dog days of summer

Not at all related to the house, but one of the best excuses that I can think of for getting no work done on the house today:

I've gotten involved with volunteering with a local golden retriever rescue (http://www.ragom.com) while we bide our time and wait for our lives to settle down enough to adopt our own golden (we're hoping to do it this winter).

So today I helped 5 goldens on the road to a better life.
This morning I picked up 2 senior goldens from a woman who no longer had the resources to care for them. I also met up with some people who had picked up a 2 year old female golden who had been rescued from a neglectful situation. The three dogs and I drove two hours north to meet up with their new foster parents. From one of the fosters I picked up 2 more goldens, a mother and son, who came from a highly neglectful situation. Brought these two dogs down to the cities to help them on their way to the golden life as well:

The two seniors:
Rock:

Baby:


The 2 year old:
Misty:


Mother and Son:
Anne:


Chubby (who is half St. Bernard!):


Today was a good day.

After September...

This is our new tag ling in the house.

All projects are being separated into those we should do "now" and those we will do "after September..." The September timeline is was chosen arbitarily (by my dad, actually), but is actually noteworthy because we are hoping to have a housewarming party on/near Labor Day weekend and September is when we will drop down to having almost no household income. J's last day of full-time work is July 29th and I will drop down to working part-time as of September 6. We will both be full-time graduate students and, no doubt, be very busy.

The "now" list includes things such as:

• finish the bathroom
• replace the stove and move the fridge
• paint the office (no small task as it is currently dark tan and hunter green - including the ceiling - and we are going to light blue-gray)
• replace the locks
• replace a few lights
• replace a few blinds/curtains

The "after September..." list includes cheap/free things to do this fall:

• remove wallpaper and repaint 2nd bath (using leftover paint)
• set up/organize the shop in the basement
• organize the rest of the basement
• organize the garage
• replace gutter on garage (already bought supplies)
• paint kitchen

The list also includes much more long term/"someday, when we have money" things:

• Flagstone patio in backyard
• more cabinets in the kitchen - custom made to match existing cabinets
• add dishwasher
• replace fridge, washer and dryer
• refinish the floors
• new flooring on 2nd floor
• replace garage roof
• etc, etc, etc.

At least putting things in the before and after September categories helps us to prioritize our work and keeps the work that needs to be done on the house from being entirely too overwhelming.

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We received our financial aid award information last night, and while it was good news - it still forced us to get real about what we are going to have the money to do in the next nine months. The "good" news is that there is a wealth of cheap/free cleaning and minor repair to keep up busy for at least that long. After I graduate in the spring and get (oh please oh please oh please) a decent job, we will be a position to look at some of the bigger projects.

What do you do on the hottest weekend of the year?

You put in a new fence, build a raised garden bed and expand/replant your flower beds, of course!

My dad arrived on Wednesday night for a weekend of work - and work we did. If anyone bought stock in Gatorade last week - we just made you a killing! It was in the mid-90s and humid all weekend and were the fools outside doing hard manual labor the entire time.

Thursday we rented a post-hole digger for the fence. Thanks to the wonder of instant post cement, we were able to put up 90% of the fence that day. The rest we could have finished, but it was easier to build the raised garden bed without those panels in, so we waited.

Now for the fence all we have to do is attach the decorative post caps - and sit and admire it.




Oh, we also have to teach the dog how to deal with being in the yard without her leash. She is at a total loss.

On Friday morning J had to work from 6 - noon, so my dad and I rented a tiller and dug up the corner of the backyard where we were going to build a new raised vegetable garden bed. We also had plans to expand the beds in front, so we figured out what were going to be doing up there and tilled that soil a bit as well. Once J got home we borrowed his dad's pick up and went to get some top soil that my boss had pulled out of his yard (to put in our raised garden). Then we wandered around the nursery and picked out our new plants - which my dad very generously purchased as a house-warming gift. (thanks, Dad!)

Saturday morning we built the raised garden bed and put in the final 3 fence sections. We goofed around in the afternoon (during peak heat) and then got to work putting in the front flower beds until it was too dark to work anymore.
This photo makes our fence look really crooked - and the tops of all the pickets look busted - but I swear it is a very nice fence in real life! (see previous photo)




This morning we had to get up early and finish the front beds. We got 98% of the work done before my dad had to leave for the airport. So we dropped him off and then went to pick up the last of the mulch to finish the beds.
Before:
4 over-grown yew bushes and an unidentified shrub.











After:
Expanded gardens - no more mowing the dirt around the tree!











Left garden:
In the back, under the windows, we have two dogwood bushes. Right next to the step is a hydrangea bush. In the middle we have two other bushes that I don't know the names of (I kept the tags from their buckets so I can learn this stuff before our housewarming party!). We also have a couple of hostas, Stella d'Oro day lilies, another flowering bush I don't know the name of, and a few clearance impatiens for instant color.

