Planters!

On Saturday I changed the light fixture in the hallway.  Why are there no pictures of that?  Because in the process I touched some very old wires, and the insulation disintegrated right off them - thus causing me to leave the fuse off to avoid accidentally burning down the house.  Electricians tomorrow.  So I pouted - and went downstairs to build and then hang a couple planters for veggies!  One project accomplished at least...

More...painting...

I had my bedroom ceiling, office ceiling and walls, and dining room ceiling skimcoated. 

(skimcoat: coat with a mixture of gypsum and spackle; "he skimcoated the drywall", dictionary.com).  The bedroom and office had to be done as the paint was crackling and falling off.  Apparently the original primer didn't get a good grip!  The dining room ceiling was just ugly.  

The contractor did an ok job.  It's better than I would have done, but not as flawless as the guy who did my hallway ceilings.  Why didn't I hire that guy back?  Well - he made me uncomfortable.

Of course now I think I should have gone with brief discomfort - or had Jaimee deal with him ;) - as this guy didn't do as good a job, and he took nearly 2 weeks to finish.  2 weeks is a long time not to have a bedroom or easy access to your clothes... 

Anyway.  It's still a better job than I would have done.  Since I really wanted my room back, I took Friday off and primed and painted.  Max came to help, and by Friday night all 3 rooms were primed and the bedroom and office ceilings were painted.  Sunday I finished the dining room.  So after 2 weeks of work, a not -inconsiderable amount of money, and an exhausting weekend, I have 2 rooms that look...almost exactly like they did 2 weeks ago.  I mean, the paint is no longer falling off, which I think is great, but I'm reliably informed that many people don't actually notice that.

Phooey on those non-detail people!  I think it looks good.  And now I can finally paint the walls in the office - right after I pick the color.  And clean up all the joint compound dust that's all over the house.

In other news, my garden looks lovely.  New plans and some hard work from Hobs - it's coming along!  Pics soon.

Stained deck!

Stained the deck last night.  It looks pretty good - but you can see lines where I reloaded the deck pad with stain, even though I carefully followed the directions and smoothed up over stain already applied...  (Also, this is just a clear coat, so it shouldn't really be colored at all!).  Hopefully that fades out as it continues to dry?

Anyway, still looks better than concrete!

Deck!

This weekend, we went from this:

to this:

No more ugly concrete patio.  And shockingly, it's actually almost finished!  We ran out of screws 3 times, and so I have about 8 more to put in, I have one final cut to make, and then I need to seal it.  Bringing the cedar up the cement stairs will the next phase of it, but that probably won't happen until at least May.

Jaimee was a deck superstar, Max and his buddy fixed my falling down fence slats (if you shoot all the nails in from the inside, the slats on the outside will start popping off as they age, thanks fence contractor) and then turned to framing and decking, and R2 was a key last minute reinforcement fetching more screws and wielding the drill and the garbage bag.

Decking is better than a gym trip - whole body soreness!

Unrelated to house things.

I sat down this evening to update my resume (because really, one should have an updated resume just in case something interesting crosses your path).  Very luckily, I have a good friend who is marvelous at resume critique, and she pointed out that I had reached a point in my career where I needed to alter my format and include a profile.  So off I went, diligently searching for samples of what others in my line of work have done.

You know what?  They all say the same things.  Everybody is working from the same list of resume action verbs.  What I really want to do is just finish this up, and write the world's frankest cover letters.  I just want to say - you know what?  I'm good at my job.  I'm not the smartest, nor the easiest, and I don't know everything.  But I know I don't, and I admit it.  I'm smarter than some, I'm fast, I'm logical, and my work is high quality.  I don't miss deadlines.  If you give me something that needs doing, I'll figure it out.  So here's the resume.  I think it has all the right buzzwords.  It looks the same as everyone else's.  Just call me.  We'll talk.  And either we'll like each other and I'll do a good job for you; you'll be glad I'm there, or we won't fit, and then no harm done. 

But I don't think that would get me any interesting things that crossed my path.  Unless it was a tiny startup.  And really - that's kind of a bummer.

And the spring adventures continue

This morning a waterbug meandered into my bedroom (!) as I was about to walk out.  Like any adult, mature, capable person, I - squealed like an 8 yr old, jumped on the bed, and yelled for Jaimee.

I hate those things.

And the nightmare situation w the mouse happened

Live one on the glue trap! Ugh. Hence the glue trap dilemma. Jaimee took it outside, pried it off with a plastic knife, and (despite my comment that this is not the Collesium), released it to the feral cats. Then when it tried to run back towards the house she blocked it and told it there were rules... Poor mouse.  Ugh. What would you do?

(And I also have snap traps and the electric ones, so I'm trying everything...)

I didn't mean to slack on the posting.

I did, however, mean to slack on the bathroom.  After a push to finish it before Christmas (fail), and then a couple projects where I thought I was doing quite well but realized I had installed things improperly (I am not good at moldings.  Just - not.), I needed a break.

