Home DIY

Before

The Corners?

After

Ant farm from Hell

June 03, 2001

Having gotten the Dining Room looking nice, we've set out on reclaiming Innisfree from the forces of entropy.

I'd rather let things go during the stresses of the previous year: the house plants died, the garden remained unweeded, a wide variety of species have taken up living in the cellar. (Last week it was rabbits. This week it is turtles).

And the wallpaper has been peeling from the walls of the living room for ages. So we set out to repaper as our first big reclaimation project. As is usually the case with old houses, there have been surprises. Once we removed the paper, we discovered that an underlayment paper had been applied. Once we removed that, we discovered that not only were the walls in appalling shape, they also had no corners.

And best of all, the entire wall leading to the dining room consisted of cheap, poorly applied (and very uneven) fake wood panelling.

So we've been repairing for months now, plastering corners and patching cracks. And having added a chair rail, we're now almost to the point where we can begin to repaper the room.

Next month I begin adding the built-in entertainment center. Stay tuned.

October 2001

Well, things haven't gone quite as rapidly as I had anticipated. A year has passed and I still haven't completed the living room. Amazingly, things take longer than they did back when I was working for the school system and had summers off (imagine that!) But the construction on the entertainment center is done and only some minor staining remains so that I can put up the last bits of wallpaper. Then it's on to the kitchen to add the dishwasher and replace the old counter with new tile. Then onto the stairs, and the barn roof, and.. and..

Almost forgot the real treat of the past year: finding that the bathroom floor around the toilet was sinking.. then finding that the wood beneath the tile was the consistency of sponge (I was able to poke holes in it with my fingers.. which makes one a wee bit hesitant to sit astride the toilet, lest one ride it into the basement). Then finding that the sponge-floor was host to colonies the size of your head of huge carpenter ants (which makes one even less likey to want to sit... oh, never mind).

Ah! Home ownership!

Still better than listening to somebody's damn stereo at 3 a.m.