There's more than one way to skin a cat.

If there's one thing about the new house that really fires me up - it's that damn pee stain.
The entire wood floor is gorgeous EXCEPT for that damn pee stain.

I cleaned that thing about a hundred times to get the smell out.
Then I researched how to get that damn pee stain out.
Then I scrubbed for weeks with Hydrogen Peroxide to try and lighten that damn pee stain.
Called in the big guns and even tried bleach on it.
It became the epic battle known as "Woman v. Pee Stain"

Well my friends, I am proud to say I won. (Did you have any doubt in your mind?)
My solution? The floor people painted over it before they polyurethaned it. Brilliant!
Let's take a look at the before and after! Here it is, in all it's glory:

After weeks of elbow grease it finally lightened to this lovely shade:

And then finally the support troops came in and helped me win the war against the floor!

It doesn't actually look as light as it does in this picture - I think the flash made it brighter.
And it didn't cost anything extra because they are trying to get people to use this new "stain masking" service they are offering - so it was free! We figured, Hey the wood is ruined anyway so let's give it a whirl.
You put the rug up next to it, and in the daylight, you can't even tell!!

A Sneak Peek...

... at the new dining room. What do you think? The wall color is called Martini Olive.

I am going to make a book when we're all done of before and after photos. It's amazing the facelift this old house is getting!!!

Maybe I am coming down with a fever...

For those of you who know me - this is going to sound strange.

I finally finished painting the Master Bedroom... and I chose... BEIGE.

I don't know what I was thinking but it is such a departure from the norm for me! I love colors and usually go crazy with the wall color.

But after I was all done with the bedroom, I looked around and just thought - God this looks so sad!! I have a great image in my head though, inspired by a page in a Pottery Barn catalog - so I've got to stay true to the design!! I'm sure it will look great when it's all done. I've got a orange quilt and a orange sunset picture that's going on the wall - so I'm getting my color fix through accessories!!

Anyone need some firewood?

The tree is gone - no fall out yet from that 30 ton crane. I think we maybe have avoided disaster! Anyway - it created alot of firewood - too bad we don't have a fireplace!...... and it was 81 degrees on Monday!

Anyway I thought this photo was funny - we had half the street blocked off with tree limbs! They did eventually come and haul it away...

Floors - done!

The wood floors look GREAT!!! Thank you Mr. Sandless! We decided to go with them and I am SO glad we did. Cost half as much, and it was done in 1 day.

Of course they are not perfect - they never will be. They are old wood floors. The only way you can get all the scratches and little imperfections out would be to strip and sand them down very far and then get them refinished the old fashioned way.

We didn't have that kind of time - or money - and I kind of like the old look in a house! Why be cookie cutter? Do your own thing!!

So here is the before:

And the after:

And Dave is making nice wooden thresholds for all the doorways!

Goodbye Dead Tree!

God sent us a huge wake up call in the form of a dead water oak.

It's been getting quite chilly here in Florida... and a week or 2 ago we had a nor'easter blow through with high winds. I think it was the weekend of Florida/Georgia.... we were so preoccupied with the game and the all day tailgating that we had started to neglect Ardsley Manor. I think we went about 4 days in a row of not even checking up on her! Well the day after the game I was feeling restless (and sad :( Damn you Georgia!) and said to Dave, we've got to get back to work!

So we dragged out defeated butts out of bed and made it over there by early afternoon. What we found shook us to the core. A huge tree limb had cracked and fallen off the dead water oak that is hanging over our house. It missed our roof by 2 FEET! It's not a branch - it's a limb. We can't move it is so heavy.

Dave and I were racked with guilt - What if it had fallen through our roof, leaving us a big hole - while we're off drinking beer in a parking lot? So we decided that was a big sign from the man upstairs - "You two need to prioritize! Protect your family first - paint chips are non essentials!!"

The tree company is coming Tuesday to take it down. There is no way to get to the backyard, so they have to get a crane to reach over the house. I am getting a nervous stomach just thinking about it. They'll be carrying these huge branches over the house!!!! EEk! And they will have to take out some bushes on the side to get the stump grinder back there.

It's going to cost alot - and probably mess up the yard - but you know what? We'll be alive at the end of the day! And there will be no chance that sucker could fall through the roof in the middle of the night!!

Paint me a river.

