Double Jeopardy

December 7, 2010

Last night, Alok threatened to fake his own death and move to India so that he would not have to be at the house anymore. After I threatened him with retribution a la Ashley Judd in Double Jeopardy, he decided to stay for another day. I, however, had roller derby and did not make it to the house. I will try my best here and then a very tired Alok can add more later.

Basically, Alok and my mom went to the house where he reportedly ruminated about what a freaking mess our house is and then worked on pulling off more molding. My mom worked on peeling off the wallpaper that does not want to be removed. Here are the pics:


Molding is gone


More missing molding


And again


Alex wondering why she's at this dusty mess of a place


More molding gone


And more


And here... OK, I think you get the point. This was the piece that was stuck due to the wonderful application of the new wood floor, but it appears that both the molding and the floor survived.

The question is now, what do we do with the molding? Alok said something about getting a UV hot gun thing of some sort that should assist the stripping process, but they are very expensive so we'll see.... unless any of our faithful blog readers have one we can borrow. We also need to sort out the original molding from the not so nice newer molding so that we don't spend hours stripping something that isn't worth it.

He also worked on stripped off the wainscoating and insulating under the windows, as seen here:


Bruening also came out today and added new duct work into the apartment bathroom, kitchen, and apartment itself. There were no vents in the kitchen (or radiators), but instead there is a not properly ventilated, carbon monoxide producing gas stove. We figured new vents were a good option.

Here is my mom, looking a bit like she's losing it, scraping off the wallpaper:




After they returned home, Alok and I talked about a new plan to just rip down walls rather than try to strip them, repair them, insulate them, etc. My mom looked horrified due to the fact that we have spent about 4 months peeling wallpaper. I assured her that we would just rip down new bad things we encounter. In the picture you see above, the wall to the left is also about as strong a paper mache (you push on it and the whole wall moves), so despite our peeling efforts, it is coming down. And I can't wait :-)

Jessica