First and second days

Well Grace and I bought an old row house in Carytown and it needs a little work done to it. The house was built in 1925 so it has a lot of nice old things about it. Then again it has some not so nice old things about it. Like the postage stamp sized kitchen. Well we will blow out a wall here or there to make it a little bigger. Anything is possible.

So I was inspired to start a blog by Grace's friend Aileen. I decided it would be a daily log "sort of" of the remodeling of our house, hence The Money Pit or I think I'll call it TMP for short. Yea that sounds good. So since I am technically doing this on the second day of remodeling I'll talk about the first day.

Day One
I was going to change out some of the plugs around the house b/c they were 2 prong and not 3 prong like my surge protectors and such. After flipping 30 breakers or so, we actually only have like 15 but I must have flipped every one twice or it felt like it b/c I was walking up and down the stairs every time that I would flip one to see if it was off or not, I finally got the one I needed to go off. I changed out the plug and I was on my way to the second plug that I wanted to do. I opened up the next plug after shutting off the power only to find that there were 2 wires coming out instead of one. I thought to myself, this is odd. So I started to take away some of the plaster to take the box out. Well I got the box out and come to find out that everything that is on this circuit has old knob and tube wiring. This wiring was put into houses pre- 1930. So I decide to see how hard it is going to be to take care of this and I decide to crawl under the house and take a look. Well little did I know they must have put about 2 inches of lime , or some other white powder in the entire crawl space b/c now I am covered in it. Luckly I had changed into some coveralls before I went under there b/c I was wearing shorts prior to that. So anywho I went crawling around and didn't find much. I came to the conclusion that we are basically going to have to rewire the entire downstairs, or at least everything that is on that circuit. Actually I will prob put the different rooms on different circuits and their own breakers just to help out on the long run. So then I give up on the changing plugs deal and decide to strip the paint and all in the pantry. This requires me going to Lowes to buy stuff which like my Dad said I might as well go ahead and drive past Lowes and throw my wallet at it b/c I am already seeing a trend of going there daily. I get home with my various impliments of paint destruction. I realize I forgot some stuff but I don't feel like going back today. Then I start on the pantry. Pretty uneventfull stuff and then I am at a good stopping point. I figure I will stop for the day. I take a shower and unpack one of the many boxes that form trails around the house. You know it takes me about a half an hour to find anything. I always end up opening 20 boxes just to find stuff to make coffee or 45mins to find a box of sscrews that I need. It sux. But anyways I am done for the day.

Day Two
Unpack some clothes to try to tame the whole box situation. The phone guy comes and goes so now we have a phone which is nice. Grace goes off to work and it's time for me to work on the pantry again. I need some heavier grit sandpaper so I go to Lowes again. I get some more odds and ends and come home. I start on the pantry. I get done and clean up. I am going to put down some shelf liner but after finding out it takes one whole roll for the one shelf, these are big shelves, I decide to nix the idea and put the cans and all on the bare shelves. We have plans to put the fidge in the pantry anyways so I don't want to waste the stuff just to rip it out later. I finish stocking and clean up. I decide to clean up the kitchen real well b/c we never had a good chance to do it before we moved in. I finish that up and decide to start this blog. It seems kind-of boring but maybe it will get better later. Who knows.