Carpet!

I am happy to report we've made another big step in improving the rental! New carpet!

The old carpet was in terrible condition. Stains everywhere, worn out, you name it. Yuck.

Well, Jesse is on vacation this week and he went out and had new carpet installed.

Matting ready to get put down:

In progress:

Almost done! Looks so much better.

All that was left! XD

I haven't seen it in person yet, but Jesse says it makes the house like 1000x better. Very exciting! We're nearing the finish line!

Trim Queen

Happy New Year!

Well, almost.

The holidays are here and of course that means time spent both at the rental and also away doing holiday shiz.

However, I did get in a couple good days working on the trim. Remember the trim? Remember its lovely condition?

Pretty much like that throughout the house.

I tried some old trim paint we had and it was not covering anything at all. I wasn't sure what to do with this trim. A stop at Sherwin Williams didn't help. The "expert" there told me to just replace all the trim.

Uhhhhhh no.

Another stop at Lowe's and I headed to the rental with fresh trim paint that included primer. And what do you know, it covers beautifully!

I started in the kitchen and repainted all the baseboards as well as the door trim around the utility room, living room, and pantry.

The next day I was back and painted all the baseboards and door trim in the hallway. The kitchen and the hallway were by far the worst.

They look much better now! Here's an example:

Before

After

Before

After

I'm really stoked about how well it's turning out. A paint brush specific for painting trim has really helped make it easier too. Yay!

Definitely not done with the trim but hopefully more progress is made over the New Years weekend. 

Getting Cozy with John Moore

Well...... We knew it could happen but we were so close to the finish line of "no-crazy-expensive-discoveries".

Didn't quite make it.

Last Friday we had an A/C technician from John Moore Services come out to take a look at the A/C. We hadn't been able to get it to run, but Jesse noticed that there were some fuses missing from it. We figured "hey! just replace those and we're good to go!"

Yeah, not so much.

The tech took a look at everything and broke the grime news that the A/C needed quite a few new parts including a condenser fan motor. It appeared that the A/C had been left running for a long amount of time and some of the parts were burned out. Our only assumption is that the previous owners had cranked the thing way down and then left it running after they moved out.

Considering the condition they left the house in and the fact that when they literally drove away for the last time they left the garage door and front door WIDE OPEN, then I wouldn't be surprised if they left the A/C running full force when they moved out. The missing parts are the weird part. Maybe the neighbors got tired of hearing it run and yanked them (the A/C is about 4 feet from their front door. GG builders).

Anyway. It's possible the tech was shamming us a bit, but how could we know? We needed the A/C fixed. Plus he seemed like a genuine and honest guy and my gut instinct is usually right. So I don't think he was just trying to scare us into a new unit.

But a new unit is what we went with. Fixing the old one was estimated to cost nearly as much.

The next day (and $5300 poorer) we meet the John Moore guys at the rental again and they installed a new A/C unit - both the outside box and the attic unit. Then Sunday they were out one final time to do a thorough cleaning of our air ducts which were filthy apparently. Since it looks like the old owners never used filters I'm not surprised (plus the year and a half of dust from the house sitting).

So there you have it. Expensive surprise! But here in Houston you MUST have a working A/C. So now we do. Plus it has a 10-year warranty.

While all the A/C work was being done, I got more painting finished. We decided to do a full coat of new paint in the living room. It was probably in the best shape of the whole house, but did need some touch up spots. Unfortunately our paint match is just a bit darker than the original so you could see the touch up spots. So a full coat it is. No big deal.

Jesse also finished fixing the back fence. Hurrah!

The major things left are:

New carpet
Refrigerator
Paint Trim
Pressure Wash
Clean
Clean up yard

Hulking Out

Jess worked on the rental's fence this weekend. There's a section missing so he got new boards and went to town.

Apparently he doesn't know his own strength and broke his hammer.

Well, almost closed up. ;)

Garage Door Drama

It's been quiet this past week. The US Thanksgiving holiday hit so we didn't get a whole lot of house stuff done.

One thing we did address was the jacked up garage door on the rental.

I'm not sure exactly what happened to it. It's warped in several areas, dinged up, marked up, and completely jammed. The rails inside the garage are warped to hell.

One of our neighbors, Ty, told us that when the previous owner moved out* that they left the house completely open. Like literally left the front door wide open and the garage door up as they drove away. What a bunch of  dicks.

Anyways, after it was apparent they weren't coming back, Ty and her husband went over and locked up the house and tried to close the garage door. Ty said her husband rigged the garage door enough to get it down but that it was tough. I thanked them for doing that. They probably prevented more damage from kids/squatters.

Well, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving we had an estimator out to look at the door. We knew it would need heavy repair or possibly be replaced entirely. Sure enough the estimator said it would cost almost as much as a new door to fix the existing one. We decided it would not only look nicer but be better in the long run to replace the door, rails, etc entirely.

Jess and I had guessed the garage door ordeal would cost us about $1500. So when the estimator said we could get a good door completely installed for $750 our eyes grew as big as saucers. We asked how much it would be to also get an opener installed. $280. So after taxes and all our total would be about $1100 for a new door AND an opener. Score!

We were sooo excited to not only come in under our budget for the door but to also get an opener that we didn't think would make the budget. So excited!

We scheduled the install for the Saturday after T-day and happily went off to stuff ourselves with turkey.

