weird shit 2
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Who knew we’d be here again discussing more Weird Shit, but when renovating a 1960s ranch that was primarily used as a rental for more than a dozen years, weird shit happens. The titles below sound like horror movie titles, but for a home diyer, they might as well be.
1. behind the doors
Seriously? What the hell!?
Inspectors find lots of shit when looking through before you buy. Then again, they miss a lot of pretty obvious shit too. We recently emptied our master bedroom closet to make way for the new flooring and baseboard that is being installed as we speak. We’d moved in four years ago in such a hurry, that we just unpacked and didn’t look back.. So much so that, not going to lie, it was pretty damn dusty in the back of said closet. Also, we discovered a live outlet literally hanging from the wall. LIVE OUTLET HANGING. How the inspector missed it boggles the mind almost as much as why the hell the previous owners left a live junction box hanging from the wall! Why not cut the drywall and install it? It’s already there. I literally don’t understand, and really we have no use for it. Why would we want to have an active plug next to clothing? It seems like a giant fire waiting to happen. Anyway, a project for a later date, but weird.
Weird pipe
We were well aware there was a faucet/pipe situation in the office closet. Because we’re now dealing with adding floors and baseboards to that closet we had to think through what to do with this ridiculous setup. Messing with old pipes in an old slab is a big no-no. As my son says “1 million percent” I don’t want to deal with it. It ain’t broke, so I’m not fixing it. That said, it also made no sense to have a baseboard detailed around it and we need to think of a way to keep it safe from all the crap we store in that closet, while also keeping it accessible to turn it on and off during the spring and winter, respectively,. We decided to build a hinged box around it and will build in the baseboards at a later date. But seriously, who just leaves a major pipe exposed in a storage closet with no protection? Weird.
2. the wall to nowhere
Weird wall to nowhere
Wall to nowhere, patched
After pulling off paneling in our hall, we’ve had a pretty good experience patching and painting. The exception is the wall adjacent to the guest bath, including the wall in the linen closet. We noticed mold under the paneling right away, but it looked old and inactive. We figured like in other places in the house there had been a leak, in this case from the tub/shower, and though the tub/shower was replaced was repaired, the damage it had caused was left, painted over, paneled over and hidden. We’ve tried to patch the wall with joint compound several times, only to punch through it when sanding. We’ve finally admitted to ourselves we need to replace the drywall, but before doing that, I convinced my husband to punch a bigger hole in the linen closet and ensure that the contractors the previous owners had used had done the job properly. By this I mean, I wanted to see blueboard (waterproof drywall) and not just more mold that could lead to a catastrophic failure of the tiled wall later down the road. Luckily, the creepy hole he peered through did in fact show blueboard for the both shower wall we could see and we removed the crumbling old plaster, replacing it with new drywall, which we mudded. Bye-bye weird creepy holes.
3. what lies behind – the slab
Like dealing with the pipes, the slab is usually not something I want to mess with, but in the case of doing the floors, we had no choice. The previous owners had put down the horrible pink tile (HPT) possibly to replace some of the parquet that was damaged. The HPT is in the dining room and the hallway in an open floor plan and makes no sense. So we’re ripping it out, but because the dopes who put the tile down used more mortar than a kid putting frosting on his own cake, we hired the professionals to come take it out. Well, surprise, surprise, the slab is cracked and damaged by all the tile being dug out, plus it’s unlevel, a fact I will totally notice in my wheelchair. So the contractors are fixing it to the tune of an additional $1,900 because they have to repair and relevel nearly the entire house. Ugh.
Maybe not as weird as much as annoying.
Living room with a big crack in the slab
What remains of the living room
More of the living room
What remains of the master bedroom
What remains of the office
What remains of the hall
4. the hole
Weird hole
We’ve had quite a few holes in the walls here and found quite a few different things. This was no different. While removing the old baseboard trim in the office closet - the one with the faucet pipe in it - part of the plaster collapsed. Usually you’d expect to find insulation behind the plaster, but no. We found bags. Yup, bags stuffed in the hole and poorly plastered and boarded over. Some days I am really concerned about what we’re going to find in these walls. Weird.
Look, when you’re renovating, you're going to find some weird shit. Some of it is funny, some horrifying, some just weird. Comment below and let me know about some weird shit you’ve found during your renos.
Thanks for reading!
