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?

Ruffin It

Remember when I mentioned that our good roofing pal Timmy came by and measured/made a materials list for the garage addition a couple weekends ago?

Well, last Saturday night, Mike went to the HD and purchased the first load of said materials (No trim, just the basics.) And when he got home he said to me, "That's a LOT of wood, I think it's too much. You're going to sh*t when you see how much wood that is."

Jokingly, I replied, "I'll probably sh*t when I see the bill." Unfortunately he turned to me seriously and said, "You probably will."

But we both thought at the time, "eh, some of it will go back."

Nope.

The guys worked on Sunday - Mike, Timmy, TJ - even our friend Shawn was over. (Meanwhile I was hanging out with 3 other moms, 3 other babies, a 6 year old, a 7 year old, an 8 year old, and of course my own little Mikey. Total full house! But that's another story.)

And yes, the guys used all 24 16' 2x8's in construction of the roof.

They didn't have time to start plywooding, but as you can see, everything's ready to go.

Of course I have yet to look at the bill for it all, but considering how much I can't wait to get the yard cleaned up, there's no doubt it'll be well worth it.

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

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.

Sunday Story

Dateline, Sunday June 1st..... yes, it's already June 11th - so I'm 10 days behind. And if you think I've been neglecting this blog - you should hear about all the other stuff I've been neglecting... accidentally mind you.

I think I may have perhaps reached my limit on "stuff" going on. And brain overload has caused side effects too numerous to mention. Meanwhile Mike has been taking on mad side jobs on top of his usual weekly "guy friends to visit after work" list.

On to the Sunday story.

Of course, as you know, Sunday 6/1 was Mike's bday. And even though I hadn't originally wanted to do anything, see anyone, etc etc, a couple friends asked if they could come over with some BBQ stuff for a little impromptu party. I reluctantly agreed, but then decided to stop being such a poop head and invite more people. It was Mike's 30th after all.

But when I told Mike we were all having a party, he was not too enthusiastic about it. "I just want to get work done," he said. Well, then I threw my arms up and thought, "Why do I bother?!" But it was too late to cancel - it was already Friday when all this went down.

You know the story of Saturday. (see previous post) So we'll skip to Sunday.

Mike had me up at around 7 or 8 and we began ripping siding and shingles off the house - just like before, except higher up. (Because now the guys needed something to attach the roof of the porch to.)

I commemorated the occasion on one of the walls with a note and a smiley face.

Around 9 or 10, TJ and Paul had arrived to help us out. Meanwhile, our neighbor Rich brought over his staging for us to borrow, which really helped out on the higher, 8' sections.

Soon after that, I had make a Home Depot run for plywood, tyvek, and lead flashing. And I was not happy about it. The party was supposed to start around noontime and the house and porch were both in shambles and I had to leave my post to go out.

On top of that, the bill for all the materials was outrageous. Do you know how much a 12" wide roll of lead goes for now adays?! $140!!! I nearly died and prayed that this one roll would be able to get us through.

When I got back, I discovered that the guys had appeased the porch gods with some lizard torture.
And I suppose anything to bring some good luck....

Then I had to go on a beer run. Awesome. I was thrilled, as you can imagine. Meanwhile the guys put up plywood and began attaching beams to the posts.

The party started around 1:30, 2ish. And the guys were still working. I didn't even take these pics, I was too busy trying to apologize to everyone that the bday boy did not want to stop working. Despite the construction underway, the guys hung out and watched as Mike and TJ and Paul continued working. Us gals took our drinks to the picnic table in the back yard to at least get out of the kitchen.


The guys just really wanted to get all the plywood on and make the front of the house water tight. That was their goal. So they kept at it. I'm not sure what time they finished up, but at that point, we brought the picnic table on the porch and were finally able to all hang out together.

Here's the finally tally on trash:

And then we tortured the lizard some more...

And of course we had some good food courtesy of everyone (who each brought something to eat or drink) and our neighbor Dana, who made clams casino and jalepeno poppers.

So all in all it turned out to be a really good time and everyone said they had lotsa fun. Plus we got all the plywood attached.

A couple days later, Mike and I stapled on the Tyvek - and that's still at the point we're at now. We took a break last weekend due to extreme heat and did other fun stuff - like a dump run, scrap metal run, Rich's bday party across the street, drive-in movie, boating....

This weekend it'll probably be back to work though.

And that's the Sunday story. For all the pics, check out MYSPACE