Bush Hog to the Rescue

This week Dave hired a guy with a bush hog to come clear about 2 acres of our property of tall weeds and grass. It's difficult for me to really illustrate the massive change without an aerial shot of our property but hopefully you get the idea from these before and after shots.

BEFORE
(looking from right to left)





It never occurred to me that Dave and I never actually set foot on a very large portion of our land...until I could SEE all of our land.

AFTER




That's just what you can see from our front porch. Beyond that we had an entire acre or more of tall weeds - so here is BEFORE


Same area AFTER


I don't have a before picture of this area because I could hardly get to it before but this is looking the opposite direction of the photo above. It was ALL tall weeds and small trees.



We had a house warming party (during which I took zero pictures - d'oh!). Everyone had fun racing our go kart around the property - so much so that Dave's friend Andy bought himself one to keep at our house.





Dave's been building a laser timing start/finish line as well. No, I'm not joking. See?



I added a few things to the nursery. I have 18 days left before my due date. I'm feeling gigantic but I'm still in no hurry to have this kid come out. It can stay in and cook a little longer.



It's fall! Though our trees are so dry I'm not sure the leaves are going to turn colors, I think they may just go from green to brown and fall off. Here's our Moose with some tiny pie pumpkins and Dave's new table saw in the background.

Max Power

I got a lot of comments about how I'm not really in any pictures on here. I guess you might get the impression from this blog that I don't do much work. WELL I DO!!! And I do it with about 25 pounds strapped to my belly.

Today, I discovered power washing is really fun, if not messy. Whoever said "God made dirt and dirt don't hurt" never had it flying at their legs and feet at breakneck speed.

Dave power washed the front deck until his light died on him last night. I finished up today and moved on to the 2 walkways.



It was muddy work and about a half hour into it I looked up a realized I probably should have my car out of the line of fire. oops.



Luckily, the power washer also doubles as a car washer.

Our addition now has foundation block in it. The construction guys are here everyday, which makes me hopeful that the whole thing will be done before we have a newborn living here. (fingers crossed)


Moose is back to his old self and has destroyed his first toy since we've owned him. Here he is with the carcass of what used to be a dog toy.

Getting Stuff DONE!

FINALLY I have some more BEFORE and AFTER pictures of our downstairs bedrooms. It's been so much work but getting all this stuff unpacked and put away has really helped make our house look more like a home and less of a disaster area!

First, let's start off with my favorite room - the baby's room!

Here's how it looked when we bought the house - teal blue and purple walls with unpainted trim and gross berber carpet:

BEFORE




We repainted it green and white with new hardwood flooring. Because of some leaking from the bathroom upstairs, the ceiling had to be torn out and replaced:





AFTER



Guest bedroom - started out with the same gross, stained berber carpet and really dark brown walls.

BEFORE


AFTER



Guest Bathroom:

Started out with not so bad paint colors, a small pedestal sink and laminate flooring with little roses on it. We changed all the bathroom hardware from chrome to brushed nickle, which if you are not remodeling a home means nothing to you. But it's one of those little things that makes a big difference.

BEFORE





AFTER



Moose end note: The poor dog has been under the weather the past few days. Not sure what's going on with him but he's been a little mopey and...let's just say I'm thinking of changing his name to RALPH. Hopefully he'll feel better soon and be back to his old self.

The addition begins!

Lots of stuff going on this past week!

Dave took on the task of installing new ceiling fans way up on the vaulted ceiling. The box said "five minute fan" which was a joke. Why even bother with such lies on the packaging?



OK this has nothing to do with home improvements but we have these GIANT grasshoppers around the yard, some up to 4 or 5 inches long. I like this picture I took of one that seemed to be checking out his own shadow on the side of our pole barn:



We FINALLY got our building permit this week so construction can now begin on the addition to our house! Step one was digging the foundation:



Speaking of holes, Moose has been doing some excavating of his own, though we suspect he never obtained a permit.



