House of Woes … (picture heavy)

If it hasn’t been one thing, it has been another with this house. I’m so frustrated with it! Between the tacky wall paper, the godawful pink living room walls (which should be no more by the end of this day!!), it is hard enough to feel like it is ours. But then you add in the "little kinks" that need straightening out and you feel like you are in a money pit. I had thought by spending a little more money on a 20 year old house versus the 50+ yr. old house would save us some money as far as upgrades go. Apparently I was wrong.

So while I am thinking of it and while photobucket & OD are both cooperating, here are a few pictures …

 
Hubby loves his 3 car garages! LOL    
                               

Our living room/dining room/stairs leading to basement with the GODAWFUL pink walls! 1st door down hallway on left is my office, blue room is The Child’s.

 
Master bedroom – wall paper (far left wall) & border will removed

The Child’s room before painting

 
The Child’s room – starting painting – will post updated picture soon

My office/spare room

Main Bathroom – with jetted tub – paint & border will be removed

80’s flashback anyone? lol

Room at bottom of stairs – previous owners had a hot tub in far right corner, hence the paneling. We now have our exercise equipment in this room. Central Vac works only downstairs. Since I have a Dyson, I put the pieces for the central Vac away.

Downstairs full bath

Family Room – ignore the air mattresses. This was pre- furniture delivery. Dizzy yet from the wallpaper? lol

Hubby’s Man Cave – the wallpaper makes me nauseous! 

Mini storage room then electrical room  aka future craft room

Love that the sellers left the shelves!

Another view – plus you can see the new Radon system

If this shows up sideways, sorry. I tried to rotate it but well, you know lol. If the red line on the right moves up at anytime, we have to call the # listed and have them come out to test again.

So now you have a general idea of the house, before painting and major changes lol. As you can see, the pictures show most of the "woes" of the house. But let me tell you about the other woes …

Like 2 of the 3 toilets. 2 have had to have new flappers installed. 1 of the said 2 has also had to have new guts installed (all by Hubby). The other 1 of 2 has had to have new bolts installed where the tank is bolted to the toilet because one of the bolts washers was so deteriorated that it sprung a leak. The 3rd toilet (downstairs) has not had much use yet but I am sure it will need new stuff also eventually. Next is to get new seats for all 3 because they look like the originals from 20 years ago. Thank God for bleach! lol

The fridge: first it needed a good deep cleaning (done within first 3 hours of taking possession of house). Next I had to soak the spout for the water dispenser on the door in vinegar because it had about 1/2′ thick white crust all over and in it. Then we noticed that the fridge door made a clicking sound when you opened it so far. There is a bent piece that Hubby will have to straighten out once he completely removes the door, then removes the part. Then 3 days after moving in, the light bulb goes out in the fridge part. I buy a new one. Still doesn’t work. I test the bulb in a lamp, it works. Come to find out, sellers had a regular bulb, not an appliance bulb, in place and it bent the contacts so Hubby had to become a contortionist to fix that.

I hate my kitchen faucet. It is one of those sprayer/faucet all in one and the sprayer part is like a shower head and really does not do the job for the sink. But it is nice to know if I ever need to take a shower in the kitchen sink, I’m all set! lol I have added a whole new faucet set to our dream sheet … for the bathrooms also.

The jetted tub: Most of you know I am allergic to mold. 3 different kinds. The Child is allergic just to 1 type of mold. I don’t take chances. So I just "knew" the jets would need a good cleaning. And if they didn’t, ok but at least I had peace of mind knowing they were clean. So I researched online, found the best way to do it and commenced to clean the jets. Oh my freakin’ gosh! 6 cleaning cycles later and I finally have clean jets. GAG!

There are a few other minor things, not really worth mentioning. More like me being nit-picky lol

So in the 3+ weeks we’ve been in this house, if it hasn’t rained during the day, it has been at night. Or so I thought.

I’m sittingoutside a few days ago, and I happen to look down. "Well what in the world is that?" So I get down on my hands and knees and look.

 

I know I’ve seen it somewhere (or something similar to it) but for the life of me I can’t figure it out. And then it starts to slowly creep up on me, the vague memory, the sensation of a great discovery on its cusp and then BINGO! Pictures of paperwork and documents come flooding back into my brain of an in ground sprinkler system. Oh yeah! We have one of those! But wait … uhm, shouldn’t this be in the ground, surrounded by plants and grass and anything other than cement?

Apparently not for this house … because some jackass built the patio around it and not by just a little bit …

The spout is located in front of right front leg on camping
chair on left side of the picture.

So every morning that I have gotten up to discover it had rained in the middle of the night, and hard too because it was enough to soak the whole damn patio, was actually because of the in ground sprinkler system … that the sellers had left programmed on … that we didn’t know was still programmed to go off every other morning sometime before 6:30 am …

Who the hell does that? The fire pit is full of water; the patio chairs are unable to be sat in because they are soaked. Every square inch of the patio is wet (in the pics the wind had been blowing strong and by the time there was enough light to take the pics, the wind had dried up most of the water). So much for a covered patio! Don’t do you no good to stay dry if there is a sprinkler head in the middle of it!

Anyway, Hubby finally located the control box for it (behind some empty boxes full of paper in the garage) and turned it off. No need for it this time of year. I can’t wait to see our very first water bill now. Thanks freakin’ sellers for that nice surprise!

And that, Peoples, is my list of Woes for this house … for the time being lol. With that being said, it is now time to start the painting and finally get rid of the pink walls. Till next time ….