25 posts tagged “house”
This weekend was filled with house projects. I'm amazed at how much we were able to get done and how little money we spent in the process. Saturday was spent taking everything out of the workshop, filling the driveway, and piece by piece organizing and finding a place for everything. Jon built a great workbench, we put up shelving and even were able to mount our bicycles from the wall. Its now a nice clean organized productive space, Jon finally has his workshop in working order.
Sunday my mom came over with the idea of helping me build a compost bin and rain barrel, which is somehting I've been dreaming of doing since we purchased our home. We spent $30 at the hardware store and a few hours later had a working rain barrel, made from a garbage can, screen and a downspout. I used stakes to make a 3 x 3 square and used plastic chicken wire to wrap a sturdy 4ft high square to be filled with compost. My original plan was to purchase a rain barrel and compost bin but after shopping online I realized that I could easily spend hundreds of dollars on these things and it wasn't necessary, they were extremely simple to make and real easy on the bank.
After working on the house all weekend we met up with a few friends in our neighborhood park for a tennis match. We had a great time and laughed at how horrible and out of practice we all were. Its been over a year since Jon and I played. We tied Luna to the net pole because there was a family in the courts with us and we did not know it they were comfortable with dogs. As we began our game she went to chase the ball and flung herself up in the air, flipped off her collar and landed on her back! I almost had a heart attach right there! We all ran to check on her and she ended up being fine but it was an awful fright. No more tying up Luna. We let her run free, luckily the family next to us was not bothered by her occasional visit. After a few hours of ball chasing we took a break and noticed that there was blood. Luna had ran so much on the concrete that she wore down her nail till it was bleeding! As silly as it sounds, I've made the decision to buy her doggy boots. I just cannot bare to watch her paw pads scraped and peeling and her nails filed down to nothing. So today, I'm shopping for dog boots. Don't laugh!
It's getting colder and we have been waiting for a break in the weather to paint the fence which we had put up a little over a month ago. It's been to cold for the paint to dry but today we had our window, a quick check of the weather channel and we've got two days in a row with temps above 50 and only a 10% chance of rain. This afternoon we began painting and by about four o'clock the first coat of paint was beginning to dry. I took a moment to clean the paint from my hands and looked at the sky, it was dark and ominous. I ask Jon if we should put up a tarp just in case it began to rain, he laughed and said that the weather guys said there was not going to be rain. Five minutes later and its pouring and we are running around in a panic trying to cover everything with tarps. We managed to get about 70% of the fence covered in tarps and hopefully that will be enough to salvage our hard work.
We both felt cheated and worn with the idea that we would have to paint another two coats to cover what was being washed away with the rain. The weather channel now says to expect two days of rain and a few inches of accumulation. I'm not even sure if we will be able to put another coat on until spring and all I can do is hope for another window before the bitter winter sets in.
While I was away at work on Thursday Jon was home working on a surprise for me by painting our empty dining room. I had no idea what he was doing, when I came home I was so surprised to see this gorgeous graphic painted around the room. He did such a great job and did it in such a creative fresh way that while he was away in Georgia this weekend I was inspired and I went crazy with my birthday celebration. My mother and I completely furnished and decorated the new dining area.
When Jon came home the next day he had his own surprise... a gorgeous new dining room.
I've spent the past two weekends gardening, its been a lot of work and though my arms feel like jelly and my eyes can barely stay open, I'm thrilled with the end result. This past weekend we found out that the city was giving away free recycled mulch, we jumped on it.. filled the back of the truck with two loads and I shoveled and filled at least a hundred five gallon buckets full while dispensing them around the yard and winterizing our beautiful beds. The flowerbeds look phenomenal and I even had enough go around the base of our cherry tree.
While I've been sweating around the garden Jon has been covered in saw dust. On of the first things we had wanted to do to the house was to remove the privacy fence from across the driveway, it was an eyesore. Jon managed to pick up some salvage ceder deck railing and spindles from a job he was working on, he used this plus custom built two small gates to extend a fence along the driveway instead of across which framed our porch beautifully. The big old gate went down today and the fence in its place looks great.