He does the lab "point" a lot around the property, then furiously digs away. I keep waiting for him to flush some creature out that I'll have to dodge.



Very soon: Bathrooms and baby's room photos! They're ALMOST done!!!

Labor Day Labors

My days are still being filled with unpacking, day after day of trying to find a spot for everything we own. It's weird to have so much room now though, I have to admit. Weird and WONDERFUL.

We went on a shopping spree to Lowe's with a 10% off card and filled 4 carts with stuff. Among other things, we purchased all new light fixtures for the kitchen and Dave installed them. I thought the one shade looked like a safari hat so Dave humored me and tried it on. See...this is one of the reasons he's so great.



The little shelter that is behind the house came with a weathered picnic table and charcoal grill. The concrete foundation was stained badly and really dirty so Dave power washed it along with all of the wood on the structure and the table and benches. I painted the picnic table bright red (and a few bugs in the process, accidentally)

BEFORE


AFTER


I know this makes me a nerd but - I see Hank Hill standing next to the grill, arms folded, shaking his head disapprovingly whenever I look at it.


While cleaning the side deck off a few weeks ago, Dave discovered a plastic patio table that matched the 4 plastic outdoor chairs we found in the pole barn. Problem was, they were all really worn and gross looking, even after a good cleaning. So I discovered they make spray paint that is made for plastic, bought a couple of cans and viola! It's like a brand new outdoor furniture set!



Did I mention we have no internet and no cable TV? Comcast has to run cable from the road, up to our house, which is over 400 feet - and it's all at their expense, so you can guess how quickly they are moving on this. We've been told it could take 3 months. Which I assume means much longer than 3 months.

Another new exciting purchase: a washing machine! The house came with one from 1992 that was full of rust and pretty gross. The new one is one of those front loading machines and we had to run a test cycle to make sure it didn't wobble during the spin cycle. It's no replacement for TV though, no matter how entertained Dave appears.



So after the successful spin test I was excited to do laundry. I threw in a load and went back outside to work and Dave went down to the end of the driveway to work on fixing the fence post. I went back down to check the cycle and found this:



Not only was the hot water hose to the washer leaking, the sump pump in the corner broke sometime during the wash cycle and water was rushing out of the cover, creeping across the floor from the corner. I waddled my gigantic self up the stairs, outside, and down the driveway (did I mention it's a tenth of a mile long?) yelling "Dave!!!" I don't run fast now that I have 25 extra pounds strapped to my midsection. Poor Dave spent the entire day replacing the sump pump and pipes running into the hole, several times being sprayed in the face when the pump would kick on and break off another bad pipe connection, spraying a jet of gross water vertically.

Moose had his cousin Miller stay with us this weekend. I found them sitting by the side door like this, which made me say "awww."



But shortly after I took the photo, Moose looked over his shoulder at me and rolled onto Miller, as if he's a small black pillow. Miller is thankfully very tolerant of Moose's oblivious nature:

Basement

Up until now, you have not seen our basement. It came complete with a pool table and red office carpet glued to the floor. The carpet also had lovely touches of mold and god-knows-what-else growing on it. It smelled like dampness and cat pee mixed together. The selling Realtor claimed the previous owners didn't own a cat but then WHY would they have a cat door built into the basement door and a painted kitty cat pull chain up in our bedroom? One whiff and I knew they owned a very gross, "pee where I want to" cat. So the carpet had to come out. We bought a dehumidifier, new carpet, painted the walls, trim and stairs and viola! We have a brand new basement that looks and smells nothing like the old one.

BEFORE (just after ripping out the red carpet)




Suzi, Dan and Amadou helped us paint the walls all in one day. Then Mary Beth and Jason came down to help with the trim and paint the stairs.



Dave took on the tough task of painting himself out of the basement, working up from the bottom.


AFTER



As always let's end on on a Moose note - here he is helping out with painting duties: