MOVING!!! Long story short: The company that moved me out to
Virginia needed to do some restructuring during the pandemic. I was not part of the restructuring but was
able to find new employment in northern Virginia. This necessitated another move. Good news was, I would be able to work
remotish for about a year. This allowed
my kids one full year at school and so their school year was not
interrupted. This also meant that we had
time to fix up the fixer upper we purchased.
The major repairs that we hired others to do. We replaced all the windows and aluminum
wrapped all the trim and installed new gutters.
The roof was replaced, and the exterior was power washed and painted. We hired someone to paint the upstairs
hallway, foyer, and kitchen. This included
the kitchen cabinets. These were things
that I either could not do myself or did not have the time to do it.
Here is what I contributed to the fixing up:
- Painting: every room in the house was repainted. You can tell where I started painting and where I finished. My painting skills improved with each room. Most rooms were two toned and I like how they looked. If I do it again, I would not use the yellow color. Here are some of the key things that I learned in the process:
- Painting. Prep work is key to a good paint job. I removed a lot of the cracked caulking around doors and moulding and replaced it. It made a huge difference. When I learned the trick with wetting my finger to even it out, it got a lot easier. Filling in all the nail holes and dents with filler. There was a lot. I think I used a medium tub of filler on the house. For the most part I used a roller and a 2” trim brush. I didn’t need to buy more equipment than that. I did get a bucket for the trim work.
- Replace the deck boards. That was a pain. There were several that had rotted and so I replaced all 19 full length boards. It was a 16’ wide deck. This is where I used Home Depot to deliver the boards. The big take away on this project was the fact that deck boards are 1” thick not 2x6. Thank goodness I caught it before they delivered the order and I was able to change it. I also replaced the decks on the stairs. It was a bigger pain than it was worth. After the deck was stain, it looked good
- Patched water damaged drywall. The roof was leaking in one place over a room. There was also some water damage in the basement from a previous overflow of the sump pump. Both areas needed to have dry wall patches. They looked pretty good after I was done. I was impressed with the first time doing these patches.
- Grass. Not going to say I did much in this area. I laid down seed and hoped it would grow. I think I doubled the amount of grass on the property. I am not going to say it was a lot, but it looked better. We also added some mulch and flowers which did make it look nicer.
- Caulked all the bathroom fixtures. Not my favorite thing to do. I don’t really like silicone and I really don’t like cleaning and scraping out moldy silicone. I did it and the trick is to use soapy water on your finger to spread it out.
- Cleaned and more cleaned. I understand the meaning of deep cleaning. I would say that I should do it more often, but it was a pain. Then maintaining it was another project. I am glad we only had to do it for one weekend.
Glad this is over.
Now it is setting everything up again.
If you would like to se the pictures of the home you can go here. These are professional pictures. Sorry I do not have the before pictures.
