My 70's House

Under Contract

2008-06-22T15:54:00.000-07:00

My house is under contract! Tomorrow I'll see my handyman and real estate agent to go through repair items that came up in inspection report.

My House is Still On Sale

2008-05-22T18:53:00.000-07:00

Day #16 and counting... These are pictures from the other day when I had to go to a park with my dogs because an agent was showing my house. It was strange to be at the park during daytime when I should be working.

Beautiful neighborhood trail

Lili says "Can we do this everyday?"

Silly Jake. Standing on my lap.

My House is On Sale

2008-05-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

My 70's house is on the market. Today is only day #3 and someone has made an appointment to see the house this evening. Past two days, I watched people take brochures outside. I wanted to tell them "Thank you for your interest!" But I also was thinking "What are you doing? This is my house. Get out!" Very strange feeling. Hopeful, scared, excited, sad, and very jumpy.
I thought this is a good time to review how my house has changed over the 2 years. Enjoy BEFORE and AFTER pictures. And....please wish me luck for selling my house during this tough market.

Kitchen - BEFORE

Kitchen - AFTER

Work-In-Progress Pictures
A lot of hard work but it all worth it.

Prime. Prime. Paint. Paint.

Jake...What the heck are you doing?

Nightmare. I've cleaned, primed and painted cabinets all by myself.

Kitchen floor. No more vinyl.

Landscaping - BEFORE

Landscaping - AFTER

Dining Room - BEFORE

Nasty Carpet

70's lighting fixture

Dining Room - AFTER

Living Room - BEFORE

Living Room - AFTER

Kitchen Update: Painting Window

2008-03-16T18:45:00.000-07:00

I spent yesterday and today painting my kitchen window. This was the first time I painted a window but it was not that difficult. It just took extra time to put painter's tape. I also had to be very careful around the window frame because I could end up a window painted shut. I first primed the window with Behr primer then I painted with white color (semi-gloss).

This is the window before.

So dark and depressing...

Bright and happy!

Removing Cheap Bathroom Lighting Fixture

2008-03-15T19:03:00.000-07:00

I needed to replace the lighting fixture because I wanted to paint the bathroom. So I updated the bathroom lighting fixture this week. What I had before was this cheap industrial-like lighting fixture. I think I saw this at Lowe's around $10!

When I took it out, there was wallpaper under it. Interesting choice of wallpaper.

Then when I tired to take the wallpaper, there was a wallpaper under the wallpaper. The wallpaper was very shiny and loud.

Here are AFTER pictures.

Now I need to paint the bathroom. I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to do that.

Kitchen Update: New Countertop

2008-02-23T20:13:00.000-08:00

I've got new granite countertop at Lowe's. It was about $2500 including installation and the cost of ripping out my old countertop. My handyman did all the plumbing work because Lowe's charges too much. I was without my kitchen for 3 weeks and was getting tired of washing forks and knives in the bathroom but it was worth it.

Before

After

New countertop & new sink

My Weekend

2008-02-17T19:17:00.001-08:00

Friday night. Painted trims in the entrance foyer.

Saturday & Sunday. Dug two shrubs out. There were the last ones. Hooray!

Thank You, Refrigerator

2008-02-13T17:54:00.000-08:00

I've finally replaced my refrigerator. My old one came with the house and it looks like it is at least 20 years old. Maybe 30 years old. Is that possible? It is Sears's Coldspot model that was discontinued in 1976. Hmm.

I bought new one at Lowe's and took advantage of free delivery & haul away service. The delivery guy from Lowe's disassembled my old refrigerator and took it to outside. When he did that, he threw my old refrigerator door on the ground like it was a piece of garbage. I know it is just a garbage to him. But I was sad to see that. My old refrigerator has been good to me and kept my drinks cold.

Because I was so used to my old one, when new one came, it wowed me. It's so spacious inside and all the shelves are solid. I don't have to worry about shelves falling down when I put something heavy. Wow.

Old one.

New one

It's spacious inside.

Removing 70's Wallpaper: Part 2

2008-02-10T16:04:00.000-08:00

After spending two weeks on the wallpaper removal project, I was left with the damaged wall (pictured below).

