Project: Dining Room Ceiling/Mold sucks

So in my last post I talked about tearing down the paneling that was so liberally applied in our living and dining room areas.  Sadly, when we tore it down we discovered why paneling was so popular in the first place - it certainly covers up the drywall problems! One of the major problems that we discovered was mold. Yuck!

There was obviously a time when there had been some water leakage - thankfully the previous owners had had a new roof put on before they put it up for sale, so wherever the leak was, it should be fixed by now.

Unfortunately - we still had mold. And severe drywall damage in that area.  Ew.

Project: That Paneling has GOT to go.

As soon as the keys to this baby were in our hands, the first order of business was to get that particularly awful paneling off the walls and ceiling in the living room and dining room (well actually the first order of business was to move in, but that would make for a boring blog post... kind of. Move-in actually happened during a rainstorm!).

Back in the day the original owners tore down a wall to a front bedroom and created one large room for the living and dining areas.  In order to differentiate between the living area and the dining area, they apparently decided that sticking some dark wood paneling up to create that divide... which left us with one long room with a seemingly random application of paneling at one end which you would be able to see here if we hadn't been so gung-ho to get started and actually taken a before shot. Whoops.  Here is another shot of the ceiling paneling for your viewing pleasure instead:

Sweet chandelier too, right?

And a shot of the random wall of paneling in the living room. I'm guessing they thought it would balance the space out? Or maybe they were just hoping it would?

The window boxes are also made out of... wait for it... paneling!

Yep. You can probably see the problem here.  So J and I went to town thinking all we would need to do is pop a few small nails, peel that paneling away, repaint, and voila new dining room and living room!  Easy peesy, right?

Homeowner Extraordinaires

We're completely consumed with making improvements to the new house. No seriously. More posts on the projects to come, but before we can do that - I have to present the before pictures. Just know that while these are scary - there was a lot of potential under all that carpet and paneling!

Living room - before

Turn around from the living room and you're staring at the dining room. All paneled. Even the ceiling. Yeesh.

Kitchen - like the dark, shiny cabinets? Yeah, me neither.

More kitchen before. This gives you a great view of the floor.  Installed back when lime green laminate was considered a "good" idea.

The shining star in the basement! Yes - that is a Zenith TV in the wall! Sweet!

The one and only bathroom. There are swans on those glass doors. We're all about the classy here.

The rest of the itty, bitty, teeny-weeny bathroom.

The soon-to-be Master Bedroom.

So now that you've seen some of the before pictures you'll be able to appreciate the "in progress" and "after" posts a little more!

New Casa

I just bought a house.  It's been a process.  A very short, yet seemingly exceedingly loooooong process.  J and I started out looking for rentals since he will be starting a new program in the fall (yay for no more long distance!), and somehow I ended up a homeowner a mere 5 weeks later.

J wrote up a nice summary of our first few days of this process - so I'm going to put that below.  You'll note his dry sense of humor is why I fell in love with his goofy face in the first place.

Riding in Cars with... Carrots?

The other day I was headed home from work when I stepped on the second train of my evening commute... instantly I knew something was wrong with the car, but it took me a second to get over the initial smell to realize that the floor was all wrong.  Instead of the lovely carpeting covered in gum globs and suspicious stains - I stepped on to this:

Yes - I was enthralled enough that I took a picture.  If you were a DC Metro user, you'd be enthralled too. Well. Maybe not. Still - it was 6:30 on a Friday night and I was. So sue me.

There was a noticeable odor, but I attributed it to this new and slightly out-of-this world floor.  

Riding Escalators

I grew up in the middle of nowhere.  No - seriously.  My parents owned 40 acres of woods off of a dirt country road that is off of another dirt road that is off of a paved side road that is off of a main road that leads to a two blinking light blip of a town.  

No public transportation, no city sewer systems and absolutely no escalators.  In fact, I was a teenager by the time I rode my first escalator. Well - riding wouldn’t be the correct term... I have vague memories of acting like a 5 year old and running up the down escalator while shrieking over my shoulder at my very embarrassed mother, “These stairs are MOVING! Mom! Mom! Mom! Moooooommmmmmm!!!!!!  Looooook at meeeeeee!!!”  

I’m surprised I don’t also have vague memories of being escorted off the premises. 

Since then I’ve moved halfway across the country and my daily commute now includes riding no less than 4 escalators and 6 elevators.  But... to tell you the truth? I miss the middle of nowhere.