3 City Certified Dumpsters later...

I come over one night to check on the progress. N has been working on this house every evening for the last 2 weeks with J, and not only have they loaded up 3 dumpsters of plaster and lath, they have also installed insulation.

I quickly discover that I am VERY allergic to the fiberglass insulation, as N came home one night after working with J, showered, and got into bed. As he was snuggling, I all of a sudden got a vicious stinging sensation on my back. N did not wear long sleeves as he was installing the insulation, and the fiber glass remnants that were on his arm were now attacking my back. Even post shower. This made the decision for me to not assist in installing the insulation very easy. Sweet, another "Foo-free" week!

Below are the photos I took after the majority of the insulation is up, and the demo is done. Check it out:

Looking into the kitchen with the random door, and closet on the side

the random kitchen door, and the door out to the living room

the ceiling demolished!

the corner of the room with the random window into the lodge on the left.

the window facing outside and the closet.

Its DEMO time!

After the wallpaper fiasco, we decide to come back and start the demolition of the master bedroom. Armed with a hammer in one hand and a crow bar in another, I attack the first wall. With a resounding crunch, I bust through the plaster, and hit wood. As I pull my crowbar out of the wall, with it comes a huge chunk of plaster and a ton of dust.

I instantly start laughing. The one thing I did not anticipate from this is that this would actually be fun! N looks over at me, winks (as yes, we are wearing face masks throughout this process) and says "Good job babe!" I go at my second swing with some gusto. CRASH! BANG! BOOM! I can't even tell you how satisfying this is! I feel like a kid who should be getting in trouble for putting a hole in the wall, but instead I am being encouraged!

The thrill lasts for an hour. And then reality sets in. Its now late November as we are starting this project, and N turned off the heat so the dust would not get in the vents. Its cold. And I am starting to get sore, not to mention that some wayward plaster connected directly with my foot. My hair is white from all the dust, and I start to think I need a shower pretty badly. Not to mention that its late, and I have to work tomorrow. "Can we call it a day N?". He (thankfully) says yes. I survey around. We accomplished demolishing 2 walls of plaster and lath up to N's arm reach. Fairly good progress.

In order to get rid of the plaster and lath, you have to call the city to have a dumpster dropped off. We don't have that yet, so we leave the plaster and lath in the middle of the room, and call it an evening. On our drive home, N and I discuss the day's work.

"Liv, I know that this is something that you did not sign up for, and this house is my responsibility. I love you, but I want to tell you that in order for me to not be living with you and your room mate, I have to put in more hours into the house than you seem to be able to do." N explains to me. This is a fair assessment. I physically cannot keep up with N, and besides, as much as I love him, I had a feeling that there would be plenty to do on Foo, and the demo of the master bedroom was just the beginning.

"N, you are right. My sister's boyfriend is an independent contractor, and is in hiatus from jobs right now. Why don't you call him, and he can assist with the demo of the room?" I suggest. N contemplates this thought, and decides its a good idea. One phone call later, and I have hired an independent contractor, J, to assist with Foo at the best price point possible - free! This also means that I just bought myself a couple of weeks "Foo-free" as its the busiest time at my work, and I needed to be there 110%. One problem solved!

Living Situation

You may be questioning what N's living situation is at this point in time. Well, since we were dumping so much money into Foo, and paying a mortgage on Foo, I asked my roommate if it would be alright if N lived with us for a month while we were getting Foo in a livable state. Thank god for my roomie, as he graciously said yes!! He was such a lifesaver, and a great person for allowing N to live with us, and I will be forever grateful. Mind you, I lived in an incredible apartment overlooking the city and mountains (see below).

N moved in with me for the month of November, and believe me, it was tough going from a fully furnished and working penthouse apartment to Foo. I would not move into Foo until July of 2008, however N moved into Foo in December 2007 with the master bedroom completed. No working bathroom, or kitchen, or living room, or dining room, or 2nd bedroom or laundry room... He is such a trouper. I have to say, love makes you do crazy things... and in this case, I moved from this apartment to Foo. What can I say, N is an amazing man!

Wallpaper... layers and layers of wall paper.