I was thinking I might have to hire someone to put a heavy wallpaper. The estimated cost for hiring someone to do that was $300. Ouch. But my handyman told me that I need to sand the wall and prime it. He said he would fix damaged areas after I prime the wall. I hate sanding but I had no choice.

Sanding prep. It's going to get really messy!

Sanding prep.

Before sanding. Already very unhappy about the task ahead.

The wall after sanding & priming. It looks so much better.

My handyman & his wife suggested that I could do textured painting and avoid wallpaper. Brilliant. I searched online and saw "faux painting". There are different kinds of faux painting. Sponging, ragging, colorwashing, frottage, dragging, etc etc. I went to the home depot and a nice painting guy there said sponge painting is definitely easier. I thought I liked the look of frottage but I didn't want to mess it up so I decided to go with sponging.

This is the after the first coat of sponging. The painting definitely hide the damage of the wall. And the wall looks "interesting" but not so great. The wall somehow made me think of virus in a petri dish.

So I went for the second coat of sponging. It looks better. kind of.

After.

By the way I can't really recommend sponge painting. It takes forever. I was sponge painting until 2AM. Great way to spend my Friday night.

Removing 70's Wallpaper

2008-02-09T18:38:00.000-08:00

This project was pure nightmare. I finally decided that I had to do something with the ugly wallpaper in my entry foyer. Foyer was covered with this weird grasscloth type wallpaper. It might work if the wallpaper wasn't damaged and the house is Japanese style. But my wallpaper was damaged badly in some places and there is nothing Japanese about my house.

I thought I'd just remove it and paint the wall. Well, nothing is ever easy in my 70's house. First, I had to remove grass-looking thingy. It was so hard to remove when it was dry. But when I sprayed with water, it came off easily. I wish I'd done that from the beginning.

Then here comes the difficult part. How do I remove the paper under the grass-cloth thing? The answer is "I don't know" because the wallpaper wouldn't come off! First, I tired Diff in a blue bottle. Then tried Diff in a red bottle. The used Paper Tiger & Diff. Nope. Dishwasher soap and hot water. Nope. Vineger and hot water. Nope. Nothing works. When I tried to remove the wallpaper, I kept ripping the sheetrock paper and damaging the wall.

Hello and welcome to the wallpaper hell

When I searched on the internet, someone said covering the wallpaper with plastic sheet helps removing old wallpaper. So I sprayed Diff and covered area with a garbage bag. I also tried food wrap. Okay, maybe little better. But it didn't really make big difference and certainly not worth the trouble of covering the wall with plastic sheet.

I even discovered the older wallpaper under the wallpaper I was removing. Yay, freakin' yay.
I worked on removing wallpaper every day after work for 2 weeks. In my opinion, dishwasher soap and Diff didn't make any difference. Actually, because Diff is more expensive and dishwasher soap smells better, I prefer dishwasher soap. I

f you are fighting with stubborn wallpaper like this one, I recommend spray wallpaper with dishwasher & hot tap water mix. Wait 10-15 minutes. Come back before it dries out and spray the mix again. Wait about 10 minutes and then remove wallpaper while wallpaper is still wet.

To be continued...

Updating the Dining Lighting Fixture: Part 2

2008-01-19T18:47:00.000-08:00

I was pretty happy about the new lighting fixture until my handyman pointed out that i needed to cut the extra chains on the top. That means I have to take the lighting fixture out then cut the chains, cords, and put the light back. Actually it wasn't that bad because I could use the daylight. I'm very happy about the outcome. Here are before & after pictures.

Before

After

Changing Lil Stuff

2008-01-18T19:01:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to report that I finally changed the nasty-looking door knob for bathroom closet today.

Before

After

Updating the Dining Lighting Fixture

2008-01-17T18:27:00.000-08:00

I've finally installed new lighting fixture in my dining room. 70's lighting fixtures in my house is disappearing one by one. I installed this after work because I didn't feel like I wanted to wait until weekend. I had to cut out circuit breaker and my flash light didn't work, I installed this in a dark. I had to use only candle I have which is Christmas candle my colleague gave me. I also used the light from my laptop and cellphone to see which one is black and which one is white wire because they look all the same in a dark. I'm pretty proud that I completed the job by myself without burning down the place.

