Home Revival Spanish Style

Echoes

2009-10-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

So I'm finishing up this week alone here at the Alamo; I'll be honest, I don't much like it here when it's empty... it echoes, and then there's that ethnic presence too, that seems to make white folks like me uncomfortable. Good thing Jaydee's car looks like a cop car! Turns out the natives aren't too fond of the Law Man-- so much so they walk on the other side of the street now. I put on my big girl pants, poured a few stiff drinks, and I've managed to soldier through.

Jaydee is off on a cruise, with cabana bois rubbing sunscreen on his back, as he tries to escape the harsh Florida fall weather. It's that same weather that has us insulating the basement. It's mostly done, and unfortunately Fran and Getterduns had to re-do where they hung the TV mount because it was too low. Notice that awesome caulk job they did to fixor it up!

The crew is talking a break, especially since Scott the painter dude is having heart surgery (good call getting that taken care of, chief). And in other news, Fran's wife set his pillows on fire in the driveway. Do you know why? BECAUSE THEY WERE DIRTY! Jaydee is fortunate I have not set anything on fire in his absence.

That's partially because I have Carlton Meowpants for company, since he's officially moved in. The meowing at all hours of the night has mostly stopped (bet Jaydee is missing that action while on his cruise!). I got my classy cat to stop drinking out of the toliet, and I've managed not to get ragingly drunk enough where I'm vomiting in the toliet, or out in the streets screaming and busting beer bottles. Baby steps.

The Wall of Shame and Agony

2009-09-30T04:45:00.000-07:00

From the beginning of this whole project I knew that we had some work to be done on the back wall of the house. The beautiful stained glass window was leaking water like a screen door on a battleship, and we figured we'd have to replace just the bathroom portions or caulk it up and be fine.

As the earlier post showed we were VERY VERY wrong. I knew that I had some work to be done on this house but this was almost too much. I started wondering what I had gotten myself into. I was spending massive amounts of funds that I had allocated to other projects and it seemed like there was no end in sight. I had 3/4 of a house and the rest was utter shit that had to be ripped out and repaired. The mold inspector said I had water damage, how much, noone knew. A mold guy said "You have mold!" and I knew that I had some back there, but when we gutted the bathroom everything just came to a head and we all knew that this wall was utterly destroyed.

So Fran and Company started ripping apart my house turning it into a convertible.

For almost an entire week they ripped out the old and rotten plywood, the previous people who redid that wall had used standard board instead of Pressure Treated so any water or mold had plenty of places to grown and breed.

With so much water pouring into the house because not only the previous Savage Rapists didn't pickup and maintain this house the people who bought, sold, and flipped property didn't either. Years of water pouring into the window and seeping down to all cracks and crevices of that back wall ate away at not only the plywood but the studs as well. All of this goes back to just one thing: Install a Gutter and it will save your house.
Left side of the house:

Right Side of the house:

After almost 3 days of ripping out old stucco, that stuff was HEAVY, and reframing, reinforcing, and reviving that back wall with putting in PT studs and PT plywood with nails that could pierce tank armor (I better be getting a tax credit for this), the outside of the back wall was starting to shape up into something usable.

They knew that they couldn't rip out the entire wall at one time and took it piece by piece. Ripping out the old, putting in new studs if applicable (really only near the bathroom was it that bad with old termite and water damage, and putting on new material.
You can see that we ripped out the stained glass monstrosity that has caused all of this mess and boarded it up. Yes I'm living in a wooden shack at this time.

I have to say it was disheartening in the least to come home to this house with Tequila and just slump against the wall in a mess when you see your bathroom like this

I had several soul searching moments here in these 2 weeks while they slowly rebuilt my house. I questioned my impatience and my need to buy this house. I ranted and raved about the previous owners all 4 of them going back to the old lady who let that damn electrican remodel her house. I cried, I raged, I threw stuff. Tequila helped me in so many ways that I could never thank her enough for being there for me. In the end I picked myself up and said "This house will not defeat me, this is only wood and brick, this will get done." and at the end of week 2 I had this:

A brand new wall full of modern concrete, PT board, and goodness. All that mold, mildew, and rotten wood GONE and repalced. Any problems with the outside had vanished because I destroyed it at it's heart. Stabbing the savage beast and all that jazz.