Soooo here's where some drama starts. Maybe drama is too strong of a word but there were some issues getting this damn door installed.

Saturday arrives. The GDP (garage door people) told me they'd call about an hour before they headed to the rental so I could meet them out there. So I'm waiting and finally get a call around noon.

"Ma'am, we're here to install your garage door. Is anyone here?"

/facepalm

I specifically told them no one was living there and that's why they needed to call before they got to the house so I could meet them. Whatever. I tell the guy I'm on my way but it'll be about 20 minutes. He says no problem and will start setting up.

Well, about 10 minutes into my drive over there he calls again. This time he informs me that he noticed the new door is actually damaged. Since it's Saturday his distributor closed at noon so he can't get another door that day. We have to reschedule for Monday.

Ugh. Well, shit happens so no big deal. Jesse is going to be at the rental Monday morning anyways so it works out. The gas company was coming out to hook all that up so they could come do the garage door too.

I get to the rental and they're already gone which is fine. I do get some painting done.

So Monday comes. I'm at work and Jess is out at the rental. The gas guy shows up, hooks everything up, and we're rocking the furnace, hot water heater, and stove/oven now. Woo!

Garage door guys also show up. This is a good Monday so far! Jess is sending me texts updating me on everything and it seems things are going well.

Around noon he texts me that the door is all installed, he paid, and the guys are gone. Good deal. Glad that's over with. Or is it?

Jess texts me, "The door is a little darker than the old one was."

Weird, but no big deal. A couple shades darker isn't going to make that much of a difference. Then he sends me a picture.

What. The. Fuck?

That is A LOT darker! That is dark brown! Our old one was beige. What? I don't even...

So at first I'm thinking "well, ok. It's not that bad." But, it's not right. And it doesn't really look good.

Jess heads home to get some sleep and I'm sitting at my desk at work. All I can think about is that door. And I start to get pissed.

When the estimator was out there I made a point to ask about the color. Would it be the same or close to the same color? He assured me it would be. This was obviously not. Why did we just pay $1100 for a door that's not correct?

I finally decide that no, this is not acceptable. So I call the GDP and ask about it. The guy I speak with (at their office so not one of the installers) explains that the doors come in a few standard colors and might not match exactly to what the builder painted the door originally. I'm like, "yeah dude, I get that. But we had tan and now it's dark brown."

He's goes, "Oh. Let me check into this." lol

The guy drives by the house and calls me back. "Yeahhhhhh they shouldn't have put a dark brown one on. Not sure why they did that. We will send a new door out to be installed in the right color."

PHEW! Let me tell you I was getting to that super pissed off woman stage and that's never fun. I'm generally laid back and chill so I'm glad I didn't have to fight about this with them.

They said they'd be out to install on Wednesday, so I was pleasantly surprised when they called Tuesday afternoon and said they could head out there already! I meet them there and they had the new door on in about 30 minutes.

Almost done.

This dude was super nice and awesome. Kinda an eccentric old guy. XD

Mucho better!

It's not an exact match to the old color but it's WAY better than that dark brown and looks fine on the house. =D

I must say that every single person I spoke with at the garage door place was very friendly, nice, and helpful. Yes there were two big bumps in the road, but they were always great to talk to and they made things right in a quick manner.

Shit happens. It's just unfortunate we had two shitty happenings in the process of getting this door replaced. lol

But now we have a beautiful new door AND an awesome opener on it. This opener is way better than the one we have on our own house. Very quiet and with a lock switch and a light switch. Fancy.

Soooo success!

So now we basically need to paint the trim, replace the carpet, get an A/C guy out there to figure out the A/C issue and then it's just cleaning and small fixer upper things.

It's taking a bit longer to get this house in shape than we thought, but that's ok. Since we both work fulltime (and Jess gets drafted to OT a lot) we aren't stressing it. We hope to have it ready to go by the new year.


* i.e. kicked out due to foreclosure

From super gross to not as super gross

I bought this stuff called "Super Kick-ass Fuck-That-Grimy-Shit" cleaner. I used it on the gross bathtub in the second bathroom.

It worked pretty well. Not sparkling new, but doesn't look like you could catch ebola from it anymore.

Disgusting:

Less disgusting:

We have a lot of cleaning still to do but this is a start at least! I'm hoping to tackle this tub again and get it even cleaner.

Awesome news from the weekend

Two AMAZING bits of news (well, for us anyways haha):

1. Jesse found a valve on the hot water heater that was turned off. After turning it on the water in the master bathroom is working! HALLELUJAH!

Man, we were really concerned about the costs we'd have if we had to call a plumber out.

2. We pulled down the fan/light in the living room that wasn't working. Turns out one of the wires had just come loose. Jesse reconnected it and LET THERE BE LIGHT (and uh.. air flow). HALLELUJAH PART TWO!

Again, we thought there could be a wiring problem we'd have to call an electrician out for. Nope! More expenses avoided.

Funny how you always think the worst of a situation. Glad these two turned out to be no big deal. =D

In other news, we completed painting the two blue rooms. They both required two coats (plus a primer coat in the dark blue room). They are looking mucho better now.

Also, Jesse replaced the broken thermostat. The AC is still not up and running, but at least this will be ready when it is.

Finally, I added the rock garden in the front. Pretty happy with how this turned out. I'll be putting a nice potted plant on that front part once we're ready to lease it out.