Raise the Roof

The ceiling in the addition to our house is a little different. It has rafters that are exposed to the room, which creates a very interesting architectural element, especially with their 9.5 ft height. (the funny part is that this ceiling is only one of six different types in our entire house, but more on that in another post).

Unfortunately, the ceiling in the living room is also the one we see the most often. Between entertaining our weekly group on Sunday Nights (to watch Zombies, Vikings, and Games centered around the procurement of Thrones), and just Scott and I watching our nightly Modern Family and Big Bang Theory, we tend to see it a lot. This wouldn't be an issue if it had been finished correctly.

As it stood, there were some flaws. The first of which was the single layer of paint that was used to cover the dark plywood ceiling and beams. The second of which was the horrible patch job applied to the raw wood that was never sanded. Coming in third would have to have been the yellowing of whatever spackle had been originally used and how in areas, the caulking was pulling away from the wood, leaving small cracks and gaps.

Gross.

One night, as we laughed for the 100th time as Bernadette Rostenkowski screamed downstairs at Howard Wolowitz's mom, Scott and I both brought up how the ceiling needed a little bit of love. The next day, I ran out and grabbed some caulking and started the very boring task of prepping the 23ftx17ft expanse for it's new eventual coat of paint. 

Some places we couldn't do much about. This dip has been there since we moved in, but was inspected and merely described as, "a dip in the roofing". It was reported to not have any impact on the state of the roofing itself, so we have left it alone. As for the rest of the roof, the 'before' images are pretty revealing.

Other parts were just never painted, like around where the ceiling fan is mounted.

But after everything was patched, the difference was astounding. We haven't painted it yet, but even just having less gaps has brightened the room.

The biggest issue was where an old wood burning stove had previously stood in the corner of the living space. It had been taken out before we even toured the house, but the piece of wood that had been haphazardly placed over the hole was a less than desirable solution to hide it's remnants.

I carefully unscrewed all of the screws (none of which, after examination, matched in the slightest) and pulled down the old piece of scrap. I suppose I should have at least been happy that someone painted it white. The side that had faced the attic looked like this.

I'm guessing that most of the debris is from the old stove pipe (which was only taken out when we had our new roofing installed), but I wouldn't put it past some rodents to have made a little home up there. Ugh.

Once the old ceiling bandaid had been ripped off, it was time to apply a new sterile bandage that would hide the blemish much more convincingly. I grabbed some scrap wood and cut it in half, leaving me with two strips. These strips were going to support the piece of wood I would use to patch the hole. I could have also used a piece of drywall and some drywall mud/mesh, but I used wood so that it would blend in with the rest of the wood textured ceiling. It helps that we also had it in scrap, so this fix cost us nothing.

After cutting a piece of plywood that we had sitting around in the garage to the appropriate size (14in x 14in, how nice!), I then screwed it into the two supports that I had already mounted. (I did spray a coat of white primer on the plywood before mounting it, just to make it a little easier to paint later)

Sexy.

Using a scraper, I tried to take off as much of the extra material that was stuck around the hole as possible Then I patched it the same way you would patch a wall. Mud tape, mud/spackle/sand, add more mud, repeat.

While that dried, I went around and patched any other places that needed a little attention.

When everything had dried, been sanded, and was smooth, I came back to the new patch and gave it a quick coat of some white paint I had in the garage. Check out the difference.

Waaaaaaay before:

Sort of After:

After:

What?! WHERE DID IT GO?! I believe it was a victim of my awesomeness...

We haven't quite gotten to repainting yet. As with anything, it's a process. We are just generally pleased to have most of the eyesores out of the way for when we do paint.

What do you think? Is repainting a ceiling a waste of time "as long as it's white", or do you think a little ceiling paint goes a long way toward cleaning up the look of a room? Let me know in the comments!

Haunted House

We're big fans of Halloween (if you hadn't figured it out already), so when we decided to have a party last weekend, we really wanted to trick out the house. Here are a couple of my favorite (spooky) things.

Two bags of spider web later, the ceiling of the living room was appropriately webbed. Though not pictured, we ended up throwing a bunch of little plastic spiders all around it and it really helped set the mood in the place. It was a really fun element, but kind of tricky with the fan. Be sure to secure the web tightly above so it doesn't get caught up in it!

In the family room, I found this window cling that really haunted the place. With the giant white shade behind it, our headless lady has been haunting our neighborhood for two weeks. The best part is that it works both ways. We walk through the room all the time and have to remind ourselves that no one is outside looking at us (without a head)!

This is actually something I picked up from Young House Love (one of my favorite home blogs). Just cut out the shape of the bats out of black craft paper and tape it inside the shade. We also switched out the light bulbs so that they were appropriately scary. This lamp ended up being blue.

In another recent post, I talked about putting together my centerpiece for the dining room. We also added a red light bulb to the drum light to really add a finishing touch to the creepiness. We eventually finished off the table by putting a spiderweb table cloth on it.

Also in the dining room, we took down our big pictures and put up these guys. As you walk from one side to the other, they change revealing ghoulish secrets in each photo. They were $1 each at Target.

