Scenes from our front house painting & caulking "party"

Back in December we spent a weekend getting the upper apartment of the front house ready for new tenants. This included painting the walls and trim of several rooms, scrubbing the bathroom until it couldn't be scrubbed no more, and steam-cleaning the carpet. Oh, and re-caulking the tub.

Our previous tenant lived in the house for 13 years and kept it very clean. Still, after all those years the house needed (needs) some major updates, both cosmetic and structural. Our new tenants were on a tight time line so most of the updates in their apartment were, like I wrote above, of the cosmetic persuasion

Our friend & neighbor Kevin helped us paint on Saturday night. Here he is with Steve in the living room.

We decided to go boring landlord white with the painting but are flexible if our tenants want to paint it another color. Besides Steve, Sara, Sean, and me, we were joined by several generous friends and declared it a "painting party." I guess BEER + PIZZA + [any activity] = PARTY.

My father brought over a steam-vac and helped us clean the carpets. They were stained in certain places and generally very dirty. The above photo is of the living room after the carpets were cleaned and the walls and trim painted. Trust me, it looks so much better. Next time I'll do before and after photos.

My primary job was to clean the bathroom and I got really into it. I scrubbed the walls, the tub, the toilet, and the floor. I put a wax on the floor at the end and then admired its shine from the doorway (me to everyone else: "DO NOT WALK IN THE BATHROOM IT IS DRYING"). With Steve's help, I learned how to use a caulking gun and made the following video of my disappointment: