November 18 – 27, 2022
We closed on the house that will henceforth be known as the Green House on Monday, November 14, in Cedar Rapids. After all the documents were signed, Brandy and I made the 2 hour drive down to walk into the house for the first time as the owners.
We had some paint samples with us that we’d picked up at Menard’s over the weekend prior, as well as a handful of tools and supplies that we dropped in the house. We took down the curtains that had been left on just about every window in the house, threw them in a trash bag and painted some swatches of the sample paints on the wall, then headed over to her parents’ to drop a key before heading home.
Then, the real work began in earnest.
Day 1
Saturday, November 19
We packed up the car Saturday morning and headed to Craig and Sue’s, arriving at about 10:30. We unloaded the stuff that was staying there – our luggage, work equipment, things like that – ate a quick breakfast of biscuits and gravy, then the four of us headed to the Green House, arriving there at about noon.
I’ve internally divided the house into three parts:
- The front of the house consists of what are supposed to be a front room, dining room, a hall leading to the bedrooms, the upper level bathroom, and just beyond the hall, the kitchen.
- Through a sliding glass door in the back of the kitchen is a large sun room that will act as our main living area. This I will call the living room.
- And finally, the basement. Within the basement, there is a non-conforming third bedroom, a large open area, a small workshop (that will not remain a workshop), a bathroom, and the laundry room.
Work began in the front of the house where carpet was a pink plush carpet that had been saturated in dog urine. It stunk pretty bad and was awfully stained. There was a soft spot in one area of the floor that seemed to take the brunt of the dog’s urinary fury. The subfloor will likely need to be replaced in that area.
I strapped on knee pads, gloves and a mask and started cutting strips of the carpet, starting near the fireplace in the front room, rolling it up as I went. I kept the strips pretty narrow, not getting any more than four feet wide or so. The front room area yielded three rolls of carpet that I duct taped up and stood up on the front porch.
The carpet itself was yellowed and browned from the urine stains and the padding underneath was well disintegrated, and in some spots, stuck to the subfloor.
There was a small tiled area just inside the front door that Brandy initially wanted to keep intact but there were a couple of broken tiles so we decided that we’d remove that.
At one point during this work, I split the crotch of the jeans I was wearing. Like, bad. It was drafty, but I decided to power through it. Very, VERY shortly after that, I bent over and the belt I had on broke. Almost immediately, my pants drooped and I was left holding them up with my hands while I contemplated what to do. Luckily, Brandy had ordered, among other things, a pair of sweats for curbside pickup at Walmart. I stopped what I was doing and made the quick trip to pick up the order, as well as a quick bite for us. I got back to the house, changed into the new sweatpants, quickly ate and got back to work.
While Craig and I worked in the front and dining rooms, Brandy and Sue began pulling the carpet in the bedrooms. We were pleasantly surprised to find hardwood flooring under the pink carpet in those rooms. They seemed to be in fine shape and will be sanded and refinished before the end of the remodel.
As more of the subfloor was exposed in the front room, the soft spot came into focus. A small strip of wood had been screwed into place so Craig pulled the screws and we were greeted with 1×4 strips running across the joists, though they didn’t seem to be connected on one end. More exploration will be needed to find out why they were placed there to begin with.
The remainder of the subfloor was covered in a thin, 1/4″ composite material. After much deliberation, it was decided that would come up, exposing the true subfloor, and we would re-cover with new 1/2
4″ material. Vinyl plank flooring will then be floated on top of that.
Craig and I began the arduous task of tearing up that underlayment, popping what seemed like hundreds of nails. We were able to get a few of the panels up in whole pieces that we then just leaned against the wall, but many of the panels came up in pieces, tearing like nail-riddled paper.
In the middle of the work, I took a break and checked Facebook where I saw a memory pop up reminding me that one year prior, Brandy and I were in Durango… getting married. Saturday was our one year anniversary. I quickly ran into the bedroom where she was busy pulling tack strips from the edges of the floor. I said, “Happy anniversary.” She looked at me, calculating in her brain, and finally said, “Oh yeah!”
It was pretty humorous, we were both so wrapped up in working on the house, we’d both completely forgotten our one year anniversary. Thank goodness for Facebook Memories.
We continued on until about 5:00, we were all bushed so we decided to call it a night. We all went back to Craig and Sue’s, loaded up on ibuprofen, and relaxed for a bit before heading to bed.
Day 2
Sunday, November 20
The next morning, I woke up feeling surprisingly good. I was expecting to be suffering from tremendous body aches but I felt fine. I got up, fed Ash, got ready and headed to the house alone. I moved all of the underlayment that was leaning against the wall out to the garage. I then set to work continuing on what we hadn’t gotten done on Saturday. I had to use my new multi tool to cut part of the underlayment away from the tile we’re keeping in front of the fireplace but otherwise it came right up.
Soon after, Brandy, Craig and Sue showed up and we went gangbusters. Craig and I demolished the tile inside the front door and had a bear of a time getting the underlayment and cement board up from that area, but we eventually got it done.
