i.need.a.holiday.after.my.holiday[part.one]

so when i last left you all i was in the middle of the weekend. well a lot of time has passed since then and my memory of the details of sunday are foggy at best. the only real excitement i can recall is that our closet collapsed sunday night at about 11pm and i had to fix it on monday. it was quite an annoyance, but everything is fine now.

the real excitement happened over this last holiday weekend. as i mentioned in the previous post, the in-laws were comin to town for a visit and we'd been preparing for their arrival. so friday night after work i cleaned house some more and set up the 2nd floor bedroom for them so they could have a little privacy on the 2nd floor with their own room and own bathroom. [theyd still have to share the only working shower, but its a big step up from practically sharing the same room with us - see: the circus coming to town...] anyway i got things pretty well prepared for them and then after karen was finished with school we went to the store and got some window treatments for the room so that the room wouldnt be completely open for the world to see. we spent the next couple of hours putting those up - a task that proved more difficult than id have liked, and the heat in the house was not working in my favor either... [this is actually going to be a bit of a consistency for the entire weekend... it was HOT] well at some point we finished and snuggled up in front of the tv for a while and before we knew it the cell phone was ringing and the in-laws were at the front door. well it was around 12:15am from my recollection and this was actually a little unexpected. wed been informed earlier that day that their flight had been delayed at least an hour, and they actually showed up earlier than originally planned... so not entirely sure what happened there, but we exchanged hugs, showed them to their room, and let them retire for the evening after all their traveling.

[saturday day.one]
well we were anticipating getting some house work done this weekend [i believe we may have discussed in brevity what projects we anticipated the night before] so we were all up pretty early and getting ready to start the festivities. after everyone had their coffee and breakfast we decided on a plan of action and then started putting together all of our lists. the days projects were anticipated to include, but werent limited to: home depot/lowes for materials & supplies, the grocery store to stock up for the weekend and the week to come, finish the bookshelves once and for all, put up the crown molding [caulk, fill, paint, and touch up as required], and if there was time get started on painting a few small areas that were still in need of some tlc. anticipated items for day 2 were to include replacing two doors, getting dirt and filling the planter outside, and then moving on to more painting and landscaping in the backyard. day 3, to be determined.
well, obviously we were a bit eager and thinking we could get quite a bit done, so we soon set off for the depot to pick up the few items we needed.
at the depot we got a little side tracked looking for some items that they ended up not having, but we were pretty good about staying on the list and without too much delay left the depot and headed to lowes to see if they had the missing items. well, they did, however we ran into a little bit of an assistance snag [in that the guy assisting us was pretty well worthless] and resolved to let anne [thats mom-in-law] stay at lowes to finish up while the rest of us walked next door to biggs to get started on grocery shopping. soon we were filling the basket with all the usual weekly items and then allan [dad-in-law] pulled out the envelope of coupons that mom was insisting we use, and we worked on those as well. i cant tell you exactly how long it had been, but it must have been close to an hour when mom finally popped into the grocery store as we were getting the last few items and checking out. apparently the worthless guy had been quite an ordeal, but eventually shed gotten what we needed and mom and i decided to go get the car and bring it around while karen and dad finished up with the groceries and we could all load up.
soon we were in the car and headed back home, anxious to unload all the new goodies and get started on the projects for the day. after unloading and having a quick bite to eat we were ready to get to work and split up into teams for the weekend. dad and i would do most of the guy stuff - measuring, cutting, heavy lifting, installing, that sort of thing - and mom and karen would take care of the lighter [although still just as important and just as labor intensive] work - like caulking, filling, painting, doing homework [that was karen specific] and supervising the guys [obviously the most crucial and time intensive task]. well we decided to start with the crown molding for the guys while the girls took down all the shelves that still needed to be painted and got started on that.
we were pretty confident as we got started on the crown molding because, well, how hard could it really be? its a 45degree miter for a 90 degree corner, right? thats what it was on all the base molding, and that went pretty quickly when karen and i did it, so this should be just as straight forward logically. well we took some measurement and got our crown out, got the miter saw hooked up and decided that just in case we were off a little on our measurement or cuts we better start with the smallest corner. so we set the miter, measured out boards and cuts [not just once, but twice] and climbed the ladder to bask in our glory.... and thats where everything went wrong. hahaha, as we stuck the wo pieces together we soon realized that they werent just a little off, but in fact were a mile off. the angles didnt line up at all, wed totally forgotten about the crown tilting out and having to cut back. crap, these were going to be compound angles. not only were we going to need the 45degree between the boards, we were also going to have to cut back at a 45 degree so that they would lean out - right? so we tried that method. calibrated the saw accordingly, made our new measurements, cuts, and then climbed back up the ladder... nope. what? but its a 90 degree angle, and this is half of that and theyre tilted at the same angle, so why isnt this working?? well we were a little befuddled at this point and had no idea what was wrong, so i came to the conclusion that since they were tilting out maybe that cut the angle in half again, so it was half of 45, so 22.5. that makes sense, right? alright, we had a plan, wed figured it out, we just didnt completely wrap our minds around the geometry the first two times, no biggie, we were still fresh afterall, the weekend had only just begun. so we re-calibrated, re-measure, re-cut again [at this point having gone through 3/4's of a piece of crown] and back up the ladder to see our succe...s&%$. that wasnt it either. and there was no discernible rationale for what angle we could possibly infer as the difference between the two. well now that we were quite frustrated and scratching our heads [which between the two of us - a masters in architecture and a real life head of scientific research - is saying a little bit i think] we decided to find the d.i.y. beginners books that mom had gotten us when we first bought the house, lol! well when those didnt turn up [weve misplaced a few things in all the rearranging and moving things around, but im sure theyll turn up soon] we opted for the advice of the internet. after a little searching karen found some website that had a table listing the various angles necessary for cutting crown molding - none of which made any logical sense whatsoever from a 90 degree wall angle and a 45degree bisection of that angle, but... whatever. so we found the numbers we thought we needed on the table, set our saw appropriately, re-measured the cuts again and then.... no. still not right... wtf?? so we consulted the website and chart again and it turns out theres two types of crown, one tilts at 45 degrees, one tilts at 38 degrees [where did these people come up with this stuff??? why 38 degrees??] and we apparently had the 38 degree variety so that came with a whole new set of angles. so we went back to the saw and comically enough, discovered that the new angles were actually pre-marked right on the saw all along if only we'd known to look for them, lol! apparently these are the "typical" angles for cutting crown.... anyway, so we remeasured [now having completely gone through a whole length of crown] and got ready to install using our handy new air compressor and nail gun that karen and i bought some time back. we tested the cut pieces and this time it worked! woo hoo! we were in business! i still have no clue how they came up with the angles that make these things work, but i also have no desire to sit down and try to work the geometry to figure it out either. lets just say that a master carpenter somewhere along the line was way better at this stuff than i am, heh.
so we glued the pieces up and stuck them where they were meant to go and got the compressor kicked on until we ran into a little hiccup - we were missing the one little connector between the gun and the hose. #$^*@.... so we sent karen to the hardware store around the corner while we measured and cut the next piece in line and by the time she got back we were ready to install. after trouble shooting the nail gun and getting everything in place we shot the first couple of nails and soon we were moving right along. the first two pieces went up no problem and then the 3rd we ran into a little snag. it was an outside masonry wall and the nail gun was not going to cut it. so we resolved to cut and mount a nailer first, then after a little more work we had the crown in place attached to it. well by this time we were starting to get the hang of this and it started to go a little faster. measure, cut, glue, nail, countersink... we got into a pattern and before long we'd installed all of the crown on 4/5's of the entryway. however, we ran into a little snag... we ran out of crown after all that trial and error on the first piece, haha! so we decided instead to move on to the second piece of the crown [we were doing a two piece type, for those of you that dont know, floor and crown molding can be a variety of combinations of pieces and any number of sizes]. these were just going to be flat against the wall like the base molding and were a much more simple measuring and cutting situation after the insanity of the crown. well... while wed been doing all this, the girls had painted all the shelves and were letting those dry, then had moved on to installing some pieces of glass that were missing in our front and back door - to make them much prettier - and then had even started filling and painting the trim around the two diamond windows in the stairwell and priming the rest of the stairwell to paint to match the entryway. well around dinner time we were all pretty gross from sweating all day [did i mention it was HOT?!] and were pretty hungry, so we decided to go to the comet for some mexican food and some hot salsa we'd told the in-laws about.
by the time we finished dinner it was getting pretty late and we'd only gotten most of one project done, so a little frustrated with our progress the guys finished as much of the crown as we could without the extra we needed to buy the next day and before long we were all exhausted and called it a night.

