Clean Up, Siding, and An Unexpected Guest

Yes, it's time again for the Sunday Show! The show where we present, for your reading and viewing pleasure, all the awesome and wonderful things that happened around the house on Sunday! You may have thought we were off the air - but yesterday unexpectedly kicked off the spring season of the Sunday Show in ways never thought possible.

We were up at our usual early hour on Sunday. And, inspired by a Saturday burn by our neighbor up the hill, (and not to mention my stick-gathering of two weeks ago) Mike went downtown at 9am and got a burn permit. Needless to say, we were burninating by before 10am. Awesome.

Shortly after the fire was self sufficient, Mike went about moving stuff in the yard. The camper - back to the gravel driveway. Those old logs - pushed down the hill with the skid steere. One lawn tractor - gave to a neighbor. Snowmobile - on the side of the garage, cover on. Junk - loaded in the truck for the dump. Sweet.

Although I must admit, this after photo doesn't look like much. But it looked a lot worse before. Additionally, Mike considered the grading project. He'll need to get himself a bigger machine, that's for sure. He estimated about an 18 inch difference from the garage addition to the edge of the hill. Plus, this nasty bit you see in the bottom third of this photo? All that has to be cut off as well. I'll be prodding Mike this week to remind him to source out a machine he can borrow on the cheap/free. Sounds like a plan.

And if you think that's all we've got on this edition of the Sunday Show - well, you're wrong! Around 12:30pm, Timmy and Richard came over and got right to work finishing the siding. Mudroom/Kitchen Side - done. (Save for a bit of trim and trim-painting.)

It's all one cohesive side! Imagine that.... Mike also cleaned up that side driveway whatever-you-want-to-call-it area. We had a buncha dirt piles there from snow plowing and sanding over the winter. Plus, we had our garage doors stored there on saw-horses. No more. Mike moved those, dug out the dirt, and put in some pea stone from the gravel driveway to fill in. Sigh of unexpected relief. I'll be prodding Mike some more to schedule his friend for garage door installation as soon as this upcoming weekend.

The last little triangle of siding up on top? (There on the right.) Oh yeah, it's done. Trim's back up. All is well with the world of siding.

If you simplify all and everything - you could call our siding half done. But, as Mike is quick to point out, the left hand side of the house is barren - no windows (save for an octagonal one yet to be installed), no doors, no additions, no porch, no nada. And without any of those strange cuts and jags, it will be quick work to side the left. (Not to mention less wasteful as well.) We're so much more then halfway there.

Nearing the end of the Sunday Show, Timmy made us a materials list for another upcoming Sunday Show. And believe it or not, it's not going to pinch my pockets too too badly.

Wrap for the last of the porch posts
Two more railings and a stair rail
Misc trim - and not much of it

Weather permitting, I will be prodding Mike to order everything on Friday. (Lotta prodding going on this week.)

Now it's time for the most Unexpected thing to ever happen on the Sunday Show. And I Missed It. MISSED IT! I'm so pissed. Ken Thompson stopped by. Name ring a bell? As in, just a couple weeks ago I was talking about Mr. and Mrs Robert Thompson, previous owners? And how the strange coincidence of my friend Christine having visited Mrs. Thompson caused me to reconsider all the unanswered questions about my house in my own mind??

And the dude shows up and Mike gives him the grand tour and I'm not there. Oh, I was livid.

Needless to say, he was impressed. Surprised that the bathroom had gone basically unchanged. Loved the kitchen, loved the tile. He did tell Mike in regards to the yard that they dug out a huge hill in order to build the garage. They dug it out and pushed it down the hill in back. It used to be just one giant hill in back of the house. And the family had always wanted to renovate, but didn't have the means to do what we did.

He said he usually has to go to the Cape for something every couple months. Mike encouraged him to stop by at any time, and I hope he does.

After that, Mike cleaned up the gravel driveway with the leaf blower.

And that's all we have time for this week on the Sunday Show! If you can't tell, I'm just giddy with excitement. Everything all of a sudden seems so close and easy again. If we can get that garage door installed next weekend.... If we can get the last posts trimmed and the last railings up next weekend.... If we can grade the backyard the weekend after that....

It's never that easy though, is it?

A Beautiful Day for Goin Crazy!

Sunday. The last frontier. *sigh* I'm exhausted. So exhausted. Where do I even begin? I suppose at the beginning - DUR.

We were up at 8 and by 9:00, Mike was out the door and on his way to purchase that burn permit. He arrived back home about the same time his mom did (to watch Mikey) and we were off to the races.

