The Bungalow

Have I told you about where we are moving?

Where you ask? Oh, it's going to be somewhere nice and quiet and cozy, tucked away from the world.

My grandpa's old workshop.

Do workshops have running water typically? Do they have a bathroom? Nope.

No need to read it again...you read that correctly.

And it may surprise you to know we are not the first to attempt this feat.

This "room" is 10 by 20 feet. That's not very big. I bet IKEA could do something amazing with the space and I have spent hours looking through their catalog for inspiration.

There is a good sized closet in the back: about 5 by 10 feet. And my grandma would let us use the kitchen inside and one of the bathrooms in the main house.

First, my two cousins went to school and made the place more of a room by putting up sheet rock. Then one of those cousins got married and the happy newlyweds lived there for two years! My cousin's wife added some beauty to the place by adding baseboards and moldings.

And why are we willing to live here you might ask. Simple: money. Well, no money that is. Does that explain why I am willing to live like a pioneer? Rent free baby.

So this week I have been scraping the old paint off the cement floors(my grandma painted it when my cousin and his wife moved out) and it has been a good 4 day job. I really really wanted something other than cement as the floor and my grandma said she would buy the tile for us!!! To get one sqare foot takes about 10-15 minutes...yah it's hard work and I'm sore- good workout but I think the finished product will be worth it.

Well, prepping for the tile floor, I removed the baseboards and lo and behold.....

BLACK MOLD. DUN dun dun.

Yah, gross! And dangerous. I didn't know what to do. We figured out it was from the place flooding the week before from the irragation my grandmother gets to water her back lawn. Okay, so to stop it from growing it can't be fed (get wet again) so now we are watching the irragation very carefully. But now what to do with the black mold?

I called around to get an estimate on how much it would cost for a professional to get in there and remove it and the guy was very cryptic on the price but I finally wore him down so he told me that after all the air testing and special tools they use to make sure it is gone, that it would be somewhere in the ballpark of $1,000 for this small room. Wha-wha-WHAT?!!! That defeats the whole purpose of us living in this thing. No way. I kindly thanked him for his time and promptly began searching the internet for better, less expensive ways to be rid of the beast.

I came across a few articles on black mold and apparently clorox is a big no-no, for once the mold is dry it can become airborne and if the bleach were to cling to these little airborne particles, they could become even more toxic. After reading and reading I finally decided to go with a product that is non-toxic and very inexpensive: Vinegar. I equipped myself with vinegar and gloves and a painter's mask and got to work. It was slow and tedious and every time I wiped the wall, some would end up on the floor- so after the walls were clean I went back over the floors to make sure there were no traces left. After about 5 hours, the mold was gone. Phew.

This is some project, I tell you what. Stay posted for before and after photos of course;)