sorry, but my lunch break is over, youll just have to stay tuned for pictures and the rest of the weekend!!

then.suddenly.productivity

sorry its been a while, again. it seems like when i first started blogging, it was an everyday thing. and now, im lucky to get around to it once a week. so for those of you loyal readers that miss my multiple weekly postings, i do apologize, however im not sure if it'll change any time soon.

i guess the biggest change in the last few months has been our level of productivity, and thus the quantity of things for me to report on.

luckily, theres been a lot of activity in the last few days, so ive actually got something to talk about. and, to be honest, i probably have enough to last me a couple of lunch breaks, so you might actually get more than one post this week. we shall see...

so whats new in current events...

[roof/contractors]

well i think i mentioned last time around that the roofers had moved their ladders for the neighbors, but that they were nearly finished. well, to expand on that a little, i guess i'll give you the full breadth of what all we've had done in the last few months.

obviously we started out with the roof. the original roofing job consisted of repairing/replacing/rebuilding the box gutters along the west side of the house where there was significant damage that then resulted in significant water damage to the west side of the house. also, they were going to tear off all the existing slate on our mansard roof and replace it all with 30year dimensional shingle. lastly, they were going to do a number of various repair work including molding, trim, flashing, dormers, a little repainting and sealing, and downspouts. that was the original work, haha. soon after we got started they discovered that the porch roof was in pretty bad shape, and so we shingled and repaired it as well. well as far as the roof goes, that was about it, but as ive mentioned in previous posts, my roofer is actually a general contractor and can do just about any work we need [and ive also mentioned hes a great guy!] so we recently ended up having him do some work in the basement as well repairing some floor joists and reinforcing them with columns and footings. and finally, on top of all that, after we had the windows installed and my parents were in town, we discovered a few leaks in the house after a rainstorm and came to the realization that we had a serious problem involving some gaps in the exterior surface of the house around the window openings and that we didnt really have proper sill flashing with the windows either. so while the contractor had his ladders out and his guys out anyway, we had him do some minor repairs to those gaps by filling them with expanding foam and then caulking them in and then additionally adding sill flashing to all the windows. and thus concludes the entire scope of work from our contractor.

well as far as a progress report goes, theyve finished just about all of it! =]

there are only a few minor things that remain and hes assured me theyll get it done in the very near future. [just need some good weather during the week, like... today for instance...] anyway, what still remains is some very minor patching on the corners of the trim around the edge of our flat roof, and then two small places where the guys didnt finish the window caulking - my guess is that they stopped for lunch and then just forgot to finish it up afterwards and moved on to other things. no biggie really, everything they have less should take a couple of hours tops.

[this.weekend|saturday]

so this weekend we were actually quite productive in comparison to the last couple of weekends.

on saturday we did our usual saturday morning routine that we've been in for the last 6 weeks or so. we get up and walk down the 4 or 5 blocks to our local diner, blue jays, and have a nice breakfast. its nice to take the short walk in the mornings and we really love being able to support locally owned and operated businesses in our neighborhood - not to mention they have pretty great food!

well after that we walked home and took a look at our list of things to get accomplished and our list of things we needed from the store. well, it was still pretty chilly outside [around 37] but it was supposed to warm up to the mid 60's in the afternoon and we wanted to get a lot of stuff done outside, so we decided to do our trip to walmart first. so we drove over to walmart and spent a good hour to hour and a half [as it always seems to take...] going through the store and getting the things on our list, and as usual, a few things that werent. well this isnt really an exciting story for the most part, however we did have a little event during the trip. we'd finally gotten to the register with our things after waiting in line for god only knows how long [classic walmart, 20 registers in the store w/4 open on a saturday afternoon...] and i reach for my wallet as we start loading the conveyor belt. uh-oh. yeah, i didnt have it... but we'd already waited in line so long! so i sent karen out to the truck to look for it or anything else that might be out there while i continued to load. well soon enough she returned, sans wallet. ef. i knew exactly where it was... my nightstand. however we did have a checkbook, so i tried to just pay with a check. however, without your drivers license... no dice. so we apologized, asked if they could hold our cart, and went to look for my wallet "in the truck." well, i was a bit frustrated to say the least as we drove all the way home and then all the way back with my wallet [yeah, it was on the nightstand] and then got back in the back of the line and waited again to finally pay for our purchase. embarrassing? yes. waste of time and gas? yes. did i want to just say f*&^ it and not get the crap? yes. but by the time we finished paying, i was in better spirits and karen and i were joking around as normal as we headed home.

well by the time we finally got home [hours later] we had a brief lunch and then decided it was time to start on that list. well luckily we'd wasted enough of the morning that it had warmed up quite a bit and was actually quite beautiful outside. so the first thing on our list was to secure all of the railings on the porch. so drill and a box of screws in had, i went around the porch and did just that. overall it was a fairly simple task and we finished it up quickly enough. and now that we've gotten that taken care of, karen is going to be scheduling our insurance agent to come out some time this week [hopefully] and we can stop tempting fate and finally get some homeowners insurance! [which is a handy thing to have, because without it if your house that youd spent all your money and gotten into debt with , say had an electrical fire *ahem* and burnt to the ground, well, i think the technical insurance term for what youd be is, um... f*&^ed.]

so with that crossed off the list, we moved on to installing the new waterhose reel we'd gotten at the walmart and then the new hose we'd gotten. that went fairly smoothly as well, and karen was quite excited about the prospects of washing the truck and the potential "gardening" we'll be getting to do when spring finally gets here. [im not convinced thats anytime soon, haha] again, easy enough, crossed off the list.