Before: Is it UFO? No, it's my lighting fixture!

Before: Thank you Jared & Betsy! Your gift card came handy.

Before

After

After

Landscaping: Killing Bush

2008-01-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

I've been busy killing shrubs/bushes by my front windows. I think they are too big and overpowering for my house. I want to replace them with smaller ones. I felt bad for killing healthy shrubs but sorry, guys, you are UGLY! My back really hurts but I won the battle today.

Before
Work in progress

Kill kill kill... You are Next!

Goneski. Doneski.

After

Painting Dining Room

2008-01-09T17:54:00.000-08:00

I'm still alive. And my blog is still alive! I've painted my dining room yesterday. I only painted bottom half so it was not difficult. But it wasn't easy because Jake stepped on the paint and walked around the room with dirty paws. Here are before and after pictures.

Before

After

Before

After

My Light Post is Good for Something

2007-07-26T19:29:00.000-07:00

My light post is powered by gas instead of electricity (my handy-man told me this), and I have no idea how to turn it on. So I used it to hang my flowers.

There is a Bulb for Everything

2007-06-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

One of my blog readers pointed out that I should use a clear bulb for my outside lighting for front door. I've never thought about how a bulb would make a difference. I went to HT to get a new clear bulb. When I was shopping, I realized, for the first time, each bulb has a recommended use on the label. Some bulbs are suited for table lamps and some are suited for ceiling fans etc. I had no idea... So here is the before and after pictures for the outside lighting. What a difference.

Before

After

How I Killed My Grass with Weed & Feed

2007-06-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

I bought Sta-Green Weed & Feed from Lowe's because my lawn was not looking very healthy due to the dry weather. On the back of the bag, the instruction said not to use the product if the temperature is over 90 degrees. However, it did not say the reasons why.

Since I'm busy with school, work, and other things in my life, I have to do the yard work whenever I can. That weekend, the temperature was over 90 degrees but I've ignored the instruction and used the product. You can see the result in the pictures.

You can see where I walked to spread the Weed & Feed. My friend and the jury-rig master, Jared, said I've "burnt" my grass and I should wash the area out with water.

We had few rain storms since then and I was hoping that would do the job. Well, that didn't really work. It's been few weeks and my lawn is still looking the same. Oh, well. Maybe I should draw a picture of a dog next time.

Gardening Tips: Hide Unsightly Structures with Clematis

2007-05-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

At least that was the idea. I've seen my neighbor's mailbox garden and saw that she was hiding the ugly mailbox pole with Clematis. I went to Lowe's today and got Clematis to copy the technique. Because I didn't buy enough of them, it looked pretty pitiful when I planted it. I don't know why I keep repeating the same mistake. It's important to buy plants in bulk! Here is the picture. Notice how the plant is accenting the black pole rather than hiding it....

New Wall Light

2007-05-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

I've finally replaced that ugly^10 wall light. New one was about $40 at Lowe's. Here are the pictures. After I installed it I realized that the wall light was too long and it was almost covering the wall plate. Oh well.

New One

Old One

Landscaping Aftermath

2007-05-10T19:06:00.000-07:00

My friend, RP, helped me with cutting unwanted branches and bushes. He chop-chopped my trees like a super-hero but I was left with this mess:

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with the left-over. I was trying to cut them into small pieces but it would take forever. At least, Jake has new place to pee on.

Lili & Jake Kickin it

2007-05-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

Home Unimprovement

2007-05-01T19:25:00.000-07:00

Because of school and work, I've been struggling to take care of myself and doggies let alone my house...

New Front Door, Great Curb Appeal

2007-04-06T15:39:00.000-07:00

My new front door is in. It is a nice oak door. I've read horror stories about bad installation & leaky door so I asked my handyman to do installation. All I did was to stain and put semi-gross finish on the door.

I thought this new door would bring more contemporary look to the house. However, it ended up giving the house more traditional/serious/middled-aged man look. I still love the new door though. This door update costed me about $2000 for everything (I had no idea door knobs are so expensive! The cost of door knob was about $100). Here are the before & after pictures.

