Friday - Went to the house after work and got busy on some wallpaper removal. Super extra fun stuff. I removed the wallpaper in the first floor bathroom, which was awesome. When I took down the wallpaper, there was a nice surprise waiting for me. Mold. Under every inch of the paper, there were little mold dots. Also, the handy fellow who lived there before I bought the place, he/she used an interesting adhesive for the wallpaper seams. What's your best bet for sealing off wallpaper from moisture? Sealant? Varnish? Crazy Glue? Nope. Scotch Tape. When I think of a perfect seal for things, I think of invisible tape you use to wrap presents.
Once I was finished up with the first layer of paper (the under layer was stuck to the wall and needed some remover), I headed back to my current apartment to rest up for the next day, and eject as much mold from my lungs/nose as possible.
Also, Amanda brought cookies and brownies for all of the workers. They were probably appreciative.
Saturday - Since I'm getting married in a few weeks, Amanda and I have a bunch of crap to do to get ready for that. One of those things is getting things to wear. A suit for me and a dress for her. She needed to go to her home state of New Jersey (cringe) for another dress fitting, and I needed a pick up the suit I had tailored in NJ (thanks Mr. Stotzer). We drove down to NJ, got our stuff done, and started the drive back.
There's an Ikea in Connecticut that I figured we should stop at, as it's right off the highway. We went in, walked around, and left with a bathroom vanity ($179) and sink ($100) for the master bathroom. Sadly, all of their faucets are ugly, so I'll still have to buy one of those. We also looked at a bunch of stuff we should buy later on, when it's time to furnish the house (after we get money for being married).
Here's the vanity/sink combo we went with:
Delightful.
Sunday - Up bright and early and headed to the house. Lugged the new Ikea stuff upstairs and got cracking on building it. Half of the fun of Ikea stuff is getting to put it together. I am a fan of that.
After putting together the vanity, I headed over to Home Depot to buy a tub ($100) and order 60 sheets of dry wall for delivery ($430). I got the tub and brought it back to the house, only to find that Electrician Rob had left, and I was stuck there, alone, left to drag this thing up some awkward stairs. Here's the tub (huge):
And here are the stairs (awkward):
Once I reached the turn in the stairs, I quickly realized that this thing wasn't going to fit. The walls were in the way, the tub box was too wide for the turn, and I'm very skinny, making it hard to manhandle anything around a corner. Since I didn't want to drag the thing back down the stairs, and because I'm an idiot, I perched the tub on one corner and leaned it against the wall. I then slid past it (again, skinny) to go grab a hammer and crow bar. Worker safety be damned, the temporary railing at the top of the stairs had to go.
I very carefully removed the wood, making sure not to disturb the hanging tub too much, and slipped past it again to try and lift it up. I jerked on it a few times and realized that I was just going to have to lift it straight up and over everything. In one fluid motion (read: strained, herky jerky) I muscled (read: screamed and pulled) the tub up onto the floor. My back made a bunch of fun noises when I stood back up and I dragged the tub to it's final resting place.
A few minutes later, Electrician Rob showed up. My hero.
Tub upstairs, I got busy in the living room taking down even more wallpaper. All the while, Electrician Rob was working outside on getting the meter adjusted for the change from 100 to 200 amps. Good times.
Around 11 or so, I went back to my apartment to eat some lunch. Thereafter, Amanda and I piled into the car to go see the appliances, in Cranston, that a guy had for sale on craigslist. (Quick aside on the guy. When I called him the first time, his voicemail introduces him as "Attorney Hunter". I have no idea what this is. Is he an attorney with the last name of Hunter? Does he find attorneys for people? Does he ritually execute lawyers? I'm confused).
Before we left, I gave him a call and again called when we were on the way. Both times, Attorney Hunter (real name of Steve) sounded a little out of breath and was fading in and out, as if he were repeating the same movement over and over while on the phone. I put the panting and the repetitive motion together to mean only one thing; he was molesting a child in a shed or basement. I kept this in mind as we approached his house.
He met us at the door, and he said "pardon my appearance," (sweats and a t-shirt), "I'm just doing some landscaping." I saw the sweats and thought, "easy on, easy off" and peeked out back to look for a shed. No shed. The kid must have been in the basement or something...
Imagined molestation aside, the appliances are in great shape and are going to save me a bunch of money. I agreed to take them off of his hands in a few weeks and I now don't have to look for a dishwasher and range. It's a win/win/lose. He gets money for appliances, I get appliances, the kid in his basement wasn't loud enough to alert me, so he stays in the basement.
We also looked at some toilets. While looking, a weird man approached us and let us know that he just bought a "great toilet" and proceeded to steer us in the direction of said toilet. We obliged (ugh) and walked over. He then proceeded to tell us 6-10 times how awesome the toilet is, and it's various features. Well, feature. It's apparently low flow. Thanks sir, that is very helpful.
We didn't end up getting a toilet, despite the salesmanship shown by a random man, be we were followed by an even weirder man giving the eye to Amanda.
He looked a little like this guy, only upright and licking his lips:
Did I mention that this Home Depot is in a super nice neighborhood? It is. Strip clubs, sex shops and bars abound. I can't wait to go back.
We brought all of that stuff over to the house and got to work. Amanda started in on the rest of the wallpaper removal in the living room, and I got to business in the first floor bathroom. I removed the toilet (gross), removed the medicine cabinet, demoed the vanity/sink and removed the door. After that, I stripped the rest of the wallpaper and sprayed everything with bleach, which will hopefully kill the mold.
After that, the weekend began. We got back to our apartment around 5, made some steak tips and tried not to move.
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