well the next thing on the list was the one i was dreading... the backyard. see the roofers, as they were ripping down everything and replaying it, had been creating a nice pile in the backyard [im pretty sure thereve been a few pictures posted] of... crap. well the little wifey had had enough, she wanted it gone, and thats what we intended to do. luckily, the guys next door have been working steadily all week and we've had a pretty amiable relationship with them so far and friday afternoon the guy in charge was nice enough to offer his giant dumpster to us if ever we needed it. so that made life a million times easier, instead of having to make multiple trips to who knows where carting off all the crap in our backyard, we just had to move it from the backyard to the dumpster in the front. =] well i shouldnt say easy... this was no easy task... it took hours [and plenty of grumbling on my part, haha] but by the time it was starting to get dark [7ish?] we'd made dozens of trips to the dumpster and our enormous pile had dwindled to a few reasonably small piles of sorted brick, stone, and slate scraps. we'd made a world of progress on the trash situation, and while theres still plenty of work to be done [like cleaning up the hopelessly crushed slate thats... everywhere...] we're quite pleased with ourselves. also, in addition to our trips to the dumpster, we also made a dozen or so trips to the basement with all the leftover bags of shingles we had and made a nice little palette of them in a high dry-er place in the basement.

now, if that wasnt enough, well... part of the way through cleaning the pile i got it in my head that i was damn tired of the remaining pieces of the stair/deck/balcony on the back of the house. you may remember in one of my much earlier posts, that we'd ripped down all the stairs off this thing, but that the decks still remained. well... now the middle one doesnt =] i started to disassemble a few party of the remaining hand rail while karen continued on the pile and before long i was determined to just rip the middle deck down altogether, and thats exactly what i did. basically i got behind the thing against the wall, and with karen helping to stabilize, i successfully removed it from the wall, and into the middle of the backyard, in one... strenuous, haha, push. well, luckily for us the thing fell perfectly with our guidance, and twisted itself right into the middle of the yard avoiding all obstacles on its way - including the balcony, the house, all of our trees and shrubs, and most importantly - my wife. =]

so for part of the time we were cleaning up i ripped the deck apart and we salvaged some of the wood that looked like it could possibly be reused. now theres a partially dismantled platform remaining in the backyard, but its amazing how much different it looks without that stupid thing back there! the tress and bushes that had been growing up under it all look so happy as they bask in their new sunlight, heh.

well anyway, that was about it for saturday, after they we were just destroyed for the day and settled in for a nice dinner and some tv in bed.

[this.weekend|sunday]

well sunday got here much sooner than i wanted it to... karen got out of bed about an hour to an hour and a half before i did and started cleaning house and doing laundry and other domestic things while i finished getting my beauty sleep, haha, i have an awesome wife!

anyway, eventually i joined her and we spent the morning doing some various cleaning and straightening up, and soon enough i started in again on the bookshelves we'd started a few weeks ago. well, while i worked on drilling holes, putting in anchors, cutting pieces, etc. karen worked on painting all the pieces i finished with as well as some furniture that still needed to be painted. you may remember that originally we'd started to stain the bookshelves an oops stain we'd bought some time ago, however after seeing some of it on the wall we decided it just didnt fit in the room and opted to paint it all the same high-gloss black we were doing some of the furniture in. and honestly, it looks a million times better so far. by midday we decided to take a break from the bookshelves after making quite a bit of progress. so far we'd gotten all of the holes drilled and anchors in place for 5 out of the six walls that the shelves were on, all of the mounting pieces cut and almost all of them painted, and all of the mounting pieces actually mounted to the wall on one side. all in all, that was a HUGE accomplishment given whats left of assembling them =] again we were quite pleased with ourselves, haha.

well it was time to go outside and soak up the day a little bit while we took our break, so karen decided it was time to wash the truck and finally put on the license plates, lol, and some new windshield wipers. so while she got started on the washing, i got started on the installing, and soon enough we had it all done and the truck was looking as shiny as when we first bought it.

and while i was waiting on karen to put the finishing touched on the truck, i took a moment to fix the latch on the fence gate once and for all - now it opens and closes as smooth as butter ;]

after the outside work we went back inside and i prepared a nice little feast for dinner and we sat down in the parlor to bask in our days accomplishments. things were coming together pretty well, i must say. we'd spent a good part of the day just cleaning up and straightening things and we even moved the skeletal remains of a sectional sofa out of the house now that karen had finished harvesting all the materials she wanted off of it. so far shes already made 2 pillows from its carcass, and im sure theres plenty more to come =]

well by the time it got dark we were pretty well done for the weekend and dreading the coming week, so we spent the rest of the night watching a movie and a little tv before passing out.

so now, its back to the grind stone as the week starts up. so far my day has been fairly routine, but ive stayed busy so im not complaining. karen is off this week as she gears up for her next quarter starting next week and her new job. she'll be spending the week getting school stuff together, working on some minor house stuff, and whatever other little things need to get done [like the home owners insurance!].

right now we're planning to get the house cleaned up pretty good in the next few days and hopefully this weekend or next we'll be able to have a small get together at the house for all our friends in cincy to come check out the house progress. but we'll see how that goes, we've been intending to do it for months, but something always seems to come up. more on that as things develop =]

well thats all for today, hope youre all having a pleasant monday and enjoying some gorgeous weather!

little.victories

1.30.09|friday

well when last we spoke of current events it was friday afternoon and if memory serves, we were discussing the new windows, the inspections|permits situation, and my parents had just informed us of their impending visit. for those of you who actively read the comments as well, you already know that i mentioned in one that amanda was coming to town friday night, that was the basis of our evening's activities.

so after work karen and i called up amanda and we arranged our schedules for the evening and planned what we were going to do. amanda had some meeting to attend when she first arrived in cincy and we werent going to meet|eat till after 8pm, so karen and i decided to make our first stop dinner [seeing as we were famished post-travieller] and after a short debate on what sounded good we ended up at deweys for a nice big salad and a nice big pizza. it was delish as always and after dinner we headed home for a little hard work. 

we got back at the house around 6:30 and the place was a disaster so we spent the next hour and 45 minutes cleaning any and every-thing from one room to the next. just general tidying up, straightening, putting things away, organizing, and where necessary some good old fashioned cleaning of floors, surfaces, etc. at 8 amanda notified us that she and pay-trick [thats patrick in "amanda speak" - her boy... well, im really not sure what they are technically...] were at hideaway [another local northside restaurant that has some pretty delicious food and a funky-eclectic atmosphere that karen and i find pleasing and humorous. they also have the most awesome appetizer called creamer potatoes with special hideaway sauce - if you ever venture to hideaway you HAVE to try them... mm-mmm, delectable!] and were ready for our arrival. so we finished what we were doing, bundled up for the cold [high teens to low twenties i believe] and drove the 4 blocks to meet them, lol! [it was cooold!] soon after we arrived a few more of amanda's friends from cincy joined us as well and the 6 of us waited for a table and had a few laughs. eventually we were seated and had more robust conversation and some of the fore-mentioned creamer-potatoes, and eventually main courses [i was still full from deweys so i abstained from a main course, haha]. we had a good time hanging out and having dinner and eventually it was time to hit the road so we said our goodbyes and then amanda and pay-trick followed us over to the house so that they could be the first of our friends to see the new place! how exciting!

well for the next couple of hours we gave them the tour and then enjoyed more conversation and laughs [not to mention a little wine and some of my mother-in-law's AWESOME fudge! which we all thoroughly enjoyed! thanks mom!] before they ultimately said their goodbyes and headed home for the night. it was a ton of fun getting to have a social life for a night and we loved being able to finally entertain at the house - even if it was only for a short while and the place was a disaster, lol!