BEFORE - Outside

AFTER - Outside

BEFORE - Inside

AFTER - Inside

After. ( I need some landscaping next...)

Mailbox Garden

2007-03-26T16:06:00.000-07:00

I planted new flowers by my mailbox because I didn't like what I did two weeks ago with it. Here is the after picture.

I've tried to make it look interesting by planting the contrasting colors (yellow and purple).

I've also planted the taller purple flowers in the back and lower pink flowers in the front to create depth (is this the right word? I don't know).

I could've gone crazy like this mailbox garden but I have papers to write and I don't want to scare my neighbor. They don't know that I am crazy yet.

Spring is Here

2007-03-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

and it means more yard work

*no, this was not done by a 5-year old. I did it, shoot.

and more fun time with doggies in a park

The Shocking Truth Behind the Therma-Tru Door

2007-03-09T16:33:00.000-08:00

I was shopping for an entry door and saw this beautiful door on Lowes.com. It is from Therma-Tru™. The price was listed as $478. The price of sidelight was not listed. All I need is the door and one sidelight for my door, just like this.

I went to Lowe's to check the door out. First of all, Lowe's customer service was horrible. There was no one in the Door section and when I talked the guy who was walking in Lowe's uniform he said "I don't work here. The guy who works in here went to lunch. He should be back soon." !!#$%^% He wears Lowe's uniform and tells people "I don't work here"??? I just wanted know the price of the sidelight. Couldn't he just access to one of the computers and look it up? I waited about 10 minutes and the guy who came back from lunch told me that the sidelight is about $700.

<---This alone costs more than the door? For real? First I thought I didn't hear him correctly. The guy was trying to communicate to a Japanese lady (me) with his strong Southern accent. But then it wasn't miscommunication. He said the sidelight was little over $700 and the whole thing was about $1500. Because the sidelight was special order, the door had be special order too and the price of the door was not $478 with the special order and blah blah blah...

I felt cheated. I went all way to the store and learned that the door was much more expensive than I thought. It's kind of like bait-and-switch. Of course, I didn't buy the door.

Then my handy-man called me and told me to check out this local store he found. Well, the store (warehouse) was really scary looking and it had bunch of junk inside (looks like left-over from construction site). But they had beautiful doors and the store owner told me that those doors were 1/3 of price compare to places like Lowe's.

I found an oak door in the back and the price for the door and a sidelight was $1099. I know how expensive "real" wood doors are compared to fiberglass doors with the look of wood. It was more than I wanted to spend on a door but I bought it because it is a good deal. I'm excited about how the door is going to look in my house.

My house two point ohh noOOO!

2007-03-04T15:38:00.000-08:00

Do you go "ouch" when you see the word "2.0"? It seems like everything is 2.0 it's not even funny. Enterprise 2.0, community 2.0, and my house 2.0.... Yes, I'm guilty. So here it is, my blog gets new name "My 70's House".

My Little Home

2007-02-28T18:26:00.000-08:00

My mom told me that she wasn't sure where my house was when she looked my address up in Google Earth. So here it is.

*up close*

*da hood*

I love my neighborhood and that is why I want to improve my old house and live here for a while. My house is one of the worst looking house on the street but it won't be for long time (hopefully)!

Zzzz...Sleepy Friday

2007-02-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

Right now, I'm too tired to think about my house project. So I'd like to share 3 dogs I've found on YouTube who snore worse than my dog, Jake.

Not Safe For Lunch

2007-02-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

This picture that I'm about post is gross. If you are eating lunch, you might not want to see this. If you thought the condition of shower head was pretty bad, wait until you see this one....

It is the range hood. It was really nasty when I moved in. I didn't bother changing it until now because I rarely cook. Also, my range hood was 36-inch instead of regular 34-inch so Lowe's did not have any of 36-inch range hood in store. I finally placed special order for my range hood because I didn't want to feel bad every time I cook(?) hot water for my green tea.

Because I didn't want to pay $90 for installation fee, I install it by myself with help of David. This was definitely do-able even for people like me & David.

