A Tub In Time

Mike is a highly distractable dude. We've talked about this before... you know, the whole, "No New Projects Until Unfinished Projects Have Been Completed" policy that I try to keep in effect? This weekend, his goal was to put in the tub. Unfortunately, he got stuck on Sunday... he wasn't 100% confident on putting in the drain and had a slew of questions. He called our plumber friend who promised he'd try and come out some time this week.

But, with plenty of other tasks to be accomplished, Mike continued on, purchasing more lumber & doors for the closet and additional plumbing parts. And that brought Sunday to a close, since we had a dinner/tax date in the evening.

So, with all this to do downstairs, plus hooking up our new car stereos, plus hooking up our new Wii, plus a whole lot of other projects I shouldn't even mention.... what the hay - the new furnace filter, the Jeep go-cart project, cleaning the carpet/couch with the upholstery machine we brought home like 3 or 4 weeks ago... ok, I'll stop there. So, with all that, I was shocked to hear that he borrowed a metal detector on Monday and was gallivanting around the yard searching for our property markers.

Really? As I said, highly distractable. His reasoning was the putting up for sale of the house next door, who uses a portion of our property for their driveway. We don't mind that they use the land - we're just not giving it up. Still I ask, really? The house just went on the market and I'm guessing it will take some time to sell, just like last time.

And he didn't even find the markers he was looking for. The detector at one point beeped "GOLD" so he got down and dug... beer can. I reminded him again how useless I thought a metal detector was in our yard. For years, previous owners had buried their trash. (That's just what they did in the olden days.) So there's a ton of junk underground. We've found car parts, dishes, bottles, cans, and plenty of other worthless junk in the ground out there - simply by accident, or by digging.


Sometimes, you just can't argue with guys. I'm just hoping our plumber can visit us soon so this weekend doesn't turn into a scavenger hunt to nowhere too.

In the Glass of Her Boudoir

Boudoir - French, literally means "sulking place." I'd like to think of my all-new office as a boudoir. Yes, you heard it here first, all-new. As in, I'm sick of sitting stagnant and couldn't live in the virtual photoshop renovation world any longer. I decided to re-arrange my upstairs office.

It had been annoying me for quite some time - ever since I started my piano lessons and found I couldn't get at the keyboard comfortably with three computers, a TV, a sewing machine, and various pictures, nic-nacs, and other oddities all over the desk. Plus, the excess dust and garbage was highly aggravating to look at. I mean, I had old empty boxes of nothing, giant dust bunnies, a file cabinet from the dump, and wires - wires everywhere! Oh, and the books! Tons and tons of books!

 This is what happens when you have a little boy and don't use your office for near to two years.
It was high time I stormed the castle and regained my place on the office-throne.

As usual, I highly underestimated the time it would take me to do such a thing. Two hours tops. Four hours later and I still wasn't done. I'm actually still not done. It took an additional two nights to clean up the major mess and now I need to organize the minor mess that still remains.

Why did it take so long? Well, I suppose I should have gone back to photoshop land first, because I rearranged that room every which way to Sunday. I knew I wanted to flip the desk around so the chair would face the wall instead of facing out. But beyond that - uugh!

I flipped the desk and centered it. I flipped it and put it to the left - the right - back to the left. Measured to determine if it would fit on another wall. And finally I flipped it so it faced the window. Now, I thought, I was on to something. The rest would be easy! WRONG. Where to put the couches? I can't even tell you how many couch configurations I did. This was the bulk of my time. I moved those things again and again and again. Finally, as the sun began to set, I said, "Come on, think outside the box here." And that seemed to work - I put the large couch in the middle of the room.

Now I was really onto something! All of a sudden I had two defined areas, which solved the problem of a big freakin gap in the middle of the room.

But the love seat was still a problem. I wanted it to fit opposite the couch, but it was just too big for the space. I needed a chair. I didn't have a chair. I needed to buy a chair.

And that pretty much brought me to the end of Day1.

On Day2 I left the dang love seat where it was and brought in all the misc items I had stuffed into the bedroom on Day1. Books, video equipment, nic-nacks, etc.

On Day3 I went into HomeGoods to check out their chairs. I had previously looked online at IKEA and decided I didn't like anything there for the money. I planned to check out HomeGoods and take some measurements and on Day4, get an armchair for around $200. But - I had a total Maxx moment. They had, in the back, a perfectly matching chair... same color as the couches, microfiber, very soft.... on Clearance - $75. It didn't have any arms, but for a price like that, I didn't care.