1.31.09|saturday

saturday morning we slept in a little, but eventually were pulled from our warm cozy bedding by our desire for sustenance. i was the first down and got coffe started and then decided to make some of my famous breakfast burrito concoction that i can only refer to as "breakfast mix-up." i wont divulge my secret recipe, but i will say its always a pleasing meal for karen and i and will surely fill you up! for us it made a quite satisfying brunch [as it was nearly noon by the time we finished] after which we decided to relax on the dining room sofa for a while and watch some west wing. [i LOVE west wing!]

i honestly cant say how long we vegged out, but at some point we decided it was time to get something accomplished for the day and the first thing we did was unpack and put away a bunch of boxes that were still in the dining room. satisfied with that project and ready for the next, we decided to move all the furniture away from the walls and get started prepping the dining room for painting. it was the next room in line and we were anxious to get the ghastly sponge-painted catastrophy that was our dining room out of sight and out of mind. so for the next few hours we cleaned, taped, and plastered the walls on 2/3rds of the room. [we've decided that the only way we can really do these rooms and live in the house at the same time is to do half a room at a time until completion and move all the furniture from one side to the other, but still have it in somewhat of a useable arrangement. such was the case with the dining room as well.]

eventually karen decided to call it a night [without telling me, lol, i thought she'd just gone upstairs to use the restroom or something] and i did a second run-through of plastering before assisting a neighbor in freeing her car from the snow and then eventually a nice-hot-shower and bed. [karen had passed out pretty quickly, so she didnt even notice my absence until i made my way upstairs and woke her, lol!]

2.1.09|super-bowl.sunday

haha, super-bowl sunday indeed... 

karen and i had decided the night before that we were going to get up early sunday morning and get one coat of paint on the dining room before church so that by the time we returned it would be ready for the second coat. well as arranged, we got up early and did some painting and were really excited about the new color. its kind of a sagey-olive-green [although it reminds me more of what i consider to be army green than anything else] and after the first coat we were quite pleased as we headed upstairs to get ready for church. the paint went on very well and thr room looked a trillion times better after one-wet-coat. [that sponge paint was horrific!!]

well, as it often seems to happen, we finished getting ready for church at about 10:05. church usually starts at 10am [although this weekend for super-bowl sunday they were starting at 10:15am. regardless...] it was obvious we werent going to make it to the 10am service, so we resigned ourselves to doing a once over of all the shopping lists before treating ourselves to a breakfast at ihop before attempting the later service. 

well i dont mind telling you we were very pleased to discover that ihop had all you could eat pancakes! hahaha! i enjoyed the hell out of some pancakes and was quite proud of myself for putting away 3 plates of them =] however, in light of the all-you-can-eat situation, the plates they brought you were about 2/3rds the norm. at any rate, we were nicely filled to the gills by the time we waddled out of ihop, however it was only 11:30 and the next service wasnt starting for another 45 minutes. at this point we decided to make the quickest shopping trip on our list, a quick run to walmart for some lightbulbs and license plate covers [we finally got our license plates for the new truck last week!]

well... haha... things never quite go as planned. we got to walmart after 15 minutes of traffic [which was pathetic because it was only across the freakin bridge from ihop! where did all these people come from?? and where were they going??] but were sure we could get our few items and still make it on time. so we went in and found the lightbulb section just where we'd left it the last time we'd been there, however this is where we ran into a slight problem. we were getting lightbulbs because we had some cupons from our energy company that were going to expire soon and we wanted to take advantage of them before that happened. however the cupons were very specific about which lightbulbs [all cfl's of course! woohoo!] each cupon was for. well you wouldnt think that would be too much of a problem except that the specific packaging was shown on the cupon and the packaging of the lightbulbs in the store had changed since the things were issued. i wasnt sure if it was going to be a problem or not, but looked for the ones pictured for a while. 

to make matters worse, haha, while i was being anal retentive, karen got distracted by the adjacent fabric section and wandered off. it was an awesome find though, all the walmarts in denver, and im pretty sure texas as well, have stopped selling fabric and i assumed that it was a nationwide thing. recently karen and i have been looking for fabric to redo the new couches and chairs with, and joanns was a disappointment to say the least... whooo-expensive!

well we found all kinds of cool fabric and eventually i even found a sales associate [who was totally clueless about the lightbulbs anyway, so i just said screw it...] and got the closest thing i could find - oh and we also found some license plate covers, haha. anyway, by the time we checked out we looked at the clock and it was 12:30pm... so much for church. meh, they were doing some super-bowl sunday special thing anyway, and i was hardly interested in what that would turn out to be. i didnt mind missing it and we got to continue our sunday shopping anyway. 

after walmart we went next door to the depot [february had finally arrived!] to get a few things on our list - it was actually quite short considering how long it had been, 4 or 5 items total i think? followed by a quick trip to home emporium to pick up one specific item [more to come on that at a later date however], then next door to lowes for an additional supporting item to the one at home emporium, then finally next door again to bigg's to do our grocery shopping for the week. [whew!] after all of that we finally got home just before 4pm and were pretty tired, lol! well after unloading and putting away everything we decided to get to work, and jumped right in to the second coat of paint. it went on very smooth and we were really loving the color - it had only gotten better as it had greated us when we got home - fully dried and to its real color!

well after that coat of paint we were hungry again [although i dont know how!] and had a snack|supper and watched some more west wing [yeah!] and just relaxed for a while. however, around 6:30pm i was motivated again and we decided to tackle another project - re-covering the dining room sofa. 

well, after discussing our approach and testing some fabric and batting options, we searched the house for karens staple gun only to discover that it was pretty dinky and was NOT going to get the job done. we were both pretty revved up at this point so we made the decision to make a trip back to the depot to get a real staple gun and various staples and brads and such, and then continue the project. it was a very quick trip - we stayed focused: get in. get out. get home. - and before long we were stretching fabric and experimenting with the sofa. im not sure how long we played with that but we got half the sofa re-covered and so far we're really happy with it! i dont have pictures yet, im going to wait till we're finished with the transformation, but im really hoping it turns out well! =] after that i talked to my mom and brother for a little bit before bed and then karen and i passed out exhausted from our weekend.

yeah, we totally forgot about the super-bowl in the midst of all the projects, but then again neither of us were all that interested in it anyway - i didnt even know who was playing - nor did we have tv to watch anyhow. oh-well. 

