Water Water Everywhere

I've previously mentioned our "moat." Basically, anytime it rained water collected everywhere. There are definite drainage issues ALL over the neighborhood - believe me we walked around and checked things out. There are plenty of drains and soggy yards all over the place. But it really didn't make us feel any better to discover just how bad things were at our house.



Oooh - and the window wells? So yucky. I'm sure it had been this way for MANY years, but I sure can't understand why the previous owners thought this was ok! Different priorities I guess.
I am happy to report that we have not had any water get into our basement. Well, to be honest, water's getting in but the sump pump and drain tile are handling it. The previous owners had a dry basement system put in. It's a good thing too, but we knew there was plenty we could do on the outside to help these issues. So we put together a moat abatement plan!

• cut back trees away from house
  
• clean gutters
• repair cracked downspouts
  
• remove yews
• bring in dirt and regrade entire yard
• install downspout drains
• install french drain on south side

I am also happy to report that as of today, we have finished all of these things. Well when I say "we" I mean a network of professionals, and family we conned into helping us. Dave (Aaron's dad) had the pleasant task of cleaning the sludge from all the gutters (and believe me, it was SLUDGE). My mom repaired or replaced cracked downspouts (and also cleaned out even more sludge from inside them). We paid to have everything else done thanks to our first time homeowners credit. We just need to add "install dry creek bed" to that list. We plan to do that in our back yard.

Pics of our total yard transformation to come...it's pretty amazing!

This and That

So I've been trying to get this blog caught up, because a lot has happened in the two months we have owned the house. I can't believe it's been two months and we STILL aren't even living there! But we're getting closer.

All the bedrooms are painted. Yahoo! Of course we had to throw in several weeks of removing popcorn ceilings, then fixing various cracks and holes in the walls. The previous owners must have allowed their kids to play bumper cars inside, because WOW were there a lot of random nicks in the walls!

The first room was of course the guest bedroom - the one with the pink and white walls. We failed miserably at picking out the paint color - Mary Barnes came to the rescue with a color that is much more tolerable. Matches perfectly to a rug and huge painting we already own. Here it is again:
Doesn't this just make you want to come visit us? Come on down! Guests get a top priority if they have any special skills, because hey, while they're visiting we can put them to work! (many friends and family members are already acutely aware of this requirement)

Then there is the office. It was previously shared by two little girls and was purple. Here is a before of the purple room.
Popcorn ceilings came down and flat ceilings were born. Plenty of cracks and nicks and dents were fixed as well. For the color, we decided we wanted something a little more bold because it will be our office. Thought maybe it would inspire us to, oh I don't know, pay our bills on time? That's all we can hope for these days. So again with Mary's help, we settled on "Spicy Hue." I love the color, but not as much as I love the name. I walked around saying "it's a spicy hue!" for a week. Ok, I admit it, I still say it. Plus I say it with a weird accent.
I know, it's a pretty wild color. It does look a bit brighter in photos. But again, it's the office. No one actually has to sleep in there.

Last, but certainly not least, is the master bedroom. Pretty standard here as well - went from popcorn to flat ceilings, fixed only a few cracks and nicks, and painted. It wasn't a terrible room, just needed spruced up(the ceiling medallion and fan are another story though - will cover that in a separate post!). The color was an odd pinkish-beige neutral. The boring before photo:
We wanted something a little less bold than the other two rooms and opted for "latte". A latte is not my drink of choice (that would be a misto actually), but I sure love this color. Neutral but not boring, IMHO.
So the bedroom ceilings and walls are all fixed up and painted. Still have the trim to do, but we'll be doing that after the floors are redone. Can't wait to see all three rooms all put together!

Yew Gotta Be Kiddin' Me

Our new house had yews. LOTS of yews. In fact, we probably had about 50 yews that were each about 40 years old. And they surrounded our ENTIRE house. Don't get me wrong, a few yews here and there look very nice. In fact, they stay beautifully bright and green all year long. But 50 yews?

In order to re-grade the entire property, we knew we had to remove the yews. But before they were chopped down, we had to take some last minute photos.When we had our trees trimmed, and one dead one removed, we also had all the yew branches cut off and chipped. The result looked pretty darn crazy but got the job done!
Yeah - it looked pretty ugly. But it was just one step closer to moat abatement...and to a new beautiful yard! More pics of our yard transformation to come...

A Clean Slate

The previous owners had installed new mantles on both the living room and basement fireplaces. They also had added crown molding in the living room. While these updates weren't terrible, they were a little traditional for our taste. Plus - they just looked out of place since they weren't original to the house. All I could see when I looked at the fireplace in the living room was the mantle, and all the built-ins surrounding it.
It wasn't long before we destroyed that mantle! Only 6 screws (and a lot of liquid nails) held that sucker to the brick. All in all the brick was in great shape underneath - nothing a little elbow grease couldn't take care of. Thankfully my mom used her elbow grease to fix that brick back up! Look at her - what a champ getting the paint and crud off with a small wire brush. With the mantle off, we think you see the fireplace now instead of all the white built-ins. Since this picture was taken, all the crown molding has also been removed. We can't wait to paint the metal black to make it look a little more sleak. We're also shopping around for some funky art to really make this fireplace pop. Can't wait to see what we come up with.

