After a little break...

Sorry we haven't updated the blog in a while...Reagan was out of the country, but that doesn't mean that work on the house stopped. Adam took up the reins and worked on both the yard and the kitchen.

The most exciting thing Reagan's gotten to do in a long time is unpack the kitchen. After a year of home-ownership. After over a year of the kitchen being boxed up. Finally...we get to use real plates, sauce pots, and mugs. Our cabinets have drawers and doors (most of them), as well as handles to open them. And Adam has even built the support for the peninsula extension. All we have left is to get some counters (small detail).


View from the dining room.

Those upper cabinets are now full of bowls and platters that we won't need to get to very often...especially if the fan is on.

Because the cabinet doors haven't been in stock at Ikea, it makes for easy access for our dishes and glasses thus far.

The plywood support for the "breakfast bar" area of our peninsula.

Also, we have a functioning disposal, and soon our dishwasher will be hooked up. These small conveniences sure are nice conveniences.

We also bought some stones for our front walkway. Nice 2x3 foot blue flagstone for the front walkway, and "Pennsylvania fieldstone" for the side pathways. It took 2 trucks to deliver it - one with the stones, the other for the bobcat that took the stones from the truck and onto our driveway.

The crate of stones was so heavy that it needed to be counter-balanced by two extra people...


Reagan picked out this pack of stones in particular. They seem like a nice size.


A yard of stone-dust is necessary to put underneath the stones.


We spent the morning weeding what had become of the pathway from the driveway to the front steps and then dug out a little trench.


Adam then filled in the trench with the stone dust and then spent a long time tamping (and tramping and camping*) it down.


Our front walkway! Better than the muddy weed farm that it had become. Pretty handsome, no? Those flat stones that Adam used to build the little step will be stepping stones on the rest of the paths.

We're getting there!

*Inside joke with Laura Ruedig

At Last, a Kitchen.

Food stored in the same room where you cook? What a novel idea!

We finally got some basic necessities in the kitchen, notably running water. Here's the sequence of events over the past couple of weeks:


We get plumbers to run water and drainage lines into the kitchen floor, in the place where the sink is going to be in the peninsula.


We manage to built the sink cabinet and drill holes in sort of the right places, enough to lower the cabinet over the pipes (notice the addition of another cabinet to the left and the dishwasher in place on the right).


We set the sink on the cabinet. Isn't it so pretty and sparkly?


Adam shows off his plumbing skills...complete with a few expletives when it doesn't all fit exactly the first time. Eventually it all fits beautifully.


Adam connects the faucet, and presto! Running water! With only minimal leaks.


With cabinet doors and drawer fronts added...

Nice huh? It'll be nicer when we have handles to actually open the doors and drawers.

Elsewhere:

Cabinets constructed and placed on either side of the stove.


With doors and drawers!


The wall cabinets have been installed, but the doors either (a) require some complicated installation, which we've been procrastinating, or (b) are on backorder. But at least we can start bringing our glasses and dishes into the kitchen from the dining room!


Remember that tall pantry cabinet that fit so perfectly behind the refrigerator? Well, you probably don't unless you've been paying very close attention. Either way, we got the drawers installed and the doors put on. It looks so tiny in this photo, but here:


These drawers pull out and it's actually quite deep. A handy use of a tight space if we do say so ourselves!

What is your dirt doing in the warden's hole?!

So this actually happened a while ago but it took this long for me to be able to operate my hands again.

As you may recall, we hired our cousin Doug to help us with the landscaping. He has his own business and is a machine in terms of getting things done. Generally he is also full of useful information and tips about how to proceed with our landscape work. Then, sometimes he's not.

We wanted to put two new trees into the barren mudscape in front of the house. Any fool knows that this involves digging, and to be macho I decided that I would do ALL of the digging myself. Doug, scheduled to show up Sunday morning with the trees, was all too happy to tell me how big the holes needed to be - roughly 5' in diameter and 3' deep. (any of you who know better can stop reading now and go jump off a cliff).

Saturday was 115 degrees and sub-tropically humid. Reagan, who usually wears a parka into July, was seen in shorts. The sun burned down like a burning sun, facing down. Our neighborhood organization had organized its annual community yard-sale. There was a crowd.

