Dishwasher

Let's talk about the dishwasher in the House of Wonders. To say it's gross is a HUGE understatement. When I first opened it I was nearly knocked over by the stench. It desperately needed cleaning so I ran the hottest, longest sanitizing cycle it had with a big glass measuring cup of vinegar and tea tree oil. The smell was better (not great but better), however, when I flipped down the little trays on the top I cringed. Again when I looked at the bottom. Well, let me just show you...

See what I mean? That stuff is moldy-nasty-won't-come-off-vileness. And that's AFTER it has been cleaned. I honestly can't even begin to understand what one does to a dishwasher to get to this point. I think I'd rather not know. Clearly we won't be using this thing so we had to buy a new dishwasher.

We waited for 2 1/2 weeks for it to be delivered (apparently we chose the same model that everyone else likes as well). The delivery truck came, the guy looked at our old dishwasher and said it's hardwired and that's against code (this happens a lot in Colorado apparently) so they have to send an electrician back to install it. They put the dishwasher in the box in the garage.

Annoying but whatever, we can deal with it. Yesterday I took half the day off work so I could be here for the install. All the while I was so excited that I'd be able to have super clean dishes in my very own, brand new, clean and working dishwasher. I was practically singing. 

And then it began. "Miss Carrie? Can you come in here?"

"Yes?" 

"Come stand right here.  You see the tile that's over this dishwasher [the old one]? It's cut to overlap so we can't get this one out very well and we definitely can't get the new one in."

It's that way on both sides. Of course it is. Oh, and it's not cut straight to begin with.

Oh! I don't think I've posted pictures of the kitchen yet. Well, it's covered in tile. Awful, ugly, huge floor tile. There you have a glimpse of it. The best part is that they didn't just stick with the countertop - oh no, they put it all down the sides of the counter and up the wall for a back splash.

But I digress...  You'll get to see all that later.  Back to the dishwasher. 

I said, "Don't you worry - we can just break those tiles right off!"

Electrician, "I can't touch anything but you can break off whatever you like."

Me, with a huge smile, "Let me just grab a hammer!"

In the meantime he kept working....  "Miss Carrie?"

"Yes?"

"How are you?  You in a good mood today?"

Uh oh!  That's a portent of bad news for sure.  "Yes.  But I imagine something not so good has happened..."

Electrician, "You need a new shut off valve. I turned the knob to shut the water off under the sink and it popped right off. But the best part is that someone has glued this so it's obviously happened before! Glue! I can't imagine why they would use glue."

Ah, well, welcome to the House of Wonders.  We'll add this to the ever-growing list of things we wonder about. Seriously? They glued the flippin shut off valve back on after it broke????? I don't know if that was the previous owners or the renters but whoever it was is an idiot. (I'm trying to be nice. Is it working?)

Electrician, "I know this stinks but in a way it's better to find out like this than to find out because your house has a major flood in a few days when it broke on it's own."

Excellent point and I agree completely. And yet, what this means is that I don't get my dishwasher today, I don't get to wash dishes in it today and now I have to call a plumber to fix that valve and then call the electrician to come back again and install the dishwasher. Which is now out of the box in the garage. Sad. And so annoying.  

We were silly enough to think it would be simple - take out the old dishwasher and put in a new one - yeah that's easy! Something that will work right and it wasn't such a big deal. Scratch that. It, of course, is a big deal but I have faith that someday we will have a working dishwasher. In this house. This year.

Welcome to The House of Wonders

Dave and I just bought our first home together!  The market in Denver is ridiculous right now for buying or renting so our choices were limited.  I only explain that because once you read the rest of this post you'll be wondering what the heck we were thinking.

We have dubbed this house The House of Wonders!  It won't take long to understand why - you'll see the pictures and wonder what we were thinking.  Everyone who steps foot in this house to repair something wonders who messed it up so badly.  In fact, everywhere you turn you can't help but wonder "what were they thinking??" 

We thought it would be fun to blog our adventure so you can sigh and laugh and cry along with us.  And hopefully, at the end you'll smile with us too!

Welcome to The House of Wonders

The light in the picture isn't great but that's an orange wall.  This upstairs bathroom is probably one of the best rooms in the house.  So we'll start with that and then move on to the rest.  :)

This is the dining room.  You can't see carpet detail in this picture but it's got holes and it stinks and, as an added bonus, it's greasy!  So gross.  The wall (again hard to get the full glory of the place in these pictures) the wall is actually a burnt orange and it goes all the way into the living room.  The rest of the walls are a light brown.  

The previous owners added some curved stairs.  Why, you wonder? Well...we do too.  You'll notice that they covered part of the heat vent when they added the stairs.  That's probably the most competent thing they did in all of their "renovations" here.

  

The house is a split entry. You'll notice this wall has a piece of tile at the top. Just one random, lonely piece of tile. At the bottom it might have had a tile companion but whatever was there disappeared long ago. Probably about the same time that the dog chewed up the stair (bottom left). The carpet on these stairs has holes and is greasy and filthy.

This is one of our favorite features to point out because it's so unique. This is the Shoe Wonder. Well, it doesn't really fit adult size shoes but it fits kid shoes really well. Along the stud in the middle of it runs a main electrical line. That was painted to blend in. Um, when you cut out this little gem and noticed that there was a main electrical line...did it cause you to pause and rethink? Apparently not. Just paint it and it'll be fine. Right.

I'm sorry to tell you that you're going getting a little peak at the Jail Cell Bathroom because the rest of the pictures seem to have disappeared. I'll keep looking for them because you really must see the whole thing. But, this will at least give you an idea. At the back of this picture you can see wood bars screwed to the wall. This was done to 2 whole walls - thus the name "Jail Cell Bathroom". What were they thinking??? The floor was dark outdoor slate tiles (NOT meant for indoors), the countertop has the same lovely floor tile as the kitchen. Oh yes, you haven't seen the kitchen yet - well it's covered in this same hideous floor tile.

We've gutted this bathroom and redone it from top to bottom and since I can't find the pictures for this post I'll include more in our next post.

Blogger keeps losing everything I add to this post (grrr!) and I can't find all of our pictures at the moment but this will at least give you an idea of our House of Wonders. We'll post more "before" pictures later as well as updates as renovations are finished.

And, even in the midst of all the chaos we're very glad to be here and to have a home to call our own.  It will take lots and lots of work to bring this place up to par but it's an adventure we're up for.  At least we think we are...