Our Old House

First of all.. I can't even begin to tell you how sore I am in so many places... had no idea that I would be THIS achy after just a third of the job done!! That said... I am pretty happy with the progress Dad and I made in our 10 hours of work this weekend... took most of Sunday off of patio building to clean house and get some other things done.

AnJ and I took a trip to Canada the first week of September, and while we were gone... Dad and our handyman Elias did a few things....

Dad and Elias hung the rest of the bamboo, then built and filled the remaining flower boxes.

Then the weekend we came home, the awesome yard duo Scott and Donna came to help move gravel and prep for bricks =)

This weekend... I was determined to get some bricks down!! We rented a compactor and got to work bright and early Saturday morning!

We had a little trouble with the compactor...but we sprayed the plate with WD-40 and it went totally smooth after that =)

Lesson one... just because it is strait in one place... doesn't mean it is anywhere else!

Looking good!

West side, end of day one.

East side, Day one...

End of Day one, 8 hours later... let me tell you how much I DON'T envy the people who do this stuff every day for 8 hours a day..

On the upside, we emptied a pallet! (540 bricks just in case you were curious.)

End of day two, only worked two hours... but happy to have this corner mostly done.

Wasn't as bad as I thought, and it only get's easier from here!

Thought you would like to see how the bedroom turned out.....

Course have to show you how we got there first.

Fiona wants to help...

Janet rehangs the window treatments.

Fiona models the soon to be painted wall...

Take a picture!

I really really would love to have a talk with whoever stapled our old carpets down...

The wall is painted.. the door was painted by Fiona and Janet

and now the floor is all painted!

More Ikea furniture =)

pretty white bed frame.

Fancy!

Have to take a few more pics of the bed now that we have the headboard etc all put together... that's another post....

So, when you are undertaking a large yard project, it tends to get crowded in the 'non-yard' areas... like the driveways. Course there is always something to slow down the progress... like a randomly placed sewage clean-out pipe.

The rototiller wasn't any better off...

It's always interesting to own an old house with all its strange and random wires, pipes and other things.

Bye-Bye holly!!!

And it's gone!!

Nine pallets of bricks: One Pile...

Aren't they pretty?

Flower boxes and a filled in hole =)

1/4" minus gravel: Pile 2

Sand in front, dirt in back: Piles 3 & 4

Dirt in side yard: Pile 5!

No piles here.. Just a little more leveling and we can start moving gravel!

Lots of stuff going on around here... lots of dirt moving ... lots of stuff moving around... moving and shaking around here =)

Took four of us, but we got the shed moved out of the way for the patio.		It will soon have a new home!

Looks different doesn't it?

Would you like to move some dirt?

We (our handy man Elias) attempted to dig down to remove the holly stump. Great hole, damn stump is still there. At least for a few more days....

Looks like it's time for a trip to the ReStore! (and Bring and the Dump!)

Look at that pretty bamboo! We are covering up the chain-link with it. Did you notice that the grass is gone? We are getting ready for the brick patio.

Dan and Leah had an adventure bring all this wood home. We owe a couple of guys a beer for helping us out of our jam...  traffic jam.

More pics of bamboo.

Future privacy fence.

Took out a panel of the chain-link. Dan and Leah had a fun time digging out the post.

MORE DIRT!!!

Future home to lots and lots of dirt. Dan and Leah spent several hours building raised beds. The two standing up are waiting to be set until the stump grinder guy removes the holly stump.

So, as you know, we did a huge plaster removal last summer in about 90% of our bedroom. We left the old closet area alone while we contemplated a variety of uses for the space (including a master bathroom....)

Having decided that adding a bathroom would be a bit more of a professional pain in the arse (IE very expensive) we decided to simply remove the closet itself and use the space to hold our treadmill so that we might actually use the silly thing. It just so happened that we had a huge tent we no longer needed. And since Eugene is the capital of bartering.... AnJie set out to find a contractor that could help us and needed a Tent.... And the Universe sent us Jake.

After the plans were set into motion for the agreed upon remodel of the area, I set out to clean out the remaining items that had been left in the closet out of .. well.. lack of other spaces to put it. We invested in a really neat armiour, moved the treadmill and I proceeded to clean out the soon to be demo'd space. Sounds simple enough right? That would be too easy.

While we were remodeling last year, we only covered the space with plastic, and then never really cleaned in there (who has time for that??) so while I was taking things out, all the dirt, dust and plaster crumbs were stirred up and swirled about our bedroom.... that night I began to get ill.... and stayed ill for a whole freakin week!! We finally figured out that I had somehow OD'd or something on the plaster dust from the closet.... Would have been nice to figure out without the fever, itchy rash and sleeping for 3 days strait, but you know.... can't do anything the easy way!!

Now, on to the stuff you are really here for... the pictures!

So here is a reminder of what our bedroom looked like before we moved in.

Here it is after the evil plaster is removed.....

And here it is neatly sheet rocked... and soon to be taped and muded =)

As you know from previous blogs (Such as Our Old House: I attacked the yard! ) we really had a tough time controlling the huge holly tree in the front of the house. It has been a very pointed (pun intended) subject every since we moved in.

I approached EWEB (our power company) about the possibility of removing it last year, but they weren't interested. This year however, they offered to take it down if we were willing to haul the stuff away... we were like, whatever it takes!!

Course, it took us over a month to get it hauled away and the help of a wonderful couple whom we are hiring to help us get this jungle under control. It took them 4 trips to the yard refuse yard (small pickup and trailer) to haul it all away....

Stay tuned.. we have a WHOLE ton of awesome yard work planned!

So here it is, tree down!

Nearly 18 inches at the base....

There was a pretty good pile of big pieces!

12-14 feet of tree trunk...

Branches...

This is on the other side of the pile... to the west of the front yard..

Hey.. you can see the house!