Meanwhile, Brandy and Sue kept pulling tack strips from the bedrooms and getting general cleanup done.
Brandy had me order two more pair of sweatpants and a couple of surge protectors from Walmart, and it’s a good thing, because I quickly popped the string that was holding up the pants I was wearing. When Brandy left to pick up our most recent order, she walked into the store and picked up a couple pair of suspenders. When she got back with them, I clipped them on to my sweatpants and what a world of difference! I don’t have a butt so keeping pants up has always been a challenge, even with a belt. Suspenders are a new way of life for me though. That will be my new method of pants retention going forward.
When it came time to pull the underlayment up from the hallway, Craig and I ran into a bit of a problem in that both sides were laid under the trim running down the length of the hall. We had to effectively split all three pieces in half to prevent having to pull the baseboards. We got about halfway down the hall before Craig and Sue had to leave. I finished that task off on my own.
At 3:00 or so, we called it a day. I had one small piece of underlayment left on the transition to the kitchen, but otherwise it was done.
After working on the house, we went back to Craig and Sue’s so we could clean up and Craig and Sue treated us to dinner at Tequila Grill for my birthday. I got the carnitas en salsa verde, which came with a side of beans and rice. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was, considering we were in Ottumwa, Iowa.
After we ate, we were all bushed, so we headed back to our temporary home, and I was asleep at 7:30.
Day 3
Monday, November 21
I woke up a little more sore on Monday than I did on Sunday. My hamstrings were killing me and my hands were sore from the constant hammering on the prybars we were using to pull the underlayment up. I’m really surprised though at how well my back held up during that first weekend.
Brandy set up shop in the guest bedroom where we slept at Craig and Sue’s, and, in what I’m seeing is a recurring theme, I opened my laptop in the dining room. We set about our daily work as usual, then, once I logged off for the day, I headed back to the house to see what more work we could get done. Turns out, there wasn’t a lot for me to do on my own. I took down the last of the curtain rod holders and other miscellaneous screws and nails from the walls and that was about it. Good thing, too, I was really starting to feel the achiness starting to creep in.
Day 4
Tuesday, November 22
After work, I headed back to the house to try to start pulling up the barber carpet in the living room. I started in the corner closest to the kitchen and immediately realized the carpet was glued down. Thus was not going to be a fun task.
I used my utility knife to make a slit in the carpet that I was able to wiggle my fingers under. I gave the carpet a good yank and it came free with relative ease. I pulled on that strip, slowly breaking the glue bond a few inches at a time before I hit a snag. About halfway through the large room, the glue’s bond became much stronger. I yanked and tugged and scraped with the floor scraper but nothing was getting this carpet up with ease. Even with Brandy and Sue, it wasn’t budging. I gave up on that strip and moved to the remaining strip, finding that it came up with relative ease until about the same spot as the first strip I’d started pulling.
As the carpet came up, a new water damaged spot was revealed. This was going to require a new piece of subfloor in this area too. After trying for a bit longer with little to no progress, we gave up and went back to Craig and Sue’s for the evening.
Thursday, November 24
Thanksgiving
Wednesday, I had to make a couple of pies for Thanksgiving, and we were kind of at a standstill at the house, so we didn’t go.
Thursday, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving at Craig and Sue’s. We were joined by Brandy’s friend, Hilary, Hilary’s son, Ryne, and Hilary’s husband, Aaron. We gathered and ate until we’d had our fill. It was truly one of the best Thanksgivings I’d had in a while. COVID wrecked Thanksgiving in 2020, 2021 was kind of a bust as we were in the process of trying to move to Iowa, and even the recent Thanksgivings in Albuquerque were by and large forgettable (save for one where I’d joined Alan for a Friendsgiving gathering at the Ranchette. That one was pretty bomb.)
After eating, we decided to head to the house as Aaron and Ryne hadn’t seen it yet. After giving them the grand tour, the lot of us gathered in the living room where the berber was half torn up. Aaron, Ryne, Hilary, Brandy and I all ganged up on it and after a good minute, we managed to get it all pulled up. Power tools were used and much of the carpet was in shreds, but it was up, that’s all I cared about.
After thanking everyone for their help, they all left, and we went back to Craig and Sue’s. I got onto Menard’s website and made an order for underlayment, a door for the garage, outlets, light switches and bunch of other stuff to get ready to get back to work Friday. The total was over $800… *sob* I set the order to pick up Friday morning and we shortly went up to sleep off Thanksgiving.
Black Friday, November 25
Friday morning, Craig and I went to Menard’s to pick up the large order I’d placed the night before. We had a little trouble locating the order but we eventually got it and headed to the house. While we were there, I picked up 2 gallons of Zinsser B-I-N primer for the floor and screws to attach the door to the garage. We then headed over and got to work.
We started by pulling up that small piece that was screwed in to one joist, creating the soft spot that’d caused us so many worries. We didn’t see any real reason that the floor had been cut away there. We wound up cutting out the spot a little larger, to the next joist, then found some scrap lumber in the garage that we used to patch it up.