2.2.09|monday

well, thats today. and youd think that it being only lunch time i wouldnt have much to report, however i do have two victories to add to this update! this morning on the way in to work we stopped off at the city building & inspections office and officially obtained our permit for the wall! woohoo!! so now that we have all our permits in order, i just need to schedule a couple of inspections and hopefully we can get the certificate of occupancy soon !

secondly, about 2 hours ago i got a phone call, and i was shocked to find that it was the window people calling. theyd already ordered the correct sized remaining window, it was being fabricated this week, and would be ready for installation this weekend! so we're getting the last window installed saturday morning! woohoo again!!!

i love little victories! =]

this week is starting off pretty good so far, but now, ive got to get back to work. hope you all have a great week too! ill try to keep you updated on any more progress we make on the house this week - although i certainly cant promise anything, lol!

cheers! [and go... steelers?? where my cowboys at??]

win-ders!

[oh yeah, love that texan twang!]

so obviously the big topic of yesterday was the new windows. so heres a "small" update on yesterday...

when i last left you the guys were working on the windows and id gotten my truck stuck after dropping karen off at work and id discovered my own little ice-wonderland.

well after i finished blogging the guys were all but finished with the upstairs and had moved downstairs. so i went up to take some pictures, but much to my dismay, all of the pictures were turning out like crap. it was so bright outside, especially with the sun reflecting off all the snow, that everything was crazy back-lit and silhouetted. and the flash only seemed to make matters worse. so i resigned myself to waiting till dark out to get the rest of the pictures.

not long after id gotten back downstairs there was a knock at the door [which was hard to hear on account of the hammering and drilling] and one of the installers hollered at me that there was a guy at the door. confused, i went to answer and a nice gentleman greeted me and asked if i needed a plumbing inspection. hot damn! id totally forgotten to call them that morning in all the excitement of the windows, luckily id attempted to schedule in advance and here he was! im not sure if ive mentioned this part before, so ill take a quick side-step to fill you in.

[inspections]

well as karen and i decided to get the windows put in we also decided it was time to go about getting home owners insurance if at all possible. so last week id made a phone call to our insurance agent and discussed the matter with him, and he seemed happy to work with us, but there was no way of getting around that thorn thats been in our side from day one... you guessed it, the certificate of occupancy. we'd been trying to get all the work done necessary to get the c.o.o. [lol!] but at this point we'd really been putting off contacting the city building inspections office because well... we hadnt exactly done everything legit and we were afraid it was going to bite us in the ass. now before you think poorly of me, we didnt really know either way how it was going to go, so it wasnt like we were attempting to be shady. let me explain... the wall for starters, well when we hired the masons out to do the wall we discussed getting a permit and they told us that the only reason we'd need a permit is in case the inspector was out while they were working and wanted to see it. since we were getting it done as a weekend job and it wasnt going to take more than that weekend [and the inspectors dont normally just drive around on the weekends looking for people out doing masonry work] we shouldnt have anything to worry about. now i specifically asked him if there was going to be an issue with the c.o.o. and he said as far as he knew there wouldnt be, as long as the work was done correctly they shouldnt care one way or the other about a permit. second was the plumber. when we hired the plumber we discussed permits yet again. after our discussion he formed me that most likely we would need 1 to 2 permits depending on the situation, but he was going to see if he could get around them by doing things a little differently but he'd let me know. i told him that it was fine with me, but that if he needed to pull one, go for it, i didnt mind paying for it... and thats the last i heard about it. so getting back to last week [and now that we're clear that i did ask my contractors up front about permits] after talking to the insurance agent i had no choice but to call my guy at the city building office. dont get me wrong hes a really nice guy [as many of you will remember from when i previously spoke about him in regards to us having the house barricaded oh so many eons ago...] and totally willing to work with me, i was just dreading the conversation because i didnt know how it was going to go. 

well sure enough i get him on the phone and the first thing he does is pull up our file on the computer and i hear "well, weve got a problem. im not showing any permits here." ef. so i discussed with him the situation and after talking through everything and being the nice guy he is, he said he had no problem working with me to get the permits and get the certificate of occupancy afterward. so he gave me the number of the inspectors office and told me to call my contractors and to call him back when i got my ducks in a row. all ill say is that im damn lucky, apparently there were some pretty nice fines i could have incurred, but he said this sort of thing happens all the time and as long as he can see that im trying to work with him, he'll let all that stuff slide and we'll get it done. [did i mention NICE guy?!] 

well after that conversation i called my contractors up and discussed the options with them. the mason was clueless... he didnt really know anything about permits and said he'd try to help me out if there was no other option, but he didnt know how much help hed be... great. the plumber was more helpful, he said that from our conversation he felt like i didnt want him to pull a permit, and apparently there was some miscommunication. but it was no big deal to him, hed get a permit pulled and call an inspector and let me know. well that was good news [and a segue to the inspector showing up] so i still had an issue with the masonry permit and wasnt sure what to do there and went ahead and called the inspectors office to ask them. well again i talked to a really nice guy, he gave me all the info i needed and it turns out i can pull the permit for the masonry work myself, so theres no problem at all. all i have to do is go down to their office and fill out the paperwork and we're good to go on that one, theyll schedule an inspection of the work, and unless they have a problem with what they see, we should be in business for getting the c.o.o.

so fast forward to this week, monday. we get home after work and i find a notice that the plumbing inspector had been by and that i need to call his office. well crap, the plumber never told me he scheduled a time for him to come out, so obviously he couldnt get in to see anything. well i called him up and discussed the issue and thats when we attempted to schedule for thursday morning. [i say attempted because he said he couldnt guarantee any appointments and this was obviously before the winter storm disaster blew through town...]

[fast forward to the present]

so when i saw him at the house i was elated! i welcomed him in and he got right to it. we went down into the basement, i showed him the hot water heater [the permit in question was for a new hot water heater - in you get a new one, you need a permit. so just keep that in mind if youre thinking about getting one. also, if you do any work related tot he main waterline - you need a permit. somehow my plumber got around that one i guess...] he went through his check list quickly and 5 minutes later he wrote out a form, put a sticker on my hot water heater and told me to have a nice day. that was it. we got our permit. pretty damn painless, lol! so now i just have to get around to pulling that permit for the masonry and schedule that inspector and we'll really be in good shape, eh? 

anyway, after the inspector left it was nearing 11:30 and the window guys were making some progress so i decided i better see about getting my truck un-stuck so i could get to work later. i went out and did some rocking for a while, forward, reverse, repeat. it moved a little here and there, then eventually i finally got a little traction and moved laterally about 10 ft, at which point i was stuck again and getting ever closer to that snow pile with the chewy toyota center [yummy... heh]. well at this point i was now half in middle of the road, half on the side of the road turned nearly perpendicular to the curb and not moving. i started the process over again, when my favorite neighbors come out to investigate, haha. theyd heard me working at it [ive got a v8 engine, lol, its not quite when it revs... although just the 2wd obviously, heh] and decided to see if they could help. and not long after they showed up, the window guys had stopped working and come to lend a hand as well. so tracy jumped in the front seat [the smallest and lightest of us all] and the rest of us got in back and started pushing and she tried to go forward. at first we made no progress, so we told her to try and reverse a little so she could get some momentum. and it worked! she backed up a little, then we all pushed as she got about 6 inches of momentum, and thats all it took! she finally was able to get it over the snowbank and onto the street! so that was a small victory. =] we got sahara out and parked in a much better location and then i went back in to watch the window guys install the remaining windows and help resolve any problems that may arise.