So I altered my tack a bit, and decided to tackle some projects where the raw materials were in the house, I just hadn't done it.  Sort of a use it or lose it kind of deal.  Also a make things work a little better kind of deal.

I hung a shelf:

Twice, actually, after it fell down.  Turned out the anchors I selected just weren't big enough.  Oops. 

I put hardware on the pantry doors:

Ok, so I have to stretch to reach them.  Maybe this won't be the final location of said hardware.

I also:

  - cut and installed a shelf in one of my kitchen cabinets (with the side effect of making the glasses drawer much much easier to use!)
  - put shelf supports in the counter under the sink to hang the dishrack (so. very. exciting.)
  - hung the artwork my friends made for my birthday 2 (3?) years ago
  - made good progress on the shelves in the bathroom (they aren't done, but you can use them!)
  - installed a cat door in the basement for Jaimee's cat when he visits (let's not talk about the fact that he won't go through it yet)
  - and cleaned the basement.

But then it was time to ease back into the bigger projects.  I still didn't want to return to the bathroom, though.  So - have I mentioned that I hate my upstairs closets?  Well, I do.  Or did.  Or both, really.  I mean, I have huge closets, so I really shouldn't complain.  But a shelf and a bar just don't use the space efficiently.  Plus bifold doors just shouldn't exist.

And - here we are:

We (Jaimee put her muscles to good use too) took off the bifold doors, took down the shelf and the bar, and put up this thing of beauty.  The bar will get new life in R2's room.  Of course we had the usual reno issues; plaster crumbling in certain spots, drill-walking creating some not quite level hooks, cutting the long shelves too short because I was too focused on one side of the plans - but we overcame and this thing is solid.  There are still no doors, the other two closets and the upper storage areas still have the old doors, and the middle closet also desperately needs to be redone, and the inside walls really need painting - but this is SUCH a nice step!  No more trying to get my sweaters out of a falling apart wire system, no more dust collecting on the bottom items, and more usable space.  

Of course this came with a spring-cleaning type purge (also helped by watching Hoarders too much), and decluttering a bit has felt good too.

Currently I'm fighting a mouse infestation (those critters are BOLD.  They stroll on the counters!  They meander through the bottom shelf of the pantry!  They poop ON the snap trap bait!  I shall overcome.).  So that might have to dictate the next project, meaning that I might have to focus on sealing up the pantry/nook/kitchen before I can return to the bathroom.  TBD.  But work continues!

There may be a mouse in my house.

In the pantry to be precise. Oy.

New Fridge!

It wasn't an upgrade planned for this year, but when your fridge starts freezing the items in the fridge rather regularly, your roommate can get kind of sad about her fresh (now frozen) spinach.  And have you ever tried to fry a frozen egg?  It's weird, I can tell you.

The story of the fridge replacement is convoluted, however.  So, I ordered a new fridge through a friend with a great deal.  Three weeks after ordering, we discovered it was backordered.  Two weeks after that, I gave up and went with a different model.  Four days later, the delivery guy showed up - and we discovered it wouldn't fit through the door.  But wait - it would fit through the door, just not in the box (I mean, I did measure before ordering!).  I headed off to remove the door, and the guy stopped me and said he couldn't deliver it because I have four steps up to the front door, and he was only one guy.  (Mind, this is all through Spanglish.)  The office will call, he says.  Eventually I speak to the office, straighten out the confusion with the nice woman, discuss my steps, and reschedule delivery.  The following week an older guy calls me to tell me I'm his next stop, and ask if I have guys ready to move the fridge in because it's raining.  But don't you bring it inside, I ask?  No, he answers, we never bring things up stairs.  I am slightly confused here.  From the interactions with the original delivery guy, and the woman, would you not think that if they weren't going to bring it into the house they'd have MENTIONED it at this point?  Not pleased.  Mildly panicked, in fact.  Luckily a rapid Craigslist seach gets me guys that can come in an hour and a half.  I throw a tarp over the delivered fridge, and wait by the door with bated breath (what if someone steals my fridge???) until the guys show.  Two Russians appear, pull it out of the box, get it through the door (which I of course removed the day before), and into the house, where we discover another issue - it won't fit through the dining room doorway into the kitchen.  So.  They start removing fridge doors, while I remove doorway molding.  20 minutes later I have this:

And the old fridge in the dining room, and a great deal of cleanup to do.  Looks great, yes?  It feels so BIG!  The old fridge was rescued from the front yard by someone (thanks Max and Jaimee for removing it), the cardboard was finally picked up by the recycling guys, and my house looks much less trashy now ;)  Also, the spinach has been unfrozen all week!

It's very exciting.  However, I can no longer reach the microwave (which lives on top of the fridge), so it's turned to the side so that I can reach it by standing on the step.  This makes it look not lovely, however, since you're looking at the back of the microwave half the time...  Suggestions to remedy this would be gratefully accepted.