Here is the after pic.

Here is the before pic(I warned you!)

Toilet Flushes Itself

2007-02-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

I was going to sleep at 11:45 PM two days ago. I went to my bathroom and noticed that toilet kept flushing by itself. I have no knowledge of toilet. I was so sleepy and the toilet just won't shut off. I wanted cry. I ended up shutting off water to toilet and went to sleep.

Yesterday, I fixed the problem. The chain that connects handle and flush valve was tangled. Because the chain was little shorter, flush valve was going up with out anyone touching the handle. If you have any problem with toilet, don't panic. Shut off the water and read this article. I am becoming handy every day.

Details details....

2007-01-18T18:01:00.000-08:00

I've bought wall plates to match with my newly painted wood paneling. I was not sure how they would look on the wall but it looks OK to me. It is certainly better than old one.

Old Wall Plate :(

Next-Gen Wall Plate :)

Paint Wood Paneling

2007-01-09T17:32:00.000-08:00

This was really time-consuming project. I don't want to discourage people from doing this project but painting wood paneling requires a lot of time and patients. I think I almost broke world record for # of swearing per hour while I was painting wood paneling. Here are the steps that I took.

1. Sand it (see pic below)

2. Clean it
3. Prime it with Kilz
4. Paint it
5. Paint it (I had to paint twice to make it look nice/straight)

At end, my room looks much better. Or I want to believe that it looks much better after all that work. Here are some before after pics.

Before

After

Before

After

Fireplace Update Under $300

2006-12-20T16:33:00.000-08:00

Regular Fireplace

Fireplace 2.0

and 2.0 dogs...

DIY: Fireplace Facelift

2006-12-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

I've been working very hard this weekend to update the look of my fireplace. Thanks to my friend, Ryan, this project is coming along very well. It was under 20 degrees outside when we were cutting tiles with wet saw around midnight. Yes, we are both hardcore and we don't play around. Here are some pictures. Hopefully, we can finish up this project early next week.

This would be the last time my fireplace would look this ugly....

We used 4 of these to glue tiles to the fireplace.

End of Day 1

End of Day 2

Living Room

2006-11-24T13:57:00.000-08:00

This is the only room that I'm somewhat happy with. I'm going to fix my dining room & kitchen next.

Before

After

My Cooking Skillz

2006-11-18T17:24:00.000-08:00

Beleive it or not, this is a picture of filet mignon. It is cooked by an infamous chef. I'll totally put the blame on my ugly & non-functional kitchen. Would anyone like to come over to my house on Thanksgiving and have a burnt turkey?

Trick or Treat?

2006-10-31T16:31:00.000-08:00

It is first Halloween at this house. I had about 30 kids so far and it is counting (@7:40pm). I had one kid dressed as a battery and I was impressed. It's kind of fun giving out candies to little ones but I have to study for tomorrow's exam. I hope they stop coming soon...

After Picture. It's almost gone!

Living Room is Almost There

2006-10-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

I've finally finished painting and waxing the floor in my living room. The room now looks much better. It actually looks like a normal living room and not a living room in a crack-house.

The picture below is the wax I used. It works very well and made my wood floor nice and shiny.

Still Painting...

2006-10-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

All I have left is to paint trim with white (semi-gloss). I've been putting off painting it because painting is not a fun thing to do. I'd rather do my advance statistics homework. However, I'm tired of looking at the blue tape so I'm planing to finish it tomorrow.

My Wall is So Sexy!

2006-10-17T15:54:00.000-07:00

Well, not exactly yet. However, this work-in-progress drywall is already much much better looking than my old wood paneling wall. Here is the picture of how my hero, the handyman, is transforming my wall. Also an unrelated picture of Lili.

The Killing of Wood Paneling

2006-10-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

I have this super ugly wood paneling in the den. It is so 70's and it makes me depressed every time I have to look at it. My handyman had a left-over drywall from the work he was doing in my guest room. So I decided to rip the wood paneling off one wall and let the handyman put the drywall there. It required a little bit of my muscle power to take the wood panelings off. For the rest of the walls in the den, I have to come up with some clever solutions. I cannot afford to drywall the whole room. Stay tuned.

