Operation Listing: Repair and Refresh

Where were we?

Walls

Flooring

Declutter

Store Crap

Ah yes...repair and refresh:

Some things needed straight up replacement.  Like cracked face plates.

We washed all the plates that were still good and put them back up with the best ones going on first, covering the most prominent outlets.

And then bought new ones to replace the cracked ones.  To go over the empty outlets that were hidden behind furniture.  I thought about switching them out so the fresh covers were in the spotlight.  But my true inner Heidi said, "You have to be f-ing kidding me." 

So I didn't.

Maybe because I knew I still had to refresh the doors and trim with Glidden door and trim gel paint in bright white.

They completely popped after. (In the good way.)  Perhaps because I followed the This Old House door painting guidelines, but likely because that gel paint is magic. 

We're talking so much magic that Anthony kept checking on me in the garage to make sure I hadn't passed out from the fumes.

Oh, and it dried perfectly too.

Faucets. We ended up replacing every one of them in the house.

And by 'we' I mean Anthony.

The bathroom faucets all looked similar to this one:

Photo from David Wirth who also shares a great replacement tutorial.

Curse words wafted through our house during this stage.

Every set of pipes had their own issue. Rusted threads, broken shut off valves.  

No, I didn't do the swearing.  I did the stifled giggling from the couch and plumber googling.  Anthony toughed it out and finished each one.

Glacier Bay - Variety 1 (shown above)

Glacier Bay - Variety 2 in the other bathrooms

I'll be honest.  We would have purchased four of the same, but Home Depot only had two of each and we aren't patient people. And by 'we' I mean I.

Toilet Seats

We replaced all three.

Yes, they needed it.

I did them all myself.

And yes, you are going to see another toilet picture in a future post.

And finally, the thing that didn't really need replacing:

Baseboards.

The second we started talking about selling, I turned into a rabid tornado.

What can I start?Can I sledgehammer something?Would it be helpful if I took all the windows out?Can I rip up the baseboards since we need to before new carpet?

But we didn't too.  And didn't realize it until I was about three quarters of the way through the main living areas.

This is what they were before:

and after:

Did Anthony do an amazing job installing the new ones?  Yes.

Did it result in the purchase of an air compressor? Yes.

Do I understand that I need to chill out and be more patient sometimes? Yes-ish.