re:location

it was a productive saturday! (with others doing most of the work - even better!)

the guys from the city's department of urban forestry finally made it over here to grind out the stump of the tree out front. it took them a few hours and was pretty impressive to watch...






(see the termite tracks through the center of the stump...??)


they left all the wood shavings for us -


so anthony relocated most of them to fill in our low mud-prone driveway.




i suppose we'll use the rest as mulch (or is this a bad idea for some reason i'm unaware?).

the wood floors guys also came today to sand and stain the family room, office and powder room as well.








the whole house smells strongly of wood stain right now, so we have windows and doors open and fans blowing to clear it out by bedtime.

they will apply the first coat of poly on monday, and hopefully get all the coats down before we go out of town next weekend, so they can cure while we're away. then we can finally move into our family room! we have our new 46" LCD still in the box ready to go up on the wall, and some furniture being delivered in about 3 weeks.

re:pair

minor catastrophe this morning.


we were digging holes to plant some loropetalum (plum delight) shrubs in front of our porch and hit our water line. oh, not just the water line, but the corroded old secondary shut-off at the house (that we didn't know we had). it was just a few inches under the ground. and we couldn't find the shut-off in the meter at the street. super! we had water gushing into our yard for almost 45 minutes!



the water went all the way to the backyard...



our neighbor was very helpful and used a wrench to turn the underwater valve at the house (it had no lever/knob) to shut off the water, but there was still a slow leak because the water wasn't off at the street.

turns out there was a separate hole that our shut-off was in - the cover was completely buried with grass, so we couldn't find it.


i can't believe this would be buried just a few inches under the ground like that. there was grass over it and everything.


we got an emergency plumber out to get rid of the corroded valve and install a shiny new shut-off valve to the tune of $289...


...and we put a much more conspicuous cover on it so we (and any future owners of the house) will know it's there.


and we finally got our shrubs in the ground.


we're very lucky it wasn't a greater catastrophe, but it was stressful when that water was flowing fast and we had no idea how to turn it off. are we the only ones who don't think to check with all of our utilities when we do some minor landscaping?

re:landscape

with a $300 investment in plants, soil, peat and pine straw and taking a few extra bulbs from a friend's yard, this weekend we worked on increasing our curb appeal and making the deck more lush and inviting...























now we just have to cross our fingers that this side of the house gets enough sun for these plants to stay alive!

and here's an update to our redamndiculous list:


some of these items are in progress (front door, doors) and now we've made a little progress on that last item on the list as well. up next will be a small shed, and stair treads and the family room floor. slowly but surely...