Popcorn Ceilings Hurt My Feelings

Oh popcorn ceilings. I am not a fan of popcorn ceilings. I have tried to determine why and it probably boils down to that they feel cheap to me. And they are ugly. I also grew up with flat ceilings (or mostly flat ceilings) so that is just what I prefer. However, I'm also smart enough to know they are a pain in the butt to remove. So when we started working on the rooms, our plan was to just re-paint the popcorn ceilings and try to make them look better. I was ok with that for the time being.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the plan changed when the ceilings started literally bubbling up and falling off in the master bedroom. Wendy, Dave and Aaron were painting the ceiling and when they saw what started happening - they stopped. So we talked about it, and decided HEY! if they are coming down that easy it won't be so bad. So began our journey to remove the popcorn ceilings.


I must admit it started off kinda fun. Spraying water all over the ceiling, watching it come down in sheets, laughing at how funny we all looked in our masks. We decided to go ahead with it in the office, too.

Aaron's uncles Brad and Kurt even came down from Liberty and Excelsior Springs to help us mud and sand the ceilings. They got us off to a great start. But then we sanded, and sanded, and sanded some more. My arm has never been so sore. There were four of us up there on ladders, sanding and sanding and sanding. There was dust everywhere. Even my boogers turned white. No joke. Look at poor Brad after sanding. And then me with Wendy. It was pretty miserable to be honest. And in case you are wondering, I have a shirt on my head.

I must admit we did a great job for being amateurs. We worked super hard. Kuddos to Wendy and Dave, they worked hard all day and then had to sleep in the dust storm that resulted from our adventure.

The Master turned out great - it's not perfect but no ceiling is. We had challenges in the office though. Mud started flaking down when we painted it, and there were spots that we could just not get. We ended up bringing in a professional to finish it up and it turned out great. Here is a before and after of the office ceiling (and of course notice the change in paint color!!!!)


Wow - it seems so strange to write about these ceilings in one little post. There were just hours and hours and hours put into them. That's just how these home improvement things go I guess! Thanks to my sister Rachel for the brilliant title for this post - it really summed up our experience with the popcorn ceilings!!!!!

One Room Down...

Aaron's parents scheduled a trip to KC awhile back. The way things worked out, they would arrive 5 days after we took possession of the house. We figured this was the perfect motivation to get the guest bedroom done. We would have one room done, and they would have a place to stay. Perfect!

The guest room was painted pink and white as it had previously been a little girl's room. Here's a before pic:
Cute for a little girl - not cute for our guest room. We had to sand along that scalloped edge, fix a pretty big crack in one of the corners, and fill in various holes. We had to use a coat of primer so we could properly cover all that pink. We also had to paint two coats (thanks to Mary Barnes for the custom color). We also took down an awful white ceiling fan, painted the popcorn ceilings, and installed a new light.

After several long days, including working 8+ hours on work days, and a lot of help from my mom, we were able to finish the guest room JUST in time for Wendy and Dave to arrive. And when I say JUST finish it, I mean it. We had about 20 minutes to spare. We still have to touch up the woodwork, and put a different rug in there. We used furniture that we already had or had recently purchased. I love that flower picture but Aaron's not a fan, so it will be forever tucked away in the guest room. So it's mostly finished. It certainly worked as their guest bedroom for a week. And it sure has come in handy to have that room put together - it's my favorite place to take a nap after a long day of painting, sanding, or yard work.

The Moat

So, remember that moat we discovered after it snowed the first day in our house? Well, here are the pics to prove it.

Maybe Wendy and Dave will bring us an alligator next time they visit us. ;-)

Our Gondolier Estate

So first things first...we are new homeowners living the dream in Gondolier Estates. That's not really the name, but that's what Aaron calls it because he can't remember what it really is. Of course a gondolier is an oarsman in a gondola (think Venice), which of course isn't appropriate in this case. Or is it???

We took possession of our new house on Saturday, March 28th. Here's a pic of me walking inside for the very first time:

Please note the awful door. And the awful light. Let's just say that door didn't have a chance - Aaron took it down immediately. The light is still hanging out until we can figure out what should go in its place. Oh - and those scrolls on the ends of the railings are going too.

Back to our first day in the house...we had a great time! We had never seen it empty and it seemed so much bigger and better than we remembered it. Only a few glitches - they forgot to leave the fridge and didn't remove the swingset. No worries - it was taken care of in less than a week thanks to our realtor.

Aaron was pretty excited to find a big screen in the basement.
Too bad it didn't work and there were mouse turds underneath!

We also discovered the "moat"our first day in the house. You see, we knew there was a drainage issue at the house. Forty year-old yews surrounded the house and they were creating a negative grade. We just happened to get an unexpected March snow storm that first day, and we saw just how much water accumulated around the house. Yuck. We may need a gondola to get around in all that water after all. Seriously!

Luckily the snow and all that water dried up in the next few days. Here are a few pics of the house taken during our first week owning it.
Believe me...it has changed a lot already, so stay tuned for more!
Sarah

Spicy Hue

Here's a taste of something spicy (the color is 'spicy hue')...we'll have more soon to illustrate the before and after.
~Aaron

Welcome to the Shore Shack!

Welcome to our blog. We just bought a house and want to chronicle the ups (and downs) of being new homeowners. We'll see where this takes us!