I awoke early and went for a run with our dog who knew better.

Then at 9 I grabbed my brand-new shovel and went to work.

Eight and a half hours later, I had bored two holes into the rock pile that we call a front yard, and I was 5 inches shorter.


me and my hole.


These children had clever parents who told the older child that I was hunting for treasure, and the younger child that dirt tasted good. I didn't see the parents from 11 am to 3 pm. The little viper in the green shirt spent half the day kicking dirt back into the holes as I was trying to dig them.

Somehow, Sunday morning I regained consciousness and Doug arrived with the trees. In a casual sort of way he said, "why are those holes so big?" Sort of like you might say, "hey there friend, why is there so much water coming into this boat?" or "Nice day isn't it, why are you dragging that bicycle under your car."


Here I am filling in one of the holes to the required depth of 9". Notice the pile of rocks that I was too weak to throw at Doug's head.


Here is Doug putting the finishing touches on the "backfill." Thanks for the help Doug. Don't get tired though.


All that is left for me now are the memories.


But in addition to a severe stoop, we got two nice new trees in the deal. The one on the left is a Red Bud and the one on the way right is a Dogwood.


Red Bud


Here I am being held up by a hose.

Shingle bells.

That's not as clever a title as I hoped it'd be. Anyhow, we left off with the front bay of the house needing to be re-shingled (since our painters proved not to be carpenters, which I guess is ok as long as they don't try to be carpenters). We hired carpenter friends from the North Bennett Street School who did a beautiful job putting up the new shingles. It will be a shame to paint them, really.


Here she is, stripped of her old shingles. This green stuff is the original paper beneath the shingles. Also note the pump jacks they built for themselves.

New tar paper! Now she's definitely waterproof.

Here they go, starting bottom up.



It took them a long time to get this bottom portion done because of the curves and corners, but look how beautifully they overlapped the corners and fitted everything together.

The inner corner between the bay and the porch. Each piece had to be custom fit to the curve here.

And done! Also, it smells so good - just standing next to the house you can smell the cedar in the breeze.

If they are brave enough, they will also repair our porch roof.

LIVE THIS SUNDAY AT THE WORCESTER CENTRUM

SEE THE MONSTER TRUCK BATTLE OUR FRONT LAWN!!!

So here is the set-up for a productive weekend:
1. Hire your cousin to regrade your front lawn.
2. Let him rent earth moving equipment.
3. Leave town.

We hired my cousin Doug who runs a landscaping business to go to town on the yard. First step was to regrade the front and back. However, the last time we were a part of a project of this scale with Doug, he broke two bobcats. So rather than stay and fret, we went to Philadelphia for the weekend.

Doug happy, move dirt.

Front lawn begins to resemble my hairline.

This is what I always imagined would happen if we ran afoul of a repo man or something. While we are out of town, somebody shows up in an armored attack vehicle and comes in through the bay window.

Here Doug is removing the remains of the trees we cut down last fall. In order to do this kind of work you are supposed to call Dig Safe before you dig. We did. They came and told us that our water supply ran right under this stump. Then we dug.

Looking pretty great, no? Who wouldn't want to look out their front windows onto a dirt farm. We are hoping to have a Grapes of Wrath party soon.

The dirt removed from the front was deposited into the vast lowlands in the back yard.

Those of you who have been reading this blog from the start will be familiar with our monolith. It showed up the first time we tried to mow the lawn, and has not moved much since. Moving this 2,000 lb. block of granite presented Doug with a great opportunity to bust a piece of expensive equipment so he jumped at the chance.

Build a better mousetrap......


This rock was in place less than an hour before the neighborhood kids showed up to try and kick it over. Bon Chance!

Painting done! (Almost)

The painters finished up with the house this week, except that we have decided that the front bay of the house needs to be re-shingled. So they will have to come back to paint that when it is done. But otherwise it looks great! The colors look good together, and the trim helps to break up the house and bring out the details a bit more. Check it out:

Isn't she cute?

This is the bay that will get re-shingled during the next week or so by our friend Chris Carrot (not his real name).



The porch roof still needs to be repaired and we have to do some other fixings to the porch, so that's why it still looks like crap. But hopefully it won't for too much longer.