Bone Tired. And a Winner.

As I may have mentioned on here before, we are well into the process of selling my childhood home. The papers are all signed, and so we have a few weeks left until we have to get the heck out.

In the midst of this, we needed to find a place to live. In the area where we live, there are basically no nice rentals. They are all dumps and they are all small.

My dad is so used to having a house that he didn't want to go back to apartment living, and we are basically a bit unsure about the economy and don't feel comfortable buying a house in this area. (Long story short: we live in an area that is being hit hard by the recession, and in this case it might never recover.)

So we were desperate. When our last-chance house fell through, my dad panicked. And agreed to rent a house from an acquaintance of a friend. This man's mother is in assisted living and her house had basically been sitting there for about 2 years.

And it hasn't seen an ounce of work since 1985 when her husband passed away.

Let me let that sink in for you. 1985. As in a year before I was born. No new carpet, paint, furnishings... just sitting. In a haze of cigarette smoke.

Let me say, when I first saw it, I cried. I couldn't imagine making this place livable. It was disgusting. 2 of the bedrooms, including "mine", had a 1/2 inch thick corkboard taking up the entire wall. And if you know anything about cork, it's very porous. And absorbs odors, like freaking cigarette smoke.

There was f"ing brown shag carpet covering most of the surfaces in the house, including but not limited to: all floors (including the bathrooms and the kitchen), the baseboards (meaning that the carpet basically went up on the wall a bit), the shelves in all the closets, the work bench in the garage (WTF? Seriously?).

In a word, this house was disgusting. On Saturday morning, I got pretty depressed about it. I mean, even with a ton of work it will STILL need a TON more.

But, 48 hours later, definite progress has been made. We have ripped the carpeting off the shelves and the baseboards, which made everything look about 10 years newer. We ripped down the curtains and lacey crap hanging in all the windows. (Don't even get me started on the curtains. She had about 3-4 window treatments ON EACH WINDOW. LAYERED.) We are ripping up all the carpet except in one room because there are GLORIOUS wood floors underneath.

Suffice it to say I am bone-tired. My fingers literally hurt. My feet are so tender I don't want them to touch the floor.

But I'm getting there. Hopefully when I show you the After pictures, it will be a good thing.

And that means: here are the Befores. Feel free to vomit. I am captioning each photo above the actual photo, so the words come before the photo. Just don't want anybody to get confused.

The view from the front door.

If you walk straight ahead, you go into the kitchen.

This is the view from inside the living room. Notice the scrap of curtains left - I paused tearing them down to take pictures for you! And yes, that IS an organ in the left corner there. And it is hopefully being removed today. Fingers crossed.

If you turn right in the front room, you head down the hallway to the bedrooms.

If you head into the first door on the right, you enter the smallest bedroom. It doesn't have 2 windows (trick of the eye!), but a mirrored wall. We're going to take it down in a couple weeks, but for now, awesome, right?

And this would be the view from inside that room. Can you see the awesome painted cardboard? It's hideous.

And if you keep going, you get to this bedroom in the corner. I took this from the middle of the room so you can't really see how big it is. Sexy shag carpeting, no?

And the disgusting cork. Seriously, I tore this down with a mask on and I still felt like I had smoked a pack of cigarettes. And yes, those weird lines you see on the wall are velcro strips. Rows and rows of them. I guess the owner used them for sewing or something.

And across the hall is the master bedroom. It has a mirrored corner. Which is already in the trash can. Thank god.

The closets in the master. Weird.

The half bath that connects the master to...
The laundry room. Or corner.

Which connects to the kitchen. Not bad, all things considered. The wallpaper is already gone. Praise God.
The view of the front door from the kitchen. See that white fence hanging from the ceiling? It is actually a piece of fencing Weighed 50 pounds. Thank God it didn't come crashing down on someone's head.
And if you spin around from the kitchen, you have the family room. The carpet in here isn't as shaggy, thank God.
And if you spin again you have this random area off the kitchen which we will use as a dining room and an office.

Wow, aren't you excited for that grand tour. And if you made it through this long, boring post, you seriously deserve a prize.

But only Blackeyed Susan wins one!! A $15 Starbucks gift card!! E-mail me and I'll drop that in the mail soon!

Happy Monday everyone... may you day be more fun than mine is. Because I'll be painting and ripping up carpet. Joy!