Mike was determined to make a scrap metal run - filling up Dodge #3 and hauling it away. (Prices are near to $150 per ton. Not as awesome as a couple years ago when prices hit a high of around $250 per ton, but still worthwhile.) So he went to work right away - tearing out the wiring he needed and throwing near to every piece of metal junk we had onto his trailer.

Meanwhile, I began tackling the basement. We decided to just scrap our giant scrap wood pile. It just looked like garbage, really. So I spent the better part of an hour just carrying wood up and out. The overflowing trash can - out. Empty paint cans and moldy drywall compound - out. Moldy bits of drywall - out. (Who needs a stair climber? Just climb stairs for a couple hours straight with armfuls of trash! You'll be fit in no time!)

Outside, we got the go-ahead to burn baby burn and Mike lit up the Trogdor Burninator with brush and branches. (Yes, we cut our old oil tank in half, added a handle, and turned it into a burning pit. And yes, we named it after that famous Strong Bad email.) Once the fire was going strong, Mike was right back to loading scrap.

He cut up an old boat trailer with his Sawzall and even loaded that - plus a couple lawn tractors. When everything was ready to go, he drove across the street where our neighbor loaded Mike's truck with even more scrap... until it was overflowing! He had another trailer he wanted Mike to take too, but he was already full up. Time to head out.

About the time Mike was leaving with all that metal, I was just about finished taking junk out of the basement. Time to organize, clean, and vacuum! And I went nuts. I even managed to put down our old living room rug to define a new exercise area for my treadmill and Mike's weight bench, complete with TV table. (Weight bench will have to be moved later - I couldn't lift it.)


It's been a VERY long time since the basement was this clean.

Anyway, when Mike returned we got back to some serious burning. (I had been tending the fire whilst he was away - but keeping it small and just throwing in a few sticks every now and again.)
We had a late lunch and then got started on tidying the yard.

Our other neighbor wanted some of our scrap wood for winter kindling... in exchange for some of his famous homegrown jalapeno poppers. No problemo! And he took more than half off our hands.

Back in the backyard, I cleaned up and raked - Mike decided to fix the old boat trailer so he could deliver the old boat to its new owner. Which is definitely a good thing, don't get me wrong. Unfortunately, this meant that a few things had to be left where they were.... a couple of large Dodge body parts, 4Runner #1, the scaffolding, the trash hut, and a buncha small misc items.

But all in all, the yard hasn't looked so clean in at least a couple years. And now that it's neat and clean, we'll be bringing in a new and bigger boat, 1/2 a trans am (happy birthday to me with a new pontiac 400 motor and trans), and a camper. Don't look at me like that! It's better then adding all that stuff to what we had before! I'll be doing my best to keep it neat, believe me. And I'll be doing my best to sell some items this summer - believe me on that one too.

Mike returned home around 9:30pm, just in time to catch me vacuuming one last time. And this morning he went to the dump with all that junk from the basement. Bu-bye.

Why all the mad cleaning, organizing, and finishing of small projects? In just about a week I will hopefully be able to say, pending if it all paid off that is. And pics of the yard to come... it was pouring rain this morning.

Get a home insurance quote from Direct Line, voted Britain’s number 1 insurance provider.

Late Nights and Goals

I'm pushing it. Yes... you may have guessed. There is a reason behind all this rushing around to tidy up and finish up loose ends inside and out. I'm not at the moment at liberty to discuss... but it'll all be over on Monday, and sometime near to a week after that, I'll let you all in on the big occasion.

Until then, let me just say that Mike deserves a metal... and if all works out the way we want, I'm going to give him a monetary bonus prize as another big thanks.

Last night he brought home everything - the paint, the brushes, the stirrers, the stain, the light bulbs, the electrical box... everything! And despite the late hour, he still pulled everything out of the garage to stained the mudroom closet doors via his automotive painting equipment. (You try and hand stain two half louvered closet doors... it's a pain in the butt. Spray way is the best way!)

Then, despite the even-later hour, Mike went down in the basement and put a second coat on all the rest of the mudroom trim! And all so he can put up the trim tonight.

Also on tonight's show, planing each side of the closet trim by 0.372" (Yeah, we have 66" worth of doors and 65" worth of opening... long story - don't try it at home. Not fun, even with a planer.) And once that's done, the doors and trim can go on.

