“There is no substitute for hard work…”

A Thomas Edison quote there. My father-in-law would love it – he’s 86 and very into the wisdom of our founding fathers and other men of note. Today I spent nine hours cleaning and performing small tasks at the house, with help in the evening from the Husbeast and my crafty and handy friend Suzy. First I tackled the carpets. One of our biggest disappointments yesterday was the condition of the carpets in the house. The previous owners had carefully staged their furniture to cover stains and there were some new spots since the inspection. It looked pretty rough, the family room carpet looked like this:   When we first saw it we thought that we’d have to replace it. We priced carpet, laminate, and ceramic tile at Home Depot. We then felt despair and panic. But this morning I woke up feisty, so I loaded my parents’ carpet cleaner machine into the car, stopped at the Dollar Tree for ammonia, vinegar and various other cleaning supplies and off I went. I made my own carpet cleaning solution, because the commercial stuff is super expensive and smells funny (to me).

I used a quarter cup white vinegar, 1/4 cup orange-scented imitation Febreeze, a couple of drops of clear, scent-free All laundry detergent and filled up the rest of the tank with VERY hot water. I got this idea from the site The Dollar Stretcher.com. I also got the idea to spot treat with ammonia, which worked great. I did the whole area twice, which did a good job of removing stains that were just wear-pattern dirt. Then, the remaining stains I soaked with ammonia and sprinkled baking powder on and let sit an hour. The water from the dirty-water tank was black every time it needed to be emptied. The machine also sucked up and spit out lots of dog hairballs, here’s a picture of about half of them (yuck): Then after I re-shampooed the spots several times, I let the carpet dry and was amazed at the result:     It was salvageable! Now there were still marker stains (So, I learned my future kids will only use washable markers, and also if they mark up nearly as much carpet, wall, and interior refrigerator (?!) space as the previous owners’ kids did they won’t be using markers in the house at all thankyouverymuch). However, I think we can hide them with an area rug and our couches. The space looks generally clean. I repeated this process in our front room with the same results. The adjoining dining room though, not even going to attempt…it is so dirty, and has so many stains. Carpet in a dining room is just unwise anyway. Husbeast is going to tile the dining room with ceramic tiles, which are stain-proof when sealed. No pictures because taking pictures of filthy carpet gets old fast.

I also cleaned the blinds which were encrusted with dust and grime. That was a job, I used a sponge and 409 cleaner. Suzy later told me I should have taken them off the wall and cleaned them in the bathtub. Did I mention that she is practical as well  as artistic? You should check out her furniture restoration blog, A Treasure Redefined. Guess who’s revamping my dining room set soon? Anyway,  here’s my sponge after swiping one slat: While I was at it I washed the walls and windows – the walls need paint touch up and we have a great water view, so the windows just need to be clean. By this time CT and Suzy had arrived. Suzy caulked the multitude of small holes in the wall and CT cleaned out the refrigerator with vinegar and baking soda – the whole thing smelled like rotten vegetables and regular soap and hot water wouldn’t remove the smell. I cleaned the kitchen, an lo and behold, under the crumbs, hand prints, and smears of food, we have a lovely marble kitchen island.   I finished up the day feeling like our home-improvement tasks were doable. It’s a true shame that the previous owners cared so little as to leave it this dirty, but it’s ours now, and it’s going to sparkle soon.

First Day

Today was the first day we had possession of our new house. We are so excited to start customizing it, but it was disheartening to discover that the previous owners left it filthy. Surprising too as it was clean when the inspection was done three weeks ago – that’s a lot of dirty living for three weeks!

One of the bathroom toilets was clogged, the yard was full of dog poo, there were food smears all over the counters, in the drawers, the fridge reeked of rotten vegetables, there were new stains all over the carpet, and huge gouges out of the wall where they took off pictures that they had glued on with some type of putty.And the garage door doesn’t work now (it did on inspection day). Oh and a giant hole in the deck. 

 

Nice, huh? We asked them to take out the hot tub on the deck because it didn’t look well maintained. And they did. And left us this:

 

Yep, they never treated the wood underneath the hot tub. What you can’t really see is that the dampness from the hot tub around the edges made the boards rotten, so those need to be replaced. Plus…even if we just wanted to paint over it we don’t have the matching paint color so the whole deck now needs to be repainted. And, you get to see a little piece of an old, rusty, broken table they left us. 

Personally, I’ve never left a place less than sparkling when I’ve left it to new people. I do understand the “not my problem” feeling of moving, and this family was likely annoyed with us because our lender couldn’t get it together and close on the schedule they would have preferred (although they did sign the contract agreeing to a later closing time before randomly changing their mind). Still, I’d be ashamed to leave a place I lived in that kind of condition, especially because it’s a beautiful home on a beautiful piece of property. 

Not the best welcome to our first home but we’ll put some elbow grease in and in a month or so it will likely look better than it has in years. Let the madness begin!