A week passes. The carpet is out, the base boards are gone, and the dog piss smell has finally dissipated. "Time to work on the master bedroom" N says to me. Looking in our master bedroom, I don't know what we are remodeling. It has 4 walls, a ceiling, a random door to the kitchen, a random window into the lodge, and a door. The walls could certainly be cleaned and re-painted, but I am not sure what else needs to be done. And then I look closer.

The wall with the lodge window has the most heinous wall paper I have ever seen. And when I say absolutely HEINOUS, I mean, paisley wall paper with olive green coloring, over light pink floral print, over baby blue robins... the staggering amounts of awful decorating choices was almost overwhelming. N tells me that I am going to start stripping off the wall paper, and he will be working on the floors in the living room/dining room.

Armed with wallpaper solvent, a mask, gloves, and a knife, I start to go at it. Spray the wall, wait 5 minutes, scrape, and... nothing. As much as I am scraping and scraping, these layers upon layers of wall paper do not want to budge. I get a corner here, a rip there, but after an hour and a half, I get fed up and frustrated. N tells me that I just need to scrape harder. HARDER?? I can't even lift my right arm, as it is SO SORE from attempting to remove this awful decor. At this point, I want to punch the wall, or punch N. The odd are really 50:50 as to who will feel the wrath of my pain and frustration. Instead of lashing out, I decide that I will take N's advise, and scrape harder. With one fail swoop, I scrape so hard that I take off not only the 10 layers of wallpaper, I also take off 1/2 of the plaster from the wall.

"Oops" squeaks out of my mouth. N comes in the room to see what has happened. He takes a look at the wall, takes a look at me, and says "Screw it, we will take the whole wall down!" Huh? Take the wall down? Oh wait, thats right, this is Foo we are talking about. The "start one project, create 3 more" house. Ok. So, now, after 2 hours of working on the wall paper, we now decide to demo all of the walls in the master bedroom. This means that all the plaster and lath has to go, and a day of labor is wasted. Again, I am not sure what I have gotten myself into, but I say OK.

We decide to call it a day, and will come back on a weeknight to begin demolition of the walls.

The First Day

Dressed in my finest pair of high-waisted Gap jeans circa 1999, and an old sorority sweatshirt, I prepared myself for our first day of work. First thing to go - the dog piss carpet. Thinking of all the crap and pee that was embedded into the green shag carpet, I demanded gloves and face masks in order to start work. N obliged, as we headed to Home Depot to get supplies. Little did I realize that this was the first of many trips that were to be made to the Depot and Lowes. In fact, I am pretty sure that we spent so much money at these two places, that we purchased the front left tire on Joey Logano's NASCAR vehicle. (On a side note, since we did spend so much time in these two stores, I know that Joey Logano is sponsored by Home Depot, and Jimmie Johnson is sponsored by Lowes. Believe me, I am NO NASCAR fan, but apparently every other patron of these two stores are huge fans, and the respective drivers mentioned above have their faces plastered everywhere.)

Post Depot trip, armed with gloves, masks, crowbars and hammers, we tackled our first job. N's step dad is a carpet salesman and a general contractor, so N was exposed to a vast amount of knowledge of home improvement growing up. It was a HUGE asset for us in the long run. N instructed me to go to a corner and start pulling up the carpet. Not an easy feat.

"N, how the HELL do I get this started?" I exclaimed, as I was not fortunate to have a handyman as a father figure growing up. N comes over, takes the crowbar, and pops off the quarter round of trim surrounding the baseboards. He then proceeds to rip off the top layer of carpet. Up comes a huge layer of dust, and an AWFUL smell with it. N then looks over at me, smiles, and says "Good luck". GOOD LUCK??? Ok. I think to myself "Come on Liv! You were a hard core girl scout - you can do this!" (not that they ever had a "home improvement" badge that we could earn, but I felt like this was something I could accomplish!)

I proceed to cut and roll up the carpet, all while my eyes are watering and being grateful that I am wearing a face mask so N cannot see the grimace on my face. But, after a while, I find my groove, and am able to rip up the carpet with more ease. Once we get the carpet up, we had to tackle the padding underneath. This was hands down, one of the GROSSEST parts of the house. This padding was circa 1972, and since the previous owners had dogs, certain piss spots embedded themselves to the hardwood below. It took us about 4 hours of pulling up the carpet, the padding, and nailing down all the staples used to install the carpet to have finished one very small project.