Along the walk we have some miniature boxwoods that J is planning to turn into a very low (18") hedge in a few years.











Right garden:

More of the same plants - plus a walkway that is no longer covered by over-grown yews!






















This afternoon we planted a few ferns in the backyard. I took a nap and J picked up a little more top soil and peat moss for the raised bed. He also bought a gas-powered trimmer with a tiller attachment to help amend the soil...some other day. We are now resting!

Of course, now that we are done toiling in the yard, the thunderstorms are rolling through and dropping the humidity. Tomorrow is supposed to be about 20 degrees cooler as well. The upside is that I won't have to haul out the hose to water the new plants again tonight.

you know it's hot when...

...the paint melts off the wall. ba-da-bing!

Not quite, but basically - yes, that's what happened.
We finally got to the point where I could prime and paint the bathroom. So Monday night I got to work. I primed the whole thing (sweating buckets, as I had to keep the door closed to keep the pets out, and it was 90+ degrees outside, so the "breeze" from the window wasn't exactly "refreshing." Then I showered and ran out to pick up the paint. Came home and happily put the first coat of paint on the upper half of the bath. Showered (again - 3rd time that day) and went to bed. Set my alarm to get up extra early Tuesday morning to put on the 2nd coat of paint before getting ready for work (because 1. I am insane and 2. I didn't want to shower 2394082342 times that day). I walk into the bathroom to find that on one section of wall, the paint is streaking down the wall, like someone through a bucket of water on it.
I can't decide whether to laugh or cry? I hate this bathroom project!
I put the 2nd coat of paint on the other three walls and went to work.
Finally, after work yesterday, I realized that the vent for the upstairs bath runs in that wall (discovered while reassuring myself that no, there is not a water leak from the roof or upstairs bath). Between the excessive heat in the tiny bathroom and the A/C running through the vent in the wall - all of the moisture in the area had condensed on the wall and the wall was sweating like a cold glass of water.
Again - laugh? cry? Tough call.
So I turned off the A/C, brought in a fan and successfully sanded, re-primed and re-painted the wall last night. I refused to let J turn the A/C back on until this morning.

The paint looks fantastic. I'm beginning to love the bathroom again.
Now all we have to do is:
Paint the tile
Re-plumb the shower
Prep/clean the walls and install new baseboard
Scrub the floor (especially the "white" grout)
Fix the wet/rotting windowsill
Paint the window and door
Re-caulk the tub
Install the new light and mirror
Re-install the towel bars
New toilet seat
New vent cover
Clean

See? We're almost done!

Aside from installing the new light (as there is currently no light), this project is on hold for the weekend. My dad flies in this afternoon and we will be turning our attention to the new fence and landscaping.

lest anyone think we're over-achievers...

There's a reason there are no inside shots of the house...this is what our living room looks like right now:

Our box spring wouldn't fit up the stairs, so we had to order a split box spring, which was just delivered this afternoon. I'm inordinately excited about the fact that I won't have to sleep (on the mattress) on the floor tonight.

fence prep and yard work

Before:

Now (after a long hard afternoon of work with some fantastic help):


The backyard, before:
Weeds:

Shrubs:
More shrubs:

Backyard now:
No weeds:

No shrubs (in the ground, anyway):
No more shrubs, lots of bags of yard waste and our fence, waiting to be installed (behind the garage is another pallet with the cement and new dirt/compost for the raised garden bed that we're going to install). In the foreground, former shrubs:

my arch-nemesis - the bathroom

This is what we started with...looks innocent enough:
But in order to replace the plumbing for the sink, we had to remove the vanity, which ripped some of the "quality" plastic tiles off the wall - so we decided to rip out everything behind the sink and re-tile it:

We also ended up having to replace the shower hardware in order to re-do the plumbing there. That led us on a search for a "very hard to find" (in the words of the plumbing guy we bought it from) 11" on center three valve shower pipe (the piece that goes in the wall - and saved me from having to re-tile the shower).

And of course if you're going to do the big stuff, you might as well do the small stuff - so this the lovely wallpaper behind the old medicine cabinet and light fixture:

Tile job - eventually we will re-do all of the plastic tile, but we don't have the time/money for that right now. The color difference between the two is not nearly as noticable in person - and there's a pedestal sink in front of the whole thing anyway:
This is where we are now - I primed everything this afternoon, but don't have it in me to start with the paint this afternoon. It's a sauna in there today! Note the new pedestal sink, hole from the old old medicine cabinet that was covered by the old medicine cabinet and the wet/rotting window sill that I am still working on - the previous owner showered here and didn't protect the window sill:

home is where the poober is...

