I was become more and more distrustful of him, and I was very upset. I called him back and explained why I was angry and was not happy that he had been dishonest. Our conversation got a bit intense, and he asked if we wanted him to move out. I said yes. We agreed to prorate the amount for the month’s rent. He said he would move out the next night, Friday.

And so he did. At midnight, he knocked on our door and demanded that we do a walkthrough. He still had a few things in the suite and he wanted his money back right then and there! Tyler and him got into a slightly heated argument. Tyler gave him his rent money back, and told him to leave the key and a forwarding address in our mailbox. We would mail him a cheque. He became quite angry — he absolutely would not accept a cheque. Cash only! As he walked away, he said, “Well we’ll see about that”. To us, he suggested a threat.

He didn’t return the key. So the next day we replaced the deadbolt. The carpet was dirty and needed to be steamcleaned. There was also some minor cleaning in the bathroom and kitchen.  We deducted all of that from his damage deposit. It wasn’t until Tuesday evening that he returned the keys. I gave him a cheque for the remaining damage, with a letter outlining the charges. He called me a few minutes later. “Are you kidding me?” Nope. And he said he would be calling the RTB the next day, and I said, “You do that.”

I don’t feel in the wrong at all. And I am so glad that he is gone, without too much trouble. We were so worried and stressed.

I put an ad up right away, and on Friday we rented to two young men, 21 and 18 years old, for Jan. 1. The older boy is in college and wanted a quiet place to study. The other, his friend, is finishing up school through correspondence. They both seem pretty responsible, and their references were great. This will be their first home away from their parents. I told them not to be brats.

In other news, we finally found someone to replace our gutters for a reasonable price. He may even be here tomorrow, so we’re quite pleased.

Happy holidays! We have a few in-house projects planned, including some painting.

I am not happy. In fact, I’m quite stressed about the situation. We are good people and great landlords, and we certainly don’t deserve this. And there doesn’t seem to be an easy way out, apart from him not paying rent in the next five days. And even then, we will have to take action in order to recoup our monetary losses. Can you believe there is no legal way to evict a tenant for knowingly providing false information at time of rental? That’s absurd. Even if he pays his rent in five days, there isn’t a way for us to evict him legally. Argh! I’m furious!

In other news, our new roof isn’t leaking, yah! However, the roofers took down a broken gutter and we haven’t been able to find anyone to install a new one. So, there is too much water rolling down the lower roof when it rains, and we have to place tarps and plastic around our front stairs. Otherwise the water seeps into the suite bathroom and wall in the bedroom closet. Sigh. We’ve called every single company in the Yellow Pages, and not one will do our gutters, for a variety of reasons.

Owning an old home is stressful.

But it was worth it. We tested our mettle, and found it to be resolute. Sure, we didn’t plan it out all that well at first — “Oh, we can just take down that wall, no problem!” — but we persevered. We went way over our budget, but I guess that’s to be expected. Still, we had an enormous storage room and a useless hallway, and now we have a beautiful two-bedroom suite with a lovely, warm living room.

We took out the wall behind the wood stove and made this whole area the living room. We added a wall on the right side of the old room to make a small storage area. Some electrical had to be moved, and a baseboard heater installed. We cut out two long strips of drywall on the ceiling and put in insulation.

Oddly, the shared laundry room at the back was open to the suite. We put in a wall and a door there, by the kitchen, so we don’t have to walk into the suite to get to our laundry.

The floor obviously became an issue. We weren’t prepared to replace the whole floor, but the living room definitely needed new flooring because half of it was just concrete, and the other half was simply a very thin vinyl. VERY cold on the feet. After much debate, we opted for carpet. We tried to go on the cheap and bought from the Carpet Dollar Store. You can’t get much for less than $1.50 a square foot. But I didn’t skimp on the underlay (hopefully). The carpet guy I found on Used Victoria ended up telling us that he had to charge more AS HE WAS CUTTING THE CARPET. Apparently it’s a very difficult carpet to install, and the seams are a nightmare. Sure. He didn’t do a great job, and with delivery cost near $400. All told, less than 300 square feet of carpet was $1,100. I didn’t even measure for enough carpet, and so the carpet doesn’t go to all the other rooms. We were pretty bummed, but it turned out to look just fine. I got these lovely wood transition strips too, and this little touch really makes the floor look great.

