Attic Cleaning Day 3

Day 3 and the final day of cleaning was a success. I was able to get everything cleaned up extremely quickly, I wasn't mess'in around this time, everything that I needed was there and readily available. I had to work a little late at work on this day, so I was worried that I wouldn't get much done, plus I had to goto Home Depot to buy some Romex wiring, a few pieces of plywood, and a couple of lights. So by the time I got home it was close to 7 pm. As soon as I got home I pretty much headed straight upstairs and just went ahead and tackled the left side of the attic. Will have a couple of pics to show what it looked like before doing any cleaning to it.





The first task was to clear out all the big stuff, which was mostly drywall and boards. There were a few pieces of insulation that I threw away (they were pretty well saturated with dirt and shit). Nothing to special was in this side of the attic, which was disappointing in some ways, but good too, wouldn't feel as guilty about throwing it out. After all the big stuff was gone, it was then down to the mouse droppings, dirt, dust, acorns, and random crap just like in my Day 2 Cleaning blog. And just like on that day I just sweeped out all the crap as best as I could, then got the shop-vac out to do all the detail cleaning to make it even cleaner.


Its all clean and ready more mice orgies.

I should note that I did find a bone that made me a little curious, mostly wanted to know where were the other bones from that animal and what animal it was. It was rather large, almost like a full grown racoon or something like that. Oh well, I only saw one bone part, so hopefully I don't have any problems to worry about as far as big animals in there.

Also wanted to mention that it seemed extremely dusty. Kinda worried about breathing it all in. I had a dust mask on, which never seems to protect my nose or mouth to much. When I took the mask off to check my nostrils they were both dirty as hell (sure y'all wanted to know that), so that goes to show you how un-protective the mask can be. Oh well, I guess it is best to at least wear one, cause I'm sure it does prevent some dust from getting into you. The mask was again pretty well blackened from the dust, did get a picture this time to show you how dirty it was. The pic I have below just shows what it looked like after only wearing it for a couple of hours. So yeah, it was dirty as hell.



I guess that is all I can really write about for the cleaning portion. Glad it is done, feels good to know that it is clean and ready to be insulated and boarded up, which I will be doing soon. When that is done I'm going to go ahead and start storing some of the stuff that I have in totes. I do have a bunch of storage stuff, so that is going to be nice to get that put away and out of the way.

Hopefully the electrician will come out tomorrow (Sunday). I just want that crossed off my list of things to do. He was supposed to come out today, but never came around to doing it...still not sure what his deal was. Not the most reliable person, but oh well, just so he get the job done...is all that matters to me.

Attic Cleaning Day 2, with Visuals!

Day 2 of the attic cleaning went pretty well. Again I didn't see any live creatures, which is a blessing. Did however find 2 more skeletal remains of mice. Now that's a great site to see, but then again it means mice have been busy with their orgies in that space as well. So today I concentrated on vacuuming up all the dirt, acorns, mouse dropping, paper, nails (the type used for construction, not human nails...thank god), etc...you get the point. I first started to use the shop-vac, but man it just kept getting too much in the hose to where it kept getting clogged up. So the best thing I did was to sweep it up first with a dust pan and hand broom. Definitely wore a dust mask when I was doing this. There so much dust and crap floating around in the air, that it made my mask pretty well covered in black residue. And the rooms upstairs were pretty fogging as well. It didn't help with my shop-vac getting clogged up, because when it did that, it just shot out alot of dust as well. Anyways, I took some pics which I hope to share with you to give you an general idea of what it looked like and what it looks like after sweeping all the stuff out. Lets try some pics out:


This picture shows some of the stuff that I
had to sweep up.


Just my feet and the dirty ass floor.


Here's that little doorway I was talking about
in the "Attic Cleaning Day 1" blog.


Oh yeah, a site I like to see! A dead mouse.


One side of the attic all cleaned up and ready
for the electrician.

So tomorrow I'm going to be cleaning on the other side of the attic. This side of the attic doesn't have as much crap as the other did. The pictures I just showed, show a completely different attic. I really regret not getting some pictures before I started cleaning it out. You'd be amazed at how bad it was. Oh well, I will write again tomorrow about my cleaning adventure.

Thanks for reading!

Attic Cleaning Day 1

Today I decided it would be best to start cleaning out my attic. Let me try and describe this attic so that you can kinda visualize the space I'm working in. Ok, so the attic portion of my home is obviously located upstairs on the top floor of my home. It is also where my two bedrooms are. When you go up the stairs you see the two bedrooms; that is all there is to it. In the room on your left side you see two little doorways on each side of the room. Now these two doorways are just big enough to allow you to get in. You pretty much have to sit on the floor and then sorta crawl/kneel down in a guess the best way to describe it as if you were in the fetal position and then just get in. When you're in there there's enough room to stand, but still sorta be hunched over. (Am I boring you yet?)

