A look back…May

The weather finally got nice enough that we were able to do some yard work in May. Up to this point we didn’t have any equipment to do this work. We bought (or were given) a lawn tractor, lawn mower, trimmer, and wheelbarrow.


We also had to take care of some fallen branches and plant our garden.



My dad had taken all the radiator covers back to Pennsylvania so that he could grind off all the old paint (dozens of layers) and re-paint them. We finally got them back and had to store them in the medium bedroom.


Chris’ dresser was falling apart and he needed a place to put his clothes. We got a dresser and nightstand from Freecycle and I painted them to match my old bed frame.


For a full two months we had been living without a functional kitchen. We were eating a lot of frozen dinners and getting a lot of carry out. That all ended at the end of May when we got our new countertops and sink installed. We had also purchased all of our appliances by this point as well.


After months of having a missing railing on the back porch, we finally got around to putting up a new one. We plan on completely re-finishing this area but we needed a railing in order to pass our HUD inspection.

A look back…April

April was all about the condo. We had to re-finish both of the condo bathrooms. We installed a new toilet, vanity, and light in each bathroom and installed a new tub and tile in the big bathroom. We also put new flooring in the kitchen, installed new outlets and switches, painted and cleaned everything.




We also got some very big tasks accomplished at the house. A sub-contractor installed the new roof and gutters and we hired a company to install new windows. These two huge jobs made the outside of the house look a million times better than it did before.

A look back…March

March was rather tedious. We spent a lot of the month patching hardwood floor (where there was bad wood) and sanding the floors down to bare wood. The main level has about 2000 sq. ft. of hardwood – it takes a very long time to remove all that stain and polyurethane!



The temperature had been freezing in the weeks following the blizzards but for my birthday weekend, the temperature shot up and there was a lot of snowmelt. At this point, we didn’t have any gutters on the house. The melting water came right into our basement – we vacuumed up hundreds of gallons of water and then bought a dehumidifier.


We knew we had kitchen cabinets arriving soon so we had to finish the kitchen floor. This was our first experience with staining and polyurethaning. I’m just glad that we got better at it as we went along!


Both sets of parents helped out with the cabinet installation. Because we have very thick plaster walls, it was very hard to find the studs. Fortunately they were all installed without too many problems.


Our initial plan was to finish the main level of the house before we moved in. In March, we found good renters for our condo so we decided to move in early and live in a disaster area for awhile. We moved into one half of our house so that we could finish the other half. The first few months we slept in the dining room.

A look back…February

February started with a blizzard – two in fact. Maryland got slammed with two in a row and we ended up with a total snowfall of about 5 feet. We got snowed in for a few days for each blizzard. It was frustrating that we had time off work but couldn’t get over to the house. We did get our exercise by shoveling out our cars, sidewalks, and parking spots at the condo and then the driveway and sidewalk at the house – twice!




The rest of February was spent working on the floors in the den and kitchen. The den floor was so bad that we had to remove the old boards and replace with all new boards. The kitchen tile was removed in January and we installed new hardwood there as well.



Our contractor didn’t do too much on our house but the one thing that they completed was the new sunroom. They tore down the old brick and broken window wall and replaced it with a slider and new floor to ceiling windows.

A look back…January

January started with getting insulation in the exterior walls. Our contractor cut all the holes in the walls and we hired a company to blow in the insulation in the cavities. We spent three full days patching all the holes – beveling edges, drilling countersinks, installing wood strips, matching plugs to holes, installing plugs, and putting on multiple coats of drywall compound.



There were two dozen pine trees lining the driveway and 5 that were very close to the house on the right side. We had all of these removed – it made a huge difference in the way our house looked – from dark and claustrophobic to bright and open.


We thought we could live with the kitchen for a little while but it turned out that it was just too horrible. The cabinets were all stained and smelly (no amount of cleaning would remove the odor), the only appliance that worked was the refrigerator, the tile was extremely slippery, the dishwasher and disposal weren’t hooked up (but someone put food in the disposal like it did) and the countertops were worn through. We gutted the kitchen to make way for a new one.


There was a very small covered porch off the back of the kitchen. It served no purpose and was extremely ugly. We had to remove it in order to get our new roof and gutters installed. We ripped it off pretty quickly (and made a lot of noise in the process!). When we were removing the roof, we realized that there were up to 6 layers of shingles on this little mudroom.

Happy Birthday Money Pit and A Look Back - December...

Happy Birthday Money Pit!!

Can you believe that we’ve had the house for a year already? Time sure flies! To celebrate this one year of hard labor, for the next twelve days I am going to summarize each month that we’ve been here. It’ll be like our 12 Days of Christmas Home Renovation. It’s amazing how far we’ve come…

A look back…December

December marked a very big month for us…buying our first fixer-upper (aka Skocik Money Pit, aka Pee Pee Soaked Heck Hole). We went in with the delusion positive attitude that this was going to be a fun and rewarding adventure.


We hit the ground running and started by removing a lot of the junk and debris from the house (mostly in the basement and attic).


We knew that the house was inadequately insulated so my parents were kind enough to make the trip down to work all weekend long in the attic while a snowstorm blew into town. This was the “walking home 5 miles in 18 inches of snow” saga. I don’t think we’ll ever live it down!



The dining room had a little secret – it housed a half bathroom in the corner of the room. Fortunately for our dinner guests, we didn’t think this was a good idea. We removed the walls and for a little while, we had a toilet in the dining room.



After Christmas, my parents came down to help us with some big projects. We removed the bulkheads in the kitchen (and found out that we had no insulation in the exterior walls). My uncle also came down to help us remove the fiber board ceiling in the upstairs and install new insulation and drywall. This took a few days but made a big difference.

Happy Birthday Chris!

Today is the birthday of my wonderful husband. His “no work” gift will hopefully get him ready for our next big projects – BATHROOMS!