We are finally ready for color in the dining room and master bedroom! It's been a long slow process, but we really wanted to get those 2 rooms done right, since we spend a lot of time there.

The master bedroom had some lovely wallpaper on it, you might recall. Pale blue, pink and yellow stripes - all you needed was a crib and voila! Instant nursery!

Dave and I decided that we've still got a few years before we can tackle another very expensive time consuming endeavor (children) so the nursery paper had to go! We contemplated the Trading-Spaces-quick-fix-paint-over-it philosophy... but in the end we had to strip it. The previous owner had papered over nails and tacks and picture hangers!!! So there were these big bumps in the wall - it was a mess. So I spent about a week stripping the paper and washing the walls. Then my dad came over to help mud the imperfections and Dave puttied holes. Then Dave sanded, vacuumed, and wiped down the walls. Then I went in and primed with Killz. So it's FINALLY ready for some color! It was ALOT of prep, but the walls are sooooo smooth you would not believe it. You can't even tell they're plaster. They look like drywall.

After seeing the amazing results, we are kicking ourselves that we did not do that much prep at the Belmonte house!! If you've been to our other house, you've seen the bumpy plaster walls. (Why didn't we think to do some prep there instead of slapping paint over it?)

Anyway I guess that's water over a bridge - or a bridge over troubled water - whatever. Needless to say we had to do the same thing to the dining room - couldn't bear to do a half assed job there. So we stripped the wallpaper - found the nicotine stains - washed walls - mudded - sanded - vacuumed - wiped - and last night primed. But this time used oiled based Killz because of the smell. Which if you've never used oil based Killz smells like gasoline and gets you high like a crackhead!!! Good lord that was an interesting evening! We tried to get as much ventilation as possible in there - but we ended up talking about some weird stuff and Dave was laughing... I got very cranky... my eyes started watering, so much so - I'd say it was more than when I watched The Notebook.

But it was worth it - both rooms look fantastic and are ready for some color!!

Smoking stinks.

It's like we unearthed a dead corpse.

Once we finally peeled the last of the wallpaper off the dining room... it started to smell like an old ash tray. Upon closer inspection... I noticed the walls had a faint black tint to them. I think the previous owner was a smoker at one point and they just wallpapered over the smell when they quit - or more likely, one of them died of lung cancer.
So Dave and I had to get scrubby brushes and buckets of water and literally scrub the tobacco off the walls. That was by far the most disgusting thing I have done in that house. I had to get one of those dish sponges that keeps soap in the handle. The trick is lots of soap to loosen the grease. You scrub a portion of the wall until the brown suds start dripping down the wall. YUCK! Then you wipe with a clean sponge and you're left with a white streak where you cleaned it. If it does that to your walls - IMAGINE WHAT IT DOES TO YOUR VITAL ORGANS!!!!! Vomit..

Another interesting thing we found under the wallpaper - some areas where there was a doorway and they boarded it up. And it's not even drywall or plaster - it's some weird sort of white board that they nailed in.

On this next picture you can really see how bad it is. The left side is cleaned, right side is not.

Out, damn spot! OUT, I SAY!

My epic saga with the pee stain continues. It's been a full two weeks and countless applications of hydrogen peroxide - and the damn thing will not go away!! I have been taking pictures trying to track the progress. But alas I see NO improvement. I am really dreading having to replace these boards. It's only this one corner of the room, too. So we thought we could get away with cleaning it, and then we wouldn't have to stain the entire floor to cover this one spot. But it looks like I am down to 3 options.

A. Bleach it and see how light it gets - hopefully not too light.
B. Rip out those boards and find ones to match.
C. Stain the entire floor a dark color.


Here are the photos - tell me what you think. Does anyone else have a solution for stained wood? I am up for trying anything.
DAY 1
DAY 14

Open says-a-me.

The new open pantry in the kitchen looks awesome! You can't even tell that there used to be a huge ugly indoor grill there. It took Dave and Charlie about 3 days to rip it out and build it. We were originally going to make it a deep pantry all the way to the top, with doors on it. But when they pulled the grill out, they found the air conditioner vent came through there - that's how it gets from the garage to the house. So that sort of altered the plans!! So as it stands we have deep shelving on the bottom, and a shallow shelf up top, and we're going to leave it open. I might put my canisters there... or maybe a clock.