RV Travels with Dakota Duo: The House Project

Late January - We closed on the house with the seller late Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of the day looking it over. Sunday morning we went to Mass at 9:00 and then went back to Dan's to change into our work clothes. Our goal this day was to clean the kitchen (the cabinets and appliances were covered with years of grease - the elderly owner just did not keep it clean). Our seller had cleaned off the first layers. Jan came over with her cleaning supplies and helped out. We wanted to get all the grease off before the next day's project - scraping off the dirty popcorn ceilings throughout the house. We had decided that this was the only time we would ever have the time (and an empty house) to get it done.
Monday we taped and plastic covered everything, walls and floors and I started with the guest bathroom. I found that spraying water on the ceiling only made it goopy, so we put on our goggles and face masks and dry scraped it. Monday we got the two bathrooms and guest bedroom scraped. Tuesday we scraped the master bedroom and kitchen/living room area. Wednesday morning we cleaned up a lot of the ceiling dust before we had to leave. That day we met some of Gary's cousins for lunch in Florence. Dan and Joe joined us, we had a great meal at the Greek restaurant, Mt. Athos and a nice visit. We headed back to Good Life and unpacked. After scraping ceilings for a couple days, we were stiff and sore, so we made a visit to the park's hot tub that night before bed.

A clean kitchen, until.......

Dirty, ugly popcorn ceiling

After scraping, before painting

Cleaning up ceiling dust

Sieverding boys and McMahon girls

The next weekend we headed back to the "Junction" to continue our remodeling. With the ceilings scraped, we now had to put drywall primer on them before we could paint. First we caulked the opening between the walls and ceilings, then painted the ceilings in the smaller rooms. That night we finished working and we got to Dan's in time to watch the last fifteen minutes of the Super Bowl. Monday we finished putting on primer and then painted all the ceilings, except for the kitchen/living room. Jan helped and then she and Wally made supper for us. Tuesday we painted the ceiling in the big area and then installed indoor/outdoor carpet on the deck. That night W&J had us over for supper with another couple from the park.
Wednesday - Gary stayed at the casa and did outside work, caulking and painting the back of the house, weed control in the yard and put flashing on the deck and deck ramp. I had a ticket to go with the girls from Saddlebrooke (Deb, Lisa, Doris, & Krista) on the bus to the infamous Tucson Gem Show. This show is held throughout the city, vendors come in to all the event centers and hotels with their stones and gems, and jewelry for sale. We spent the day looking and learning about all the different gems and the beautiful jewelry. I had never been to the Gem Show, the others knew what and where they wanted to shop and what to look for. When the bus returned to Saddlebrooke, Gary and I headed home to Mesa.

Fresh painted ceiling, our own version of orange peel texture

Deck surface before waterproofing and carpet

Feb. 7-8, we did not leave the park to work on the house. We stayed in town and I went thrift store shopping and Gary enjoyed the pool. Sunday we went to Mass at the St. Brigid Church, the parish some of our neighbors in the park. The Mass was so full we sat in folding chairs in the back. The priest celebrating was visiting from Iowa and had been at parishes in West Des Moines and was currently pastor in Bellevue, IA. He said he knew many of the people that were snowbirds there in Mesa and had them stand up. There were quite a few! The people sitting next to us were from Bellevue, where Gary's Dad's family had come from. We ran more house errands that afternoon. Monday morning I went to the water aerobics class at the park and we enjoyed the pool in the afternoon. Tuesday afternoon we drove down to Gilbert to meet our friends from South Dakota, John and Wendy. They have a house in Queen Creek, so we met in Gilbert for supper. It was great to catch up with them and hear about their family. Wednesday we went to the weekly Country Store event at the park, then back home to catch up on the computer and mending. We went to our block Happy Hour gathering that afternoon and got ready for our work days.

Mid February - it is Valentine's Day! We went back to the house after working at the park on Saturday. A little more of a challenge to drive back to the "Junction", the Tucson Renaissance occurs in February and March and takes place along our highway route from Mesa, before we reached Florence. A bottleneck traffic jam occurred each weekend, our waiting time ranged from fifteen to thirty-five minutes on some of the weekends. We had bought a queen air mattress and stayed at the house for the first time that night. Saturday night and Sunday we cleaned up and prepared for priming the yellow and green walls in the house. Sunday we took out the vent over the stove and installed a microwave. We went to Deb & Joe's Sunday night for their holiday barbeque with our group of friends. Monday and Tuesday, we primed all the walls and then the kitchen was the first room to get painted. Tuesday night we went to Brian and Krista's to play dominoes. We enjoy playing cards, dice and dominoes with them. Wednesday AM, Gary helped Joe and Deb with some furniture moves and then we went to noon Mass at Santa Catalina for Ash Wednesday before returning to Mesa. We enjoyed the pool and hot tub that night.