At this point I knew "This won't be so bad after all."

BECAUSE WE'RE CLASSY FOLKS!

2009-09-25T23:12:00.000-07:00

So I'm officially moved in now, as of this week. My crazy Aunt forced my hand to move sooner than I anticipated, do to her lipping off at U.Ted and him being like "YOU AND YOUR 6 CATS NEED TO GO"! I shit you not, 6 cats. To be fair, one of them, Carlton Meowpants, is mine. I left him here when I moved to Minneapolis, and thank Allah that Jaydee earlier that week gave the big thumbs up to him joining us at the Alamo. Next week will probably be the super fun drive(he hates car rides and yowls loudly) from Palmetto to Tampa (roughly an hour), so Mr Meowpants can grace our evolving abode with his catastic presence.

I think Jaydee will get to some of the exciting changes, along with PIXPIXPIX!!!11!! going on here at the Alamo, soon (that is, if Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft dont sap all of his energies). I'm still not sure how I feel about the Jalapeno trim, but it's got a spicy name, and it's better than the pepto bismal-ish color it was before. It's moving forward thanks to Fran and his troupe of Getterduns (one of which had a girlfriend zombiefied on muscle relaxers last weekend helping him apply stucco to our BRAND SPANKIN' NEW BACK WALL-- that's mold free).

Currently, we have a toliet in our dining room; come on, what makes dining more luxurious than when you dont need to get up to go to the restroom?! But, it's not actually hooked up, so that's probably a poor idea. Well, frankly I'm thinking of keeping it there. It's directly across from the fridge, also located in the dining room, so it seems like a prime location...

You got mail!

2009-09-09T15:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of updates, not much going on except them finishing the back wall which is a HUGE post into and of itself. I put in a mailbox and now I can receive mail from whomever the hell really wants to send me mail. Apparently I had to write a letter to my insurance provider because they couldn't send me mail and paperwork got returned.

Dear Insurance Provider Drone,

A. I do live here
B. There wasn't one here before
C. I don't have a mailbox because I didn't put one in, had other priorities besides a mailbox
D. Don't take away my insurance.

Sincerely,

Me

PS yes that's a hubcap on my lawn.

The Smell of Wood

2009-09-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

It smells like cedar in the master bedroom/bathroom, guest bedroom. A marked improvement over how it was before they took down that wall; mold & rot (much like how I imagine Rosie O'Donnell's gunt to smell).

Fridge came in this week. Always nice to be able to have perishable foods again (IT FEELS SO NICE HERE IN THE 20th CENTURY!) . The toilet, which came this week does NOT have a beer holder (one of my friends said that technically, whomever sitting on it is the "Beerholder"). However, SOMEONE thought it was a good idea to pay money for installation instead of having one of the MULTIPLE construction workers running around the house do it. Leaves less monies to buy creepy dolls. Or go to Taco Bus, one of our fantastic nearby establishments. A few other nearby establishments that I do not now if I will patronize: Ebony Beauty Supply, the prostitutes outside the pawn shop, or the Wendy's at the corner (I barely trust their chicken nuggets anyway, much less at that location).

Anyway, back to this toilet. Allegedly it can suck down a fetus and is THE BEST. Notice the candle on the back: it is a light for hope... HOPE that more tiles dont fall down in the shower before Fran or another Getterdun fixors it with grout action. I liked the candle better when I was using it in the shower on day 2 of the occupation because one of the Getterduns fuckored up a fuse. It made my routine shower feel more romantic by the warm glow. And really, even when alone, who DOESNT need a more romantic shower?

Moving Day: Enter the Alamo!

2009-09-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

A bit out of order (you can thank Tequila and blogger for that)but we finally moved into the Alamo over the last weekend. Four trips from south to haul an ancient refridgerator, which is now going to the junk yard (THANKS BEST BUY!), and all the rest of my crap into the house.

Here's Tequila doing what she does best:

While all this was going Fran's crew of geterdone's tore apart my back wall of my house to identify how bad the water damage was. Needless to say I was crushed by the results.

Literally the entire wall from the stain glass window (remember that pretty thing?) down to the base of the studs was stained black with mold and mildew. I know I claimed my house had no mold but this was altogether a different animal.

