Look What We Found

This project has been an interesting test of our optimism. Several seemingly simple steps in our timeline have presented far greater problems than anticipated. Like the asbestos in the back bedrooms for example. Instead of lifting the ancient carpet and padding to reveal beautiful untouched original hardwood flooring, we found tiles made of asbestos. Similarly, in the kitchen and dining rooms, we were lulled into a false sense of ease as we saw newspaper sticking out of the edges of the sheet linoleum flooring making us believe that, although a little strange, there was likely newspaper under the whole floor. We assumed that this would make the process of removing the lovely yellow and orange floor covering quite simple. Au contraire!

See the lovely yellow lino?

(With all the bikes in there, you'd think the guy running the bike shop still lived downstairs!)

After removing the linoleum, we found some tar paper…old tar paper that over time and thanks to gravity had leached most of its tar into the floor underneath. There were a few patches where the paper had come up completely and we were excited about the prospects of uncovering it. We decided to run some tests to find out if any basic household items might remove it. We tried soaking a spot in windex, using Goof-off, fingernail polish remover (acetone), and regular household orange cleaner…all to no avail. So now what?

The Internet is truly an amazing tool. Even though Bob Villa’s website professionals said that the best thing to do was to call a professional, we knew there HAD to be a better way. We searched home forum after home forum. If someone out there understands how those crazy forums work, please let us know. We were able to read the questions just fine, but trying to find the responses felt impossible. However, there were links to products, mostly chemical, that we were not inclined to either pay for or use in our house. There was only one potential organic orange product that looked interesting. Finally, we found someone else’s web-site that was a lot like this one. He was restoring an old house and had a very similar problem to ours. Then we struck it rich. One lady told the story of how she removed the tar paper stuck to her deck with water. It showed photos over time of her spraying the bejesus out of her deck. This method seemed like a waste of water and not quite right for our situation. We wanted to save the wood, not ruin it. Plus, after getting all that water into the house, how were we supposed to get it out?

Others suggested soaking a blanket or towel in hot water and then laying it over the floor over night; or putting a blanket down and then pouring water over it and letting it sit. One lady even said she put down a blanket, watered it, then put a cooling rack (like for cookies) over the top of that, then placed an old iron on the cooling rack. We only have one iron we didn’t want to ruin, let alone ruining blankets. We need those blankets, it’s cold in our house!

Finally we were gaining hope that we might not have to use chemicals to remove this stuff. Then we found the post of the guy who was working on his own house. He said that he rented a wallpaper steamer and it did the trick. It was worth a shot. And low and behold, it worked! Maybe not as quickly as it did for him, but still, the paper came off, as did the tar if you let it sit long enough.

So Andrea took a few days off work to help get the job accomplished. We rented two wallpaper steams and set work early Wednesday morning. By the end of the evening we were exhausted, smelled like tar, but had uncovered all of the wood without chemicals. It is really nice too. We do still have to refinish the floors, but a sanding, some stain, and some sealant and we’re in business.

This simple bit of progress and our spirits have been rejuvenated. Oh the joys of homeownership!

Jack Pot

Finally, after ripping down almost all of the walls in the house, we found the money. Unfortunately, there wasn’t quite as much of it as we had hoped, but we still found the discovery thrilling. Here it is, a 1939 D Silver Mercury Dime. Pretty cool. I don’t ever remember seeing one before, or even knowing that they existed. Based on some brief searching, this not-so shiny dime could be worth anywhere from 10¢ to $5.00 (max for an un-circulated dime). The mostly likely estimate that I could find said that most are only worth the amount of silver that they contain.
It might not pay for a new heating/cooling system, but it certainly made us smile. Isn’t that worth enough?

Restricted Access

We felt horribly self conscious after Timmy commented about our Americans with Disabilities Act conforming front patio and antiquated/crude home cooling system, so look…they’re gone! We actually removed the air conditioner to seal up the window for the winter months and because we were fortunate enough to have found the window that originally belonged in that space. The light the window provides is invaluable to us now. The front porch was a blast to deconstruct. It may not have made us any progress on our required improvements so that we may get refinanced using conventional methods by September 2009, but we toiled with joy and still (a couple of weeks later) smile at our handiwork. On the same day, we cleared out some of the beds, pruned the bush and planted a few bulbs. The next day we removed most of the nails from the ensuing heap of rubble and organized all of our scrap wood. We can’t wait until we get to work on the yard in earnest.

Finally permitted to work…

Here it is…three months of drawing plans and talking to the City and revising plans and re-measuring and drafting yet another set of plans and to top it all off, about a thousand bucks; and voila. Isn’t it beautiful?

Happy Easter!

For Easter this year, we decided to celebrate the holiday by removing asbestos! Maybe not so traditional, but we were wearing “bunny suits” as evidenced by this post’s photo. A while back we had a sample tested and discovered that the cafeteria style (and color too!) linoleum floor tiles in the two bedrooms downstairs contained asbestos. After doing some Internet research and corresponding with LRAPA (Lane (County) Regional Air Pollution Authority) and a few local contractors who specialize in asbestos abatement, we determined that with relatively low risk and substantial savings, we could remove the offending tiles ourselves.

The next step was to acquire the appropriate gear. From a construction safety supply company, we bought two respirators or half-masks and the appropriate particulate filters. The filters are the brilliant pink disks on the front of our masks that kind of made us look like giant mosquitoes. The rest of the outfits we kind of winged. We bought painting hoods and jump suits so that if any of the asbestos fibers happened to become friable (get into the air) that we stood less of a chance of taking those back into our home on our clothes or in our hair. Next we donned some disposable gloves and armed ourselves with spray bottles to keep everything moist and less likely to make dust.

The whole project didn’t take very long. We soon got the hang of removing the tiles in one piece (quicker and safer) with a few well placed taps and a quick pry and boxed up all of the tiles and wrapped them in six mil. plastic. It really only took us two sessions of about two hours each to finish the job.

Sadly the glue or mastic used to install the tiles also contains asbestos. Without adding more chemicals to the mixture, we won’t be able to restore the original fir floors in either room, so instead we will be re-flooring them. The consensus for now is new hardwood.

We hope that you all had a wonderful Easter holiday. We sure did!