Stove vent and kitchen walls before

Microwave installed and painting completed

Looks much better

Feb. 21 - This weekend we drove down via Queen Creek to avoid the traffic jams. After Mass that afternoon we had supper with W&J. We stayed at the house now, since we had a clean bedroom and the airbed. Sunday - we took a day off and went on a hike with Deb & Joe on the Pima Canyon trail. We had hiked it in early December, they had never been there. It was a beautiful day, we enjoyed hiking in the desert again. Afterward, we had a "recovery" refreshement and lunch at the San Carlos Grill. That night Wally made lamb chislic - I had not had that since I was in grade school and lived next to the auction barn on Hwy 16. Yumm! We also shared a bottle of champagne to celebrate our anniversary. Monday we deep cleaned the refrigerator and dishwasher to get rid of all the sheetrock dust and then removed all the mobile home wall strips in all the rooms. (Because of the necessity to transport mobile homes, they put wall strips over the wallboard seams in mobile homes, because of the movement of transport.) Joe had experience sheetrock taping in South Dakota and was willing to do the job for us. Tuesday morning we packed up and went back to Mesa - we had to work that night for the February Manager's party.

Pima Canyon Hikers

Strips removed in the living room

Wall strips off in master bedroom

Feb. 28 - we worked at the park longer than planned because of Party Wagon deliveries. We headed south to Gilbert, planning to buy a dining room set, only to find out someone beat us by 1/2 hour. We picked up Papa Murphy's pizzas (our first since October) and went to the house. With a real oven there, we can bake the large pizzas and so we introduced W&J to the deliciousness of Papa Murphy's. Ah, Classic Italian - we love you! Sunday afternoon I stripped paint off door jams, Gary worked on outside projects and we had steak supper with W&J. (They were so gracious to feed us all those weekends!) Monday we had to scrape and sand all the seam areas to have them smooth for drywall taping. Then we had to prime each seam area to be ready for Joe to tape. Tuesday we finished those projects, put our airbed away and covered all the floors so Joe could do the taping and sanding. We went back to Mesa Tuesday afternoon and Gary went to a meeting with the RVIC RV Inspectors that night in a nearby RV park. Wednesday we did laundry, caught up on book work, enjoyed the pool and visited with our neighbors.

Our agave and its little pup

Sunset on the Catalinas

Another amazing sunset

March - we waited until after Mass on Sunday to go back to the house. When we arrived, Joe was there working on the taping. That night, we had a wonderful evening at Krista and Brian's home - her sister and husband were there visiting from Winnipeg. We had met them the year before, it was great to catch up. Monday I finished stripping all the door frames, luckily they were laminate material that the paint came right off of, when we scrubbed them with TSP. Gary and Jan worked outside stripping the paint off all the room doors. Tuesday, Gary primed and painted the doors while Jan and I went thrift store shopping. Back at the house, I primed most of the inner door jams. Dan made supper for us that night. Wednesday we went back to Mesa in the morning and went to our dentist appointments in the afternoon in Mesa. That night we went to a gathering at Greg & Linda's, a barbeque with all the other workampers. It was fun to visit with the couples that worked on the Mon-Wed shift.

Paint washing off door trim

The green paint is almost gone!

Mar. 14 - When we arrived at the house, Joe was just finishing the final work on the walls. Thank you Joe! Sunday I did some touch up sanding and then we primed the repaired areas. Monday and Tuesday we primed and painted the walls in the main rooms. I started in the master bedroom experimenting with the texture application I was hoping to use throughout the house. It was a powdered fine texture mixture added to the paint, but when I used it in the master bedroom it dried as a sand texture and we were looking for more texture than that. Scrapped that idea, so then we painted all the rooms except the big room area, with a first and second coat.

Master bedroom - before

Master bedroom - after

Living room all seams done and walls primed

Mar. 21 - After work, we went to one of the patio sales at the park. Another workamper had this sale and we bought a queen sized air mattress stand! Got our bed up off the floor. We drove to the house, unpacked and then went to 4:00 Mass at Santa Catalina. As the house was still covered with plastic and the bed was not set up, we stayed with Deb & Joe the first two nights. We had a pizza supper and a great visit with them. Saturday I had seen a bathroom vanity including a banjo countertop and sink just the right size for our master bath. I contacted the seller Sunday morning and we drove to west Tucson to pick it up. A great find, giving us more storage in the vanity and more countertop space. Luckily it fit in our car and we headed home. So, the project that day was to take out the old vanity - a bigger project that we thought because we had to clean up under it and buy and install supplies to pack rat proof the large hole around the pipes. We got the vanity in and set the countertop on - then realized that with the banjo shape countertop, the new high toilet the seller had installed was too high - the countertop cleared it, but we would not be able to get the tank cover off. Darn! Enough for the day, that night we had a great evening at Lisa & Jeff's house, delicious lasagna! The next morning we called the ReStore in Tucson and found out they had some low profile toilets - Gary determined that was our solution. I headed into Tucson and picked up the toilet, (they were half price that day!) then made stops at Home Depot and the grocery store. Gary worked on painting the dining/living room area and then installed the toilet when I got back. Tuesday and Wednesday we finished all the second coats of paint, and cleaned up all the plastic, finally!

