The Woodshed

No, we're not talking about that famous bar in Brewster. (With the rockinest Halloween party ever, I might add.) We're talking about a shed in which to place wood... Which we have a lot of since Nstar removed the locust from the front yard. Mike decided build one yesterday.

But what of Sandy, large storm affecting out area with high winds today? Well, unlike last year (Irene) there was very little we needed to do to prepare. Tree is down. Kitchen roof is done. All we had to do was to clean the yard, hit the dump, and secure and stow everything on the farmers porch. It's like we have an Easy button or something. "That was easy."

And Mike wanted to build his shed with some free plywood he obtained. I asked him if he could finish the project in one day. (How many unfinished projects do we have in progress now?) well, mike said he could do it and that he'd pay for the wood he needed with Home Depot returns. A project that could be finished in an afternoon and cost next to nothing? Could such a thing even exist?!

I must admit, mike did not disappoint. He built a 16' wood shed that reminded me of a bus stop. (It was almost a shame to put wood in it. I wanted to put in a bench and a schedule.) And he finished it in plenty of time to even load it up with all the wood.

His design was pretty nifty. He built it in the shelter of the hill and used pallets for the floor. That way, once they rot out (an eventuality with wood and ground contact) he can simply replace with more free pallets.

With us both off due to the storm today, mike will be tackling the basement closet doors at long last!

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!

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More Siding!

Well, the great news is the baby's growing like crazy and time is flying! The bad news is, the time is flying and the siding is going up at a snail's pace. You can't have it all though, and I'm just happy Mike is able to babysit and give me a break on his days off. And then if he has a moment, he's able to make progress on the house.

So we make a little progress every week. Last week, he completed the side around the corner from the front.
And he even put up my sign that I've wanted to use since I bought it in DC over 5 years ago... Lucky for me, the arrow is going in the right direction!

As you can see, we still need to trim out the front door - outside and in. That will be another week or more perhaps.

This past weekend, Mike made progress on the french door wall. He reinstalled our dryer vent cover too. Now he just has to complete that wall, make a block for the light and wooh-laa! The siding beneath the farmer's porch roof will be complete!

Completion above the farmer's porch roof will present new challenges. That part of the house still has old siding on it. So that will have to be ripped down and plywood will have to be installed before the siding. Mike is considering a trade off with one of our friends - finish the top siding and he'll give him a utility quad worth over $1,000. (Personally, I'm not sure if it's worth the amount of work - but it's Mike's quad and his time on the line... his decision.)

Meanwhile, I just received another one of the deepHo's famous 10% off coupons in the mail. And of course, we always need something. This time around I'm thinking of buying the closet doors for my mudroom laundry closet. That closet has been door-less forever and ever. And with those french doors looking so awesome, I'd love to dress up that room, which is our main entry..

Just another thing to look forward to in the coming weeks.

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

Twelve Days of Baby

Yes, we're finally under 20days remaining. Under 15. It's now officially day 12! And I'm proud to report that things are moving along just swimmingly.

On Monday the guys were even more productive then I could have imagined! And I knew it the moment I turned the final corner on the way home from work and saw the beautiful new mailbox at the end of my driveway. A bomb could have exploded behind me and I would have never known it. I was so struck by the difference the mailbox made in the overall look of the property.

And that says a lot considering the house has no siding on the front, the farmer's porch is incomplete, and the landscaping leaves much to be desired. But oh boy, a bold mailbox nearly makes up for all that!

I hadn't even recovered from the shock and awe of the mailbox when I got inside the house and discovered that Mike had taken all the boxes to the dump! I was so amazed I could barely look up the baby safe water temp so Mike and our plumber Brian could set the furnace properly.

Meanwhile, as I'm scouring the internet for that information, Mike continues to ask if I've seen the baby's room yet. I thought to myself, I'm still thinking about the mailbox!

But I finally found the info (at or below 120 degrees) and went to check out the room. Again, I was shocked. The rug hadn't fit under the closet doors, so the guys rotated it, pad and all. They moved the furniture around - mostly for their own convenience, but it looked good.

And the remainder of the baseboard trim was done. The closet doors were installed. The window bottoms were cut. Everything was just awesome.

Just Another Manic Sunday

It was a cold and unloving Saturday. And after Friday night's festivities, I could do nothing but sit on the couch all day wishing I could fall asleep and wake up motivated. But alas, I couldn't.

Easter Sunday... that's another story. We got up early in hopes of going to the dump.... then realized it was Easter and they'd be closed for sure. So we moved on to the rest of our list - starting with the baby's room closet light.

Just a little light right? No problem. Mike had it up in mere minutes. But it didn't work. He checked the wiring on the switch - everything seemed in order, but still the light didn't work. I should actually stop at the HD after work and pick up another one. If it's the light bulb, I'll just switch out the old for the new and return the kit with the bad bulb in it tomorrow. If it's not the light bulb... hey, we'll have a whole other apparatus.

