Busy, busy bees!

Things have been so busy since we moved in at the beginning of the month! Every day has been devoted to some project around the house, and we still have tons and tons more to do and plenty of boxes to unpack.

One of the biggest projects has been getting the backyard ready to be fenced in and safe for Lucy to roam and eat sticks. Since dismantling the shed that once stood in the back, we've had to rake up endless amounts of debris (nails, glass shards, wood planks, etc.) and build a retaining wall to prevent the neighbor's chain link fence from toppling in a landslide.

Here's the site where the shed used to be, with the retaining wall in place:


You can really see how having it gone has opened the whole place up considerably. Here's a before and after:



We're getting a delivery of 10 yards of top soil on Monday, which we'll spread over the sand. Then we'll be able to lay some grass seed and get some green growing!

Inside, the living room is definitely the furthest along of all of the rooms. We've still got some things to work out and change, but it's the one room in the house that feels almost complete.



We need to get a much smaller chair for the computer and some new throw pillows for the couch to coordinate with the curtains. I'm actually happier with the ceiling lights than I thought I'd be (and they really don't look like boobs as much after they're installed...) I'm in love with the wall color, which changes during the day from a beige to putty to a deep mocha, depending on the light. Since the room is so big (it's something like 20x13) the rich color works beautifully and doesn't make it seem small, which was one of my fears. Lucy loves having all the extra room, and one of her favorite spots to stretch out and sleep is between the tv and the coffee table.

Yesterday, on a whim, Branden started priming the mudroom. This room had dark brown paneling on the walls and needed to be brightened up.

Here's the mudroom before we started painting:


And here's the mudroom currently, with most of the room primed:

Doesn't look great, but it's already an improvement!

There's still tons more to do. And since moving in, we've somehow lost electricity in all of the upstairs bedrooms aaand I put a hole in one of the windows while hanging blinds. Don't ask me how that happened. We'll hopefully be able to get an electrician in this week to figure out what in the world is going on upstairs, and with luck it won't require any major rewiring. The joys of being a homeowner!

Primed and ready

Lots of progress around Lucy's house the past few days! I'll just cut to the chase. And by chase, I mean pictures.

The dining room and living room have been been sanded and primed! They're ready for paint and crown molding and then they'll be finished!! Wow, that sentence seems so impossible. But it's true!

Here's the living room in all its clean, white glory:




We've decided not to reinstall the china cabinet in the corner above. Once we got it out it really opened the room up. And I was never a huge fan of the design anyway. It was very outdated. Plus, it had been added later (probably in the 70s or 80s) and was made of crappy particle board. So, off to the dumpster it goes!



The dining room is looking great. I can't wait to see our new chandelier installed.

I think the biggest transformation so far is the office upstairs. This room looks so complete already and it's only been primed! It's SO much cleaner and brighter:



The guest bedroom walls are all up now and it's ready for primer as well:



The master is getting there, with just one more wall to complete.



So those are the big changes on the inside. We're definitely coming along! Everything is projected to be finished by Friday, so we're less than a week away from completion! It doesn't even seem possible that the house can look so great given what we started with. Can't wait to see the paint colors!

The yard is making progress too. Branden and our friend Josh spent last night cutting up the shed roof into pieces and hauling them to the dumpster.




It's tough to tell now with all the debris, but getting that shed down really has opened the yard up a ton!

I'm off to Florida until Wednesday, but I'll hopefully have tons of progress to share when I get back. The downstairs should probably be completely finished by then. Can't wait!!

Tetanus anyone? Yes, please!

So a few days ago when I first posted about our plans to dismantle our backyard shed, I jokingly said that I would be staying out of the way to avoid any trips to the emergency room. Har har har, I laughed. Because it was a joke. Of course we wouldn't be going to the hospital! It would all be fine! Piece of cake! Well.

After hours of Branden and his father attacking the shed's surprisingly solid frame with sledgehammers, sawzall, ropes, pulleys, and brute force, the behemoth finally came down.

Here's Branden sawing into the last standing side:


The roof, finally almost down:




This picture was taken just shortly before they victoriously collapsed the whole thing into a big pile of wood scraps.

I don't have any pictures of it completely down because this is right about the time that Branden got a nail through his foot. He continues working, mind you, until the shed is completely collapsed, saying that he's fine and we can just go to the ER after it's done.

So once the job was done we headed over to the hospital:


They decided to take an x-ray and found that a half-inch piece of the nail had broken off and was lodged inside his foot. So while he continued to swing a sledgehammer into a shed wall, he had a half inch of rusty tetanus-and-mouse-pee-infested nail inside his foot. We had been at the ER for over an hour, and waiting for anesthesia would take at least another hour, so in his infinite wisdom he told the nurse to just go ahead and remove it right then. Being too impatient to wait, and because he's a freak who doesn't feel pain, he had them cut his foot open and pull the nail out without any local anesthesia. They gave him a tetanus booster and a band-aid and we were on our way.

Side note: emergency rooms are very strange places. I know it's unfair to generalize, but the trashiest people were in there. There was yelling, crying, limping, and all around it was kind of a freakshow. Entertaining though.

Weekend Tally
Sheds dismantled: 1
Trips to the hospital: 1

All in all, I'd call it a wash.

On the menu for this weekend: more demolition!

Our house is on a quarter-acre lot. Most of the yard space is on the front and right side of the house. Along with lots of storage space in the basement, there is also a detached garage and a gigantic shed in the back. The shed is about double the size of the average shed but curiously only has a single door, not the double barn doors that could accommodate a lawn mower or other equipment.

We have no idea what this could have been built for. Given the patch-it-instead-of-fix-it-right-the-first-time technique found throughout the house, I highly doubt it was a workshop. I don't get the impression that anyone handy lived here. Ever. Perhaps a chicken coop? Studio? Place to stash the dead bodies? Evil scientist's lair?

Here's the shed in question:

See how huge it is compared to Branden? There's no need, people.

H-U-G-E. It takes up a massive chunk of the backyard. And that is yard space that a certain jumbo pooch would love to have to frolick in, eat sticks, and poop on.

Enter the rented dumpster:

Since we've got that bad boy just until the middle of next week, we figured we should fill 'er up. The plan is to cut into the shed and rip it all down on Sunday (with help!). I will probably be hanging out with the pup, maybe sanding and painting that cruddy picnic table and benches you can see in second picture of the shed. Or weeding and trimming hedges. Or daydreaming. What I mean to say is, I'll be finding other ways to be helpful while completely avoiding taking down a large-ish structure with sledgehammers and saws or carting the rusty nail-encrusted pieces to the dumpster. Since I find new ways to accidentally hurt myself every day, this project is a trip to the ER just waiting to happen for me. No thanks!

Here it is from the front of the house, looking up the side of the yard:

That will be just green space once the shed is down. I can't wait to see how much it will open up the yard when it's gone. Fingers crossed for no major (or minor) injuries!