Master bath before

Master bathroom done!

End of March - We had determined that we would replace the guest bath vanity, so that week after work we looked around the Mesa area for a different one. Not finding anything at the resale places, we stopped at Home Depot on our way out of town and found the vanity/sink combo and a tri-door medicine cabinet for the master bath. We installed the medicine cabinet that afternoon and went for supper to the Ells and another couple staying at the park. Sunday we went to early Mass and then after lunch installed the guest bathroom vanity, a smaller job this time and it worked out really well. I spent part of the day caulking around our showers and the new countertops. Our Canadian friends, Krista and Brian came over to see our place and brought refreshments to share. They were leaving on Thursday to return to their home in Kelowna, British Columbia for the summer months. Monday Gary worked in the yard before packing up to return to Mesa. He had been assigned his first RV Inspection in Mesa for Tuesday. He went back to pick up supplies and get ready for his 9:00 appointment. I finished caulking and did touch up painting. That night W&J had me over for supper. Tuesday I sanded and painted some of the laminated door trim that we had stripped the yellow and green paint off of. Gary spent the morning doing the motorhome inspection and then drove back to the house to finish his reports. We have very strong Internet signal at the "Junction", better than we did at the park in Mesa. The next morning we mailed the oil and fluid samples from the inspection, packed up and went back to Mesa.

Guest Bathroom - before

Before - purple bead curtains!

Guest Bathroom - After

Holy Week/Easter - Saturday we got to the house and just relaxed before going to the Vigil Mass at Santa Catalina. Easter morning we went to the 7:30 Mass at St. Mark's Parish, a little further away for us. They have a new church we had not seen, we had been to the smaller building in the years before with Dan and Joyce. Back home, we had breakfast and read the Sunday paper. We each did a couple small jobs in the house, before getting ready to go to Easter lunch with family and friends at 2:00 PM in Saddlebrooke. We went to the Easter buffet at the Mountain View clubhouse, good food and a big selection of brunch, lunch and dessert :) items to choose from. Afterward, Leo and Doris came to see our new place. Wally and Jan came over too and we had a fun afternoon together. Monday I finished painting the remaining door trim and Gary fixed the leak under our kitchen sink. W&J brought tacos and we had supper on the deck. Tuesday we ran errands, went to the Goose, the estate sale place, the grocery store and hardware store. Back home I prepared food for our evening party and we cleaned the house. That night, Lisa & Jeff, Deb & Joe, W&J, and Dan and Connie came over to see the house and for munchies and pizza supper on the deck. An open house/sunset viewing party! Wednesday morning, we packed up everything we wanted to go back in the motorhome because this was our last four days stay at the house. The next week we would leave Mesa and head north. We stopped and said goodbye to Wally & Jan, they were leaving for a trip to Hawaii that week. We would not see them again until the summer when they plan to stop at our park in Montana. On the way back to Mesa, we stopped in Coolidge to pay our electric bill at the office there and then did a Sam's stop in Gilbert.

Easter Lunch Bunch

Before - Dining/living room

After

After all the work - clean and ready for furniture!

Saturday, after our last shift of work at the park, we packed up everything we wanted to take from the motorhome and leave at the house until fall. At the house we put things away and did a little touch up painting. That night Dan had Joe & Deb and us over for a farewell supper. Connie was in Wisconsin visiting her family. Monday morning, we took the air bed down and put everything away in the house until we return in the fall. Then we went back to Mesa and unpacked. That night our friends, Chris and Kirsten came by for refreshments and light supper. They had been staying and working in the area with their new business, Island Noodles. It is a food trailer franchise they take to events and sell fresh stir fry vegetable dishes. We had met them with RVillage last February and they worked the Sugar Beet harvest in North Dakota with us last October. It was great to see them and get caught up with each other!!

Bed deflated - leaving the house for the season

Spring flowers in the desert

As we looked back, we were amazed at how fast our time went in Mesa, but after writing this we realized how much we did working on the house on our days off. But what an improvement we made and we know we will enjoy the house much more when we return in the fall. The project and fun then will be to furnish it and make it ready for us and ready to have guests.