Adventures in Hammering

So it has been just under 4 weeks of Project Bathroom and have now a a floor, walls, paint and a sink.  To advance our project, Mr. MedSchool enlisted my help the other evening.  However, that's not how the evening began.

After a particularly long day at work, I arrived home around 7pm to find Mr. MedSchool had already begun dinner (salmon with grilled asparagus (1)). After a wonderful dinner and a few glasses of wine, I sit in my big, comfy chair to relax for the evening.  However, my relaxation was abruptly interrupted when Mr. MedSchool asked if I could help him for a few minutes on the bathroom.  Being the loving (but definitely not handy) wife, I agreed.

So I walk into the bathroom and Mr. MedSchool hands me a hammer and asks me to tack up some wall covering.  Sure, I can do this.  I mean I have hammered things before ... at some point in my life .. I guess.

Turns out that hammering heavy duty nails into studs is a little different than hammering a nail into a wall for a picture .. particularly after you've had 2 glasses of wine (2).  I take the first swing and nail (3) my thumb.

Hammer: 1
Mrs. MedSchool: 0

After a dramatic pause, I continue with the hammering.  Unfortunately, I am finding it difficult to hit the nails straight into the studs (4).  Mr. MedSchool tries to help me by holding the nails but that was a bad idea (5).

Hammer: 2
Mr. MedSchool: 0

After 2 hours of fighting with the hammer, about 20 bent nails and 2 sore thumbs, we finally got all of the wall covering up and were off to bed.  However, I did learn a valuable lesson from this little adventure. Anytime I believe that Mr. MedSchool wants me to help with a task, I should start drinking and then he'll think twice about how helpful I'll actually be.


1. Handy man, doctor and a good cook, what more could a girl ask for? 
2. Good choice on food Mr. MedSchool but bad call on the wine 
3. No pun intended
4. Or hit the nail at all for that matter
5. That's what he gets for intoxicating me and then asking me to work ... 

Renovation Continuation

Good News: No mold!

Bad News:  The cost of the new floor was an extra $400  (for two hours of work) (1)

Worse News: It's been two weeks (2) and my bathroom still looks like this:

To make matters worse, I loose my workhorse husband to school starting next week.  So we have approximately 3 workdays to get tile up and toilet in (3).  This plan has one fatal flaw.  In order to get everything done ... I have to help.

We'll see how that goes.

1.  After hearing this information, Mr. MedSchool thought for a hot minute that he might try another career.  After a swift kick in the pants, this decision was changed. 
2. On a one week project, mind you 
3. Yeah there's actually a lot more to it than that but I'm a sucker for alliterations 

Restroom Renovation

One Week... that was all it was suppose to take.  Now that Mr. MedSchool has been out of the classroom for a significant amount of time, he is getting antsy to start a new project.  Thus he came up with the brilliant idea to destroy renovate our bathroom.  He guestimated estimated that everything would take 1 week (1).

This started out innocently with a few trips to Home Depot to look at tile and toilets (2).  Then words like "sledge hammer" and "demolition" started to be thrown around.  Finally D Day (3)  came around, and I went to work, leaving Mr. MedSchool to work.   By the time I came home our bathroom looked like this:

So as you can see the demolition was going well.  ... I mean we have no walls ... literally.  It took Mr. MedSchool another few days to tear down all of the tile (4), leaving a lovely thin layer of dust throughout the house that won't go away no matter how many times I dust.  However, the greatest surprise came with Mr. MedSchool pulled up our shower floor.  It seemed that the floor underneath was somewhat non existent.  The wood underneath the tile had basically rotted, meaning it too has to be replaced.  On another awesome note, rotted wood means a good chance of mold (5). So basically we cannot do anything until the plumber comes on Tuesday, making this short one week project turn into an involved three week project.

Check back next week for Adventures in Mold!  


1. Yeah I didn't buy that for a minute  
2. Who knew there were so many toilet options
3. Demolition Day 
4.  That's three days out of the week, only 4 more to go
5. It just keeps getting better!  

Getting Handy

So on our day off from the 4th, we decided to get a little crafty.  We recently bought a beautiful new dining room set (1).  The wood was in good condition. However the flowered cushions (2), looked horrible a tad bit dated.  Mr. MedSchool, the Handyman himself, decided, we could fix these ourselves (3).

So we trek to Hobby Lobby to pick out new cushion fabric, sans flowers.  Once we arrive home Mr. Medschool pulls out the tool kit and begins to take the chair apart (4).

