Cold, Wet and Miserable...
I'm feeling a lot better about all of the work and beer and pizza and money and blood that's going to be going into this house. It's a lot easier now to stand outside and look out at the property and see what great things we can make from it.
It's nice that we have such a large space on the corner to work with and I think Tina and I have come up with some really great ideas together and independently. If we do even half of the things we talk about this is going to be an incredible place. We have enough land to make the yard beautiful and relaxing, and expect to have an awesome place to hang out in and have people over for bonfires, strange conversations and debauchery. Who would have thought to camp in the damn yard? I'm up for it! Anytime we've had friends over, the house lights up like it's hosting itself. Tina and I love the house even more when there are people in it (or outside of it), laughing and eating and having fun.
I'm looking forward to really getting into the house and seeing what's behind some of these walls. (12 layers of wallpaper!?!?) The railing and posts are going to be a lot of work, because we've got a lot of repair to do. The upstairs newell(?) post needs some love, nail removal and wood filler and needs to be reattached to the floor so it stops the wiggles. And if I recall correctly, we have a stair or two that is split and funky. I'm definitely looking forward to it though. I think those stairs may be the same pine that we found under the flooring! (.)(.)!!! W00t!
(Douglas fir my ass!)It's nice that we have such a large space on the corner to work with and I think Tina and I have come up with some really great ideas together and independently. If we do even half of the things we talk about this is going to be an incredible place. We have enough land to make the yard beautiful and relaxing, and expect to have an awesome place to hang out in and have people over for bonfires, strange conversations and debauchery. Who would have thought to camp in the damn yard? I'm up for it! Anytime we've had friends over, the house lights up like it's hosting itself. Tina and I love the house even more when there are people in it (or outside of it), laughing and eating and having fun.
I'm looking forward to really getting into the house and seeing what's behind some of these walls. (12 layers of wallpaper!?!?) The railing and posts are going to be a lot of work, because we've got a lot of repair to do. The upstairs newell(?) post needs some love, nail removal and wood filler and needs to be reattached to the floor so it stops the wiggles. And if I recall correctly, we have a stair or two that is split and funky. I'm definitely looking forward to it though. I think those stairs may be the same pine that we found under the flooring! (.)(.)!!! W00t!
I've also gotta say that we have made some damn good friends here in cold, wet and miserable Oregon, and for the most part have totally scored when it comes to the neighbors and place we live. If we have a project to do and it comes up in conversation we have no end of people offering their valuable time and energy for some hard, nasty work. And we've been offered the use of trucks on about 6 different occasions now, in some cases the first day or week we met a neighbor or coworker. So strange coming from the places we've been. It's made all of the nasty little surprises along the way so much less horrific than I would expect them to be. Many of our friends and neighbors "know people" and can hook us up with all kinds of necessary stuff like dirt and grass seed and inexpensive back-hoe service providers. We got more rock than Led Zepplin from a guy our neighbor referred us to for about 1/3 of what I expected it to cost. The guy who excavated the filthy sewer trough did it for $120 or so and the guy who put the gravel and dirt back after we replaced the line did it for the same. We were able to pay off the work on the sewer in fair monthly installments after they had already completed the job, with no interest or fees or crap. The people at the septic place were totally cool about it. Lots of businesses and people here are like that. I don't think we could have picked a better place to live. We just need to gather up some people that need to be here with us and it will be paradise.
posted by Mike @ Wednesday, March 07, 2007
