Tuesday, June 21, 2011

home owners: day 2

so today . . . my new house is a mess.

i knew that knocking down the popcorn ceiling was going to be messy--that is largely why we decided to do it now while the house was empty. but jose' (our painter,) and his helper have been working for most of two days shrouding everything in plastic.they've used miles of tape!! they started by covering all the floors with yards and yards of paper in preparation for painting, but when i said we had decided to have them do the ceilings as well, that's when, somewhere on the planet, plastic sheeting production kicked into overdrive...

while they made my house look like a construction site, i spent the day cleaning in the kitchen. and waiting for the guy from the gas company to turn on the gas...

i've never really paid attention to the utilities before. i flip a switch and i have power. i turn on a faucet and water comes out. i know we pay for the power and water that we use, but i've never paid any attention to all the equipment it takes to get that power and water to me. but when a house changes hands, you don't just automatically get power and water. oh no. you have to jump through hoops and wait around all day and hope that you don't need power or water until the utility guys get there to turn it on.

when the electric company came, she just read the meter and left. they hadn't actually turned the power off, so that one was easy. when the water guy came, well, i don't know exactly what he did, because that was yesterday and i had my hands kind of full with the locksmith, shutter guy, and carpet guy. i just know that i didn't have water, and then i did.

but the gas company was another story. i guess it's because gas can kill you. the gas company guy was not fooling around! he checked out all the places where we needed gas (and there seem to be a lot of them,) and then he said, "come with me. i need to show you some things..." uh oh. this can't be good. he didn't say it in a "this is your lucky day" kind of voice. he was using the "voice of doom."

did i mention that this guy was HUGE!! he was tall. he was hefty. he looked samoan. he had facial hair. and he looked serious!! i was pretty sure he was going to tell me that our house was just about to blow up if we didn't pour major money into the gas lines...

he proceeded to tell me what he was going to turn on and what he was not going to turn on. i didn't know there were options, but apparently there were. the result was, i would have hot water, but no heat until a fixed hose was replaced with a flexible one, and i couldn't use the fireplace until the damper was removed. this is ok with me. it is june. it will be a little while before i need either the fireplace or the heater...

and he didn't even want to talk about the spa equipment...

remember the spa? the 11 x 7 foot in-ground spa that is now buried under the deck?? suspiciously??? yes, well, all that equipment runs on gas, but since the spa is filled with dirt instead of water, he decided to pretend that it wasn't there at all.

ok, we were making progress!

and then the carpet guy arrived. a new carpet guy, thank goodness. one who did not know my previous history with keys and locks and locksmiths. we went upstairs to measure the bedrooms for carpeting. i waited, and he measured. i waited, and he wrote down numbers. i waited, and he went over to the corner of the master bedroom and pulled up the carpeting. i waited, and he dropped it back into place and moved on to the next room...

when my mom found out that our house was built in 1967, she told me to look under the carpets before i had them replaced. she said that when they built their house, they were given the choice of hardwood floors or wall-to-wall carpeting. they chose the carpet, as did a lot of people. now she wishes she had chosen the wood, but you know, it was 1967... who knew that 45 years later she would have to pay big bucks to get wood flooring. in 1967, wall-to-wall carpeting probably seemed luxurious. and she had two kids with bare feet who played on the floor...

and so i had planned to look under the carpets, but i'd been kind of busy and had just forgotten about it. so when the carpet guy left, i went back upstairs, held my breath, and pulled back the carpet. and guess what? it was my lucky day after all!!

it was wood. there was wood under that awful carpeting! and the part i saw was in really good shape! of course, it was a corner. a corner wouldn't get a lot of wear and tear. so i pulled back some more. it still looked good. i pulled it back about a third of the way into the room. it was dirty, but when i wiped a few squares with a damp cloth, it looked really good! it was smooth and unmarred and shiny. it didn't look like it had ever even been walked on! i couldn't believe it! i immediately texted rollie and my mom and a couple of friends and posted a picture to facebook. i was so excited! not only had i found a wood floor, but it was a wood floor in excellent condition! i was not going to have to sand and refinish it before we could use it. i was not going to have to pay for new carpeting--and let me tell you, in a 500 square foot room, that was a big deal!! i was just going to have to vacuum it and wipe it down and it was going to be beautiful.

and then i thought, what about the walk-in closet? i grabbed some pliers and headed into the closet. and guess what?? yep, more wood flooring in the closet. i was feeling lucky. i was feeling like i had won the lottery!

and then i thought, i wonder if the other two bedrooms have wood... so my pliers and i raced to the small bedroom. i held my breath, lifted up the yukky carpeting, and saw... blonde faux wood vinyl tiles. UGLY blonde faux wood vinyl tiles. i went a little more slowly to the third bedroom, lifted up a carpet edge and found more... ugly blonde faux wood vinyl tiles... which were probably glued firmly down over lovely wood parquet floors.

now i felt like the i.r.s. was after my lottery winnings...

but you know what? even if the i.r.s. takes half of your lottery winnings, you are still left with more than you started with! so i went back into my bedroom and sat down to admire my free bonus wood parquet floor. the more i looked at it, the more i loved it! and i felt lucky again...

...because while you can't win them all, sometimes, you win one :-)

1 comment:

mom said...

I think you should take off a little of the molding around the floor in the other bedrooms and check to see if the vinyl is glued. Some vinyl just lays. It might not be glued down at all and will just lift up. Just a thought. You may be a full pledged winner after all... Also wondered if the spa just has a cover over it with the deck on top and it was not filled with dirt. Might be worth a check unless you already have knowledge of dirt. Lots of luck finding good things!!