It has been about 2 weeks since my last post. We have been busy with my mom and dad’s house, getting the flooring updated and walls painted. It has been a 7 day a week process and is completely exhausting. They have needed a home update for many years but have been saying they cannot afford it, but in all reality, I guess it it true is they have to have someone move everything, fix everything, paint everything, and then install flooring. One estimate we got for the flooring was about $10K with supplies and labor, and that did not include moving furniture, painting and repairs, which I can imagine would be another $10-15K. I know several years ago I purchased a house about the same size in Rapid City and did a remodel of it with a contractor, and it cost me $37K.
An update on Mom and her recovery: She returned home on April 7 and has recovered well and is pretty mobile in and around the home. She is up to a 10-15 minute walk around the block and her stamina is improving drastically. This week she got permission to drive in town by her primary care physician, but she is waiting until she goes to the neurosurgeon on Wednesday (April 29) to get approval and get off the seizure medication (she had only one the day after her surgery). Overall her health has recovered and she is back to normal (at 81) and is feisty at us with all of the changes to her home.
Dad is doing about the same but has not improved to the point he can walk. He can stand a bit and sometimes turn, but overall he is now in a wheelchair. He is still at the home in Tucson under care and we are hoping to bring him back home this next week, depending on how much of the house we have done. Mom is a bit nervous about bringing him home, as are we, but we need to determine if he can manage at home with some care and help. If now, mom will have to make some hard decisions about where he will go for care and if she wants to go with him.
In the meantime we are doing our best to create a care facility here in their home. It has been a monumental task, both with the volume of things we have to move, go through, and reposition, and with the resistance we have had with my mom. She has communicated to us that we are taking away all of her memories of the home they have shared for 55 years. We understand how she feels, but the amount of furniture (wall to wall) and items cannot be maintained by her, or for that matter a cleaning team that comes in once a week. Plus, with dad coming home, he needs open space to maneuver, as to care people that will be there helping get him in and out of bed, in and out of the bathroom and shower, and all of the other things that it will require. My brother and his wife have been coming over 2-3 times a day and spending evenings with them to help, and have been on call throughout the days/nights for issues, and it creates a huge strain on them.
The OT and PT folks told mom she needed to remove all rugs and all of the transitional areas in her home. It was suggested that the carpeting should be replaced with tile/laminate or something that can accomodate wheelchairs and walkers. To replace the flooring, we have to remove all the furniture, knick-knacks, etc. The baseboards have to be removed and since we are clearing each room, all shelves, pictures, plaques, and lighting needs to be removed so we can paint the walls and ceilings. Mom insists this does not have to be done, but the walls in several of the rooms have not been painted in 25+ years and everywhere there are scrapes and gouges and grime that needs to be covered. So we gut each room, remove the flooring and baseboards, patch the walls, remove the closet and room doors, and paint from top to bottom. When that is done, we remove the old 70 year old tile and replace it with some laminate wood flooring. Kathy is sanding and painting the doors and baseboards and repainting them to a complimentary color. Since we are gutting everything, we are replacing all the old wall outlets and switches, door handles, and ceiling fans in two of the rooms. It takes a day to gut the room, a day to paint, a day to lay the flooring, and another day to get it all back. We have not moved much back in, but rather shuffled things from room to room. In the bathrooms we are replacing the toilets with taller versions and updating the sink/vanity in one and fixing any plumbing issues we have found.
So far we have completed the 3 bedrooms, the two bathrooms, the hallway, and the living room, all in just under 3 weeks. We have the kitchen and dining room to go, and this will probably take 4 days due to the removal of linoleum on the floor. I wanted to put all new kitchen cabinets in there but mom protested, even with me offering to pay for them. It sucks to do a remodel on a home and not do the kitchen, but with all the resistance from her, the comments, and the time-frame, we are forgoing this for now. It would not be that difficult to do as it is not a very large kitchen, but she is adamant. Her favorite saying is “you are making this your home, not mine,” which is untrue, but for her is a real feeling. We are just trying to update the place to make it more manageable, cleaner, updated, and ADA compliant. For her, we are destroying her home and her memories and taking her home from her. My dad’s mom did a good job as she aged and naturally downsized from her home, to an apartment, to an old folks home, to my parent’s home, to a nursing home. My mom’s mom was not so willing and my mom and her brothers and sisters had to help downsize her into the same, and she was bitter and resentful. It seems the apple doesn’t fall far….
My least favorite refurbishment is the bathroom plumbing. While demolishing the bathroom I tried to shut off the valve to the toilet only to find the valve did not work. So I had to shut off water to the house to replace the valve. Then when removing the sink, both valves were in the same state with frozen screw valves. Another trip to the store and I replaced those. Yesterday, after getting the flooring, toilet, and sink installed, I had to get the sink connected and the drain piping disintegrated from corrosion within. I was looking at my connections for the leak and found the entire pipe corroded. It took four hours to clean out the pipe, snake the line, and get it draining again before I could get the new piping reinstalled. It now drains and does not leak, but holy cow, what a pain. We are not doing a remodel on the walls in the master bathroom, even though it needs it badly, but for now, it is a bridge too far. The ultimate plan is to remove the door and cabinet, remove all the blue wall panels and replace the drywall, move the light switch, update the wiring (grounded, GFCI), create a larger door opening, install new cabinets, new door, and new sink and vanity. But for now, it will have to do. I installed the laminate in the bathrooms, even though vinyl would have been better, but I figure for the 5-10 years it will be needed, if it needs replacing due to water, we can do it in a day, after we gut the thing and restart fresh!!!
Overall it has been completely exhausting, both physically and mentally. We have another 4-5 days of work and then we start the cleanup of the carport area and shed. We all want to create a laundry room out of the shed, but mom is also resistant to that. But I might get that done anyway once the flooring is completed and the house is ready for Dad to come home, as that is the priority. The laundry room will require permits, so that will take a bit of time.
And I am supposed to head back to work in a little over a month. I really want to get back on the road, but with Dad in his current state, we need to stay close to home for a while.
Thanks for reading.