I brought it home at put it in place of the love seat. And unfortunately I had to stick the love seat on the other side of the room temporarily. I need to get it out of there, but since it won't fit thru the living room basement door, I have to wait until the temps warm up enough for us to open up the exterior basement door.

Final thoughts - the chair could be bigger, but for the money, I think it's great.

A Girl with a Rake and a Dream

We had some unseasonably warm weather over the weekend. Or was it seasonable? Winter has been so terrible that I've lost all concept of normal. BUT, seasonable or not, I was motivated by my own summer backyard photoshopping to get out there in the yard and make things happen!

First, I cleaned up and organized some of the JUNK around the garage. (Remember last year when I totally cleared and cleaned up both sides of the garage for painting... yeah, both sides have become a dumping ground yet again.)

Then, I dug out my handy dandy rake... oh wait, I didn't need to dig it out. It was on the side of the garage. Nevertheless, rake in hand, I set myself on the back of the backyard. (You know, the skid steere/trailer parking area.) And I raked until my blisters popped and then kept on raking. Then I went inside and baked cookies. (Oh, the strange and random life I lead...)

So with probably near to two or two and a half hours of sheer raking agony, you'd probably expect that I'd have finished the entire back of the back yard. Wrong. I finished half of the back of the back. And not even the most horrendous half. Looming just to the other side I have more then just leaves and sticks to contend with. I have logs! As in, there used to be a log pile there a million years ago. And there are still some gross old logs hanging out under a buncha gross old leaves.

I've got to find out whether or not the logs are salvageable, and if so, make a new and neat pile. If not, I need to chuck them down the hill with all the leaves and sticks. And if that wasn't bad enough, this section of yard has NEVER been nice. The good twin next door used to be lush, shady, grassy, and wonderful. Its evil twin has been leaf'd upon, log'd upon, and neglected for eons. And that means layer upon layer of disgusting old leaves, decomposing logs, prickers, bugs, and possible snakes/frogs... all the more reason to get a-rakin before spring really springs back.

Mike has some strange notion that come spring, he's going to re-grade the entire garage area so the garage doesn't flood again with snow melt and heavy rain. You know what I've got to say to that... Uh-huh. Not that I'm not in favor of such a thing. In fact, when I was cleaning the yard, I discovered that over the winter, Mike dug a huge hole in the yard to get sand with which to spread over the then icy driveway! And so now I have a freakin huge hole to contend with.

And I'm wondering if I should just bring in the pro's with a skid steere that doesn't have street tires on it that dig in and ruin the lawn. Grade the yard, fix the hole, push the malarkey down the hill, and then spread loam so we can seed. I wonder how much it would cost? I can't remember how much it was when we had Nick Mitchell grade the front after the house lift.... but I remember how incredibly happy I was with the work.

Like I said before, Uh-huh.

In the short term, I need to have Mike move the camper back to the gravel driveway now that Dodge #2 is gone. Then, I need to finish raking the back of the back and move on to the front/mid of the back. And I want to buy those two trees this spring too.

Week of A Million Catastrophes!

Well, of course #1 Catastrophe: Mike returned from South Butt late Monday night/early Tuesday morning sans Dodge. And upon his return, I got the entire U-Haul scoop, which was, unbelievably, worse then I could have ever imagined. (Full disclosure expose' to come!)

#2 Catastrophe: A crazy guy set my office building on fire last Monday night. Thank god our offices are in back - they sustained no damage. But due to the arson investigation and then lack of electrical power, we were unable to get into the building until late Thursday afternoon.

#3 Catastrophe: Crazy mad deadline rush at work Thurs-Fri!!!

And #4 - #1 million Catastrophe were of course, smaller in nature, but all directly related to the first three major catastrophes.

All in all, a week that most certainly took some years off my life. But, amidst all the stress, I have good news to report.

Firstly, Mike and I found ourselves together on Tuesday.... yes! Together on a weekday during normal business hours! (Imagine that?) So after Mike finished his lengthy phone calls to U-Haul, we high tailed it over to Morse Lumber to pick out railings for the farmer's porch. Azek was the composite brand recommended to us - good quality, a best seller, and no-maintenance. (You have to think to yourself - do you really want to re-paint railings year after year? Square poles and trim are one thing - one easy thing. A whole buncha railings and balusters?! A whole buncha pain-in-the-butt.)

