One of my projects (self-imposed) was to clean up this area of our back yard. Our bedroom window looks out on it, and it was getting embarrassing. (However, we’ve ...keep reading]]> While unemployed, I felt this driving need to be productive, hence the large number of completed sewing projects and the many hours spent painting trim.

One of my projects (self-imposed) was to clean up this area of our back yard. Our bedroom window looks out on it, and it was getting embarrassing. (However, we’ve had a rash of robberies in our neighborhood recently, so we’ve started closing the gates on the fence, which means that this part is no longer visible from the street, so it’s not as embarrassing anymore. It would help if there weren’t so many foreclosures / homes for sale in close by. I haven’t heard about any new incidents in the last week or two, so we’re probably safe, but there’s nothing wrong about compulsively checking to make sure all the doors are deadbolted.)

Prepare yourself – I discovered that I don’t like to do weeding unless I have homework to avoid doing. So, basically we haven’t done any weeding this year. On the bright side, we have very fertile soil.

The back walkway was... no longer passable. Those tall guys - I don't know what they are, but they scared the crap out of me. At any point, I thought they might get up and start attacking me for killing their brethren.

On the left is our air conditioner, and next to it is a shrub that I tackled back into submission earlier this summer. There's a large egress window behind it (for the family room). Prior to our neighbor removing a tree next to our shared fence, this was all shade, all the time. Now it's all sun, all the time. I have plans to plant vegetables and flowers here. Someday. After I remove all those rocks.

I had already pruned back the bushes significantly in preparation for painting our house (which we still haven't done). One of them was dying out a bit, so they're looking particularly scraggly. The large pile in between them was from that tree branch that feel in November. This was not our permanent solution, but it had been several months since we'd done anything with the pile.

First up? I tried working in the shade as much as possible, or at least alternating the time I spent in the sun with time spent in the shade. It worked as far as preventing sunburn, but it was still ridiculously hot outside, and the shade could only mitigate that so much.

I finally won the war with this bush! Mom and I pruned it down to the dead trunk two years ago, and every once in a while I'd wiggle it and wrestle with it to see if it was ready to give up its firm grasp on life. It finally gave in, and I felt quite victorious. (It's amazing how many dead bushes there were when we bought this house. Or, rather, nearly dead, which might be worse.)

After several long, hot days, drinking lots of water, and walking through the sprinkler whenever possible (the grass gets watered every day at 2, which was probably the hottest part of the day, but the cold water helped a great deal), this was the end result.

Safe passage! I realize it's not the prettiest sight, but it sure looks pretty to my eyes.

Branches moved (to the deck next to the fireplace, where they can be burnt).

My summer respite. Hammock, candle lantern.... I could use a little table and some mosquito netting, but this will do just fine.

I was glad to learn that the rodent damage to my hammock was minimal and will not affect usability. This is potentially a dangerous spot to have the hammock – you have to remember to disembark towards the yard, or else you will fall into the egress window, which would be unpleasant.

Normally, my hammock would go under my favorite tree, but that area is currently under construction in our much-ignored irrigation system project, so I needed a temporary place to put it. The only problem with this spot is that it is in full sun for much of the day, but it should be fine in the evening.

I think that when I finally get this area ready for planting, I’d like to replace the “fence” around the air conditioner with taller (6′?) lattice that can be used for viney plants like green beans. Wouldn’t that be nice? Maybe just on two of the sides – it does still need to be accessible after all. Ideally, those bushes will decide to die all on their own, but I fear the one on the right has been invigorated by the harsh pruning I gave it – it seems to be thriving, even though reduced in size by half. Those ones on the right are kind of sickly (not sickly enough, but not terribly healthy either), and their days might be numbered.

What is it that I have against bushes? Aside from their general unruliness and the need to constantly prune them to keep them from taking over the world, the evergreen varieties make me itch. That should be reason enough, right? I mean, I’ve eliminated so many other things from my life that make me itch. I gave up caffeine, regular soap and lotion, fabric softener, switched laundry detergent…. Surely we can add evergreen bushes to that list.

Though I haven’t had the opportunity to fully revel in the glory of my respite, I have sat in my hammock for a bit and read, which was lovely. There’s so much to do that I really don’t get the time I’d like to to just chill here, but at least it’s set up for that random moment when I have the time to relax. Plus, I felt like a conqueror for getting all that work done in the 90*+ heat. Also, no sunburn.