Haha, anyways I wasn't even able to get in through the doorway on the right, because there was a bunch of crap everywhere. There was an old bed frame, bunch of boards that had a bunch of dirt, dust, and mouse shit on it, then there was a old mirror, and a whole bunch of random shit that had to be thrown away. Actually I threw away everything that was up there, because I wanted it to be completely clean. I was pretty unhappy to see the amount of mouse droppings and even acorns leftovers. I HATE MICE! I'm doing everything possible to make this house as mouse proof as possible, because I just don't want to deal with those fuckers, if I see one in the main areas of the house I will be ticked off big time. If they're in the walls, that's fine, because they'll eventually die. This was something that I knew when buying the house, but I knew if I do all the right things, then most likely the mice will decrease they're presence in my home. Man I totally got off topic, lets get back to the attic.

Unfortunately I didn't find to many old antiques, but I did find a old beverage container and a newspaper clipping from 1937, surprisely it was in good shape...just had the usual yellow color that you see when paper gets old. So no big surprises up there, no alive creatures, one dead mouse skeleton (was great to see!), and a shit load of mouse shit to clean for tomorrow. I'm leaving all the mouse shit, dust, acorns, and other little crap that can be vacuum up for tomorrow. Hope to get that cleaned up on that side of the upstairs/attic, then I will start hauling out the shit on the left side of the attic. Which will have me going through the other little door. Its kinda cool to be in there. It gives you a chance to walk behind the walls, which is neat to check out. Probably will blog about day 2 of my cleaning adventure. Will be cleaning the attic the next couple of days. Oh yeah, good times!

Being a homeowner

Being a homeowner is so damn great! But it can be overwhelming at times too, so I just wanted to type some of my feelings about being a homeowner.

As of today (August 26, 2008) I've been in my new home for almost 4 weeks. Now this isn't a brand new home by any means, it is the complete opposite...it was I believe built in 1918, which makes it freaking OLD!!! It has a lot of character that definitely defines its age. There is an arch doorway that separates the living room and the dinning room and there is still knob-and-tube wiring for the two lights up stairs, and there are two enclosed porches; one in the front of the house and one in the back. Now knob-and-tube wiring is extremely old and is definitely not up-to today's standards, thus the reason why most insurance companies won't insure your home unless you get that replaced. My insurance company won't allow it, so I have to get it replaced. So with that said I figured, why not get the electrical outlets upstairs as well, because for some reason there are still no outlets up there to plug anything into. Which I thought was crazy as hell. I don't know how the previous owner could live up there in the upstairs, which contains the two bedrooms for the house. Right now it is like a fucking oven...it is hot as hell! I'm sure it is like a fucking freezer in the winter too. So that is something that I gotta take care.

What I'm planning on doing so that I can live up there comfortably, is to get new windows, insulate the attic, and once the electrical is done I'm going to plug in a couple of heaters in the winter time and get a window AC unit in the summer. So that should make it good to go. So that takes care of that, so now all I gotta do is get the bathtub redone, paint all the ceilings with some paint that will cover up the common little crack (barely noticeable, but annoys me), then get the new toilet, sink, vanity to finish the bathroom, and oh god don't get me stared with the kitchen! I'm probably going to get new cabinets, and without a doubt a dishwasher (I really don't like washing dishes by hand), and probably get new flooring and wallpaper. So basically I'm redoing a bunch of stuff to the house. I just want it more up to my standards. I really do love the house and feel it doesn't need any of the things that I just wrote about, but I do see myself there for a long time, so I definitely want it to be as comfortable as possible.

I bought this house knowing full well that it needed some work, but that was perfectly fine by me. I believe that after a couple more months I will have a majority of the stuff that I want done and that I will be perfectly happy with everything. Hope this doesn't scare away anyone who is looking to buy a old home. Most old homes do need work...you just need to see the potential that it holds.

Good luck to anyone who is looking to get a new/old home.
Thanks for reading!

First blog.

Alrighty it is time to try out this blogger site. I haven't done many blogs before, so this is sorta a new thing that I have been wanting to try out. I have of course written blogs before, but not with this site. Please feel free to read my little profile on the left to get a general idea of what I will be writing about (will mostly be my interest and every day type stuff) . I will be very random with my blogs, one day I could be writing about something that happened years ago or I could be writing about something that happened today. So yeah, I just wanted to do a intro blog that will hopefully give you a general idea of what I will be writing about. Will try and keep this blog thing going as best as I can. Hope to make a written post at least 3-4 times a week, if not more. I usually have a lot to say, and feel I am best at writing about it, rather then making a video about (which I still do). You can always follow me with Twitter at this location: http://www.twitter.com/brody80. Thanks for reading...expect alot of content from me. Thanks!