First we unscrewed the base from the seats

Then we took the old fabric off of the cushion and bottom board and wrapped them in the new fabric.  Then we took our handy dandy staple gun (5), and stapled the fabric to the bottom board.

Soon Voila, a beautiful new chair (6).

Now only 5 more to do.



1. Thank God for Craig's List
2. What great style we had in 1995
3. And I begin looking on Craig's List for more chairs b/c the chances of us having chairs with cushions after this event is over is slim
4. It's okay, I found a set of 4 on Craig's List already ...
5. Because it wouldn't be a project, if we didn't have to buy a new tool
6. And 0 broken chair legs

More Adventures in Homeownership Part 2

Sunday 4:52pm .. final closet doors up!

Next up: paint the back porch … awesome

More Adventures in Homeownership

So we continue our home improvement adventure by putting up more doors in our house (1).  After the last the weekend of the More Tools, More Work Treaty, Mr. MedSchool continued to hold up his end of the deal (more work).  However, the work became very sporadic.  Now I understand that he is in Med School and is not my handiwork houseboy (2), and I don’t want Mr. MedSchool to sacrifice his studies because things need to get done around the house.  However, when our hallway bathroom goes without a door for 2 weeks … I feel like the intense (3) studying habits weren’t prohibiting the door installation. 

On Sunday, Mr. MedSchool took several doors down with the intention of putting them back up that day.  However, the door needed to be cut and it was raining (4).  Mr. MedSchool informed me that he would have them up by Tuesday.  Tuesday passed.  Wednesday Passed. The weekend passed (5). 

It is Saturday and the door is up.  Only 2 more to go… who knows when they will make an appearance in our house.

Reader’s Note: All this being said, my husband is wonderful and does balance Med School and real life extremely well.  He also does tons around the house to help me in addition to all of the handiwork (6). 

1. Yeah ..that’s right we’re still doing that.

2. We’re not into role playing anyways.

3. More like erratic

4. And as we have learned from past experience, Power tools and rain do not mix

5. I will give this one to Mr. Medschool because we actually weren’t home for most of the weekend. 

6. And he cooks and cleans

But It was On Sale

But It was On Sale: A term that women often use to justify the purchase of an item that will come in handy but is not completely necessary.  Men rarely use this term unless it is pertaining to a grill, TV or in my case, power tools.

Over the past few months, I have found that with new homeownership comes with do-it-yourself projects of all shapes and sizes (1).  Our latest project is hanging doors.  We have approximately 10 doors in our house, and Mr. MedSchool decided that we would paint and hang all of them this weekend in between shopping, hosting friends for dinner, church, studying, and work (2). 

Our door adventure began on Friday afternoon when Mr. MedSchool proudly arrived from an excursion to the Home Depot.  He had in hand a new router, finishing blade, and new drill bits.  He explained to me that even though he had spent a good chunk of change, these were all things that he absolutely needed these things to hang the doors (3).  After spending a few hours setting up a huge mess “workshop,” we began to spend our Friday night painting doors (4).  

We worked until about midnight (5), when it was time to hang the first door.  We got the hinges in place on our newly painted door and drilled everything in place.  Then we closed the door and it stopped.  Over time the house kind of sagged (6), and it seemed that the doorframe was the issue.   There was only one way to fix this issue, buy a new tool for Mr. MedSchool to play work with. 

So the next day we arose early to make another trek to the Home Depot to buy a chisel set.  After routing and painting, I got ready to meet my friend Amy for lunch and a bit of shopping.  After a few hours, I returned to find Mr. MedSchool still working (7).  “I had to spend more money,” Mr. MedSchool informed me.  You see apparently Mr. MedSchool ran out of screws and had to go again to the Home Depot.  While there, an electric sander caught his eye. “I had to buy it you see, it will make my work much faster, and it was on sale.”(8)   

So after hanging approximately 6 doors (9), we wrapped up the weekend about 6 tools richer and a few hundred dollars poorer.  Due to this “investment,” Mr. MedSchool and I have instituted the More Tools, More Work treaty.  This new legislation of our household entails that Mr. MedSchool start a new project for each tool that he buys and that tools must be used in at least 3 times.  Now we just have to see if I can work up a More Clothes, More Cleaning treaty. 

1. And spending money, do your know how much a door costs?

2. Yeah … we’re pretty popular

3. Just like I absolutely needed the new curtains and rug that I bought which Mr. MedSchool didn’t understand why I would spend money on. 

