Author: peterb51

3rd May 2019

House renovation day 5

Finished the flooring in the living space, we are really pleased with the result. I know I will never want to never see another piece of engineered floor ever.

Kelli did a fantastic job with the kitchen cabinets, giving them another lease of life.

We had someone picking up a cabinet that we took out of the kitchen. He ran a tattoo business, but also a bit of a trader. He was looking at the three rolls of carpet we had in the garage, but as they were reserved for another customer he was out of luck. We did manage to give him the doors we took off the top kitchen units. Sometimes these people just want to talk, we get to hear their life stories in great detail, often we smile, and just wish they would stop, so we can get on with our work.

The people for the carpets didn’t even look at them, just loaded them on to their truck, gave us the money and off they went, snapping a branch from our tree on the way out.

We have a lot of music playing, often at high volume (if it’s something that Kelli likes) every so often she changes it to play non stop Moody Blues, I am starting to know every note, every nuance, I hear it in my sleep, it haunts my working day. If ever there is a break in the music, it will be Kelli changing the selection.

2nd May 2019

House renovation day 4

I made the executive decision to start the flooring. I felt that would give us a moral boost in the same way the painting in the living space had done.

I had learnt a lot from laying the floor in the cottage, so with laser and tape I set about setting some starting lines.

I was careful to get all the starting points correct, and as the first two runs had floor vents I was taking special care not to mess things up. At one point Kelli was concerned that I had frozen in time as my progress was painfully slow. I kept telling her how important getting the first row straight and true, but she just saw the snail pace, and thought it would take forever.

Greer even phoned from work to see if I had broken the second row.

I ignored the comments and just soldiered on.

Kelli managed to scrape off the wallpaper in the kitchen, an achievement in itself as she had to climb a ladder, something that she is not comfortable doing.

As I was now making real progress, I invited Kelli to help in the floor laying marathon. It took a while but she soon got the hang of it.

We worked on until we nearly got half of the living space done, then crawled back to soothe our weary bones, and some liquid strength.

1st May 2019

House renovation day 3

Today was light fitting day. Kelli had sourced lamps for the entry and hall way from marketplace, and was excited to see them in place. I had my step ladder at the ready, and carefully removed the old fittings. The new hall lamps were a matching pair, and from the illustration on the box resembled a pair of large breasts. This did effect me as I was trying to fit them to the ceiling, and look away at the same time.

I fitted a wooden “Hello” sign to the freshly painted front door, that meant drilling new holes, crazy, as I spent the day before filling in loads of them.

We got to the end of the day, and tried to assess what we had achieved. I couldn’t think of anything substantial so we agreed that it was my lazy ass day.

To finish off we drove to Menards for paint to finish the kitchen units and the bedroom. We both were starving and needed no excuse to eat out.

30th April 2019

House renovation day 3

The schedule called for some serious painting, so I lugged the five gallon drum into the living space. Carefully, I tipped the container until the first gulp hit the paint tray. Then she was off. Kelli’s little arms were a blur, depositing paint in sweeping strokes first it was one wall then the next. I had the job of cutting in to the ceiling. What was a pleasure was the sharp corners, giving me a great line to paint against.

It took us most of the day to paint the living, dining, and hall space, with just the kitchen to do. This has to have some wall paper stripped off. This was originally Greer’s job, but that slowed, then stopped, so she was busy trying to find an app on her phone to do it for her.

We are a formidable team making great progress, we stood back and looked at the transformed space with a feeling of excitement.

29th April 2019

House renovation day 2

I removed the skirting in the living area ready for hole filling and priming. Kelli primed the two windows and door frames.

I removed the old laminate flooring which covered most of the house. We stacked it carefully in the garage. Kelli then advertised it on Marketplace, and had a bite straight away.

A car turned up, it was loaded, and off they went leaving us with $40. They took every single piece, even the small bits that had broken off. I have learnt not to judge people because they know the value of the things most of us want to throw away.

just to add more cheek, she listed the carpets we took out yesterday. Within a short time she had someone on that, coming to collect later in the week.

I believe Kelli could sell the drippings from my nose, many times over, she is brilliant.

The pot of red paint was opened, and the covering of the front door started.

I’m sure that once the garage door is painted in the same colour the house will be know as Dracula’s blood bank.

28th April 2019

House renovation Day 1

The family finally handed us the keys around noon. The old curtains and blinds were down by 12.30pm. The sunlight burst through the windows like a heavenly chorus of singing angels. We were on a roll, the carpets and underlay quickly followed, by 6.30pm we stopped for dinner. In a short time we had removed every bracket, nail and staple.