We selected a basic white model - no frills, but complete with the bracket-hiding kit or whatever they call it. We'd need 8 sections, not including the stairways. (The figuring for those will come at a later date, as we haven't spoken to Timmy about them yet.) Total cost, approx. $1400.

That probably sounds outrageous.... and, admittedly, we could probably purchase wood for 1/3 of that... but I just don't want to go wood. Wood posts - fine. Wood trim - fine. Wood railings?! Not so much, in my opinion. We saved a boatload going wood on the rest of the porch, so I feel like we can spluurge a little bit where it's going to count.

We didn't order, since we want to check in with Timmy and make sure it's cool. Luckily, what we want is in stock, can be delivered next day, and likely be installed by Mike in one weekend. Each section comes in a box. You just put the pieces together and then attach to the poles. Hopefully, it will be easy.

(Pole wrap hasn't been completed yet, as the guys took this Sunday off, which worked out for us as you'll see in a moment.)

Secondly, 4Runner #1 has been sold! Though I didn't get quite as much as I was hoping, it's gone and the buyer was very happy with it and understood all its problems and quirks. Sweet. Two vehicles down, one to go.

Third, I return you to this past Sunday. As I said, the guys took a break from the porch, so Mike jumped on the opportunity to get Dodge #2 put together. (You know, the one in pieces in the back yard?) He devoted near to the entire day on it and stopped just short of 100% completion. He'll need a little more time, but when it's as tidy as can be for $0, it can be put up for sale as is. And with the sale of Dodge #2, we'll have no more extra vehicles!!!! (Amazing to think.)

Monday, Columbus Day, I took it upon myself to paint the garage and garage addition. I painted the garage white about two years ago.... then we picked out a grey siding for the house. So that white was in need of an update, plus the addition needed a coat of SOMETHING before winter. And what better time then a random Monday off?

Back two years ago, I did the job with a roller and a brush... and it took me hours upon laborious hours. Days, in fact. Yes, I'm pretty sure it took me days. This time around, however, I had a new painting weapon. A super duper power painter.  This thing painted one side of the garage is less then 5 minutes. It took longer to clear away all the mechanical misc from either side then it did to paint! I was blown away! A little bit of touching up on the trim from over-spray and the job was done.

Of course the job still took all day.... Why? Well, the clearing and cleaning up of all the mechanic misc of course! (I took the initiative and loaded up that garage addition. I mean, come on. It was empty and all this junk was outside, next to the garage. Ridiculous!)

Just check out the awesome results:

Look, Ma, no junk!

 Complete With Matching Addition

And the Other Side - One Hood and One Wheelbarrow Left, not too shabby

We survived the Week of a Million Catastrophes and somehow managed to come out.... well, not on top, but pretty high in elevation nonetheless. At this point, no expectations for this week. My brain is no longer processing information.

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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The Pride of the Neighborhood

You know you have way too much junk when you're disgusted by merely pulling in to your own driveway. Hiding your head in shame from other drivers... no this isn't my house, I'm just making a U-turn. Yeah, that's it.

That's about how I felt when I came home from a trip to the post office yesterday morning. Grossed out. And yeah, all the vehicles and boats and trailers and lawn tractors... that's one thing. But boy did we have a stack of god-knows-what alongside the garage, the new entertainment center and old lawn chairs borrowed from my parents for the halloween party on the porch, just junk junk everywhere.

So yesterday I managed to prepare the living room for the arrival of the new entertainment center. (Turns out, it's really nice - wood, good condition, plenty of storage and doors and drawers - much better than our previous particle board hand-me-down.) And last night after much wrestling, we were able to disassemble the old and bring in the new.

And here it is! (Look at how stoopid our TV looks.) When we finally get around to doing those wood floors in this room... hopefully just another month or so, we'll probably re-arrange the furniture, but for now, this is much better then what we had.

Plus, with the old entertainment system apart and ready for the dump, it seemed a great time to clean out the rest of the junk. Or, at least as much as we could possibly part with at the moment.

This morning Mike and I took a walk around the yard and decided what to chuck. Come to think of it, I should have taken some before and after pics, because before I knew it, the Dodge was loaded to the brim. Mike's at the dump now and may make a second trip!