Anyway, after mowing and weeding and sweeping the driveway (it’s acorn time ...keep reading]]> We kind of blitzed our yard on Tuesday night in an attempt to make it look like we do more than sleep at our home. The “For Sale” sign next door was starting to make me feel bad about our curb appeal.

Anyway, after mowing and weeding and sweeping the driveway (it’s acorn time again), wanted to cut the pieces for the pocket door trim for the family room. While he set up the saw and measured things, I took the time to snap a few photos of pretty things (that were suddenly visible after weeding and picking up all the fallen branches).

These first two pictures are for . I looked at what we’ve got going on in our front garden, and these are the two I thought you might want to commandeer. These were the “tamest” of the bunch – everything else looked wilder and quite… rustic. Probably not what you were going for.

Catmint, which has grown a lot, and has these cute purple flowers.

I don't know what this fern-like plant is, but it does have yellow flowers that appear mid-summer (you can kind of see them at the top of the picture).

I had some fun using the macro mode to capture the beautiful blooming Stargazer Lily plant that gave me.

Beautiful blooms!

How close can we get?

She added these leafy plants at the bottom of the pot, and they have such pretty coloring!

Another close-up

I also took “final” pictures of the yard project I worked on while I was laid off. I’ll share those tomorrow. It’s a good thing I took them Tuesday, because it’s been cloudy ever since. Not good picture-taking weather.

Perhaps not very photogenic, but definitely utilitarian.

Later, we dry-fit the new cabinets and bookshelves together in the space, to make sure that all ...keep reading]]> Early last week, we finally put the last of the insulation in. This is where the last built-in goes. All of the pieces are now cut out for that.

Perhaps not very photogenic, but definitely utilitarian.

Later, we dry-fit the new cabinets and bookshelves together in the space, to make sure that all of our measurements were correct.

We did a fantastic job! (Pretend there's a center post in the middle of the other two top bookshelves.) The backings fit too, though we didn't photograph that part.

Since everything fit, we started priming.

Lots and lots of trim (see more on top of the piano).

And pieces of the cabinets and bookshelves.

Before we could buy trim, we had to figure out what we were going to do where the built-ins met up with the baseboard. Our solution was to use plinths. Unfortunately, we didn’t like anything they had at Home Depot.

So we made our own! Kind of. We bought pre-made ones, and then we'll cut off that curvy part - it's way too fancy for that room. Prince Charming added the bit of detail around the rectangular part. I think it will look great!

The priming is all done now. Once sands down the trim, I can start painting that – I can do it during the day while he’s at work. The cabinet pieces will have to wait until the weekend, since it requires two of us to keep everything straight. Two coats of paint, four of polyurethane, and then we can assemble/install. It’s all coming together. You probably won’t see any more pictures of the family room for a while – not until we get the built-in assembled or the trim installed. But I do have another home project to share… I’ve got maybe another week of work on that before I can share it. In the meantime, things might be quiet, unless you really want to hear me talk about the more boring aspects of unemployment. And really, I don’t want to dwell on those things, so that’s unlikely to happen.

When I said I had no plans for the weekend, I guess that was misleading.

What I really meant was: there are tons of things to do, but none of them are scheduled. If I had said there was yard work to do, it would ...keep reading]]> Warning: none of the pictures contained herein are pretty.

When I said I had no plans for the weekend, I guess that was misleading.

What I really meant was: there are tons of things to do, but none of them are scheduled. If I had said there was yard work to do, it would have inevitably rained. If I had said we were going to work on the family room, well, who knows what tragedy might have befallen us to get in our way. I wasn’t trying to be coy, just… protecting myself from Murphy’s Law.

At any rate, we did make some good progress on the family room this weekend. wrapped up the finishing on the face frame for the built-in, so on Saturday, we installed it.

Voila! The nail holes are even filled with putty. So, while technically we still need to make doors and shelves, and trim it out, this is basically it. And doors and shelves aren't urgently needed (since this storage is basically new, bonus storage).

I feel the need to add that we have the pieces for the other built-in mostly cut to size. Hopefully, since those are a little more standard in size (instead of very wide, very deep, and have the largest unit on top rather than on the bottom), they will go together faster. There are 6 base cabinets and three top shelving units, with a center support beam in there (the only part of the plan we’re unsure about). They’re quite narrow (only 12″ deep), and the shelves will be permanent instead of adjustable.