As you can see the shower is completely fucked to hell and beyond. All of this is due to that stupid stained glass window that Tequila loves so much. This damage extended not only to the bathroom but to the two rooms adjoining the bathroom: Master and Guest Bathroom. I told Fran and Crew to TEAR DOWN THIS WALL in my most impressive Ronald Reagan voice. So they obliged me with crowbar, sledgehammer, and sheer force of will. Down it came and three trailer loads later the back of my house is barren studs and rotten plywood. All this because the stucco on the exterior of my house was loose and the more we dug at it the more we realize that this house has been hacked apart and redone dozens of times that just slapping on a coat of stucco would cause the wall to come peeling off and crashing down.

Am I stressed? Very. This wasn't what I expected to have to fix and it won't be cheap. I have to take time off of work and burn some vacation but it must be done. Big picture and long view of the end solution is what I must look at. Break this project into pieces and deal with it bit by bit. There's allot more to go over and I will upload some more pix when I can find them.

Day Three of The Occupation of The Alamo

2009-08-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

So, the basement's stripped down to cinderblock (including the kickass bar that was down there, but that just means we hafta build a better one now), and the whole back inside wall being gone. No, it wasnt Davey Crockett and his coonskin cap (although, I do really need to get one now... shit, with all of the other costumes I have that falls right in line. It was the team of getterduns, led by Fran.

They all dig me cause I have fantastic cans and I made em chocolate chip-pecan-caramel cookies. My first instinct was to bring a cooler of beer instead, but then because of a combination of heart ailments and terms of probation, they wouldn't have been able to take advantage of that.

I'll say this, props to them for being able to save my stained glass window in the bathroom I had fallen in love with (once I put back together the peices of my shattered heart from accepting the bar had to go).

Anyway, it's night three, we've both had meltdowns today, we are exhausted but at least have some sembalence of a kitchen now that we've unpacked it. After seeing the back of your house ripped up, a person needs to get some sort of feeling of accomplishment to keep the hairdryer out of the bath tub.

Day of Deconstruction

2009-08-31T05:39:00.001-07:00

As part of the lovely historic nature of this house I have what people up north call a Basement and down here in the south people call a Anomaly or "What the heck were you thinking?"

I hired a crew of people through friends at work to tear out some closets and do some odds and ends job to help repair the house. I bought some paint for the exterior wall as I figured it simply needed a nice coat of paint.

Things don't always work out as planned. I had them rip out the basement (pictures forthcoming when I unpack my laptop) and that took the entirety of a day to bring the basement to bare block and wood frame that is the underside my house.

10 Stupid things of note by the person who rehabbed the house before I bought it (Savage Rapists didn't do this, they were too cheap):

1. In a basement, in Florida. Do NOT use drywall, it absorbs water and tends to sag.

2. Putting up a single pair of 2x6s to hold up a support beam is not smart.

3. If you see broken concrete, fix it, don't build around it and then leave it alone

4. Caulking is nice, try buying some, this will help prevent WATER DAMAGE.

5. When building a deck on top a location with a drain-spout build in a small degree slope to drain water AWAY from the house not TOWARD.

6. 18" is too high for a step at the top. Build a grade, you already put in nice tile why not do it right?

7. Gutters, buy some, use some. Flat roof without them is asking for problems.

8. Styrofoam is not insulation. It's not even good to pack boxes with it, flat pieces are not meant to be shoved under areas that are prone to be damaged by waterfalls.

9. Cardboard is what I used to pack all my stuff up in boxes, using it as a baseboard is a stupid idea. Why? Well there sparkles it absobrbs water, easily damaged, and it sucks to paint.

10. I don't have anything really else to add to make it 10. I want to smash the people that did this 10x with a shovel in their groin. That makes 10 and 10 is good.

Mold! Fear The Expensive Silent Killer..or not

2009-08-25T16:43:00.001-07:00

or U.Ted vs Mold Guy Fight In Tokyo!

I went into this house knowing that there was mold on or in the house. The home has this musty smell to it. With the addition of a basement (yes I live in Florida and yes it's not normal) this complicates matter greatly due to the fact that there is something below the water table that should not be there trapping moisture in. Now I had no idea the extent of the damage of the mold or what the water damage done by the lack of a gutter that even the roofing guy claimed today was insane and stupid not todo. Savage Rapists didn't feel that spending $300 to run a gutter to save a $10,000 wall was a "smart" move. My loathing for their cheap attitude knows no boundaries.