And to think... this is the highlight of my week?! (Question mark exclamation point) Seriously, it makes me feel like something was accomplished... and listen, I hear Mike backing back into the driveway even as I type, back from his first trip. I can't wait to go and have a look at the yard.

Today he'll hopefully do that Dodge #2 and #3 cab switch too - and you know what that means - bu-bye Dodge #3!!! Fortunately for me, I'll be attending a luncheon with a couple girl friends. (How many Sundays in a row now have I been stuck at home babysitting? Two months? Good god.)

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

Happy New Year?

2009? When did that happen? It was 1999 about 5minutes ago.

Let me tell you, my absence from this blog is a good indication of just how badly our holiday season went. I can't go into details on the internet, but here are some high level highlights - the poor economy finally hits home, there's a death in the family, work and home to-do lists become overwhelming, and all of a sudden free time evaporates and we don't know whether to scratch our watches or wind our butts.

At this very moment I'm enjoying (enjoying - HA!) a momentary lull, soon to be followed by a mad rush of late night last minute presentation preparation for a giant meeting likely to be scheduled for first thing tomorrow morning. In this momentary lull, we're awaiting confirmation and further instructions.

Yeah. Perfect example of these more-than hectic last two weeks. And it's only Tuesday.

In the midst of all this, I got a cancellation from my home owners insurance company in the mail on Saturday. Reasons - mostly all that we had done our best to repair over the past year. Ok, red flag. They're supposed to know we made repairs and I told them they could come and reinspect at any time... and this was waaay back around Septemberish.

I got on the phone with our insurance rep right away and was pleasantly surprised to hear that she was there on Saturday. She would check into it for us and call me back with an update. I still haven't received that call yet, but it's ok. It gave us time to reexamine that list. After all, this is no time to be switching to a more expensive plan.

There's nothing we can do about the siding. The entire front of the house is Tvek'd and it's going to stay that way until spring. Sorry. But we built the farmer's porch complete with temporary stairs & railing, added a railing to the basement stairs and upstairs overhang, re-did the entire roof, removed the wood stove from the garage, and finished the mudroom. Honestly I would imagine that would be enough to subdue them for another year, but after all the bad luck we've come across lately, I worried about it.

So we removed and threw out the old garage chimney setup as one extra precaution. (Not that it was connected to anything, but can't hurt to be rid of it, right?)

We also decided to go and check out gutters. The insurance company had issue with all our missing downspouts. And since adding the farmer's porch, even more gutters are missing. Knowing nothing about gutters and how much they cost, we researched at the deepHo last night. Turns out metal gutters are cheap! About $9 for a 10ft section and $20 for a 16ft section. (How they figure that is beyond me - but whatever.) Cheap! And all the little connectors and many of the accessories were under $1 each.

We couldn't believe it and started loading up a cart. No use losing the insurance over $9 downspouts. When all was said and done, we had picked out enough to cover the house - although not the entire farmer's porch. (One thing at a time - besides, hopefully the porch will count as "still under construction.")

Mike is likely to have time to install them tomorrow - weather permitting. If not, then definately by the end of this week. Cross another item off the list.... as long as they don't call me in the next hour and want to inspect tomorrow. Knock on something.

Also, Jan 15th starts the official town open burning season! That wonderful annual time to get rid of all the brush that we cut or lost during numerous winter storms. Weather permitting, we should be burning all weekend. Thus further cleaning up the yard.

This brings me to another point about the insurance company.

It's so hard to decipher what the insurance company is complaining about sometimes and what exactly they'd like you to do about it. Great example, the insurance co mentioned debris in the yard - that's a big WTF. We have some items next to the garage that I wonder if they consider debris - just some scrap metal and heavy auto parts/tractor parts that Mike would rather keep out of the garage. But the amount is not excessive. I've been to several homes that should have been condemmed for the amount of junk in the yard. I wonder though if this is what they're even talking about. Or maybe they object to our backyard brush burner made from our old oil tank. Nobody knows! I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

This little unexpected home insurance side trip is unfortunately keeping us from what our real focus should be on - baby's room. It's all painted, but the flooring needs to be done ASAP. After that, trim, closet doors... time is ticking away and don't think we haven't realized. There's only a few months to go and all of a sudden all of this "we'll take care of it after the holidays" stuff is upon us like a sack of bricks.

What a way to start 2009.