Unfortunately, we had to have the carpet installed before I sanded the drywall and painted, so we had to put thick plastic down to protect the new carpet. What a mess. The sanding part? The hardest thing I’ve ever done. And so gross. I absolutely LOATHE the feeling of sanded drywall on my skin. And my hands? Trashed. I did, however, get a kick out of wearing my sexy mask.

My radial sander broke as I was sanding the ceiling. Either because I dropped it, or it doesn’t like sanding upside down. I didn’t have time to get to Rona for a replacement, so I used a crappy old regular sander and my own brute strength. Rawr! Any idea how hard it is to sand above you? It makes a person want to die. And so I’m terribly embarrassed, because the ceiling looks freaking horrible. But I got over it after a while. Once I primed it, there was no turning back. And cleaning up that sanded mess was a pleasure like no other. I didn’t get any photos because I didn’t want to take my camera in there.

The “hard part” over, I set about priming and painting. This should have been a lot easier. But no, not in my world. Because despite my best efforts, I like to do things the hard way. Oh well, maybe it wasn’t so bad. I bought this beautiful paint called “Hazy Skies” from Benjamin Moore. After I bought it, I put a swatch on the wall in the second room, and after much deliberation decided it was a tad too grey.

Listen, I spent a couple of hours going over colours in the living room: putting the paint chips on white paper, looking at them in different light at different times of the day and on all the walls. So for me to go and put the real paint in a different room was just silly. What was I thinking? I know better. Obviously, after spending all that time in the living room to make sure I got the right colour.

The suite isn’t super bright. We have a bank of large trees to the south that block the sun. The living room has but one small window. So it was very important to me that I choose a light tone to reflect light, but I also wanted a warm colour tone. I really love blues and greys, and they suite the “west coast” feel of the property. But they are cool colours. As well, I wanted to steer away from beige and taupe because they are so BORING. Besides, I heard grey was the new beige. But not too grey. This is tricky stuff! Perhaps you’re thinking, “It’s just rental suite, why are you going through so much trouble?” Well, my integrity is at stake. I just cannot rent this suite to anyone unless it’s good enough for me to live in. This is a good thing in the end. Because if our tenants see that I CARE about their living space, then hopefully they will respect it as much as I do. Give them crap, they will treat it like crap. To me, it’s a no-brainer.

But back to the paint. I went up to Home Hardware to see if they could make my Hazy Skies just a tad green. Sure! That’s what the special computers are for! I picked out a lovely sagey green called “Beach Glass.” Well, I took a risk, and she added to one gallon the wrong tints and it ended up being much MORE grey. So she mixed up a fresh gallon of Beach Glass. Looked green in the store.

On the wall, wet, it looked very green. Like medical gown green. Hrm. No turning back now. It was rush time. I didn’t put on a swatch, I just went for it, hoping it would turn out okay. After the first coat on one wall, I grabbed the paint chip and compared it to the paint. NOT THE SAME. NOT EVEN CLOSE. The paint on the wall after dry? BLUE. No doubt about it. It’s robin egg blue. I was worried. It looks a bit baby nursery. But after two coats, it looked really good, and the colour grew on me. Now I love it, but of course since it was a mistint, it can never be recreated. BOO!

I originally bought my paint from the Benjamin Moore store in Langford, and the girl there said the folks at HH mistint their paint quite frequently. Urgh.

So I still had a gallon of Hazy Skies. Since the blue is so dominant, we decided to use this in the “hallway” area. It looks just fabulous. What a gorgeous colour. Calm, sophisticated, light. It changes with the light, and often looks a tad green, perhaps reflections from the blue. I think it looks sort of like putty, or plaster. We love it so much, we’re going to use it upstairs.

A note on Benjamin Moore paint: I love it. It is superb paint and I feel it’s worth the few extra bucks. It goes on so smooth and easily (with the right roller brush). We also used a telescopic handle for the first time and love it. I broke the one I bought within 20 minutes, and then Tyler broke three of our broom handles. Someone needs to invent one that can’t break. Still, it’s a way better way to paint.

With the painting of the walls done, I set about paint all the trim and Tyler worked on everything else: framing in the window and building a sill (which involved making a hole for a bolt that was sticking up – tricky!), cutting and installing the door trim and baseboards, securing and moving some baseboard heaters, spray painting the wood stove pipe cap, installing the transition strips, putting in bathroom hardware, replacing light bulbs, and cleaning up.

And so this is the result of all our hard work. We think it looks awesome.

Doesn’t Hazy Skies look fabulous?

