Temporary kitchen renovation

I painted the downstairs bathroom this morning with the Kilz primer and I think it will do the trick on the mold issue. We then went to the Lowe's and looked a bit at some different flooring options. Our idea is that it will be a temporary kitchen renovation - basically just updating the look of things until we can afford a major (read: expensive) renovation. So painting the cabinets makes sense. We've been struggling with the idea of painting them but it made me feel better to see that many of the original kitchen cabinets in the 1920s were also painted.

I think the next big decision will be what we do with the ceiling. When Thom peeked up under the dropped tile ceiling a couple months ago, we saw that they had knocked down all the plaster on the ceiling so we either will have to put up drywall or we can put in one of the newer dropped ceilings that have the faux tin ceiling look. We'd then have to figure out what to do about lighting so I can get rid of the godawful fluorescent light in there.

Got the painting estimate

We received the painting estimate and I was pleasantly surprised. It's $1700 for the one side of the house, including a pressure wash, scraping, sanding, priming, and two coats of Sherwin-Williams exterior paint. I think we're going to go with it after we check references. While we could certainly do it ourselves for less, I'm not sure the time, effort, and probable broken bones are worth the effort.

We're planning for the end of June for the work so I'll put up some before and afters when it comes to that time.

This is what I'm talkin' about

First of all, I gotta say it: I am impressed that my whining got the attention of the Vice President of TurboTax. Who knew that executives read my blog? I'm humbled...or something.

Anyway, here's a bit of my inspiration for our low cost kitchen renovation (read: until we get some real equity and can make a real upgrade). I'm excited for this and hope it won't cost too much $$!

Economic Stimulus Blues

I'm very bummed out. I just came to learn that we will not be receiving our economic stimulus payment by direct deposit since we used TurboTax and had them take our fees out of our refund. Basically, the government doesn't have our direct deposit information - it was a third party (Santa Barbara Bank Blah Blah Blah) that set up a temporary account. So we'll be getting a paper check. This wouldn't be so bad but we moved after we filed our taxes so we may not get it until June or July since it takes 8-12 weeks for the government to process the address change. Sigh...

Planning for kitchen

I think I finally wore Thom down and talked him into painting the kitchen cabinets. As much as we'd like to completely renovate the kitchen I don't think we'll be able to afford it for awhile and painting seems like a much cheaper way to update the kitchen. I think we'll go white and (re)paint the kitchen a silvery-blue color and that way I can get my slate backsplash. We're also looking at the Ikea wood countertops that are dirt cheap. We're still considering cork flooring and also looking at the faux tin ceiling since we already have the dropped ceiling in the kitchen - we'll just put in some can lights and a new pendant. Anyway, I think for a few hundred dollars we can make it look really nice.

Much better!

I got the first coat on the hallway and it looks much better than that old nasty wallpaper. Of course, it just makes the ugly carpet look even uglier...but here's the before and after.

I have shut the door on the bathroom problem, literally, for the day. However, our friend Paul (a.k.a. Wonder Dude) recommended using Kilz primer on it and then skim coating as necessary. This is a much easier solution than what I was envisioning. Once again, Paul has saved me from unnecessary and much more difficult work with a simple solution. Hooray Paul!

Oh #@*%!

Beware ye who taketh down the old wallpaper.

I was rocking and rolling priming the downstairs hallway and thought, hey, why don't I just prime the downstairs bathroom while I'm at it (it's literally the smallest bathroom I've ever seen - it may even rival an airplane bathroom for size -- Thom calls it the Harry Potter Bathroom being under the stairs and all).  Anyway, the wallpaper has been peeling off so I just figured, what the heck. Well, I came to discover this beautiful mold lurking under the wallpaper on the ceiling. You can also see the get-up I donned to pull off the wallpaper. 

So, now I'm not sure what to do. I know, after living in Louisiana after Katrina, that one can use hot water and bleach but I wonder how much of this is in the drywall. Do we just yank the drywall out or will bleach work? Any ideas? What a mess...