The positive about the day - the removal of the carpet was a DRAMATIC improvement to the aesthetics of Foo, and also improved her smell!!! The negative - after pulling out all the carpet, we quickly realized that the baseboards would have to go as well. After another hour of pulling the baseboards away from the sides, and bringing most of the plaster off the walls, we somehow created another project for ourselves. This will become a re-occuring theme in the House of Foo. Start one project, create 3 more. Oh well!

Above is view from lodge. Closest part is living room

View from second bedroom. Closest room is dining

Cost of supplies (Hammer, Knife, Gloves, Masks, Etc.) - $40

Cost of Labor - Free

Feeling of first day complete - Priceless.

First Impression

"You bought a lodge N!" I exclaimed, as I was greeted by an extremely tacky enclosed porch/mudroom/entrance. The entryway is completely covered in wood. I mean, wood on the wall, the floor, everything! It seriously looked like we were transported into a 1970's ski chalet with a mudroom entrance. Frankly, I was shocked there were no dead animal heads mounted on the wall. As I looked down the room of the narrow lodge, I noticed an additional window from one of the bedrooms into the lodge. N informed me that this was an enclosed porch, therefore the windows that originally faced the outside of the house were now conveniently inside.

Looking into the lodge from the front door (this was after construction started - thus the insulation and dust!)

From the end of the lodge looking at the awesome front door on the right

As we moved into the house from the lodge, we walked into an entirely open living room/dining room. High ceilings - check. Large windows - check. Wall nooks painted shit-brown - check. Nasty green shag rug reeking of dog piss - check. While I was plugging my nose, I did take in the potential of the room. The rug completely turned me off, however the high ceilings with rounded crown moulding, and large arched wall combining both the living room and dining room did entice me. It actually had some charm! "Want to see the master bedroom?" N asked me. "Sure!"

He directed me immediately right from the living room into the master bedroom. High Ceilings - check. Finished hardwood floors original to the house - check. Tacky wall paper - check. Teeny-tiny closet - check. Door from master bedroom to kitchen - check. "A door to the kitchen? Not very feng shui, N" I commented. Still, it was a larger room, and if we enclosed off the door to the kitchen, we would actually have a decent sized room to accommodate for the many dressers I would need to purchase in order to create a home for my fabulous wardrobe.

Moving onto the kitchen. High Ceilings - check. Mint chocolate chip ice cream green walls/cabinets with pepto bismol pink ceramic tile back splash - check. Linoleum counter top and floor potentially made with asbestos - check. Sink needing a wrench to turn on water - check. The potential found in this room; if we knocked out the wall dividing the dining room and the kitchen, we would actually have a fairly open house, and we could make an awesome bar! Still, this room scared me the most, as it came with absolutely no appliances except for a refrigerator from 1956: complete with an industrial magnet to keep it closed, and 51 years worth of rust. That's right folks - this is a foreclosure. People take their appliances and sell them off before they foreclose on a house. Therefore, we had nothing in the way of a stove/oven/dishwasher/microwave/toaster. College dorm rooms had more appliances than this house.

The breakfast nook is an extension of the kitchen, and actually has very short ceilings. So short, that our friend Jeremy came over and immediately hit his head on the archway dividing the breakfast nook and the kitchen.

From the kitchen, we entered the only bathroom in the house. Bathtub - check. Toilet - check. Check. Sink - check. Olive green wainscoting with the same green/pink motif from the kitchen - check. This is only one of 2 rooms in the entire house that has lower ceilings in it. While walking though the house, I was starting to understand that the people who lived here before had not updated anything since the 70's (at least!), however this bathroom proved it. The sink was so small, there was no cabinet/counter space, and the bathtub was so enclosed, we could not even stand up straight. And I am 5'4". "What is this, a bathroom for ants? It has to be at least 3 times as big!" I said to N, quoting one of our favorite movies. Potential in this room: well, at least all the plumbing was in place, so we would not have to redo that!