I have gotten it into my head that we need to install the ceiling, or at least as much of it as we can. I think it will make the room feel much more finished. In order to do that, however, we needed to frame in the windows. We got two out of the three of them done this weekend.

Have you ever tried to take pictures of windows? Terrible situation. I could not get the colors adjusted right in these pictures. My apologies.

Window #1

Window #2

Why yes, they are identical. They’ll look much nicer once everything is painted white. They’re virtually identical to the one in office, except that the trim will be different.

They took us two days and two trips to Home Depot, but they’re done. And we’re that much closer to being able to install the ceiling.

The one we didn’t get to?

The egress window. It took us forever just to remove the old frame. Apparently, whoever installed it planned on it never being removed. It was adhered with this silicone stuff that was still gooey, so every time you tried to pull it up, it would just glue itself back together. Blech.

And, though we didn’t do any work on this wall at all, I think it looks good, so I took a picture while I was down there.

This is where the TV will be mounted. The shelf below is for one of the speakers. You can see the connectors for the front corner speakers too, and our numerous, beautiful outlets for power, internet, and sound.

Apparently, I’ve shared a nearly identical picture before, but the old one didn’t have the shelf in it, just the brackets. We’ve cleaned up a lot, too, though you can’t really tell in this picture. The tarp that was covering the entire floor is gone now, replaced with some drop cloths that can be easily washed and stowed when not in use. We’re ready to have the carpets cleaned, finally, and then we can move the new couch out of our bedroom and into its permanent home, and start setting our house back to normal. We have house guests in July, and would like to have this project mostly wrapped up before their arrival (not including doors for the built-ins, and maybe some other details I’m not remembering right now).

Since I was getting caught up on photo taking yesterday, I decided to get some shots ...keep reading]]> You know, the digging for the irrigation system we did on Sunday? (I had a headache from noon to about 9 pm that day, and two doses of Advil barely put a dent in it… I was crabby.)

Since I was getting caught up on photo taking yesterday, I decided to get some shots of all the work we did.

This is where we ended up before the snow fell last fall. did some more digging a week or two ago, but I didn’t get a shot of that. (Basically he connected that little trench I had dug to the larger hole near the deck that he had dug, and then continued a ways into the yard.

Through the yard...

Trenches out to where the sprinkler heads will be. (Some day, that spot on the right will be a strawberry patch, with maybe a raspberry bush for fun. That part on the left, well, there aren't any official plans, but those bushes are likely to be ripped out for more vegetable gardening. But not this year.)

Around the corner.... (On the right, where that pile of dirt is, is where we're placing an outdoor spigot. There's another trench to be dug on the left, going into the far corner - a decision I began to regret once I started digging it and realized exactly how far that was.)

Prince Charming made it almost to the fence! (I only did those two side-trenches and started on the diagonal corner one. He worked a little faster/harder than I did.)

To be fair, part of my time was spent doing a bit of pruning. Pardon the old picture, but it’s the only one I had of these trees.

Two years ago, shortly after we moved in. Most of that green in the background is weeds, but don't focus on that. See those weird spindly trees? They continued to sprout new trunks from the ground, and they looked even weirder after two years of neglect. (I wasn't sure what to do with them... they were so strange, and it was a very low priority.)

Well, all those extra trunks were in my way, so it was time for them to go. If I was going to crawl around, digging through the rocks and black plastic, I wasn’t going to tolerate getting branches stuck in my hair every time I moved.

I should have taken a proper “before” picture, but I didn’t. I did get this “after” one, though.

I swear, I only cut off the bottom branches that were truly extraneous, and the dead stuff. They look even worse than they did before (though no weirder).

Look closer at that one in the back. This is all that's left after I trimmed off the dead stuff. This might be the saddest tree I've ever seen. Worse than Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.

I wasn’t too careful when digging in that area, and may or may not have cut through several tree roots. Let’s be honest, these trees aren’t doing any good here, and if they were to die of their own free will and fall over, they won’t hurt anything. They can’t weigh much. And I’m all about getting rid of the ugly plants, even if they were purposefully planted. (Cases in point: multiple rose bushes, multiple dying shrubs.)

