Connections... Perplexions .... and Decisions!

Oh the excitement of our house arriving this past Saturday was quite exhilarating!  Several of our friends and neighbors stopped by to see the house, and it was such a joyous time for us, in spite of the high temperatures.  Typically, we may get one day a year that reaches temps over 100 degrees, and that is usually in late July.  However, this year, we had a run of two days straight with temps in the 100s. Several friends reported seeing thermometers registering temps as high as 110.  Our temperature gauge got to 102, which was still pretty brutal!

We have been very busy getting started with the remodeling process that needs to happen before we can move in.  So many things need to be done, but right now, the floors are taking precedent.

Oh, what a mess!  The top layer of the linoleum in the trailer comes up easily enough, but the felt adhesive backing underneath it... oh what a totally different story!  We have chipped, scraped, and pulled, all without much luck.  Because the floors are already so uneven, we need to get all the adhesive off, so the new flooring will have a clean surface to attach to.  I have researched different options online, and none of them are very appealing.  The best one I have heard that works is using boiling water with a rag, and dipping the rag in the boiling water, and laying it on the adhesive, waiting 10 minutes, and then peeling off the adhesive.  Problem is, we don't have hot water yet...

My husband has hooked up the water, sewer, and electric lines, which was quite a bit of work, but because the hot water heater is gas, we can't use it, as we don't have gas here.  So right now we are shopping craigslist for a propane tank, and then we will have the valves switched over from gas to propane.  So far, we haven't had any luck finding one within our budget.

So... until we get a propane tank installed in order to have hot water, we will just have to continue chipping away at this nasty adhesive!

A dear friend, T came over to help my husband with replacing the soft spots in the floor.  There ended up being more soft spots than we realized, but thankfully these are being easily fixed with new plywood.

Another option that we are considering is putting down a new sub floor in the kitchen and then placing the new flooring on top of that, considering that the adhesive is so difficult to remove.  I wanted to put vinyl flooring or interlocking floor planking through the whole house, but after checking prices at Home Depot, the sticker shock caused me to reconsider other options.  We will probably lay carpet in the living room, hallway and bedrooms, and only lay the new vinyl flooring in the kitchen and bathroom.

My husband keeps reminding me that the house is paid for, and we need to keep things simple, and that is great to think about... except when you start trying to make difficult decisions, and of course, stores know how to "up-sell" product, and leave you reeling with the cost of it all!

I took our kitchen measurements to Home Depot to see what kind of prices were available on cabinets. The man who worked with me was a former contractor, and I told him I wanted the cheapest options, and the most functional. We ended up spending 2 hours designing these cabinets.  This is a computer rendering of what the finished product would generally look like.  The happiest part of this - the cabinets are on sale for 20% off.  I have until July 8th to make a decision on whether we want to do this, or not.

If we went this route, we would use the bar area cabinets that are already in place... (minus the dishwasher, as we tried it, and it is broken!)



... and simply add a corner floor cabinet with a Lazy Susan, hanging wall cabinets, and the pantry, with it all coming to a total of $684.00 plus tax!  My husband thinks this sounds like a reasonable option to consider.



However, with our plan of keeping this process as cost effective as possible, I went back to the cabinets that were stacked inside the kitchen.  These had not been installed, but when I looked at them closer, they could possibly work!  I would have to sand and paint them, and add door handles, but this option might be the cheapest one yet.

So my question to you, my reader, is this... what would you do?  Save the money, and use the very cheap particle board cabinets, repainted - or go with the very cheap on sale cabinets that Home Depot is offering at about $700.00?

I also picked up paint while I was at Home Depot, and these will be the colors, - Scribe (a beautiful light creamy color that unfortunately got  washed out in the picture above) Real Wood (a beautiful dark chocolate) and Aquifer (a lovely turquoise color that my daughter wants to paint her room).

Here are flooring samples that I am going to probably have to choose from (left to right in picture above): Armstrong Heartland Timbers Walnut (87 cents/sq. foot or Armstrong Sentinel Tavola 98 cents/sq. foot.  My thought is to find something that won't show or hold dirt, and I am leaning pretty heavily towards the Heartland Timbers Walnut.  So, if anyone has experience with this type of flooring, it would be nice to hear how it worked for you!  This would be the most cost effective flooring IF we can get a level floor surface.

This particular flooring is the ALLURE Ultra Interlocking Resiliant Plank Flooring that can go down on uneven surfaces, is waterproof, and has a lifetime warrantry.  However, it is very expensive, at approximately $3.00 a square foot!

So... there are many decisions that we will need to make shortly.  One important factor in the decision is that this is not a "forever" home, but simply a starting point to where we can save our money to build the home we really want.  It is all very exciting though, and I am so eager to start painting, but my husband says painting can't start until the floor patching is finished, and until we make a decision on what we are going to do with the floors, because there will be so much dust from the floors, which would hinder the painting process.

So for now, my husband and son, and our dear friend T and another dear friend A are working on getting the floors repaired, and then we will see what happens from there.

I certainly appreciate any comments, ideas, or suggestions on how to make this process go more smoothly, and be as cost effective as possible.  :)