Even Piper loves it!

For a complete set of photos, visit my flickr photoset.

What’s next? Well last week we also had our driveway cleaned up and leveled, and then crushed rock put down. It looks really good, even though it’s not my ideal driveway, and there’s no more mud when you step out of the car. We’re going to build a patio for the suite: a simple pergola and lattice to block the view of the cars and driveway a bit, and space to hang flower baskets and such. I’m excited about this, as spring seems on its way and getting outside more lifts my spirits. Next week we’ll have top soil brought in for the front yard too, and we can start making some bedding area and planting for the summer. Yah!

Well I didn’t find a casket of jewels or come across a small fortune, but I did manage to find a tenant last week. And let me tell you, I am so relieved. It’s a major stress and a delicate balance. I’m a rather nice person, and so having to tell someone who wants to rent your suite that YOU don’t want them to is difficult for me. We’re picky and we want nice, quiet, normal people to rent a part of our house. We want someone who will respect the space. We have put a lot of energy and time (and money) into the suite to make sure we would attract those types of people. And we did, but not all were perfect for us.

The first lady to look was very nice and had lots of good energy. I was a little leery about her 20-something son who was living with her “only for six months”. Because you know how that story goes. But really the clincher was the fact that she has three cats AND a dog. She said they don’t make a mess, but if my experience is any indication, animals most certainly DO make a mess. And I’m having beige carpet installed. I want it to stay clean for at least a little while. Besides, Tyler and I are not so sure having three cats in the house is a good idea, what with his insane allergies and all. Our ad said “small pets considered,” and so we considered them and decided NO. She didn’t seem none too pleased with me. “Oh, I understand.”

Second was a very sweet young woman and her nine-year-old son. I liked them both, so I offered her the suite. The same day, she found another place to rent that suited her better. Boo! I was kind of bummed. Because the other potential tenants were an older couple who seemed really nice and I thought they would be perfect, but the husband was a bit loud and sometimes cheeky and I just knew in a few months it would start to get on my nerves. Hey, I’m sensitive! Thankfully, they never called back when they said they would.

I answered lots of e-mails and sent photos. The only other person who came to look at the suite was the person we’ve rented to. Her and her husband are relocating from northern BC back to the Island. The husband is still there, packing up and getting everything ready for the move. So Sharon has been staying with her parents and looking for accommodations. I liked her immediately when I met her: soft-spoken, sweet, well-mannered. Her mom came too, and I just wanted to hug her she’s so nice! And Piper LOVED both of them. (That was a good sign. Piper barked at the brash old man.) They have two Pomeranians, and they hardly go outside or bark too much (hopefully!). Thing is, Piper goes crazy for a minute or so when someone comes to the door or when we torture her by making her jump and dance for her treats, so it’s just a part of life with a dog. So not long after they left, Tyler and I talked, and I sent Sharon an e-mail to tell her that we would be happy to offer them the suite. She came yesterday to sign the rental agreement and give us a security deposit.

The relief and tension has melted away. I have a good feeling about Sharon and I just know they will be great tenants. I’ve been feeling my intuition is a lot stronger lately, and this instance is no exception.

Now I just have to finish the renos! Their move-in date was set to be March 15, which was lots of time for me. But now there’s a possibility of it being earlier, and I still have a ton of work to do. Thing is, I’m working on articles this week and next, and I’m already behind on those. I can’t even describe to you how happy I felt when I flipped the calendar over from January to February, but February is turning out to be a super busy month. Sigh, that’s okay, it’ll just make spring come that much faster. I’m already noticing some bushes and trees with new shoots coming forth, and with that I feel the deep clouds of winter lifting slowly away.

Yesterday I felt very tired, after not sleeping so well the night before. I’m stressed about finishing the suite, finding a tenant, what it will be like to have a stranger living in my house (even though the suite is private), etc. and it’s actually keeping me from sleeping well. I thought we had found a great tenant, but yesterday she told me that she had rented something else. Bum-mer.

So I arrive home after babysitting a cranky little girl all afternoon and decide to do a few things in the suite. It’s one of those projects where you can’t do everything in a few days. It takes a while and I have to be patient, but I also have to keep positive and plugging away at it. Perhaps it wasn’t the best day to be cutting drywall and hammering.

Things I Learned (or Re-Learned)

• measure twice, cut once.
• don’t try to divide a thin piece of drywall into two even thinner ones. It doesn’t work.