4. Yeah painting doors on Friday night … we’re really popular

5. Like I said … popular

6. Yeah apparently lots of things sag with age

7. Let the record show that the only thing I bought on this shopping excursion was a $35 hall runner and a $7 belt  (thank you TJ Maxx)

8. It was “On Sale” how many times have I used that line on shoes and it hasn’t worked.

9. Shocking! Something took longer than Mr. MedSchool expected.  

Pricing Paint and Mad Negotiating Skillz

So this has been my weekend:

Paint colors, trim, crown molding… We have had a whirl wind housing adventure this past week.  As you may have read, I recently got a job.  Because I am now gainfully employed, Mr. MedSchool and I decided to see if we could get preapproved for a loan to purchase a home.  Due to the first time home buyer’s tax credit, if we were to buy, we would get $8000 in cash money (1).  However, this means that we would have to close on the house by November 30^th.  After getting preapproved and speaking to our loan agent, she informed us that we would need to have a contract on the house by October 30^th in order to ensure we close by November 30^th. Normally this would have been fine.  However, we are told this on October 15^th, giving us 2 weeks to find a house. 

After a bad Realtor experience before we moved to Small Town, South, we decided to do this “on our own” and purchase a home for sale by owner.  Things that we did not take into account:

1. We only had two weeks find houses ourselves, set up appointments and then go and view the house and fit it in to our busy schedule.

2. We know nothing (2) about purchasing a home.

3. We don’t have the greatest negotiating skills (3).

 So we went and saw a few houses on our own over the weekend.  Then on Monday, Mr. MedSchool informed me that he didn’t think he could do this on his own (4).  I had somewhat gotten the gist that he might say this after I overheard him speaking to his dad, who had just sold his house, on the phone.  “What you need an attorney?  Why?  Closing costs are how much?”  Needless to say, our loan officer had suggested a Realtor who could “work fast,” and Mr. MedSchool had already called her.

Our new Realtor, Amy, was perky and upbeat.  She was young but knew her stuff.  We set up to meet with her on Thursday to look at houses.  We were lined up to view 6 houses.  We trudged through several houses that we would be happy with but weren’t overjoyed with any, until house #4.  We walked into the 3 bed room/2 Bath, brick ranch style home and we found love.  First off, finding 2 bathrooms in a town full of older homes was pretty much impossible (5).  Secondly..a newly renovated kitchen was the stuff that dreams were made of.  We did go and see a couple of other houses that day but knew that #4 was our number one (6).  We went back at the end of our tour of homes to look again, just to be sure.  We put in an offer and signed the next afternoon.  We did feel a little risky because our offer was $2000 under the list price, which had already been dropped $8000, and we asked them to pay closing costs.  We waited about 3 hours, planning out our next counter offer but then we got an exited call from Amy. They had accepted our first offer! (7)

We cracked open a bottle of wine (8) and celebrated our victory (and our Realtor’s mad negotiating skillz). So barring any horrible issues that the home inspector may find, we will be bonafide homeowners on November 25^th.

So back to our weekend, after looking at the house again…we came to the realization that it may need some minor tweaks.  Paint…garbage disposal…new front door.  So Mr. MedSchool and I made a quick trip to Home Depot to price items.  Do you realize home much doors cost…seriously? $500?  Mr. MedSchool, pointed out that it is the first impression that someone gets of your home.  To which I countered that a $300 door would make a good impression, and I could blind company with my new $200 Marc Jacobs dress which I could also take away from the home, making good impressions throughout the neighborhood (9). 

We also priced paint.  Now I LOVE color and bright décor.  Mr. Medschool, however, is a beige kind of guy.  However, he bestowed free range of painting upon me because I had never been able to paint a home that we have lived in (10). 

Anywho, we have 4 weeks to come up with paint colors and Google “How to install crown molding.” I am sure that may interesting “do it yourself” posts will come in good time.  So look out.

1.  Thank you Uncle Sam!

2. And I mean nothing

3. Somebody call William Shatner .. Priceline Negotiator (musical theme…)

4. I wish I had recorded it too.  He admitted he couldn’t do it on his own .. this may never happen again. Oh well.

5. And one thing we have learned over the last few years is that our marriage doesn’t work without 2 bathrooms…it just doesn’t

6. Oh I kill myself…hahahaha

7. Yeah for desperate home sellers!

8. Who cares it was only 3pm.  It’s 5 o’ clock somewhere.

9.  How’s that for negotiating? 

10. He’s gonna be sorry for that one when he sees the lime green guest bedroom