Meanwhile that kitchen wall needs to be sanded so I can paint.... and speaking of paint, I need to paint the french doors/french door trim. If not tomorrow night, most definitely Saturday.

Sunday's agenda is all about the outside. As in, all of that junk in that yard needs to be put away or moved to anywhere else... luckily our neighbors are nice enough to lend a hand. Or in this case, a bit of driveway. If I can remember to get that burn permit on Saturday, I will for sure. Too bad you can't purchase it online!

Chow for now!

Get a home insurance quote from Direct Line, voted Britain’s number 1 insurance provider.

Waiting, But Not Wasting Time

I'm happy to report that this week really turned around for us after Tuesday.

First off, that presentation I was worried about last post was scheduled for this morning instead of Wednesday morning. So we actually had Wednesday and Thursday to work on it, much to my relief on Tuesday night.

Secondly, still no call from our home insurance rep. I'm still not sure if that's good news or bad news, but nevertheless it's given us (us, that's a good one because I'm pretty much useless at the moment) It's given Mike a chance to work on several projects.

Wednesday, he spent the day on gutters. Or, rather, preparing for the gutters. Because really once he got up on the latter and started inspecting the roof line, it was obvious that some prep work needed to be done first. One major area of concern was over the mudroom.

And we knew this was a problem because back when we did the roof, I noticed while cleaning out the attic - Hey! There's a big hole to the outside where the roof meets the wall! At the time, we brushed it off and said, "we'll take care of that with the new siding."

But of course with no new siding as of yet, and temperatures creeping below 0 lately - probably a good idea to plug that hole. So, using some of our extra PT decking (the ugly pieces left over from the farmer's porch) Mike trimmed out that area. Later, the gutter will attach directly to this piece.

Notice how the piece just melds into the farmer's porch. Perfect!

If the weather hadn't been so cold and snowy, Mike could have actually installed the gutters yesterday. He wanted to, the nut! But really, the snow plus major wind chill factor - even I'm not that much of a slave driver.

Here's the second area that is in desperate need of a gutter. This is the back of the kitchen, and when it rains, the water just slides off the roof. If conditions are just right, it can actually seep through that window and sometimes the wall itself. We had several major rain events one after another back in fall that caused a flood in the basement window directly under this kitchen window - not good.

Anyway, tomorrow the high temperature is a toasty warm 30 degrees. (Ooooo!) And sunny! (Ahhhh!) So hopefully Mike will be able to continue on this project then.

Yesterday, while the weather outside was frightful, (and at my suggestion) he started in on the baby room floor. If you remember, this room was the most unstable one. Jump on the floor and watch it buckle and shake the whole room! Not good if you can imagine the future shenanigans of a small Mike in there.

Our carpenter and good friend TJ suggested we just rip off the top layer of flooring altogether and put down 3/4 then 1/2" plywood before we hardwood to really firm things up. So Mike spent the better part of yesterday demo-ing.

In this shot you can see the old hardwood still in the closet area. The rest is the very old subfloor.

Of course, once the old hardwood was up, it became obvious just how unstable the actual subfloor itself was! It buckled to nearly the breaking point when walked on, nevermind jumped on. Luckily, we had some 2x6's in stock. (God, just call the basement the Miscellaneous Lumber Co!) And Mike began reinforcing the room from underneath.

He got quite a bit done and only has two more 2x6's to install to complete the reinforcing job. Very cool.

Plus - that's not all! Yesterday being the 15th, Mike went down to the FD and bought our burn permit. He spent some time burning what he could in the afternoon, but everything was still pretty wet and frozen. I imagine we'll get a fire going tomorrow too and continue making a dent in the ever present brush piles.

So let's refresh - this weekend:

1. Install gutters
2. Continue burning brush
3. Complete baby room beam reinforcement
4. Purchase plywood (?)
5. Dump run

I don't know about that plywood purchasing. We don't have any 3/4 in stock, and that's what we really need right now. 7 sheets of it to be exact. We have some 1/2" although I'm not sure how much. That'll be pricey. We'll see - we'll definately be at the HD anyway for some additional gutter connectors.

Oh - and lumber liquidators is tempting me with a 12months same as cash no down no payments no interest offer. I'm wondering if I should just screw the world and go for it. Buy all the 3/4 aztec cherry for the downstairs. (Which is really just the babys room, hallway, and living room.) I have to take some measurements and all that first... but it's almost tax time and I could use the refund to pay it all or at least make a dent.... right?

Something else to think about. We're officially more than halfway to Feb after all....