This week was extremely hot and humid - high 90s, low 100s. We didn't do a single thing on the house this week - just camped out in front of our window unit air conditioner. Oh, and watched the Alp stages of the Tour de France - what a race this year!
We did catch a fourth groundhog this week. Our garden is looking great! We have so many tomatoes, good looking peppers, corn, eggplant, and watermelon. Unfortunately our pumpkins and squash are not doing too great - the groundhogs ate most of the leaves before we could trap them.
Hopefully we'll have some nicer weather this week!
Monday, July 25, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer
This week we didn’t get a whole lot done on the house. With the heat and humidity, we’ve been a little lazy. Plus this week, I worked long hours on a few days and just didn’t feel like doing anything but relaxing when I got home.
We did trap and relocate another groundhog one evening. It’s great to actually have vegetables growing in the garden without fear that they’re going to be a fat rodent’s snack.
When it comes to most of our unfinished projects (and our upcoming ones!), we’re kind of at a standstill. It’s hard to justify making (and living in) a mess when there is another person living in the house. Our summer student will be leaving in a couple weeks and we’ll be back to living in complete disarray again!
Over the weekend we were able to finish a small project – installing the shoe molding in the hallway. The hardwood had some gaps that weren’t fully covered by the baseboard so the shoe molding covers it up nicely. I’m still not sure why we didn’t install the shoe molding earlier but it’s now completely installed, caulked, and painted.
The pictures below are just a portion of the hallway that was finished – we completed the area from the kitchen, through the foyer, and around to the master bedroom.
Another big reason that we’ve been unmotivated is because of the Tour de France. Fortunately it will be over this weekend and we can get back to work!
We did trap and relocate another groundhog one evening. It’s great to actually have vegetables growing in the garden without fear that they’re going to be a fat rodent’s snack.
When it comes to most of our unfinished projects (and our upcoming ones!), we’re kind of at a standstill. It’s hard to justify making (and living in) a mess when there is another person living in the house. Our summer student will be leaving in a couple weeks and we’ll be back to living in complete disarray again!
Over the weekend we were able to finish a small project – installing the shoe molding in the hallway. The hardwood had some gaps that weren’t fully covered by the baseboard so the shoe molding covers it up nicely. I’m still not sure why we didn’t install the shoe molding earlier but it’s now completely installed, caulked, and painted.
The pictures below are just a portion of the hallway that was finished – we completed the area from the kitchen, through the foyer, and around to the master bedroom.
Another big reason that we’ve been unmotivated is because of the Tour de France. Fortunately it will be over this weekend and we can get back to work!
Monday, July 11, 2011
One Re-finished Piece of Furniture!
At the Money Pit, we have been collecting a lot of furniture that needs to be re-finished before we can use it. One piece that has been hanging out in the basement for about 8 months (or more) was a dresser that our neighbor gave us.
The piece was in pretty good shape but there was a big crack in the top and it definitely needed to be re-finished. A long time ago, I stripped the piece and fixed the dresser top. It remained in a partially sanded condition for awhile. Chris spent a lot of the last couple weeks working on finishing up the sanding, staining, and polyurethaning. We also added some new (non-broken) handles. It looks much better – he did a great job! We’ll be using this in our bedroom temporarily until the real bedroom furniture is finished. This dresser is also our practice piece before finishing the master bedroom furniture (a.k.a. the good stuff).
This week we also got our very first food out of the garden – a nice cherry tomato! We have a ton of tomato plants this year so I have a feeling we’ll be making some salsa and pasta sauce…
Chris worked really hard over the weekend to make the front yard a little nicer looking for the short term. We had a lot of concrete slab pieces from near the basement that he reused for the front walk. We’ll probably have to use this for at least a month until we’re ready to pour concrete for our new sidewalk.
This week it is supposed to get up in the high 90s so we’ll most likely be hanging out inside…
The piece was in pretty good shape but there was a big crack in the top and it definitely needed to be re-finished. A long time ago, I stripped the piece and fixed the dresser top. It remained in a partially sanded condition for awhile. Chris spent a lot of the last couple weeks working on finishing up the sanding, staining, and polyurethaning. We also added some new (non-broken) handles. It looks much better – he did a great job! We’ll be using this in our bedroom temporarily until the real bedroom furniture is finished. This dresser is also our practice piece before finishing the master bedroom furniture (a.k.a. the good stuff).
This week we also got our very first food out of the garden – a nice cherry tomato! We have a ton of tomato plants this year so I have a feeling we’ll be making some salsa and pasta sauce…
Chris worked really hard over the weekend to make the front yard a little nicer looking for the short term. We had a lot of concrete slab pieces from near the basement that he reused for the front walk. We’ll probably have to use this for at least a month until we’re ready to pour concrete for our new sidewalk.
This week it is supposed to get up in the high 90s so we’ll most likely be hanging out inside…
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Demolition Weekend!
This week, Chris has been spending a lot of quality time with the free dresser we got from our neighbors. He’s been sanding, staining, and polyurethaning. Hopefully by the end of this week we can start using it!
Since we still have the concrete dumpster from last weekend, we rented a jackhammer and got a co-worker to bring over his Bobcat. Chris broke up the one sidewalk with the jackhammer and it was hauled over to the dumpster – it was a lot faster than what we did last weekend with sledge hammers and wheelbarrows!
The second sidewalk was a little worse. When it was poured, it had mesh and really thick rebar in it. Fortunately, the Bobcat was able to remove it without too much trouble.
We also asked if he could remove our landscaping from the front to keep us from having to dig it out by hand. Sometimes, no landscaping is better than bad landscaping. Of course now our front yard is just a big dirt pile. It may not be the most attractive but it shows that we’re trying to make some progress.
The whole long weekend was very hot and humid so we didn’t have much motivation to do any other work. After church on Sunday we went to pick raspberries at our favorite spot. We ended up with 7 ½ pounds of berries. Yum!
We went to our neighbors’ house for a cookout on Sunday evening. They had so many fireworks that it took them a long time to set them all off (plus the lighters stopped working frequently).
On the 4th, we had our own personal cookout and then walked to the end of our road to see some of the fireworks.
Now we just need to figure out what we want to do with our front sidewalk and landscaping!
Since we still have the concrete dumpster from last weekend, we rented a jackhammer and got a co-worker to bring over his Bobcat. Chris broke up the one sidewalk with the jackhammer and it was hauled over to the dumpster – it was a lot faster than what we did last weekend with sledge hammers and wheelbarrows!
The second sidewalk was a little worse. When it was poured, it had mesh and really thick rebar in it. Fortunately, the Bobcat was able to remove it without too much trouble.
We also asked if he could remove our landscaping from the front to keep us from having to dig it out by hand. Sometimes, no landscaping is better than bad landscaping. Of course now our front yard is just a big dirt pile. It may not be the most attractive but it shows that we’re trying to make some progress.
The whole long weekend was very hot and humid so we didn’t have much motivation to do any other work. After church on Sunday we went to pick raspberries at our favorite spot. We ended up with 7 ½ pounds of berries. Yum!
We went to our neighbors’ house for a cookout on Sunday evening. They had so many fireworks that it took them a long time to set them all off (plus the lighters stopped working frequently).
On the 4th, we had our own personal cookout and then walked to the end of our road to see some of the fireworks.
Now we just need to figure out what we want to do with our front sidewalk and landscaping!
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