I started to open up the packs of wood flooring. There were many different sizes in each pack, so I made piles according to size. It seemed to take me ages to open, stack and fold the carton flat, but when we did a tally of my efforts it only accounted for seven boxes, so only fifty three to go.

Just before we called it a day, Kelli wanted to see what was behind a wood panel on the front door. Whatever it was, was not intended to be removed easily. After removing screws, and beading, the panel would not move. There were more screws hidden beneath filler that had to be dug out. Eventually the wooden panel was removed to expose a hundred holes. The door, when new, had small decorative panels attached the steel skin. At some time these were removed and the holes were covered with a plywood panel, so by removing, I had the task of filling the holes with Bondo.

In future I will have to curtail Kelli’s curiosity until after we have finished the main work, although that would be really hard to do.

27th April 2019

The trek to get the rest of the flooring was interrupted by a visit to the memorial of our late next door neighbour. It was a wonderful reminder of a life we knew nothing of, but were only touched by his wave and smile that we saw occasionally.

We got to Menards in record time, and wandered around the paint section preparing to get our paint mixed.

This process really messed with my head.

I have been used to selecting my paint from a standard range, and having special colours mixed as an exception. Over here everything is mixed individually, so the choice is infinite. I like to have some boundaries, makes me feel more comfortable. Firstly you have choose the type of finish, Matt, Eggshell, Satin, Semi gloss or gloss. Finally there is the size, pints, quarts, gallons and five gallons. We spent a lot of time looking at each other with an expression of “I don’t know”. In the end we made our decision, “ its only paint, if we don’t like it, we can change it” I said, as we loaded the 400 bucks worth of coloured liquid into the truck, “God! I hope we don’t have to” I was thinking.

I can now understand why so many Americans have high anxiety and stress issues. Living in a country where multi choice is the norm, it’s no wonder that even choosing toast can blow my mind.

We collected the last twenty packs of flooring and headed back, stopping on the way to give our notice to the landlord, finally liberated we went home.

26th April 2019

We now own the house. The process was the signing of sheets of paper,followed by handshakes and congratulations. There was the realisation that our joy was at the cost of other people’s sorrow. We could see both sadness and relief that the financial nightmare for the family was over. All of us were starting a new chapter, albeit indifferent directions.

After registering the house with the city, we set off for the bank. It turned out that the money that Kelli had transferred was still in limbo, so we had no option but to use my credit card.

We drove back to Menards in Grand Rapids, the route we were beginning to know well, to collect the flooring.

We managed to load just forty boxes into the truck, and crawled back to Holland.

We looked forward to yet another drive to collect the rest tomorrow.

In the evening we met up with Lesley and Mike for a drink and a bite. They were pleased that we hadn’t moved very far.

25th April 2019

We had to get the cheque for tomorrow’s house closure. It seems so trivial to see the amount written down on a strip of paper.

We put the cheque in a safe place and headed off to Hudsonville.

A quick revamp of the space and then we set to Menards in Grand Rapids to get our flooring.

It was the first time I saw what sixty packs of flooring looked like. Shit! that was a stack.

Unfortunately there was a problem paying for it. Kelli had the money transferred into her current account, but the card she used had certain restrictions on it meaning that we couldn’t pay for all of it. She made calls trying to resolve the issue, but we finally conceded that we would have to return tomorrow with a stash of cash.

24th April 2019

This was the first time to see what was in the garage. As I walked through the door the magnitude of what was there. Things were piled high with my name on them.

Kelli pointed to the one she wanted first. This was a dresser that had a bad top that Kelli had started to remove the veneer. What was left were stubborn areas that she couldn’t strip back. I set about it with brute force and a big hammer. Soon I had the worst of it off, ready for filling and sanding.

It was time to go in search of flooring material, so off to Lowes we went. They had a limited selection that didn’t light much of our fires. We visited a flooring store that had much more of a choice, but as usual the one we liked the most was discontinued. We walked out with a sample of an alternative. We then went to Menards and found one we liked, but we worked out we needed sixty packs which equates to half a forest. The Holland branch did not have that stock, and they were unlikely to be able to order more, so we would have to travel to Grand Rapids to get the full quantity we needed.

Our friend Kim came round with a key to the house, it would be the first time that I could have a proper look at the inside.

I wasn’t disappointed, quite the opposite, there is a bit of work to do, but it will be fantastic to get started.