Expensive.
Ah, well I expected that.
Saturday I went down and started ripping up the carpet and did some general cleaning. The seller had put silly putty on all the windows to prevent drafts and many of them don't stay open. The windows got bumped up the priority list for taking care of soon and F is talking to a contractor friend of hers who we may be able to get some less expensive work out of in exchange for money and food. I pulled a lot of staples out of the downstairs window frames because I think the original owners stapled the plastic over the windows. Or something. Vacuumed up a bunch of spiders and webs, did dusting. As I was pulling up carpet, I figured out that the interior stairs to the second floor, which the last two steps extend into the living room, were built over the carpet. Womp womp.
I figured this out by sticking my head into evil Narnia, which is what we are calling the hole in the wall of the living room closet that has a tiny curtain over the hole as well as there being a mirror in the closet. Evil Narnia went around a corner and we eventually figured out that it went into open space of the basement stairs at head height.
F spent time cleaning out the kitchen cabinets, the fridge and removing weird things like aluminum foil to keep the cats from scratching.
Extremely satisfying things: dropping the carpet rolls off the big porch, which is like a 15 foot drop. Good thumps.
Sunday I was less productive because F was planning to bring down some hammers and things from the farm and ended up not making it until 3 or so. I pulled up the padding under the carpet and spent a decent amount of time staring at the heating unit trying to figure out if we'd need to rip it out. Because once I pulled up the padding, it became very clear that the particle board subfloor was nasty and needed to be replaced. I did some investigating and stuck my head into the drop ceiling of the basement apartment and figured out that the drop ceiling was held up by screws halfway into the joists, with thin wire. And I figured out there was a second actual plywood subfloor under the particle board. I also mopped my room and the hallway three times and the water was still brown. Not as brown. But still brown. Also got my plants in the ground in the little garden area right in front of the small porch. They need more compost but I'll see if they grow decently there. All of them were pretty rootbound because I got a little bit excited and started them too early.
Also found a weird clearly framed on purpose hole that led to a small flat area and an angled section that was above part of the upstairs small bedroom closet. I can't describe it other than that's where the naughty children go when they need to be punished. No clue what it was intended for. It matches with a shorter hole on the other side of the doorway but that one is mostly closed off. Someone made interesting choices when they were adding things.
Also fought some wasps nesting on the small porch with a long stick and didn't get stung and also broke their nests, so net win. They can go somewhere else. Like the peak of the roof apparently.
I wasn't planning to go down this morning but because F arrived so late yesterday, we weren't able to walk the edge of the property like we planned. So I went down this morning as soon as I could, borrowed a crowbar from C and removed the carpet tacks and started prying at the subfloor to see if I could get it up decently. Yes. Also pulled most of the parts off the heating unit and labeled them with the order to be reinstalled. Then
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dragonlady7 arrived for the tour of the house, then F arrived and we chatted for a bit. Then we walked the property lines! The property is a bit of a weird long triangle away from the road with another small triangle tacked on the road for road frontage. So we wandered around a bit, found all the surveyor stakes and flagging tape. I added more when I thought the tape was falling off or old. There were a couple places it was ambiguous, like the survey map had a big rock as a marker and there was two big rocks when we got there. There was also a much used 4 wheeler track that ran along part of the south border for a bit. The east border was pretty clearly marked with a lot of flagging tape and an old (thankfully not barbed wire) rusty fence which was nice. And the north border was completely a mystery because it's bounded, no joke, by the swamp. The survey says it's a straight line from the corner along the swamp but they hadn't marked out that line and we couldn't find the one marked pipe that was supposed to be on that line. But it took us a bit to walk the border! We got a pretty good size property and it's all decent woods with not a lot of undergrowth. Saw some really cool ferns along the swamp, they had some kind of spore spike!
We sat around and chatted for a bit after that and then B went home while F and I talked logistics. Busy week with lots to do.
Plan: Thurs: F, B and Z are picking up a furniture set from F's mom's place and taking it down to the house, picking up new front door plus screen door and just dropping it off. Friday, B and I grab a uhaul and pull my stuff from my storage unit and take it to the house. Sat: I'm stopping by "the guy in town who has lawnmowers and snowblowers for repair and sale in his yard" to get a push mower and a snowblower. Mowing the lawn. Pulling the support part from the heating unit and removing the 2bys that are attaching it to the wall and putting little supports under the heating unit. Removing subfloor and cleaning (probably pulling trim off). If I have time, removing interior stairs in the living room and rebuilding them after taking all the crap out from under. Sun: pick up new subfloor, install new door, finish anything I didn't already do and then put down new subfloor. That's actually a little less urgent since the vinyl planking we ordered won't be here until the 9th at least. I need to borrow a bunch of tools for this but that's okay.
Busy busy!