Pictures to come soon!
Only a few more comparisons to go! I'm down to one final room that needs unpacking and that is the master bedroom convented to office/music studio. This shown comparison was a guest room which we've turned into the master. The quilt is a recent online purchase... discounted from $250 to $49, though its desperately in need of a bed skirt, I think its the perfect addition and I cant resist a good deal :)
This is half of our art studio, the other half (to the right of the door) is a wall of paintings and large empty space waiting to be filled by Jon's big building project, my art table.
Yesterday I wanted to start the day off right, first thing I did was start a load of laundry and hopped on the computer to start working, as it was work from home Wednesday. Tapping away I'd heard a gurgling sound and checked the bathroom to find the bathtub was filling with backwater. This happened once before, a couple of days ago the same Saturday we fixed the air ducts. That day we'd plunged it and used a bit of draino. It seemed our efforts were worthless but I figured the tub would do the same as before, fill up a few inches and then slowly drain away. I went back to my computer and worked a little while. I then heard splashing which lead to a waterfall sound. I ran to the bathroom to find that the water redirected itself out through the toilet and was flowing easily over the seat. Not just water, but poo water was flowing across the bathroom tiles and into the hallway wood floors. I rushed into the utility room to turn off the washer and came back with an armful of towels. I was ready to cry, standing in bare feet in two inches of brown sewage water, this is my new home, I had just moved in a few weeks ago and in that time we have had to rebuild a twelve foot section of the HVAC system and now a blocked sewage line was backing up into the home. I was disgusted. Jon came home from work and to the rescue, he tried to address the problem himself and save us a few hundred dollars but when he went into the crawl space he saw that the main line had cracked and was leaking under the house. We called a professional and within an hour had everything cleaned and fixed. Roots were our problem, which we had expected because of the large trees we have on the property. A few hundred dollars and a couple of bottles of disinfectant later... my bathroom was back to normal.
The life of a homeowner, hu?
Another room is finished. Progress! Here are a few more mash up photos of the house as shown before we purchased it and now that we've moved in. It feels so much like home now, the difference is remarkable.
This weekend was my time to relax and rest, the only thing on our list was to put in a threshold on the front door and setup the speakers. It ended up being so much more.
Jon goes into the crawlspace to find out where to drill and setup our surround sound speakers, instead he finds that some of our air conditioning ducts have collapsed and that we've been getting returned unfiltered air pumped into our house from the crawlspace. After much drilling, taping and swearing, he managed to put things back together at only the cost of tape and an afternoon. We checked every vent with me upstairs pointing flashlights into the air vents and him taping up any visible holes when all of a sudden he hears a rush of water... the laundry machine finished its cycle and was draining, some of the water was leaking back into the crawl and all I can think of is my poor husband covered in mud and spiders army crawling underneath my feet. In the meantime the sump pump is doing its job, we will have to figure out a solution later. It was time to relax. Jon goes to take a shower when he sees the tub has backed up and spit out some nasty stuff. Somewhere along the line there is a clog and the water has been redirected up the tub trap. Exciting hu? Later, I take a shower in water up to my ankles... the drain is clogged. It was just to much to handle in one weekend so we put it off for another.
Things accomplished this weekend:
Put a custom threshold in front doorway.
Rebuilt ten foot section of air duct system.
Made shelves and hung in living room.
Sanded down and painted the front door (inside & out)
Organized the Utility Room and setup ping-pong table.
Unpacked the house (except studio/craft room)
Hung all artwork
Tore down white lattice on porch and panted the overhang.
Hung more drapes
Planted yellow pansies in window boxes & red mums in the garden.
+ All the normal things; cleaning, cooking, dog bath, grocery shopping.
Its Monday and I'm back at work... ready for a much needed break. sigh.