im happy to report, that there werent really any problems. haha. the only one we did face was when they first got there and they told me that theyd been sent with one window that was the wrong size. for whatever reason the fabricating guys gave them two of one window and didnt give them one that we needed, so they ended up with a duplicate of sorts. not sure what happened there, but it was no biggie. he said he got the right dimensions, hed put in the order for the right size and then in 2-3 weeks theyd be back out to install it, piece of cake! 

so at about 1pm they were on their way and i was on my way into work for the remainder of the day. i ended up staying a little later than id expected to [about 6pm] and poor karen was stranded till i could pick her up, but once we got home she seemed very happy with our new windows! the difference in the living room is just crazy with having 2 windows now that arent covered in plywood, lol! anyway, the rest of the evening was pretty laid back, we had chinese take-out and watched rocknrolla [i really liked it, very much in the tradition of snatch or lock, stock, although a bit slower... could have used a little more momentum throughout. i was a little shocked at how small jeremy piven and ludacris' roles were in the overall scheme of things, but maybe thats just me...] before turning in early. it had been a pretty exhausting day for me.

oh and one last thing, my dad called from saudi arabia this morning to tell us that he and my mom are making a trip up in a couple of weeks for a visit, so that shoud be a lot of fun. maybe we can get some of that electrical problem figured out, lol!

well, i know all you really wanted was pictures of the windows, so heres one for the site, and the rest can be found at my.pix.

cheers!

monster-cles!

good morning adoring fans. [i could probably use a little adorning as well, but eh...]

as i am writing to you new windows are being installed!! yesssssss! the ringing of hammers and the whirring buzzes of drills are creating a symphony of glorious glorious music to my ears! its been a long time coming, and its finally here!!

this morning as karen and i debated the treacherous ice-laden roads from here to her office, the wonderful phone call came in - "confirming our installation of your windows in about an hour?" | "yes, please!" as i vaguely recall mentioning in some blog-past we had finally taken the step to order our windows a few weeks ago. they were supposed to call me back to schedule an installation time and karen and i were getting antsy as first one week, then two weeks, then two and a half weeks went by without a phone call [or the half down payment being debited from our account] until last week on i believe it was wednesday afternoon, during my lunch break while i was studying for the leed test with a co-worker, my cell phone rang with a most spectacular call - "hi, this is window world, im calling to schedule your window installation, how does next thursday sound?" | "fantastic!" well this morning next thursday officially became today and i awoke with excitement and anticipation. 

around 8:30am karen decided she did want to risk the roads and go into work after calling her office and confirming that there were in fact a large number of robots rolling into the office as usual. grr.... damn robots... anyway so we embarked on our journey downtown and to our surprise the roads were actually in fairly decent shape. traffic was still a little heavy but the roads were mostly clear on the way down. it took nearly half an hour to get to her office, but it took about 10 minutes to get back and greet the window installers with a huge smile and handshake. we'd left a key for them to get started as soon as theyd arrived and theyd done just that. as i pulled in behind a snow pile [with a chewy toyota center] and thoroughly succeeded in getting my truck very stuck [now?? after all we made it through the last two days? now it gets stuck?!] i was elated to find our installers had already unloaded the windows onto the porch and one guy was already removing a window from the second story front room. yee-haw! i cant imagine why, but i am in GREAT spirits this morning! 

well anyway, to fill you in on the details i have so far, the windows look amazing. i momentarily had a conversation with the fantastic neighbor across the street whom ive mentioned on occasion in the past and had the chance to see two fully installed windows smiling back at me. damn they look good! tracy was pleased as well, lol, our poor neighbors have had to suffer through the wreck of a house weve had so far just as much as we have, lol!

well at this point i was truly pleased with the progress and went inside to inspect the now mostly finished "closet" on the second floor. so i went in and there they were, gleaming in the sunlight as i played with one to see how smoothly it opened and closed... and thats when it happened. oh yes, thats when i noticed something else gleaming at me. the most awesome monstrosity of an icicle that i could ever have imagined!! awestruck, my shoulders slumped as i stared in wonder at its majestic radiance... even more excited than before i bolted downstairs to get my camera and capture its amazing essence. well, in my attempt to capture the beast from a good angle i was looking through various windows in the room and thats when it happened again. oh my god!!! theres more!! as a scanned the edge of our newly-constructed-although-not-quite-finished-box-gutter i saw dozens of spectacular ice formations riddling the gutter line and the ladder jacks that were buried in snow. overjoyed i went down the hall to an empty opening where the installers had finished removing a window and were on their own quest to find its new replacement and leaned out to find an amazing plethora of sights. i snapped dozens of photos there and down the hall from another window before running downstairs and outside to the side of the house for a different angle. and then... it happened again! even MORE amazing formations! the side of our house is covered in the most fantastic ice!! haha, im sure you all arent nearly as excited as i am, but these things are just sensational. karen and i went out last night after staring at a particularly large icicle on the neighbors house [through our one decent dining room window] convinced wed find some good ones in the front yard. but seeing as it was dark out and there was nothing good on the fence or front porch, we gave up, distraught and disappointed. if only we'd gone out sooner and crept around to the wonderland of glory on the side of our house!! i wish i could create a frozen museum out there and preserve the ice-scape!! anyway, ill quit boring you all with my silly fascination and instead get to some pictures! im only going to post a few here for you, but if youd like to see the entire myriad of awesomeness, you can check the my.pix link.

and without further adieu...

contractors.galore

so today has been a busy day... i wont bother with the topic subtitle/section business, its all about the house these days. :]

monday.

so monday morning the first thing to do on our list was to figure out this barricade situation. the woman i had talked to on saturday said we could go to the city buildings & inspections office and that they would give us the keys to the locks since we were the homeowners and we had the right to access our property. thats good news, right? lol! so apparently they were supposed to open by 7:30 and we figured wed just stop by there on the way to work, get the keys, and then one of us could meet the electric company guy we had scheduled at some point between 8 & 4 [really specific right? freakin energy companies...] out at the house to let him in. no problems right? haha, its never quite that easy.

so we get to the city office at around 7:45 and ask the receptionist to see the guy who id tried calling a few times. she sent us on our way, and after waiting upstairs for someone to fetch him, we met dave, and he was a really nice guy. he walked us through everything we were going to need to do to obtain permits, what we needed to do to get the house up to passing inspections, you name it, the guy was a wealth of great info. except the keys, lol, he forgot all about those until he was about to send us on our way and i was like oh, one last thing, could we get those keys? haha, he laughed and went and talked to a lady who came out to tell us the bad news. the contractor who was out over the weekend doing all the work still had them. so we discussed our options and we decided to swing back buy tuesday morning before work to get them and she swore shed have them for us. so... close enough. whats one more day?

