Vacation Continues

2 weeks into my wife's 3 week vacation and we're finally... almost... just about... in a minute... actually on vacation.

What started as a quick repaint of the basement hallway and redoing the bathroom floor turned into a nightmare project.

First the hall... The previous owners had wallpapered it... Fine, but they wallpapered over old wallpaper... Fine, but that wallpaper was straight onto the drywall. As the original paper came down the drywall fell apart and came apart and looked bad and made me cry. Now, I'm really good at fixing drywall, I've fixed a million punch holes in my time, but after 4 days I still couldn't get the hallway the look great. If I had had the money put aside I would have just re drywalled it, it was that bad.

Next the bathroom... The previous owners had done something to the floor, we didn't know what, but the vinyl flooring bulged up in spots. After taking that up we saw they had patched a huge section of the floor, after taking that up we saw that it was water damage. SO the floor had to be replaced.

Here's my last 2 weeks... (Honestly keep reading, it get's better as the list goes on... I've got tears in my eyes I'm laughing so hard)

Remove wallpaper
Remove second layer of wallpaper
Freak out at the condition of the walls
Have a coffee
Price wallpaper
Reconsider painting (painting does look better)
Tape prep stairwell
Fill and plaster stairwell
Sand stairwell
Vacuum and cleanup dust
Fill and Plaster stairwell
Sand Stairwell
Vacuum and cleanup dust
Price wallpaper
Consider boarding up basement
Reconsider painting
Buy primer and paint at Home Depot while pricing wallpaper
Prime stairwell
Sand stairwell
Vacuum and cleanup dust
Second coat of primer
Fill problem areas of stairwell
Sand Stairwell
Vacuum and cleanup dust
Touch up primer
Consider renting out basement to homeless or wild dogs
Paint stairwell
Price wallpaper
Second coat of paint stairwell
Remove tape
Buy ceramic tiles
Lay tiles out and think how nice it will look
Enjoy a coffee before the project begins
Take up vinyl floor and 1/4" round in bathroom
PANIC
Remove toilet
Shit pants
Remove baseboards
Remove chair rail
Remove mirror
Remove medicine cabinet
Remove vanity doors
Take up sub floor
Trip to Piercy's for screws etc
Re-brace joists
Have a coffee
Buy a mini van worth of materials at Home Depot
Runnup to dad's to cut plywood on table saw
Lay 1/2 inch sub floor
Lay 1/4 inch sub floor
Vacuum and cleanup dust
Return tiles to Home Depot and reconsider after all the money we've already spent
Assist in painting room, vanity, door and vanity doors
Touch up painting
Buy tiles, mortar, grout etc at Kent
Mix thin set
Lay thin set
Lay 1/4 cement backer board
Join and tape backerboard
Sand joints
Cut wrist against hammer claw while sanding
Bleed on floor
Throw some shit around
Have a coffee
Figure out how (pattern) to place tiles
Cut the fucking tiles
Break the fucking tiles
Slice thumb open on broken tile
Throw shit around
Have a coffee
Go to Kent to buy some more tiles
Go to Kent and have them cut 2 of the hardest shaped ones (THANKS!)
Break some more fucking tiles
Reconsider wallpaper
Consider wallpaper for floor
Consider paint for floor
Consider sods for floor
Consider out-house
Consider digging shallow hole in backyard (We do have good run off)
Throw some shit around
Have a coffee
Mix mortar
Lay mortar
Lay ceramic tiles
mix grout
Lay Grout
Polish tiles
Collapse
Cut and install new baseboards
Cut and install new chair rail
Clean toilet
Clean wax off toilet
Replace toilet
When it shifts and nothing suddenly lines up PANIC and pull it back up
Head to Canadian Tire for more wax seals (Notice I'm spreading my business around, or am I hiding the fact that I'm totally unprepared?????)
Clean the other wax seal off the toilet
Replace toilet
Finally shit in a toilet and not in pants
Replace mirror
Suddenly notice how dirty and grizzly I look after 2 weeks of household "improvements"
Replace medicine cabinet
Take pain relievers
Replace vanity doors
Take more pain relievers
Caulk
Touch up paint
Caulk again
Clean up
Have a coffee
Clean up
Clean up
Caulk
Stay up every night waiting for a toilet leak ("Damn, I thought I heard a drip...")
Pop more pain relievers

And the final pic... TA-DAA --- (Just kidding, my digital camera's actually broke right now!)

Gratuitous hot chick of the day... (My helper)