Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Renovation: How it all Happens...








Some of you may be curious as to my exact process from begining to end of resoration. Though I have posted before about the buying and re-painting of homes, here is some things I did not cover in detail. At the top you can see the shoddy, falling apart box as it arrives with parts/screws litteraly falling out as the postman hands it to me. Because its a big, garbagey mess, all you can do is dump it all out on the floor. Most of the post covers are smashed to smitherines during its long journey, and after I seperate the garbage packing material from the actual house parts, my hands are black with newspaper ink. I soak it all in a hot soapy tub for a few hours and use very hot water for the windows because its the only way to really deep clean off 25 years of crust, rust, crude and bug carcasses.Case in point, see the black ring around my tub in the photo. Merely wiping it all down does nothing besides schmeer it around. Its especially necessary to soak if you are going to repaint the white walls. The clock is to show that time is important to let the water penetrate the hardened dirt in all the nooks and cranies. You cannot rush a masterpiece! I really think thats where I earn my profit since all this takes the better part of an afternoon, including the windex and q tip treatment on the glass doors and windows after its thoroughly dried. It also takes over an hour to pack this property properly once you are shipping it to another person or buyer. The things that take the longest is the multiple coats of white when covering cheesecake colored walls and bleaching stained floors back to clean, bright yellow as detailed in earlier posts. Its physically demanding, but if I didnt enjoy it, I wouldnt do it. From what I remember 2 houses have arrived packed nicely with bubble wrap, a good sturdy box, confirmation and was a good experience. 2 didnt have any packing material at all, taking a few weeks to arrive, and one came in icky newspaper pictured above with smashed post covers.

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