I own the house now, full and clear, so today me and U.Ted decided "What the hell lets see how bad it is!" so he took his steel toed boot and punched a hole in the back wall where I thought I saw mold. Was there? Some on the back wall where it had gotten horribly wet when we pressure washed it, but no huge mounds of it. Went to the other wall, boom!, new hole put in there no mold found out there was a shitty patch job done so added that to the list.

Went into the basement, U.Ted asked "You gonna rip this all out?" I nodded and he took a hammer and gutted the back basement wall water damage 2 mold growth 0. We bleached and detoxed all the house and I tried asking him about mold damage and so forth. He's old school and said that most mold people are ex-asbestos and utter thieves trying to scam me for money. One guesstimate told me there was 4k in damage which was nuts.

We proceeded to pressure wash the house when this SWAT team of trucks landed on my lawn. I knew I had another mold guy coming but one introduced himself as the electrician and the other an AC guy. Both were pleasant to talk to, they were summoned out by my Mold remediation person as they saw the report and thought there was work to be done. AC guy quoted me for redoing the AC cleaning it out and redoing duct work. Not bad probably get it done. U.Ted chatted them up and they seemed on the up and up. Then came the Mold Guy.

Mold Guy was a short boxy lil fella with gold chains, expensive blue tooth gimmick in his ear, and a bluster that reminded me of Billy Mays. His last name didn't have a vowel in the end so I'm guessing he wasn't Italian but he could have fooled me. He broke out his fancy equipment exclaimed "Oh I can SMELL the mold!" and started spouting off certifications, accreditation's, what he makes an hour for expert witness, etc. A total egotistical maniac. He goes off about how I LEGALLY bought a house with mold and now it's on record with the state(the same recording govt my doctor said existed when this gal gave me a "present" when I was 17). All in All total hot air and bullshit. More claims of mold, mildew, and water damage and his team of people is going to fix all my problems...for a price as he starts marking up the estimate on my initial mold report with "+" signs indicating it's much higher.

In comes U.Ted and starts asking him about how he's licensed and what he does to fix X,Y,Z reaming the Mold Guy a new asshole. In comes the certification debate where one contractor spouts how they are certified in A,B,C and therefore they are 100% Believable Sons of Zion and you should not question him. Now me having certifications in my field is just laughing while these 2 guys go at it and eventually U.Ted goes outside to finish pressure washing my deck fired up and madder than hell.

Mold Guy: I don't know what your general contractor pressure washing guy does but he doesn't have any knowledge like I do.
Me: That guy out there pressure washing is Family with 30 years on the job doing building work in the state of Florida. He knows how to seal a building tighter than the asshole of the pope.
Mold Guy: Well it's going to cost more than 20k to fix this house as what I'm seeing by this mold report.
Me: You are basing this estimation on a mold report and not doing any other testing but want to rip down my walls and charge me a ton of money but you can't "prove" there is mold?
Mold Guy: Well here's my card!

In the end the SWAT team disseminates as the Mold Guy would not come back after I gutted the basement and mediate and tell me if I have mold damage or not. Fun times were had but I'm believing more and more that these guys are all preying on people's fear of mold and damage to the house. Is there mold in my house? Oh yes. Is it bad? Not as bad as the 20k in damage that my mold report was and the mold guy high balled the report for sure.

All in all, be careful of these Mold Remediation people. Check online, watch some videos on YouTube, save yourself the mental anguish and suffering that these vultures come in and tell you you have a bazillion dollars in damage when you could easily get in there with a saw, bleach, and some dry wall patching to fix it yourself.

Doomed to fail? No! Plan of Attack !

2009-08-23T13:25:00.001-07:00

Myself and Tequila went to Ikea for the first time, great place, has everythign you could possibly need and desire for a home, but there is such a thing as information overload. I think she went through a pack of cigarettes alone on that one trip. Round 2 I was the one that was rattled and I don't rattle easy.

When buying something as large scale as a house that requires renovation one must approach this as a large project and plan it all out accordingly. If not then you'll end up walking out of Home Depot with your head spinning a million miles a minute with terror and a feeling of overwhelming doom on your hands.

