...over the long summer

Soooo, it's been awhile since the blog has been updated. The reason for this is very simple...it has been a very busy summer.

As the summer warmed up, there were daily discoveries in the backyard. In addition to goldfish in the pond, we found that it was also irresistible to mating toads. Every night for a week the toads were chirping as loud as they could...at one point we counted 10 toads, each one was paired up. The squirrels are also entertaining--as long as we can keep them out of the bird feeders...










As for Henry...he's been going through a bit of a train phase...What started out as a fascination with one wagon, grew into multiples as we did more and more yardwork. Finally, he started stringing things together...up to five at a time with bungee cords!




















As for the house, we've chipping away at things.

On the inside, we have new curtains in Henry's room and playroom, new doors on the fireplace and a nicely finished mantle. The office has made it to the "damned close to being done" phase. We added some anti-heat film to the windows and have actually cleaned four! A bit more trim and 3 more windows...and it will be done!



Stacey has been working night and day to refinish the stairs, and both hall closets are "works in progress".












I have been up to the roof...seems that someone had the bright idea that the chimney was a good place to lash down a TV aerial--not so on a breezy day!









We've also been trying to get a handle on the yard...chopping out forests, hacking at stumps, digging holes...but now if you take a stroll--things look a little more tame.
The first obvious difference is that there are flowers EVERYWHERE! Then Stacey put in more! We've also started the process of reclaiming of the garden. Of course we had to remove the 3 story pile of brush first, but we've managed to put in a few tomatoes and peppers--and they're doing great.






















Stacey has built not one, but two brick patios. One behind the garage and the other near the back door. The one near the back door is really a piece of work...complete with "stub" for the grill, it wraps around a couple of flower beds and is an awfully nice place to enjoy a burger after the sun has sunk behind the trees.









While we haven't made it too far on painting the rest of the house, we have re-painted the front porch. New paint over the flaking leaded paint...and a bright green floor. It's nice to spend some evenings in the cool air on the swing.












And...I finally tackled the garage. We dusted off a bunch of old storm windows, dead gutters, and spiders...and sent a few hundred pounds of debris to the dump. After "lightly" power washing down the inside, it looks much better...but we still can't park the car inside. That will have to wait until we can move the mitre saw somewhere else.

April showers...and it doesn't leak

It's time we posted an update. In the last month we've made a bit of progress...and frankly, I'm so tired that I don't really feel like writing much. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a few million.

Let's start at the top...Henry's room has been done for awhile...but here is what it looks like after it's been lived in, well, when there aren't cars and trucks scattered all over the floor...











Then there's his playroom...which has become a nice gallery for his art...




Of course, there's still some unfinished business. A few weeks ago I took the afternoon off and gutted the sunroom. It's slowly coming back. So far it's at the drywall stage...but perhaps we'll get some paint on it this week.

Before... ...and so far so good...










And on the first floor Stacey has been working away on the living room...it's almost done. There's nice paint on all surfaces, a refinished fireplace mantel, and most of the boxes have been put away. Notice the total absence of the "wine" theme in the recent pics.



















And after months of waiting...we have countertops in the kitchen! Not to mention the cabinets are done (except for a few details), all of the leaks are fixed, and the electrical is finished. Ah, we can cook again!

Remember the wine and roses?













...and what it looks like now...













As the weather has warmed up...we've begun to feel out the backyard. New flowers come up every day...some of which we've never seen the likes of before. Last weekend Stacey moved the patio (yes, it is as hard as it sounds) and we've started to make sense of the debris. The biggest surprise was finding goldfish--alive and well--in the water feature that was frozen solid last winter!















Even Henry helps...













That's it for now...but stay tuned...

Spring Can Really Hang you up the Most...

Ah, well. We've lived in the house for almost a month now--and we love it. There are still a ton of things to do, and there seems to be new things that pop up everyday, but it's so nice to be in our "own" house, even if it comes with its "own" problems.

So you would've thought that the pause in blogging was due to all of the work we've been doing...well, sort of. Actually it has taken us this long to recover from moving. We transported the bulk of our stuff from the old house over the course of two weekends...in the snow and rain!


Once in, of course, the tricks were not over. We're still waiting on countertops in the kitchen. Well, we got tired to the Lowe's guy stringing us along and finally called the fabricator directly--they said the laminate was on backorder for two weeks. That was three weeks ago and we're still waiting. Ironically, one of the reasons we chose this design was because it was popular and could be delivered quickly!

