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:grettable

booo. the city took down the tree in front of our house yesterday. now our sad-looking house is much more exposed and screaming, "hey, look at me!"



it feels naked. i know there's nothing we could do about it - it was in the city's right-of-way and was sick with termites anyway, but i hate it. they're supposed to grind out the stump today, and we can plant a new street tree, but it won't be a mature [oak?] tree like this was. it just draws more attention to our pitiful exterior. it will be a happy day when we can have the exterior painted!

re:lax

i can't let the scary post below be the first thing people see when they click on this page, so until i have new work photos to post, these are a few of the beautiful houses we get to look at from our front porch...