We just stopped by the rental and figured we would update some pictures. The tile is pretty much done, time to reassemble everything.
Its nice to have some good progress. The wood floors still need to be finished and lots of little things, but its coming along.
I sent Britton this link about Puerto Rico. I signed up for electronic updates about Puerto Rico from the New York Times so I occasionally see something in there about PR. I thought Britton summed it up perfectly well with his comment:
I couldn’t even scrape the frost off my windshield this morning. The -4 degree temperature seems to make a super bond with the frost and the glass. It was worse than the blue countertops!
Whiskey and fresh coconut water in the warmth of PR sounds good about now. So does live salsa and alcapurrias.
Sometimes I think maybe people think we are escapists. Well, I am reading a new book called Getting Stoned with Savages about a young couple who move to and live in the South Pacific and I thought his sentiments exactly:
“I have been called many things in my life but if there has been one constant, one barb, one arrow flung my way time after time, it is the accusation that I am, in essence, nothing more than an escapist. Apparently this is bad, suspect, possibly even un-American….Escapism, we are to believe, is evidence of a deficiency in character, a certain failure of temperment, and like so many -isms, is to be strenuously avoided. How do you expect to get ahead? people ask. But the question altogether misses the point. The escapist doesn’t want to get ahead. He simply wants to get away. I understand this, for I am an unapologetic escapist.”
-From Getting Stoned with Savages by J. Maarten Troost
We may be escapists but we can’t wait for our Puerto Rico dream to come true.
Well this little rental house is probably the biggest undertaking we have made in our rentals and in our own house. We have finished our basement, are currently working on a basement project on another property and had to do some minimal work on the other rental, but this is the first project that we’ve had to do some major demolition work on. We had to paint, tear out the carpet, all the tack strips, staples and backing for the tub. But the biggest chore so far has been in the kitchen. We had to remove all the glued on sticky blue fake wood formica, the backing and remove the sink. Thankfully we are hiring out the tiling and wood refinishing, but this has been a major job. Here are a few pictures and a video of the process. We are excited to see how far the tilers got today while we were at work.
Tub area after removing the old plastic backing
Bathroom Floor 1/2 with old pink carpet
Here is the kitchen 1/2 through demo
This was tons of fun! (not)
Houses built around this area in the 40’s – 60’s were pretty much all built out of wood. Its odd to me that someone would cover up beautiful oak floors in favor of carpet, with grey carpet no less. I was talking to my father in law Jack about it. He mentioned that carpet used to be pretty expensive. When prices came down people started to cover up their wood flooring.
In all the houses built in the 2000’s we have a subfloor made of plywood….Much less expensive and easier to install. I’d prefer the oak.
floors at the new place
There are pros and cons to both new and old houses. Older houses you never know what to expect and it’s fun to find a treasure every once in a while though!
It seems that whatever the latest fashion, its usually the most difficult to obtain. Maybe we should try to make the latest fashion the easiest? But that’s never how it is.