gutted, there is no sense letting the place stay filthy in the interim.

Really, I wanted to see if the living room hardwood floor cleaned up well enough to consider salvaging.

Lots of people thought I was joking when I said they didn't do anything to spruce up the place before listing it. I assure you, they did not, and I have the photos to prove it. So, I vacuumed the baseboards and corners, to eliminate the obvious dirt/dust bundles, then I tried to dry swiffer. It was so dirty that I could hear the grit under the swiffer against the floor. My vacuum does not have a hard floor attachment and it doesn't do too well when I use the rotating brush on the floors, but I figured it was likely to be an improvement over the swiffer, so I ran it across the room.

Then I switched to the swiffer wet mop wipe. This room is NOT large, but it took TWO wipes to get the job done. And here is what they looked like when I was finished (click on photo for full-sized grossness):
EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! But the floor looked worlds better!

By this time, the sun was well into setting, so there was not enough light to take a photo of the floor. In any event, I think they need a good scrubbing on hands and knees with Murphy's Oil Soap and a coat of wax before they really come around. I'll give it a go and if they clean up nicely, I will definitely plan on keeping them and sacrifice my plan for a radiant heating system.

That's it for Day 1. I won't be out there today, but I have a contractor coming first thing tomorrow morning and may even take the day off to spend the day working there. The weekend will be busy for sure.

Today's plan

Got the keys at 7:00 last night, so I didn't go to say hello to The Dump. My plan for today is pretty much the same as what I had planned to do yesterday. I'm going to try to leave work just after lunch to spend the afternoon up there.

Grrrrr......

It's officially recorded at the county clerk office and now belongs to me, but that nasty Listing Agent isn't returning Nora's calls to arrange delivery of the keys. Nora said the title company is sending the paperwork to her office this afternoon and Nora asked him to be sure to get the keys and send it with the paperwork. I guess I won't be able to do anything for yet another day... *sigh*

Finally...

The big day is finally here--I should get the keys to The Dump sometime this afternoon!

Too bad it's a Tuesday and I have lots of work to do this week so I can't go spend every waking minute at The Dump. However, I do plan to spend a few hours there everyday this week. My street's trash day is Friday and I'd like to have all the apples picked up by then so I have an empty can for the weekend.

I bought rubber gardening clogs at Target this weekend so I can fearlessly wade through the apples in shoes that I can hose off. They are pink, were on the clearance rack (sometimes it pays to have big feet) and I LOVE them and all that they represent.

This afternoon will probably involve a run to Home Depot to get some gardening tools/supplies. Yard work is pretty much all I can do on my own right now, but I think it won't take much to perk the place up a bit so that it looks a bit more respectable--clean up the apples, prune the jasmine, deadhead the roses, rake the gravel back into the driveway, pull weeds out of the driveway, pull out dead plants--that sort of thing. I may plant some bedding plants in the next few weeks just to give it a splash of color and the appearance of tidiness.

I'd like to get a couple contractors out there this week and get the big stuff going pronto, but with all the delays and uncertainty about when it was actually going to close, I haven't gotten any on the sched, so they may be all booked for the rest of the week at this point. We'll see!

In any event, I'm really glad to finally be moving on to the next chapter of this saga. More pictures (and way fewer words) to come later this week!