  

   

• hammering nails directly upwards is REALLY hard.
• don’t put your face right in front of where you are hammering a nail, keep it to the side.
• ALWAYS WEAR SAFETY GEAR. Drywall crumbles in eyes = ouch.
• try not to get the finger of your disposable glove caught in the screw while using the electric drill.
• screws should go in straight.
• 1 1/4-inch screws are better than those really long ones that you are unable to screw in with that powerful electric drill.
• don’t fall off the ladder.

While hammering awkwardly upwards (to secure the metal edging on a corner), I somehow smacked my finger in between the hammer and the railing of the ladder. It hurt, but I kept hammering because I was getting frustrated. A few moments later I looked down at my hand and saw that the finger glove was all bloody! Aw, ’tis but a flesh wound, but I sure could be more careful.

Today is a day off from renos, weeee! Happy about that…

I have to tell you, it’s emotionally taxing on me, all these renovations. I want to learn and I want to do as much as possible myself, but I don’t have any experience at all with homes. I’m finding myself trying very hard to plan ahead, but I keep making mistakes, or miscalculations. And then I feel stupid and inadequate and why did I think I could ever do this? It’s almost a DIY disaster around here some days.

We took down a wall, and now of course getting heat to that room properly is near impossible without cutting dozens of holes in the TEXTURED ceiling. There is an electrician here this morning, trying to solve this problem. We’ve managed to figure something out, but I will have to fix a few holes in the wall, and the baseboard heater isn’t in the best spot. Hopefully it heats up the room enough. I’m sure carpet was the best flooring solution now, as laminate would have been too cold on the feets.

Am I worried too much about the comfort of my tenants? We’re spending $900 to put carpet into 300 square feet. And I even bought pretty cheap carpet at $1.50 a square foot. Then there’s underlay, installation, tax. It all adds up to much more than we wanted to spend, but we didn’t really budget or prepare very well before taking the wall down. Should we have left the room as storage? Should we have put in laminate? Should we have tried to match up the very thin flooring (which sits right on top of concrete!) and thrown a rug over the tiles leftover from the wood stove we took out?

Sure, I’m concerned about how much $ we are spending on our rental suite, but I also feel good about it. It’s just in my nature to do things as right as possible. The room needed heat and it needed to be a long-term solution. The rooms needs flooring and it must be comfortable. I learned an important lesson once, from the landlady at my Metchosin home. It was such a lovely house. She told me that she designed and built it thinking how she would feel if she was living there herself. I always appreciated her sentiments — afford others the same respect you would give yourself. It’s simply a good way to be.

We aren’t doing much work outside in the yard yet. We’re working on renovating the rental suite on the lower level in hopes of finding a tenant for March 1. Our previous tenant left in December, and we’re feeling the pinch from the lost income. The suite had quite a large unfinished room (drywalled, but not mudded and taped) that was being used as storage. A middle area between all the rooms seemed too small to be useful, and we’ve decommissioned and taken out the wood stove that was housed there. It made sense for us to take down the wall behind the wood stove and open up that entire space. That way there can be a more defined living room, and two bedrooms instead of one. (Also, more square footage = more rental income.)

After much consultation with friends and family as to whether the angled wall could be bearing or not, Tyler started taking the wall down. After a twinge of uncertainty and a little Internet research, I was instructed to call the builder who moved the house and ask him. We needed to know for sure. He told me it was a partition wall and okay to knock out. Yahh! And so the demolition continued.

For the past week I’ve been mudding and taping and mudding and mudding the drywall, while Tyler works on other jobs in the room. He’s framed in an area at the back of the room for storage, and we’ve realized that a baseboard heater should be installed now on that wall before the drywall goes up, so we’re on the hunt for an electrician in the area. Ty also cut out a length of drywall in the ceiling last night so that we could stuff insulation in there. Not sure why there wasn’t any in there already… but we need to do something to help with the noise transfer between our living room floor and the ceiling in the suite. It’s a bit ridiculous, actually. Tyler has also taken out the stove pipe and capped it at the ceiling. Today he bought the tools to drill into concrete so the storage space wall can be secured to the floor and he can install the door.

It seemed like it would be such a simple job, finishing that room, but now sometimes it seems it will never end! My goal is to have the room ready for primer and paint by next Friday. I’ll be so happy when this is all done! Then I have the fun job of finding a tenant…

More to come on my adventures as a mudder, as well as the other wall and door we’re installing by the shared laundry room.