Update:
I ended up painting the rest of the wall. Here are After pictures.

My Neighbor

2006-10-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

My neighbor is selling their house. The listing price is over 1 million. It is weired how a house like mine :-( and a nice house like this one are located on the same street. I really want to upgrade my house so that I can make some serious cash when I sell my house.　

近所の家がセールで、１億円以上の価格で売ってます。同じ道にあるのに私の家とくらべたら、天と地の差です。私の家もがんばって直せば、結構高値で売れるかも。

DIY: Painting

2006-10-10T16:42:00.000-07:00

I'm painting my living room. The existing color on the wall was too plain for me so I'm painting just a little darker. (Cafe Latte color) This is my first time painting and I can already tell that I make a bad painter. If I were a painter, I'd be fired on the first day. It is good thing that I'm a programmer not a painter...

壁のペンキを塗っている最中です。リビングの壁の色が白っぽいつまらない色だったので、カフェラテの色に塗ります。初めてのペンキ塗りなので、かなり失敗してばかりだけど、途中でやめるわけにもいかないので最後までがんばります。

Dogs in Ghetto Kitchen

2006-10-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

DIY: Carpet Removal

2006-10-03T17:41:00.000-07:00

I was talking to my handyman's wife last week and I was telling her how much I hated the carpet in my living and dining room. Then she said "What's underneath the carpet?" Hmm... Good question. I called the handyman and let him cut the corner of the carpet. Wow! We saw nice hardwood floor underneath the carpet.

I thought, "All I needed to do is to remove this thing off the floor. Easy enough!" Yeah, right. I'm a kind of person who spends 45 minutes cooking using a "10 minutes recipes" book. Nothing is never easy for me. For this project, it was really hard to take tack strips, nails, and staples off the wood floor.

Here are the tools that I used. It might be good idea to use a face mask. It would be even better if you have safety glasses.
I worked on removing the carpet for 4 days. I was feeling sick maybe because I was not wearing a dust mask. I don't get sick very easily so it was bit scary. My dogs were itching and my birds were acting weired. I recommend that you open the windows when you are removing 30-year-old carpet. I couldn't open mine because all windows were painted shut. Here are before and after pictures.

Before

Work In Progress

After

I'm not sure if I need to refinish the floor. I'll ask the handyman next time.

Shower Head from Hell

2006-09-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

I did not know that some people like to shower mold and mildew but this is what the previous owner has left me. Here is the scary before picture.

Before

After
(guest bathroom) The shower head was $9.99 at Target.

After
(main bathroom)I like this shower head very much. It was $29.99 at Lowe's.

It's so bright - Part II

2006-09-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

The ugly lighting in the entrance was really bothering me. I finally went to Lowe's today and got new lighting. If you know how to turn off circuit breakers and how ground wire, black wire, and white wire looks like, you can install flush mounts yourself. (My black wire was painted white, so it was bit tricky) However, you do need someone extra in this project. The lighting was so heavy I thought I was going to drop it. It is almost impossible to hold the heavy lighting and attach the wires at the same time. I was so glad David was here to help me out.

Here is the before picture. Ignore sleeping Jake for a second and notice the huge & in-your-face round light in the background.

Here is another before picture. Actually, this picture does not do justice. The lighting is much uglier in real life.

Here is the new lighting I bought for $49.37. This picture is from Lowes.com.

Here is the after picture. My camera is not that good but this lighting makes big difference when you come into the house. First impression is very important.

Oh, it's so bright

2006-09-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

When I moved in, I noticed that the light by the door was not working. I changed the light bulb and it still was not working. So I went to Lowe's and bought this nice lighting fixture at $64.00 Lowe's will charge $80.00 just to install this thing. I recommend that you install it yourself. Just make sure to turn off circuit breakers before you do it... Here is the "After" pic.

My old house

2006-09-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

I bought my first house on September 1st 2006. It was built in 1973. People who lived here clearly did not take care of this house. I keep finding broken stuff since I moved in. This house also smells like poo. I'm not handy at all but I need to take this house to the next level with my limited money & time. The joy of the home ownership...