After that failure, we started assembling and installing the closet organizer. Mike worked on the tower while I assembled the drawers. We finished most of it by the time we had to leave for my parents' house for Easter dinner around 12:30.

We got home around 5 and started working again. I finished the drawers and Mike brought in our latest handmedowns from my parents - a rocking chair that was originally my grandmother's mother's and a small dresser that used to be my dresser as a kid.

After that, there was little else we could do. We didn't have the brackets to put up the closet shelf and the closet rods would all need to be cut before they could be installed. (I should pickup those shelf brackets on the way home too now that I think of it.)

Plus, with our carpenter TJ coming over today to help us finish the trim and install the closet doors, the room needed to be in some sort of accessible order. (ie - he'd need easy access to the baseboard, windows, and closet without having to trip over or move baby stuff.) So I neatened up before Mike kicked me out to stain the closet trim boards.

Today I had such a long to-do list for Mike and the guys. In the baby's room there were two remaining peices of baseboard trim - one wouldn't fit because of a gap in the flooring. The other had been measured incorectly. All three windows needed window bottoms cut and the closet doors needed to be installed (not an easy task with an uneven closet.)

Then, Mike had a dr's appointment and a prescription to pickup. Plus he wanted to clean out his truck and do an oil change.

This evening, our plumber will be in to install a mixing valve and check out our boiler.

I can't wait to see how much of it all is finished by the time I get home. There's a possibility they decided to screw it all and ride 4wheelers all day... a small possibility, but I'm not putting these guys past it.

Down with Mailboxes!

It finally happened on Monday. Our ancient rusty iron mailbox died. Seriously - it just keeled over and died. I'm shocked the poor thing made it as long as it did.

To tide us over, Mike duct taped it to some pieces of wood and stood it back up again. So it's out there right now, standing tall and still accepting mail for the week.

But knowing this was a sign, we bought a new mailbox and post on Tuesday. I wanted a green mailbox and a white post. Unfortunately, the only mailboxes in green were super huge.... and the wooden posts were, well, even bigger. So we're going from a small, inadequate, embarrassingly cruddy mailbox to a large, phallic, bigger-than-all-the-neighbors mailbox.

This picture is terrible - but as you can see, this mailbox post is huge. Thank god half of it goes in the ground! Mike sanded it last night and will hopefully paint it tomorrow if not tonight. If all goes well, we could have this baby up and running by Monday!

It'll be such a change just to have a mailbox that doesn't leak or lean to one side. I still have to get some of those wrought iron numbers for the post - that's another thing I hated about the old mailbox: the number stickers. Ew!

Anyway - enough about mailboxes! That was a total tangent project.

We're finally making headway on the trim! Yay! At this point everything is cut and nearly ready to be installed. Mike put on the 2nd coat of stain last night.

The only thing remaining to be stained is the closet doors, which need to be sprayed. (We have an automotive grade paint sprayer - no junky sprayers here.) And they need to be sprayed outside. And it looks like weather will not be cooperating for this weekend. So more delays there.

Also - I got a couple bounce backs from my email to Closetmaid regarding the organizer. So glad they care, you know? So I suppose we'll be going with a white organizer, (Grrrrrrrr!) which we will probably purchase sometime next week once all the trim is installed.

I guess I should just be happy it's all coming together. This Sunday begins the 30 day countdown. I have to admit I'm nervous. Mostly about getting everything done in time. All the weird dreams and hectic work days aren't helping either. I have to get everything prepared at work too, after all!

Trimming Here and There

First off, thank you all, we won the case. The floor shalt not be poly'd.

With that decision made, we quickly moved on to window trim. Mike's been cutting and staining and scuffing and staining since Sunday. And last night he applied the final coat.

With another baby-related class tonight, we won't be able to install the trim until at least tomorrow night, pending Mike's schedule. Then, once this trim is installed, we can put up the new shades and then begin the fun and exciting process of cutting and staining and scuffing and staining the trim that goes around the windows.

Closet doors, trim, light, and organizer are next on the list after that.... then we're done!

Granted, I still have yet to purchase the rug. But I plan to probably after the 15th of this month. And hey - wouldn't you know that's right around the corner!

Seeing as how we decided not to poly, we put together the crib on Sunday. (I just couldn't stand looking at the box any longer!) Though I was apprehensive about the color at first, once I saw it in the room I was just in love. Perfect contrast - not too yellow. And the bedding matches the room just perfectly. I couldn't be happier!

Notice the little Fidget head... yeah she thinks this is an awesome new cat bed. Boy is she going to be disappointed!

