All ready to go!
The house is clean and organized. The storage closet/soon to be backdoor again is empty. Electronics are all disconnected. Tools are out and everything is ready to go for people to come over and get this party started!
There will be pics later probably tomorrow of what we get done and hopefully tons of progress to report.
Keep your fingers crossed that no mishaps happen!
It's happening....
We did it.
We ordered the first dumpster of the year!
To celebrate, we're having a bunch of people over on Sunday to help fill the dumpster with paneling and shingles from the livingroom and laundry room. Plus, for the grand prize of food and beer, they get to help spackle too!!
I know, we're just awesome friends that way letting them do all that.
Tonight, I took measurements for the fence that's needed to be fixed since about 6 months after we moved in. I'm going to call the town planner tomorrow because we were told that 30 feet to the corner in each direction can only be a 3ft fence. I'm going to see if we can make it a 4ft and if so, instead of repairing the fence, we're going to start replacing it in sections. Ugly, I know, but cost is cost.
Tonight was dull but productive. Mike moved about 7 carts full of rocks and I started digging out the mound from hell and moving it over to the area that was messed up from digging out the sewer line. He was able to get all the rocks out from the side yard and what's left is now in the front yard by the fence where I'm digging. It's all slow going, but I'm seeing such progress that soon I won't be embarrassed for people to drive by my house.
Workaholic
Tina is inside cleaning, re-organizing, re-arranging, and generally tearing like a whirlwind through our office. We're officially decommissioning my desktop machine since it's got a dead power-supply and hasn't even been up for months. I'm relying completely on my laptop. She just interrupted me mid-blog to drag me in there and show me what she did. WOW. It looks like a different room. Much nicer than the old way we had it laid out.
I plan to get some updated pictures of the grass growing and the new bushes and mulching and such we did. I have a buncha stuff I should do and update on, but I don't have anything ready. So here's some crazy old pictures of the house instead.
I like this one a lot. This is the Jacks. I'm pretty sure the dapper fellow in the chair is Frances Marion. I believe the woman next to him is his wife and the lady in front of the window is his daughter. We think this picture was taken in 1917. We seriously contemplated reproducing the fence, but decided against it because of our crazy dogs. This picture (compared to our modern pics) also illustrates how much the ground around the house has changed and the level of the house itself. I love this picture.
Date of this one is unknown. We're pretty sure it was also sometime in the 20s. It proves to me that there have always been dogs here. It's a good place for dogs. :) It's also the best picture of we have of the original porch bits.
Finally, a long shot of our house and part of the house next door. F.M. Jack was the postmaster at one point, and his wagon is in front of the house. Notice the woman out in front of the window again. Same person? I dunno.
That's all for this time.
Before I finish, I do have to say that once Tina and I started working on the house again (and thus the blog) we were both very pleased and VERY surprised at how many hits the blog still had, even though it was dormant for a year. Thanks readers! We'll try not to take year long breaks anymore.
-Mike
Ouchie
So, finally there was a nice day on Sunday and we got a ton more done. I woke everyone at around 10:30am (in our house on a weekend that's EARLY) and we went to breakfast at the corner cafe. We followed that up with a trip to Coastal farm store and Home Depot to get a few things for the day.
Once we got home, it was on to the yard. I had to use grass scissors to cut all the grass growing in the wire fence because it was about 4 feet high and the mower wouldn't go there and the fence would eat the weed wacker. So now, you can see there is a fence there! Then I went on to weed wacking a 30' x 125' swath of ground that we can't mow because we have to get all of the rocks out. It looked like the African bush out there and now it's just a bad haircut :P.
Mike pulled out 6 carts full of rocks from that area and it looks like we'll have about 10 more cart fulls to go. That sounds like an awful lot but considering we're actually on the home stretch of moving rocks, it's not too bad. We've got such a huge pile of rock now it's not even funny. We were able to get the edging and fencing up around the japanese maple bushes so now the mulch won't move and the dogs will leave the bushes alone while they get a chance to grow.
We got all the limbs hacked off the one really nasty, yellow jacket attracting, dog freak out tree so that all there is left on that is to dig up the stump. Mike also did some mowing yesterday but apparently hit a massive rock that's never been there before and bent the blade at a 90 degree angle. So, the mower is now in the shed, sitting on the blade because the wheels won't touch the ground. Off to get a new blade this week as well as having to start visually sweeping the yard again before each mowing.
This week, we have to dig out the location for the new firepit since we have all these limbs to burn. Hey, we've got plenty of gravel to line the bottom and lots of rocks to ring it with to make it all pretty. Additionally, we're going to be filling in more holes in the backyard and side yard that were made when the rocks were pulled out. Finally, we're going to dig up the massive mound that's been in the front of the house forever. That's this week in a nutshell. Next weekend, it's on to getting the other two bushes in, more mulch, more edging and more fencing.
Man summer is painful.
Sometimes jury duty works out
So, I was called for jury duty yesterday and they didn't select me so I got to go home and work on the list some more. I got Ehren's room completely cleaned out and rearranged which made me realize there are now many more floorboards that need to be fixed than before he lived in there. The upstairs hallway got cleaned as well as our room. I also got the porch completely cleaned out and de-cobwebbed ready for us to start ripping up the deck. Then it was on to 3 loads of laundry, 2 loads of dishes in the dishwasher and sweeping the stairs.
So, now finished is:
- Reclaim Ehren's room
- Level the pond area, finishing filling in pond, seed.
- Seed old firepit
- Fill in random yard holes with dirt we have ... 1/2 done, only a few more to go
- Plant the new maples & clover ... 1/2 done we have the other side of the house to do
Tonight is bellydance practice and tomorrow is getting my nails done so I know nothing will be happening tonight but on Thursday after nails I'll probably put the edging and the fencing around the tree/mulch area to keep the dogs out. If only this stupid weather would cooperate we could do so much more but apparently this year, June in Oregon = rainy and 62 degrees... blech.