so later on i ended up making a number of phone calls and talking to a variety of contractors. first, i scheduled 3 different plumbers to come out and give us an estimate. all three are local and i just found them using a google map search for the closest to our area, and these are the guys that popped up. one of them even had some ratings on google and they were encouraging, so i felt good about it. so i called all these guys up, gave them my info and scheduled them all for as soon as possible. so we ended up getting one guy for tuesday [today] between 8 & 10am, one guy for tuesday but we didnt get a time frame from the woman on the phone, and the last guy for wednesday between 12 & 4pm. additionally i contacted the new mason [the friend of the window guy] who was very happy to hear from me and said hed love to come out either tuesday or wednesday morning to check it out and we could go from there, and then i called the roofer again who promised he hadnt forgotten about me and would try to be there by wednesday to have a look, thursday at the latest. meanwhile, karen was calling the energy company to try and re-schedule them to come out on a day when we actually had access to the house, and she made that for wednesday as well [although still the really specific time frame of 8-4...]

so all in all we had a pretty successful day i thought. i felt good about how things were going, and even more so how smoothly they seemed to be going even with a few hiccups.

tuesday[today, for those of you keeping score]

so this morning we got up early and got over to the city office at 7:30 and great news, she had the keys! so we were in and out of there in no time flat, just a copy of my i.d. in case anyone wanted to dispute who had the keys, and off we went. so we're headed back to the house and karen is on the phone confirming what time the first plumber would be there, ah... 30-45 minutes. crap. now what?

 so we decided to turn around and id take karen to work [because her office is anal about starting at 8am sharp] and then id meet the morning plumber, take her the truck, and then shed meet the afternoon plumber [hopefully on her lunch break]. so, i dropped her off, turned around, and arrived at the house at the exact same time as the plumber and another truck with two guys who got out and walked towards the house as well... masons? yesss! score. so now i had not only a plumber on time, but also a mason who showed up at all, and i had the joy of juggling both to get an estimate at the same time. well it went just fine. the masons had a look around outside, the plumber did his thing in the basement and when it was all over with i had an estimate in hand from the plumber [nice guy, by the way] and the mason [also a nice guy but technologically challenged] promising to drop off an estimate at the house either wednesday or thursday. sweet. things are lookin good. 

so i took karen the truck and then went to work [only an hour late after all this, not bad at all] and did the whole work thing. right now at work im working on getting leed credits for 6 different schools we're working on, and its a good learning experience, but tedious as hell. for those of you that dont know, LEED is a certification that a building can achieve for designing and building sustainably and efficiently and is a program sponsored by the USGBC [united states green building council]. its a good thing for all new buildings to get, and is a great start in driving our nation to thinking about energy efficiency and what we can do to reduce our impact on the environment. anyway, ive been working mostly on daylighting points lately, but thats not really the point of this post. 

at about a quarter to noon i get a call, its the other plumber, he'll be at the house in about 20 minutes. so i called karen and off she went to meet him. i dont have any gory details of their exciting meeting [lol] but i know it went well, and the plumber should email us an estimate by wednesday afternoon at the latest. 

now. 

so after a long day, we're doing great i think! tomorrow weve got another plumber coming, the energy guy, and potentially a roofer. so house repairs are looking up at the moment, and hopefully they stay that way! honestly, if all wed gotten done today was gaining access to the house id have been pretty happy, but in my opinion we surpassed that by leaps and bounds! 

well, i think thats it for now. if you havent already noticed, look carefully at the blog layout and see if you can find what i changed today, lol! i know, i know... im a nerd. but i cant help it, its who i am. [and i love who i am, heh]

"catch you on the flip side yo"

[for 10 awesome pts in chris' book of awesome, email me and tell me where that quote is from. no cheating, and dont post it directly on the blog to spoil it for everyone else. and seriously, no cheating. just whatever knowledge youve got locked away in that head of yours. hint: potatoes]

post.script: lcd sound system is rocking my world as of late. lovin it. 

post.post.script: http://www.shapeofamerica.org/ [get inspired!]

sore.shoulders

hello hello all! :]

so a little update action is in order i think. 

house.

the biggie obviously is the house. thats really all our excitement these days. 

thursday - thursday after work and still bubbling with the excitement of the new house i dropped karen off at class and went straight to the house to check things out. excuse me, OUR house. hehe! well when i got there, to my surprise i found a notice in the window from the city. this wasnt the first time this had happened, you may remember the condemnation orders we found once that the sellers neglected to tell us about or do anything about, so here we go again. this time its a barricade order. great. since the door still hadnt been repaired [after we told the seller a number of times] the city had come by and found it open to trespassers and given that its also considered a safety hazard in its present condition by the city [and no one wants to get sued...], the city issued orders that the house either be secured from trespassers or else theyd barricade it themselves, the seller had 3 days to comply. um... yeah those orders had been issued long ago, i was shocked they hadnt already barricaded it. so i immediately called the numbers to find out who i needed to talk to and what i needed to do, etc. got no one. the guy im supposed to talk to is only in the office from 8-10, m-f and the rest of the time hes out in the field doing these inspections and such. fantastic. guess i'll try again tomorrow...

friday - so friday i went to the house to meet with a new window guy. [for those of you that remember, a few months ago we got initial estimates on a lot of the work we're going to have to do, i.e. the brick wall, the roof, & windows being the 3 biggest jobs] so i was supposed to meet him at 4, and i got there at roughly 3:50. i had tried calling the city again in the morning to no avail and had left a message for the guy i was supposed to talk to. i hadnt heard back, so i tried calling again while i waited for the window guy. no luck, they were gone, it was basically an answering service i got hold of. even better... what now? no clue... 

well the house was still open, luckily, so the window guy arrived at 4pm, right on time, and damn he was a fast talker. it seems a lot of these contractor, subcontractor types are. or maybe its because im in yankee country and im used to texans talking nice and slow, lol, i dont know. but i had to listen pretty intently to keep up, lol! so we walk through the house, he takes a look at all the windows, we discuss my options, and then he gets busy measuring every window in the house. 

now for those of you that remember from last time we got an estimate from homedepot and it was a pretty decent one we thought. $225 per window installed, an extra charge for those on the second floor and again for the finished attic. the windows were very nice, but on all of our huge windows on the first level we were going to have to do some shimming [for lack of a better term] to get the window openings down to their maximum size. but overall we were pretty happy with the estimate they gave us. well this guy, man, what a deal. no only did all of our windows [save the two floor to ceilings in the front room that are just ridiculously large] fit within their maximum opening size [so no shimming!], the windows were even better [welded corners this time around], there was no extra charge for any windows on any upper levels, and they also had an option for a trim treatment in which they encase the window trim all the way around in a vinyl casing to protect it from the elements and save us the pain of having to paint trim every couple of years. we havent decided for sure on that, it adds 50 bucks per window, but we're definitely considering it. oh and the windows are pretty much the same price installed as home depots base price - these are $235 each with the lowE + argon insulated glass. 

so we're really happy with this guys quote. he's willing to work with us in phases if we need to and overall he was just really friendly and offered us a great deal. so we're most likely going to go with them. [thanks mom-in-law for the recommendation!] and on top of that the guy gave me the name and number of a mason friend of his who he says does great work, very dependable guy, whos currently looking for work. sweetness, another mason! so far we've only gotten one quote on that damn wall, and its a little high we think, so im definitely looking for more options. [ill be calling him later this afternoon]

saturday - saturday morning we decided to get up and go to the tile place near our apartment to see what options we were going to have to work with and start formulating some plans for the work we want to do in the bathrooms and such. after that we were headed over to the house to measure doors to see about possible replacing or at the very least new door hardware in order to secure the house and hopefully avoid the barricading. 