Best Day Ever

Friday night was just terrible. I won't go into detail - but I will say that someone got very doom-and-gloom and then lashed out needlessly and pushed us all down in a hole. Anyway, it wasn't a good scene and by the time I got home, I just felt like sh*t.

Plus I had to break the news about the necessity of the washer/dryer... and man did I feel terrible about it. Just call me slave driver, cracking the whip on the sick kid.

But amazingly, Mike was in high spirits and feeling pretty good. He even offered to do everything that very second and started right away. My jaw just dropped and all I could manage to say was, "Ok!"

There was one small hole in the drywall, but rather than taping and patching and mudding and then waiting 24hrs for it to dry, Mike decided to use bondo. (An automotive body filler that hardens within minutes.) For a small patch, it was probably a pretty smart idea - though the smell of it was so strong I had to open all the windows and freeze the night away. I could even smell it a bit into the next day, but it disappated in the early afternoon.

Anyway, that hardened quickly and Mike had the closet painted before dinner. Then he pushed the washer into place and hooked it up. He even wanted to lift the dryer on top all by himself, but I stopped him there. (We wrangled our neighbor into helping lift it on Saturday morning and I successfully did a couple loads of laundry by Saturday's end!)


The next morning came and after a night of bad-Friday related dreams, I still felt off. And then there came the icing on the cake. So I was standing in the bedroom getting dressed. Our silver tabby was sitting on the bed next to my pillow when all of a sudden she just exploded - 1/2 her weight in projectile vomit - everywhere.

And I just lost it. Completely lost it. It's funny now just how upset I was. Mike cleaned it up for me and then I managed to calm down enough to go with him to the dump and then out for breakfast. I suppose I should thank the cat because it was good to get it all out... well, good for me. She, it turns out, had eaten a giant bug, which seems to have made her sick.

At breakfast we went back and forth on what to do - this was the first day in months that Mike had to spend with me and me only. No work to do - no neighbors to help - no nothing. But despite that fact, we were completely at a loss at what to do after breakfast. Finally we decided that we may as well just do the hardwood in the mudroom. Mike honestly said he wouldn't mind doing it - we already knew how to and it was an easy thing and a small room. I had no better suggestions and wanted it done, so who was I to argue?


All we had to do was hit home depot and rent the floor stapler - simple. Then we just got to work and soon enough we were back in the groove. I laid out the peices and cut them while Mike stapled. We had the whole job done within a few hours and were able to return the stapler within the 6hr minimum charge period... although they still charged me for the full 24hrs. God I was pissed but I didn't want to go back and argue at that point because we wanted to grab dinner before we went home.

The room looks amazing - so much warmer and larger. We had fun and we got something done by ourselves, just like the olden days. It felt great. Plus we had just enough hardwood, and even a little leftover.




We were going to purchase the closet doors as well, but they only had the 80" height and we needed the 78.5." Too bad - another time. Maybe this weekend?! Who knows - oh yeah, it's Friday. I keep forgetting.

My weekend goal is to put up my curtain rods and try to figure out that whole make-your-own-double-rod plan of mine. We'll see how that goes. Other than that, I'll be just doing some party related work - T-minus 7.5 days until the annual halloween party. I think for now I'll get a cheapo rug for the newly wooded mudroom (I may even steal the one from the guest room) and put the loveseat and coffee table from the guest room in there. That will complete mudroom party preparation with minimal budget requirements.

A Good Sign

I may be jinxing myself here - but I haven't received any callbacks from the home insurance co after placating them with a couple tasty improvement morsels. I really expected them to schedule another visit, but no news is good news in my book.

And I'm sorry to say that despite last weekend's three day length, nothing much got accomplished. Mike has more work to do for everybody else that's been helping us out this summer - fabulous trade offs, I love it. But that means now that our roof and porch are done, it's time for him to really spend time with our neighbors and friends. And that's ok.

I managed to clean up the rest of the roofing mess from around the yard and tidy up tools that were strewn around the house. So everything looks kosher, and I feel good about that.

Dadoo will be over this coming weekend for some mad tiling. I think it'll just be he and I, as Mike has more obligations to fulfill. That's ok - it's not a lot of tile and we'll manage just fine. As for the wood portion of the show, I'm not sure. Mike's been so tired from his misc jobs every night and weekend of the week, I feel horrible asking him to do anything. I might just wait until next weekend, or even after that, depending on how he feels.

Like I said, the room is small, so I imagine we could even bang out that floor some weekday evening. I'm not too worried about it. We already have the wood, and the home depot rental department is just minutes away for the stapler. I will be upset if it's not done by the Halloween party on Nov 8th though.

I'm not even worried about the closet doors. Although I have a 10% off coupon at the home depot that expires tomorrow. I was really thinking about using to at least purchase the doors. Again, I can't do it without Mike, so if he's tied up or tired out, I'm just going to let it go. He's really just been exhausted!