While the tops are still AWOL, I did install the microwave last night--and it's nice. It was a heavy behemoth to tilt in (I've realized that I tend to cut things a little close when it comes to things like leaving space for a microwave in the cabinet configuration).

Regardless, the kitchen is more functional everyday--although last night we realized the main sink drain has a pretty bad leak into the basement (I'm sure that will be the subject of a future blog). We're off of microwave food, and even made pancakes this morning!

Stacey has been busy painting. Our back porch is now a nice vibrant green and the living room (about half painted) is a bright "dorset gold". We really like the living room--it's bright and sunny. We've even had a fire in the fireplace the last few weekends!

February Update...

It's been awhile since I've posted...hmm...by the looks of things, about a month. What have we been doing you ask? We've been busy.

The first order of business was to start painting. We are still painting, but at this point we have two rooms entirely painted (Henry's room and his "playroom". Lots of fixing walls and precision mud-work. Henry's room is a nice bright blue--and he must like it because he will actually take a nap in it now. The "playroom" is--technically--"snowcone green", although I think it more akin to the glowing yellow-green of core of a nuclear reactor (we live in Springfield, un-official home of the Simpson's after all). It certainly wakes you up when you walk in. Stacey finished painting the bathroom walls yesterday--I think she called it "periwinkle", but it looks like a light blue to me. We're still chipping away at the last bedroom (our room)--well, no chipping--we haven't gotten to it yet. That, and there were some large areas of plaster damage that had to be repaired first.

"The Playroom"

Henry's Room

Bathroom

The "Last" bedroom

As for the rest of the upstairs, we've discovered that the "sunporch turned office" actually has lead paint on the walls. Hmmm, have to do something about that before we move too much stuff in there.

Downstairs, we've also been busy. We are slowly getting the trim painted and the walls primed when we have a spare moment, but it's taking a long time when you can only work on it nights and weekends. We have some furniture up--including a new dining room table (one that we can all fit at).

Dining room, starting to look like home.

Choosing paint...

Stacey stripped the mantle...surprise, surprise, it's a nice dark wood like the ceiling!










Then there's the backporch. At one point this was an exterior porch that was then hemmed in. Upon pulling up the adhesive tile (yay!) that was covering the floor...I was struck by the red, peeling, flaking paint underneath. A quick test of the lead pen and sure enough--super-fund site number 3. At least it was a small area and self-contained. After stripping the floor, we covered it with some super-heavy duty oil-based, "stronger than steel" paint and called it good. That was about two weeks ago--I think perhaps it's finally dry.

The back porch in progress

The big news this last week has been that our cabinets showed up 6 days ago. Since that time, I've been steadily working on installing them. Before hanging that first wall cabinet, I ran into the museum carpenter in our breakroom and asked if he had any tips. At first he asked if I had ever hung cabinets before, I said no. Then he asked if I had anyone helping me who had hung cabinets before, I said no. I could see he didn't have much faith in my abilities, so I was glad when he said he had a few minutes, he'd help me hang the first few.




Cabinets in the living room?

Henry likes 'em, installed or not!

An hour later, we had a corner of wall cabinets hung. Great! Not too hard--although when Kirk left, I don't think his initial estimate of "you're screwed" had changed too much. Over the last few days as I've slowly hung more of these things, I've thought to myself...it's not so much the "cabinet" part that is difficult, it's everything else. For instance, I've had to move 4 different electrical outlets and a doorbell because they would be covered by cabinets. I've also had to rehang an entire wall (including the first cabinets that were hung by "a pro" and I) because we didn't pay close enough attention to where filler strips went, and ... who would've guessed that your corner cabinet is actually supposed to be 3" out of the corner?

The problem wall...done!

The things I've learned.... The cabinets are almost entirely hung (only 2 left), the outlets are mostly still unwired (but in the end, we will have nice grounded newly wired outlets rather than the old stuff) and we are still awaiting a countertop (to be measured soon we hope). We should have a kitchen by the end of the week (minus the sink, countertop, microwave, and a few plugs).

Did I mention that we're trying to move in by 2/22? I'm thinking there are few more long nights ahead of me.

Henry can't take it anymore!