Christmas Camping

Originally, we were just going to replace both bathrooms (including moving walls in the one downstairs), replace the carpet, and paint. But as we delved deeper into the condition of the house, we started adding more things that we wanted to change. Although this meant having to expand our budget, we were able to stretch it further through some of the choices we made.



When I showed this pictures to some friends, they thought the place looked pretty good but it is quite deceiving. The lovely wood floor (¾” Yonkers floor from Denmark) had been abused (apparently the prior owners children had ridden their bikes indoors on rainy days – I might understand this in Seattle but seriously, how much rain does So Cal get?). The molding at child height had been badly banged about and the walls were covered in large areas of Spackle (Pollyfilla for those in the UK). The prior owners had done this to fill in the nail holes from pictures and other fixtures and they probably thought they were being helpful. However, a small nail hole does not need a six-inch patch of uneven Spackle over it to fill it in. There were patches like this all over the house and if left and painted over would have created large flat areas on the textured walls.



You can see one of these patches through the doorway in the above picture.
So one of the first we did was to clean all the Spackle off of the walls. The second was to clean the house from top to bottom. Even though the house was soon going to get dirty and dusty from the remodel, at least it would be our dirt - not somebody else’s.



Since we had come to the conclusion that the house needed a complete remodel, we decided to move in a minimum of furniture. That way we would room to work and so we didn’t cover our stuff with dust. So in came a table and two folding chairs, a blow-up mattress on the floor, a microwave, a few clothes and lots and lots of tools (which had been supplemented from Mr. Remodel’s already extensive collection with additional items that were deemed absolutely necessary and which were on sale and that he had always wanted and never got).
Six months later we are still sleeping on the floor. We have added a couple of Poang armchairs from IKEA and a TV someone gave us but essentially we are still camping out.

Spending Christmas in an almost empty run-down house without a fridge and some dodgy appliances was not the most festive we’ve ever spent. Christmas dinner was two rather unappetising microwave dinners, which made a big mess because they had thawed. The outer packaging was waxed paper, which had gone soggy and kept tearing as I put them in and out of the microwave. A cooler is great for keeping things cool but does noting for keeping things frozen. Plus it is shocking how quickly ice melts even in winter, even with the cooler in the garage.
But I was grateful that I had a roof over my head and that we had moved back to the beach (walking on an almost deserted beach on Christmas Day was magical). And because I was clueless about how dusty it would get and how long it would all take.