well the tiling place was really cool. there were so many more options than we'd expected! we'd looked at homedepot briefly when we were there for the tiling seminar and their selection was fairly limited, to say the least. but this place was like a tile paradise! they had everything you could imagine, and a lot of stuff you couldnt. we found a lot of what we were looking for there and a lot we werent looking for, lol! overall it was a very successful trip and we're definitely brainstorming about our options now. 

after the tile place we went straight to the house, although we'd spent more time than originally anticipated at the tile place, it was now 11am. yeah, you guessed it, when we got to the house we found that the city had already been there and barricaded - boarded up a window, the back door, and put a pad-lock on the front door. we were stuck. locked out. crap. 

well... i called the city, to no avail, no one works on saturday in the offices that could help me. so we were screwed till monday morning. at which point we'd have to go to the building & inspections office to see about getting a key to our house. well, we were planning to go to homedepot anyway, so instead of doing door stuff we decided to get stuff to do yard work - push brooms, rakes, yard bags, etc. 

after a few hours and trips to not only homedepot but also walmart and mejier, we finally had most of what we needed, including a haircut for chris [oh man did she ever butcher my hair... ugh...i miss you christina!!!] and a few groceries we needed as well. however, it was now about 3 oclock and we hadnt eaten since 8am, so we decided to head home for lunch. after lunch, haha, we didnt want to do anything, we were full and sleepy after all the running around, so we stayed in and watched a couple of netflix, leaving the rough stuff for tomorrow [sunday].

sunday -  so sunday morning we did our usual. a little breakfast, and then off to church for a couple of hours. after church we headed home to do a little research on some remodeling equipment we're thinking about getting [more on that at a later time] and then had lunch before heading over to the house. we got there at about 1:30pm and unloaded the truck of our newly acquired supplies, ready to do some house work!

so we started by raking in the back and then sweeping some, and uncovered that theres actually a concrete slab in the back where the back door is stretching out under the entire stair case. who knew?! it was covered in leaves and a thick layer of dirt every time we were there, so we thought it was just dirt, lol! [not to mention there were a few trees growing through some cracks in the slab, leading to our deception] next we decided to do some maintenance that our neighbors could enjoy and moved to the front and side of the house. we did more raking on the side initially and then the front yard and sidewalk in front of the house, and then came back with a push broom and finally a regular broom for detailing and got all the dirt and dust off the porch, and walks, and it looked sooo different. i thought we could always see the concrete on the side of the house but we pulled 2 trash bags full of dirt and leaves and trash out of the side and we could actually see the sidewalk for the first time! we even uncovered a drain that we never knew was there, lol! so after a few hours of raking & sweeping & bagging we had about 7 bags of crap wed picked up and the house looked great in the front. 

in the process we'd actually met a couple of our neighbors whod been out walking their dogs and noticed us working and decided to say hello. the neighbor directly across the street from us [in one of the newly built houses] was so friendly and a wealth of knowledge - she gave us at least a half a dozen names of people to get in contact with for trash, recycling, a neighborhood e-newsletter, and other various neighborhood related things. shes really nice, and seems excited to have some new neighbors. we probably talked to her for at least a half an hour and she made a few trips inside her house to get us numbers and email addresses, haha! very cool. shes very soft spoken and calm and for some reason her mannerism's and the soft spoken-ness really reminded me of jay, haha! [miss yah roomie!]

so after what had to have been a good 4 hours of the raking and sweeping, we decided to tackle the stairs in the back. they were rotting, because i assume they were never weather treated, and the whole thing was just built very shotty to begin with. we wanted to keep the top deck if possible because theres a door onto it from the house and we'd like to modify it into a nice little balcony off that door in the back. so we climbed up very, very carefully and swept off the decks and stairs to get a good look at what was underneath. after a lot of discussion we decided that the decks were in pretty decent shape, but that all the stairs were pretty rotted and would all need to be rebuilt if we decided we wanted them, but would need to come down for sure. so we started the fun part of remodeling - demolition. 

haha, and it was fun for the most part. there were a million nails in this thing [whoever built it's justification for such a terrible structural design i assume] so it was a serious pain in the ass at first. however, at some point i just decided to hell with pulling nails and started ripping up the pieces with my hands. [thank god for work gloves, im far too impatient when it comes to destruction, lol] so after so many jerks here and there with my massive muscles, *wink wink* i tore the top stairs out without too much trouble. so we chucked those down to the ground and surveyed our progress. 

we were feeling pretty good and started in on the railings on the second deck. those came off alright, with some persuasion, and we decided the 2x4's under them were actually in decent shape. on to the bottom stairs. so i took out a few nails at the top of the bottom stairs while karen made her way to the ground [these stairs were built as one "solid" element on the ground and then just hoisted into place and toe-nailed into position with a handful of nails to secure them... lord...] so then i got down on the ground and we attempted at first to de-nail a few pieces that were connected to the posts, but after i got impatient with that, i just started doing it my way. i grabbed the whole stair element and started jerking on it until pretty quickly i yanked the entire left half completely off and we lowered it to the ground for dismantling. then i jerked off the second half and we did the same. however, in the process we discovered that this thing was built even shotty-er than we had originally concluded. 

the posts went from the ground all the way up to the top, but at the ground level were encased in what appeared to be a concrete footing. having poured a number of concrete footings with dad in my life time, i just assumed that the person that did these had dug out a whole 1-2ft deep and had filled with concrete in roughly a ft diameter up to where we could see it capped off, and that they were pretty securely in the ground - probably entombed in a few hundred pounds of concrete. ha. nope. during my *ahem* careful dismantling *ahem* of the stair elements, we discovered that the posts were simply resting on top of these little concrete mounds and just appeared to be encased in them, and every time id jerk, theyd pop up and then back down. good lord... who built this thing??? so now we've decided that the whole thing is going to have to come down and be rebuilt if we want a balcony - which we do. luckily some of the wood is salvageable for re-use [mainly the 4x4 posts and some of the structural 2x4 members that were most likely treated lumber to begin with.]

so after all that we were beat. especially me after my impatient ripping destruction, lol. that thing must have weighed a few hundred pounds, but with my adrenaline going i barely noticed, haha! [man i love adrenaline] so we did a little clean-up in the back and decided to call it a night. we'd been there about 5 and a half hours, and things we're looking really good. 

the pictures probably dont do all the work justice, but trust me, the transformation was pretty unbelievable for just one days work. and now hopefully you understand the title of this post, lol! right now my back and shoulders are pretty sore after all that sweeping and deconstruction. but it was a lot of fun, and we're pretty fired up to get some more work done. 

well kiddos, thats all ive got for now. tip your waiters, and drive safely. you dont have to go home, but you cant stay here! ;]

post.script: currently listening to apocalyptica's new album, its pretty amazing!