Off of the dining room, we had a smaller 2nd bedroom that we thought would make a great guest room. Windows facing the backyard - check. Pepto bismol pink room - check. More nasty dog piss carpet - check. Creepy teenager sharpie angst notes written on the inside of the closet - check. Potential in this room: the least amount of work to be done in all the rooms. The majority of our house was constructed in plaster and lath. This add on had to have happened past the 1950's, as that is when they started using drywall/plasterboard in most American homes. This room was a combination of the two, and just really needed a new carpet and a fresh coat of paint - NOT PINK!!!! The best part about this room is that N and I are both not from Colorado, therefore we have a place for family to stay when they come visit us.

Finally, the laundry room and backyard. Our laundry room is off the breakfast nook. Room for a new washer and dryer - check. Hook ups for both a washer and dryer - check. Large industrial sink - check. Puke olive green color on both the painted cement floor, and walls - check. The potential for this room was much easier to see: no rewiring of the outlets, and there was already a dryer vent in place!

Our backyard is HUGE! The best part of the house is the lot it is on. A huge backyard, complete with a brick BBQ built in, and a rusty shack/garage, along with my own clothes line! Definitely in need of Jim Cameron from Desperate Landscapes but we can make do.

After the full tour of the "Denver Square" house that was now ours, I thought to myself that this was going to be a good thing. Looking over at N, I said "It's got potential. Besides, this does not seem like its a ton of work!" Famous last words.

September 2007 - The beginning

N approached me one day in early September of 2007.

"What do you think about me buying a house?" N asks as we are in his fully furnished rented apartment in downtown Denver. "A house? Well, what kind of house?" I am 23 at the time, and have been dating N for a year at this point. As a 23 year old liberal girl from Northern California, co-habitation is not on my mind, so I am not sure what he means by buying a house. The fact of the matter is that I was just getting comfortable giving N a key to my apartment. After a year. N is a good 5 years my senior, and is originally from Wisconsin. I say this in the most loving way I can - N is a mid-westerner through and through. He has done the "I am from the midwest, married my high school sweetheart at 23, moved, and got divorced at 26" deal.

We began dating right as his divorce went though, and the first 6 months were a bit turbulant. From "breaks" to "break ups" to new jobs to new apartments, we definitly put our relationship to the test. When we both finally decided to commit to one another, and give "us" a real shot, things started getting serious. Fast forward to the above conversation...

"You know, a house. It has rooms, a backyard, and a mortgage instead of rent" N snarked at me in his infamous sarcastic tone.

"Well," I counteracted, "If you want to buy a house, go ahead, buy a house!" Famous last words.

N then contacted a good friend of ours, Amy, who is an extremely good realtor, and the hunt started. I am pretty sure that Amy and N looked at 35 houses before they found Foo. Later in September, N called me.

"I bought a house"

"You found a house? Wait, you BOUGHT a house?"

"Yes, do you want to see it?"

Well, of course I wanted to see it. I wanted to know where I was going to be sleeping half of the week, where I would be escaping to from my room mate, and where my precious toothbrush would live. N picked me up, and we headed over to the house. We pull up.

"It's Packers colors, N! Is this why you bought it?"

"Listen, Liv, I am going to need you to keep an open mind. I bought this house as a foreclosure. It's not very nice right now, but with some work, I think it's going to be great. You know that my stepdad taught me how to build a house from the ground up. I think it will be a great project. You'll see! And, it would be great if you could help me!"

All I could think of in that moment, was that I was totally incabable of even hanging a picture on the wall. But, N was excited, and this was no time for me to open my mouth. So, I opened the car door, and entered what is now the house named Foo.

A House Named Foo

My name is Liv. Over the past year and 9 months, I have been re-modeling a house with my boyfriend N. This blog is about the re-model.

This is my house. This is me. My house is named Foo. Why Foo? Well, the amount of expletives that were used while remodeling the house is where its name came from (use your imagination). And since this house was purchased in October of 2007, Foo has fought us nail and screw on our valiant attempt to beautify, and take Foo from the dump of a foreclosure to a loving home.

This is the story of our fight.