Last but not least (We did decorate more, but these are just the highlights), I decided to make our guest bathroom super creepy. I took some red paint and wrote 'HELP' and put a couple of gross hand prints on the shower curtain liner that we had. Then, we put a some flickering tea lights behind it. We also took one of those fake arms and had it coming out of the floor vent, so when you turned the light on, it looked like it was trying to grab your ankles! ooOOOoooo! We only left the bathroom decor up for the party, though. It wasn't amazingly functional, but it did creep out people on the day of!

Happy Halloween! Did you decorate? Have fun partying or trick or treating tonight!

This is a Story All About How Our Roof Got Flipped-Turned Upside Down

When we put our 'bid' into the sellers of the house for some work to be done, we pretty much gave two options. They could either fix a clogged toilet, some broken windows, and a couple of plumbing issues, or they could replace the roof. To our surprise, the sellers were super awesome and decided to replace the roof for us. Huzzah!

We had gotten a quote that seemed like a pretty good deal and went ahead and used a national box store to do the install. It was only later when we were told that the price of the quote was actually $2,600 higher than originally stated, due to our oddly shallow addition roof. An even later phone call revealed that some people are just not great at math, and our rep had just tagged the extra money for the cost of the specialized materials onto the overall cost rather than taking the cost of the addition materials off and adding the correct ones on.

Eventually, we got everything straightened out. The date was set for August 5. Everything looked good.

Then, on August 2nd, a giant truck rolls up to our house (which was currently housing a couple worse-for-wear bachelorette partiers) and delivers the materials for the roof. Scott and I had figured that the materials would just be brought with the installers on the agreed upon start date, but apparently not. Unfortunately, we were not told or warned about this delivery, so I drearily drug myself outside with as much of a smile as I could muster and greeted the Duck Dynasty shirt wearing delivery man the best I could.

The install itself was to start a couple of days later. The first portion went pretty smoothly. The installers were running late, but when they got here, they really got a lot done.

They had to tackle the house in two stages because the addition roof needed a little extra love, so the main part of the house was completely finished that night with a promise that they would return the next day (weather permitting) to finish the addition. That meant that they tore up and reshingled the entire older portion of the house in about 4 hours. Leela, of course, wasn't a fan of this part.

Yeah, she hides in the bathtub when she gets scared. We call it the "Puppy Bomb Shelter"

When they left, we were looking pretty good, though. We chose Owens Corning Oakridge Brownwood AR Laminate Shingles. We didn't want to go with black because the house is a tan, so the browns really play off the stone in the house already.

We also chose a dimensional shingle, which gives your roof a little more texture. The shingles don't lay completely flat, so it is a little more decorative than the alternative.

So much dimension!

So we were really pleased with the roof so far. We liked the look, but mostly, the peace of mind that came with the guarantee of no leaks for the next 25 years.

Living in Kentucky means that the weather changes at the drop of a derby hat. It can be a perfect 75 degrees and sunny, but then in 30 minutes time, turn into a massive storm with high winds and severe weather warnings. You learn to get used to it. Rain also means that the roofers can't do their job, though, so we knew that we would be gambling with the KY weather in order to get this project done. Unfortunately, it didn't cooperate.

Brown=Finished. Black=Not Started (Yet. Not referring to the Sam in the corner.)

Seven days after they had put the new roof on the main part of the house, the roofers returned on an overcast Monday to finish the addition. They arrived, started tearing up the old roof, then stopped, and covered it with tarps just in time for the rain to start. They were working for all of 3 hours. Why did they start on what was obviously a rain day? We will never know.

What we did find out (and was expected), was that the roof that had been on the addition was wrong. Really wrong. Scott said that he got to feel the material that had been taken off and it wasn't plywood, but some fuzzy, super absorbent material that was obviously incorrect. The roofers had to purchase new plywood to replace the entire addition roof in order to set things right, which of course added to the cost. The day had not gotten off to a great start.

What made it worse is that tarps do not protect against rain as well as the roof that they had just torn off did.  We had leaks. Three by 10pm, and they were all right over our TV and other electronics in the living room.

We grabbed bowls and towels, trying to catch as much of the dirty roof water as we could. The rest of the night was spent listening for more leaks and running to the store for plumbers putty and silicone (Which, as any good DIY-er knows, doesn't set in the wet, so we had to wait for a lull in the rain to even apply it).

Needless to say, we were not happy campers at this point. We didn't understand why they would tear up our roof when there was no need to if there was impending rain. We let them know that night, and they promised to be back the next day to fix it. No shows. The day after? I left the house around 2, tired of waiting for them to show up.

Around 7pm, Scott gets a phone call. They are at the house and working on the roof. At 7pm. We appreciated their dedication to finishing at any time, but at this point, just wanted the job done. We were tired of cringing at the forecast and checking our roof for more leaks. We just wanted our roof, finished, on our house.

The next day, 11 days after they began, the roof was finally completed.

And a little uglier than we thought it would be. At least it's done right!

This job, which was initially promised as being "two to three days at the most" somehow turned into televen days of frustration and an emotional roller coaster for both us and our terrified canine companions. I know that this seems over dramatic, and maybe it is, but you don't have to be a home owner to want to get a job done quickly and painlessly, whether it be a roof or just getting your laptop fixed.

Getting a contractor to do a job is supposed to get the job done quickly and correctly. Unfortunately, it doesn't mean it completely takes the worry out of the project, either. Sometimes things are just going to be complicated, no matter what you do to avoid it.

TEASER:

We have been able to work on our back yard! Here is a sneak peek at what we've accomplished so far!