Lauri Ann's New Life

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Replacing the Tarp

We are now walking through a front door we got from Craig's List. To the left is what we started with. Talk about looking like "trailer trash", but it had to do until it became a top priority. I think the day it became a top priority was when my neighbor said how trashy our place looked, and she hadn't even been down to see it. When I responded she said "Well, that's what everyone tells me". I had just assumed everyone would understand rebuilding this place doesn't happen over night, but evidently I was wrong. LOL. For appearances sake, the outside is more important than the inside.

It also needed to take top priority as we are still fighting the park owner for tenancy, and expect to be going to court any day now. I surely don't want him to be able to use the fact that we are an "eye-sore" to work against us.

Primered, Ready for Paint

My whole point about this blog is how you can rebuild on a shoestring budget doing it from sites like Craig's List and Freecycle. I have to say that in our journey, we have met an angel or two. One is a guy named Nick Meltzer. We originally met him when we were selling the dessert flagstone in front of the porch. Come to find out he has all kinds of salvage stuff he sells very reasonably. We've been able to call on him more than once for things we needed. We got both the door and the window from him. The door is a solid core door, (very heavy) complete with deadbolt, door knob and all. Needless to say, he also has some primer and paint, which I'm waiting to see what he has now. In the meantime, Tom found a small can of white primer, and painted that on this last  weekend. (It actually looked a lot better before the primer, aye?)

We'll be painting the fence around the porch white, but I'm thinking about possibly introducing a 3rd color around the door and the window. The mobile is a very light gray siding with white trim. I was thinking about a teal maybe, for the door and the trim around the window, or do you think we should just paint it white? I'm open to suggestions.                                                

On top of us getting ready to move here, I've been helping out a buddy of mine that has to move also. Friday through Monday last, he had a huge yard sale. I've been doing some advertising for him, and then showed up early a few mornings to help him get organized, etc. We ended up getting the ceiling fan, which the picture doesn't do it justice as to how pretty it is, to go over our dining table. We also picked up a 1/2 horsepower garbage disposal for the kitchen.

My friend had a lot of wood trim, etc. that I thought would be great for the doorway that's open on the porch, soon to be office, but Tom said there wasn't enough that matched. It is a rather large opening. I did remind Tom if there was anything (tools, garden tools, etc) that he was going to want to pay retail for later on, that I would probably kill him.

I also went yesterday and picked up some moving boxes from some people just a couple of blocks away. I had come to a stand-still in the packing. These boxes are quite large, so I have to be careful not to fill them with so much heavy stuff we can't move them. Even though we have hand-trucks, at some point human hands have to move it somewhere.

Someone is emailing me that is remodeling their house and they had 2 bathroom vanities. They look great, but unfortunately our space is probably half of their smallest one. I am waiting with baited breath to see if they are redoing their kitchen. LOL

I've been spending most of the time packing, showing the place we're renting here, and looking for materials. When you're looking for free materials, you definitely have to be patient waiting for the things you're looking for to appear. I have joined Freecycle, the Santa Cruz chapter, figuring it would be great to be able to find some stuff on that side of the hill instead of having to cart things all the way from San Jose or Santa Clara. I have received a couple of responses to my ad for remodeling materials, but I am afraid we are poor as church mice so coming up with even the reasonable prices people are asking for materials is tough.

My watchdog who lives a couple of doors down from me in Capitola says it's been really quiet over there the last few days, so I guess the Perp is either laying low or moving into his own place long enough to leave us alone.

We were able to get into the mobile home yesterday and see the bathroom and back bedroom which we weren't able to see from the outside a couple of days before. I was both surprised and happy to see that the toilet and tub/shower were still intact. He had taken out the vanity in the bathroom and replaced it with a pedestal sink. There is a mirror and some kind of pebbling on the wall behind the sink where the medicine chest used to be. He did a terrible job on the plumbing to the sink, as you can see by the picture.


I called the police yesterday right after we got there. I really didn't want to disturb anything before having them file a report. I also re-posted the "No Trespassing" signs that the Perp had torn down the last time he went inside. As we were waiting for the police to show up, we went ahead and got most of the measurements for everything and started figuring out what could go where.

I am very happy to report it looks like I'll be able to keep my office set up and my china hutch. LOL. The rest is questionable. Actually, the living room and dining room furniture we have now came from the mobile when I sold it, so we should be able to just move it right back Not so sure about my bedroom furniture as it is a bit larger than the furniture we had in there originally. This guy tore out the sliding closet doors that went the full length of the bedroom, so it has been tempting to think about arranging things a little differently this time.

 The police finally came and supposedly filed a report. I'm going to test that theory this morning. There is a nice rubbermaid shed outside, mostly on my driveway, partially on the lot next door. It's full of tools etc. that belong to the perpetrator. Stuff he leaves behind by law, he actually has 15 days to retrieve before I can do anything with it. I had told my girlfriend who lives a couple doors down that if this man came back, to call 911 immediately as I don't want him doing any more damage.

We weren't home long at all when she called to let me know he was there and she had called the police. The policeman that showed up happened to be the same policeman that had filed the report for me earlier. The perp told him the shed was on the other lot, not on mine, and he was retrieving his tools. The policeman told him if he went inside the mobile he would be arrested, and then he left for another call. The Perp is supposed to send two of his co-workers today to retrieve the rest.

Bathroom before "remodel" by Perp

This morning we are headed out to get new locks for the doors and look for a sliding door which somehow the frame has been busted. There happens to be a warehouse or "yard" with a lot of used items for contractors located not too far from the mobile. I've put an ad on Craig's List for anyone in the area that is remodeling and wants to get rid of anything (cupboards, flooring, etc). I keep looking on Craig's List for things we can use, along with Freecycle. We're pretty broke with paying the landlord here yesterday along with our 30 day notice. I will be trying to get packed pretty quickly and told him I would try and help him re-rent.

Now that we've assessed the damage inside, we can start with the re-building.