We used a 2×4 to build a small frame that we screwed into the joists, then found a sheet of plywood from which we cut out a patch to screw to the frame. It was a pretty seamless fit, especially considering the whole floor would soon be covered with underlayment.
Once that was done, I started rolling on the primer I’d just gotten at Menard’s. It went down easy, providing sufficient coverage with one coat. As it dried, we noticed a couple of spots that the urine stains were coming up so I laid down a second coat in those spots and we left it to dry.
As I was doing that, Brandy had taken off with Craig’s truck to go to Muscatine for the flooring. There’s a Warehouse Bargains there that had the vinyl flooring Brandy wants in the house. It was a 2 hour drive there from the house, then another 2 hours back. She got back just as I was finishing up the priming of the subfloor. I backed the truck up to the garage and unloaded 25 boxes of vinyl plank flooring into the garage then went home to get some rest.
Saturday, November 26
Saturday morning, I got up and headed to the house bright and early. The entry door into the garage was just a storm door. There was no actual door, though there previously had been; there were notches in the frame where the hinges had been.
I got to work taking that door down in preparation for putting up the steel door we’d picked up the day before.
When I got as far as I felt I could, I went to work laying down sheets of underlayment in the front rooms. The first sheet I laid down needed a 2.5″x12″ hole cut near one edge to allow for the heater vent. This was my first time ever attempting something like this, but I’d watched enought YouTube videos to know what I had to do to get it cut out correctly.
I measured, laid out the lines with a pen, remeasured, double checked, remeasured again, and triple checked.
When I was relatively confident in the accuracy of the size and location of the hole, I set up a couple of sawhorses in the front yard, drilled out a couple of pilot holes and cut out the hole with a jigsaw. I took the plywood sheet back in, laid it down, and…
…it fit perfectly. It was sized and located exactly over the heat register. The pride I felt when I saw that was unbearable.
I lined up the sheet, got down on my hands and knees with a hammer and box of nails and went to work completely abusing my thumb. I put probably 45 nails in that sheet of plywood and hit my thumb with the hammer probably 20 times.
All part of the process, I suppose. I do, however, want to look into getting a hammer with a nail starter to avoid further issues with finger abuse.
Anyway, I was in the process of laying down another sheet of underlayment when Craig showed up. I abandoned the flooring for a bit while we went to work hanging the door in the opening I’d left in the garage.
There was some more trimming that needed to be done before we could actually stand the door up in the opening and get it set. Once we did though, we quickly discovered that the opening was framed just a quarter of an inch too narrow. We decided to take one of the 2x4s off of the latch side of the door and replace it with thinner material. Craig left to get said material, I pulled that 2×4, then went back to work blackening my thumb.
When Craig returned, I helped him add the thinner strips of wood to the door frame then actually put the door in. It was a very tight fit thanks to some awful framing but with some brute force, we got it in place and screwed in. While Craig worked on putting in the doorknob, I went back to work on the underlayment getting a few more sheets put down. Craig came back and helped cut some notches into some of the sheets to get around walls and into doorways. We really struggled to get the fit right on the sheet that dropped into the entryway into the kitchen. We cut and recut it like six times before we got it right, but once we did, we dropped it in place and we called it a day, not even nailing it down.
We said our good byes to the house and went back to Craig and Sue’s. We spent Saturday evening getting packed up and ready for the drive back home Sunday morning. We had a lot to unpack and had to get our work computers set back up so we wanted to get home earlier rather than later. We wound up leaving at about 8:00 Sunday morning.
Weekly Wrap-up
We wound up spending nine days in Ottumwa giving us ample opportunity to get a big chunk of work done. All told, we:
- Pulled up all the carpet, tack strips, and a small patch of tile
- Pulled up underlayment in that area
- Primed the subfloor in the front rooms
- Laid down about 3/4 of the underlayment in that area
- Reframed and installed an entry door into the garage
- Pulled all of the nails and screws out of the walls
- Pulled all of the outlet and switch plates
- Made three trips to Menard’s, three trips to Walmart, two trips to Harbor Freight, and a trip to Muscatine
- and spent a TON of money
It went much faster than I was anticipating so I’m hoping we can actually move in sooner than our target date of February 25.
What’s Next
This weekend, I will be finishing the underlayment in the front rooms, and renting floor sanders and sanding the hardwood floors in the bedrooms. I’m not sure how long the sanding will take, but the equipment rentals are for four hours. I’m hoping to get them both done in that amount of time.
We also will have a guy coming to look at the living room to give us a quote on laying new berber in there.
Then, next weekend, on December 10, we will have a dump trailer dropped at the house to get the trash out of the garage.
I’m hoping that by that point, I’ll be ready to paint, but Brandy has to pick a color first. She told me the other day that she’s changed her mind on the color she initially picked out.
In the meantime, I’ve added all of the pictures from Week One to the Photo Diary, make sure you check all of those out.
And, until week two, as usual, thank you for stopping by. I appreicate you!
-Phil