I finally found the cord for the camera.
Kicking things off with a photo from the moving prep - our pets were very concerned that they not be left behind. We repeatedly told them that "home is where XXX is," but they still insisted on getting in the boxes, just in case:

House History

Before I post about the history of the house, I would be remiss if I did not first mention/thank my fantastic friends who came over on Saturday afternoon (amid 90+ degree temperatures and high humidty) to help me rip out the bushes and lava rock in our front yard). N, B, M and A rock! We owe them a lot of beer (and in the case of B & M a lot of wallpaper scraping/painting when they close on their house at the end of the week!).


I still haven't found the cord for the camera, so we'll save up the details of the work that we've been doing for a few more days. J has a good lead on where the cord is (since he's the one that packed it) - I just haven't had a chance to look for it yet.

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Through various sources we have managed to put together a little bit of the history of the house. We bought the house from a single woman who had owned it for 2.5 years before deciding/realizing that she didn't have the time to maintain a house. She traded it in for a townhome. She told us that she had purchased the house from an older couple who had actually owned the house twice. The owned it back when it was first built (the original owners?) but sold it when the husband went off to the war. They continued to live in the area, always loved the house and eventually decided to knock on the door and see if the current owners were interested in selling. We learned those details from the block leader who has lived on the block her entire life (and she's probably in her late 40s/early 50s?). She believed that they may have even just swapped houses with the people who owned the house at the time they decided to knock. We also live about 3 blocks from J's uncle's parents. His uncle was able to tell us that his father had worked with the man who owned our house twice and that he was the head chef at the local VA Hospital for many years. J's uncle thought that they had moved out of the house a while ago, so we aren't clear on whether or not the woman we bought from bought the house from the couple, or if there was another owner in between. I'm hoping to get a little more on the history of the house from the block leader at some point.

The block leader and previous owner were also able to tell us that the addition on the back of the house (extra room on the first floor and the bump out of the roof to expand the 2nd floor and add a second full bath upstairs) was done sometime in the 80s:



You can also barely see in the photo of the backyard, our neighbor's house (behind the addition). This house was clearly built within the last couple of decades and the block leader told us that the property used to be home to a crack house 25 years ago (though even then, it was not a bad neighborhood). She said that they worked with the police to get the residents arrested (the adult children of the woman who owned the house) and then bought the house, to get rid of them permanently. They said the house was one of the oldest ones on the street and was a total dump, so they had to level it. They were planning to rebuild on the property themselves, but ultimately decided to stay where they are on the other side of the block (their current house is the one that her parents and grandparents owned - difficult to give up). So they sold the property (taking a huge loss, as it was now just a lot without a structure) and a new house was built. She said that despite the lost money they were glad that they did it because it was getting to the point where they were either going to have to get rid of the crack house or move.
The new house was not built to look old, but does a nice job of blending into the neighborhood in terms of its size and general presence - as much as a split-level house with vinyl siding can blend into a block full of stucco cape cods. The current owner is a 50-something single man who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time maintaining his lawn (eg: he stood outside frowning at his sprinkler in the front yard for about 10 minutes this morning) - about as far from a crack house as you can get at this point.

Even though there are a lot of things done to the house that make me want to bang my head against the wall (like the plastic "wood like" trim in the 1st floor addition and the fact that there is only one small vent in the 17x18 upstairs bedroom) - it is clear that the house has been well loved. Many things have been well-maintained and most improvements, while if not to our liking, were at least well-done.

For those of you who know us from various places...here is a brief run-down on our household:

kk
25, full-time state government employee and part-time graduate student (Master of Public Policy). Starting in the fall, I plan to be a full-time student and part-time employee.

J
25, currently works full-time but has officially let the cat out of the bag and submitted his notice at work. He will be starting a full-time MBA program in the fall and working part-time evenings/weekends.


Tora
Maltese/toy poodle. Alpha pet. Spoiled little love of a dog. Must.be.near.you.at.all.times - preferably in your lap.









Rogue
Cat. Skittish and fascinated by all things outside (where she is not allowed). Spends all summer (when not sleeping) figuring out how she get her face closer to the open windows.










Storm
Cat. They told us she was a quiet cat when we adopted her. She is not. Pretends to hate the dog. Shows little interest in being outside - as she was a stray for a while and knows that the good life means your food is delivered in a bowl.

This winter we plan to add a rescued Golden Retriever to the mix - you know, just to keep things interesting.

under pressure

*content deleted for privacy*

My mom has been here with us since the day before we moved. She has been a big help - serving as a "gopher" for our big projects, unpacking where she can and cleaning up behind us. I shudder to think of what kind of shape we would be in without her help.

Tomorrow it is back to work for J. My mom is headed home tomorrow afternoon and I am headed back to work on Wednesday.

Of course I have pictures of our progress, but I have no idea where the computer cord for the camera is.

The only casualties of the weekend were some bruised knuckles for J and I and a nasty burn from the heat gun for me.