With both of us feeling we are getting in too deep I went and created a very simple spreadsheet to follow. I listed each room and ranked them in priority as far as what needs to be fixed and what doesn't. I then took out the top 15 or so items that MUST be done right away and listed them out in numerical order. I then took that information and formulated a nice plan of attack to tackle this project. After I wrote everything down, looked it over, changed things to better suit what needs to be done it wasn't so bad. Here's a bit of it:

Room	Priority: High/Medium/Low	Rank
Window/Door Sealant	High	1
Mold Damage	High	2
Home Insulation	High	3
Kitchen	High	4
Basement	High	5
Exterior Gutters	High	6
Master Bathroom	High	7
Housing Exterior	Medium	8
Master Bedroom	Medium	9
Exterior Wall Paint/Reseal	Medium	10
Guest Bathroom	Low	11
Guest Bedroom	Low	12
Living Room	Low	13
Dining Room	Low	14
Office	Low	15
Utility Closet	Low	16

I added extra notes onto the end of each one that says "Remove closet" "Remove drywall" "Add in fixture" etc. Another section lists if the rooms have access for fans, cable, what kinds of power outlets and so forth. All this work minimizes the tasks at hand and puts things into perspective. Sure it still is a bunch of work but each time I can cross one of these off my list (and pray another doesn't add to the bottom) the better I'll feel about finishing this project off.

I knew from the get go this was going to be some work (as evident by my messy caulking job I'll post later) and categorizing the tasks, labeling, and then working them through gives a sense of accomplishment that I know I've finished something instead of the feeling of "Oh I haven't done ANYTHING this house is a mess!" that I see online. You can NEVER plan enough as it makes the execution run smooth.

The Alamo: Better Than a Maytag Fridge Box

2009-08-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

As long as everyone gets their shit together, today should be a day for celebration because we will be homeowners as well as one more step away from living in a cardboard box. Even if the assbags at the bank dont have all of their t's crossed and i's dotted, we are still having steak, blowjobs and general merriment.

Technically I dont move in until October because

I dont want to live in a construction zone; yes, I know the house is livable, but it DOES smell a little funny, kind of like old ladies and the failures of the savage rapists who owned the house previously)
My current house has a pool, albeit full of scary hairy spiders, but it's also closer to work
It's just a general good idea to keep my house for the first month to have as a backup residence for when we do fumigation for the Alamo's spiders (obviously I have issues with spiders), or whatever else where we would need to vacate the house

No worries, soon I will occupy the house and bring with me some of my Aunt's creepy dolls to make the house feel less empty.

The home is mine..well the banks..

2009-08-21T09:45:00.001-07:00

Well today is the day. I go close on the house. A 45day process that is has had it's fair share of ups and down. Part of the purpose of this blog is to help out other home buyers from making some of the same bad assumptions I did and to show some of the steps along the way that I never knew about. I originally thought 45 days was too much time but I used every single one of those to deal with everything that had to occur.

4pm today I take possession of the Alamo from the Investors (you'll see this capitalized allot with emphasis on derision and scorn) and finally start to bring this old home back from the brink of death and breathe new life into it.

Bank Under Writers and you

2009-08-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

After much trial and tribulation I was able to secure the loan from the bank, victory almost at hand. Ten minutes before I was supposed to leave from work they said "OH by the way, we need tax information from you." This led to much turmoil and tribulation in finding out the Where's, Why's, and What For's.

Boils down to this: The recession has forced the lender's to basically run through a ton of hoops to make sure that the borrower isn't going to default. If you have many exceptions on your tax form (and what smart person doesn't) you are going to have to explain it all to the lender's especially if you are going FHA. In my case I drive almost 30k miles a year, this means I'm claiming a ton on mileage. My sole reason for buying this house was because:

A. It's closer to work
B. I don't have to spend a ton of money on Gas

By Defination! I will be mitigating expenses and therefore be saving money to put toward the mortgage. We will see if this flies with the bank, as logically it's sound, reasonable, and full of good ole American Common Sense. But these guys have the common sense of a spatula so we are one step closer to the overall end date.

Closing is still Aug 22nd, have to check to make sure that we have AC and power to all rooms. You'd be SHOCKED at how many outlets this place has.

Let's Hope I get this house

2009-07-31T08:04:00.001-07:00

Waiting on bank. I hate waiting.