Laguardia : Medieval Fortress

Our flight from Paris to Spain took us to Bilbao--a city I would looove to spend more time in. We only had a couple hours before we took a bus to Logroño--Brandon's last mission area. In Logroño, Brandon and I got to stay with one of Brandon's best friends, Jim.

Jim

 Jim is one of the most awesome people I have ever met. He was the catalyst for our Europe trip. We had no plans of making it across the Atlantic until, one day last January, he asked us when we were coming to visit. We joked about it...but then started playing with the idea. The scheming began, and we had bought our tickets within a couple of weeks. Jim was born in Cameroon, grew up in France, and lives in Spain. However, he's going to be moving here in a couple days to marry his fiancée who's American! Brandon's his best man, and he couldn't be happier to have Jim moving here to Utah.

During our week in Logroño, Jim slept in his living room so that Brandon and I could sleep on a bed in his apartment. What a friend, right? One of our days in Logroño, Jim took us to the medieval town of Laguardia. This place was lovely! I'm a sucker for two historical time periods--the Middle Ages and the 1800s--so this town was dreamy for me. Two original towers remain from the 10th century castle, and the town walls date back to the 1500s.

We walked around the town, tasted non-alcoholic wine, and ate the most delicious patatas bravas. For the remainder of our trip, Brandon and I searched out patatas bravas. We never found any as good as that first batch, but we're still obsessed and have made our own here at home.

Lastly, the view of La Rioja wine country was incredible!

This week at the duplex

What a week! I've never had a more productive Christmas break. I was off the entire week of Christmas, which was lovely. We spent every day but Christmas working at the duplex.
We mudded, primed, textured, and painted our way through the break.

Texturing the walls

The more work we do in the apartment, the more we see what a shoddy job the past owners did when they got the house ready to sell. Apparently it worked, since we didn't notice a lot of the things until we had already bought the house. But it's pretty pathetic when our first-time DIYer drywalling, mudding, and painting looks loads better than what they did. We would have preferred not to paint such a bright white color everywhere, but we didn't want to repaint the entire apartment, and the existing paint was very white.

 

Painted wood paneling

We also had to order all the cabinets, tile, and windows for the apartment last week. Measuring and diagramming the kitchen area to figure out what cabinets we would need took some time and patience. You have to plan around appliances, outlets, plumbing, and quirky structural components. It ain't easy.
After we had already ordered the cabinets, I realized I had accidentally reversed our kitchen's width and length dimensions :( Luckily, it didn't affect things too much. But it caused some temporary aggravation, at least on my end...Brandon is really good at rolling with the punches.
We ordered in lots of unfinished cabinets from Home Depot. We had combined their delivery with our tile and windows, since our little Civic doesn't quite fit the 72" windows, 84" pantry, or even the 24" cabinets. We were told all of our stuff would be delivered on Friday first thing. I planned my work schedule around their delivery, since we really wanted to get the tile down and the cabinets stained as soon as possible. We woke up bright and early on Friday, ready to spend our day staining and tiling on our knees.
Home Depot had other plans for us.
We were already in Springville, waiting for our delivery, when they called to say they wouldn't be able to deliver them until Saturday. They said we'd be the first delivery Saturday--probably around 9. So we woke up early on Saturday and got all ready for our day. We waited. And waited. They delivered our stuff at 2 p.m.

Unfinished cabinets, waiting to be stained

Once we began staining on Saturday evening, we found that three cabinets have some kind of goop on them that prevents the stain from taking. Home Depot is in the doghouse.

We've needed a LOT of tools during this renovation. Brandon's grandpa is one of the smartest people ever, and he has every tool you could imagine, so we've relied on him quite a bit during this process. He's an engineer, and boy, does his brain work like one! He's very detail-oriented, and very thorough in his explanations of how to do things properly. He came over to see the place and help us plan for tiling. He also gave us his very own invention--the CurlyQ--which gets the paint out of paint rollers. Check it out on Amazon. Sa-weet.

Once he left, we disassembled, sanded, dampened, and stained cabinets until midnight. I broke through two pairs of latex gloves unknowingly, which means I came out looking like I killed a horcrux. 

My horcrux fingers and the first coat of stain on the cabinet doors

Today we're doing a second coat of stain. Things are coming along...more slowly than we'd like, but HGTV has taught me that that's just how it goes.
Next projects:
-Coating the stained cabinets
-Installing cabinets and countertops
-Tiling

Progress on our Property

Since Brandon's decision to switch career paths from Physical Therapy to Real Estate a few months ago, a lot has happened. In an effort to kickstart that career and make our way toward some financial goals, we put in an offer on a house back in the end of September. Because receiving financing for the loan was dependent upon me getting hired at and having two pay stubs from Qualtrics, the process was L O N G. We finally closed on our house December 9. It's an income property in Springville--an up/down duplex, actually. We had seen a lot of Provo duplexes in our price range, and they were, to be frank, small, old, and gross. So, when we saw this property, we were much more excited. Here she is, in all her glory.

Six parking spots--a dream for us Provo residents

Yeah, she's not much to look at. But she's got potential. 

The upstairs was in pretty good shape, and the downstairs was, well...endearing. 

No, just cringe-worthy, actually. 

Ugly, old cupboards. Wallpaper. One room with no electricity. Wood paneling. An awkward,  half-carpeted kitchen.

But we had a vision.

The day after we closed on our house, Brandon and his brother John took a hammer to those white and green cupboards and the wall behind them. We wanted to open up the kitchen and living room. 

Our (extremely kind) friend Shane came and did the electrical work for us--moving electrical fixtures, adding outlets, nearly getting electrocuted multiple times etc. He has been a lifesaver. 

We've moved a door from one wall to another wall and patched a lot of drywall. When I say we, I mean Brandon, since I've been at work all day everyday. Brandon's cousin Danyelle moved in upstairs with her husband and daughter, and they have been super helpful and understanding about all the work going on downstairs. Yesterday was Saturday, so I finally got to put in some serious work. My sister and her husband came down to help with mudding and texturing. 

We also had Danyelle and Tim's help all day long as we tackled the kitchen floor. 

Dear friends, if ever you should contemplate putting down linoleum flooring, I ask you to reconsider. One day, you will have to take it out, and on that day, you will cry. Taking up about 100 square feet of linoleum took us over sixteen hours of labor. 

We got up the linoleum with a whole lot of scraping, chipping, and patience. We were proud of that. 

Some of the lovely old wallpaper and carpet remnants we discovered while ripping up linoleum

Little did we know the adhesive underneath the linoleum would be much more difficult. From searching online and talking to people with experience, we found out that soaking it in hot water would help. We did that. It did almost nothing, even after letting it soak. The concrete below was just cooling and guzzling the water. Brandon's grandpa had loaned us a propane-powered torch which we had also heard would help take up the floor. It didn't do much at all, either. So, after more elbow grease and frustration, we decided

Hey, let's try water AND fire. Best. Idea. Ever. It worked great. Someone poured water, someone torched the water, someone scraped, and someone swept. It was still extremely tiring work, but I don't know that we would've been able to do it without those tools. 

Aside from the part where I accidentally pressed the torch trigger and barely missed my husband, there were no incidents to report. We had fire extinguishers handy just in case. I'm sure a contractor would be appalled at our techniques, but hey, we got the job done.

Upcoming steps in the renovation:
Painting
Tiling
Cabinet staining and installation
Countertop installation