I’m not sure when we’ll get more work done. went to a movie last night, and when he came home we spent the rest of the evening (2 hours!) replacing the rest of the exterior door locks. Part of that involved removing a door from the frame and using a drill press on it. Should have gotten a picture of that. The big thing is that we are now properly locked, and I have a new key on my key chain (bringing me to a grand total of 2 keys). It’s almost like we own this house or something.

At any rate, I have plans tonight, and again on Thursday, so I’m not sure when we’ll pull out the shovels again. We have more side-trenches to dig, and then we can start laying the tubing and assembling. We did all the testing on Sunday to see which shapes were appropriate and exactly where to put the sprinkler heads. Throughout this process, I have to keep reminding myself that we are saving a ton of money doing it ourselves, because this is really not a very fun project. But think of all the vegetables we can grow next year!

Shelf 1. There's a television monitor that goes underneath it (the black mount and the white electrical outlet), and that cabinet on the ...keep reading]]> now has shelves in his office! He’s been working hard on these for the past… two weeks. Very successful (and non-injurious) use of the biscuit joiner was involved.

Shelf 1. There's a television monitor that goes underneath it (the black mount and the white electrical outlet), and that cabinet on the right is the gas meter, for reference.

shelf 2 - under the window, which is the temporary resting spot for his new clock (his first Etsy purchase!).

You can see the detail work here, and the excellent job he did at finishing. Our favorite brand of stain, General Finishes, just upgraded to a "new formula," and he said it is even better than it used to be. Very exciting (if you can get excited about stain).

We figure that finishing the ceiling (the last of the wires have been placed) will take about an hour. He also has to make shelves for the closet, though the frame is already purchased (Connections from the Container Store), and then it really is done! And the stuff in the hallway will have a home again, and he can use it as he intended, and… we’ll have completed a project! I can hardly contain myself.

[Editor's note: I didn't take any of these pictures, and the only assistance I provided on the creation of the shelves was a bit of stabilizing during the biscuit cutting and an extra hand during the gluing/clamping process. He did everything else.]

The media cabinet!

...keep reading]]> Saturday afternoon, after my class, we assembled the one cabinet that we’d completed (there’s a second, smaller cabinet that is all cut out, but not yet painted). By completed, I mean that we’d painted the appropriate parts and protected them with several coats of polyurethane and lots of sanding.

The media cabinet!

This baby is 53″ tall, and is actually the TOP cabinet. The smaller cabinet, 24″ tall, sits underneath it, and will have one shelf in it. It’s 20″ wide, and the black rails in there are what the shelves hook in to that hold all of the media stuff (DVD player, video game consoles, receiver, computer, etc). There are cut-outs for an electrical outlet, a cable to transmit information to the TV, and more wires to come in from the top (the internet). What we lost by painting first was that nice seal when you paint seams, but if I can improve my caulking skills, it won’t be noticeable at all. What we gained, by the way, is a perfectly smooth surface – it looks almost like it’s MDF or melamine or whatever.

We drove down to the far-away Menards (because our local one doesn’t have a lumber yard, sadly) and bought two pieces of their plywood which was on sale, hoping that the quality would be sufficient enough to save us some money.

So, Sunday we cut into the new plywood, had great success, and then went back and bought several more sheets. The rest of the cabinets for that built-in (not the bookshelves built-in) are now all cut out and dado-ed (except for the back panels, which will do sometime this week while I’m doing homework).

8 tops and bottoms for 4 cabinets, and 4 sides for the 2 short cabinets

4 sides for the tall cabinets (Please ignore the evidence of my failure to vacuum for... several weeks now - it's so hard to be motivated with all the construction dust/debris constantly messing it up again.)

Our dado blade didn’t do as nice of a job cutting this time, and there were some other imperfections, so there’s some stuff to do before painting. Wood filler to the rescue! And, we’ll sand first this time, before painting, and then get a big set-up to do all of them at once, preferably somewhere with less sawdust than the basement, and where I don’t have to crawl around on the ground to paint. Hopefully we’ll be able to show you some more assembled cabinets in a week, give or take a few days. (I do have homework, you know, so we can’t exactly power through this like we could while I was on break.) We think we have enough scrap to get most of the bookshelves built too, though we’re not starting that just yet. One project at a time. Then we can think about doors, and handles, and floor trim….