Demolition!

I go away for one weekend and I come home to this!

Maybe a month ago, we cleaned out our weird garden shed that was built into the side of the house and George (plug: Superior Home Remodeling) came out and framed in that doorway.

Then, when I went to San Francisco at the beginning of January, Jesse, Betty and Larry got to work on tackling it from the inside.




I can't believe I missed this chance to use a sledgehammer to take out all of my bottled up rage and frustration! (haha, kidding)

The next week, Larry came back down and Matt came over too to help put up the sheet rock.
This new space will be used for a pantry and linen/coat closet. There is definitely enough room if future owners wanted to use it for a study or something else even! We also special ordered a beautiful pocket door for the closet and just found out that it's waiting at Menards for us to pick it up!

Lester even got to help with the demolition!

Next up, more recent developments including: more demolition (I get to try my hand at destruction this time!), flooring and more!

Snow!

So this post is super late. In fact, I took these photos during the holiday snow storm. But oh well, better late than never!


Behind that fence is the concrete slab that I park my car on. To keep this area free of snow, we have to start way back by the alley and shovel all of the snow back to the fence and onto this pile. I think we should have built a fort in it!

Jesse can carry a lot more snow than I can!


Along with this snow, cold, rain...our not-so-clean gutters got all clogged with ice and since we should be getting new ones soon, we decided to take the gutters off completely. Oh so much fun!

Big Update!

Big update! (kind of)

The most exciting news is that our custom-made gate arrived! Now we can have lots of canine visitors :)

The fun started a couple of weeks ago, when Larry and Jesse dug through some concrete to get the post for the gate put in.
I stayed away from the drilling and raked the lawn instead. (have to admit, not my favorite part of home ownership, although it was quite the workout :) )And now I present to you....



THE GATE!
Thanks to Larry for making friends with our neighbor Joe who has a company Crown Fence & Wire Company. And of course, thanks to Joe (who does not read this blog and therefore will never see this) for making such a nice looking gate!Yesterday, we bought Halloween candy...I'm hoping for a few (nicely behaved) Trick-or-Treaters this year!

We Passed Inspection!

Yes, that's right, we passed our house inspection! This is so huge, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. This inspection was necessary because we bought the house "as-is" and took responsibility for a couple of pages of repairs that had to be made within the first 90 days of taking ownership of the house. So now that we have passed inspection, everything else we do now in terms of renovating, can be done more on "our time."

We have also chosen a contractor and have decided to re-side the house with James Hardie fiber cement siding (http://www.jameshardie.com/). Still deciding on a color, any suggestions?

We will also be getting the gutters replaced and that weird back room torn off, also may tackle the kitchen at some point. The goal is to have this work all done by November-ish.

A productive weekend...

I can't even believe how productive this weekend was. (well in terms of home renovations it was.... I STILL haven't touched my homework). Betty and Larry came on Friday morning. When I got home from work/class, I walked into an empty (locked) house, with two gaping holes where windows used to be in the living room. However, by bedtime Friday night, we had two brand new beautiful windows!
On Saturday, my dad joined the party. This time, by the time I got home from work (I know, it really doesn't seem like I help much, does it?) there was another new window in and one more hole waiting for the final window! Also, my dad had a good deal of his plumbing project done!

Currently, as I'm writing this, we have new windows in the living room and a new window in the second bathroom. Just as exciting, we have an actual functional second bathroom! After some unexpected surprise leaks and other things, my dad got all of the plumbing working and now the toilet, bathtub and sink all work!

It's like we have our own nature reserve in our back yard!

Today I heard Sam making this "chattering" sound that I had never heard her make before. I saw her peering out the front storm door. When I looked out, I expected to see some squirrels or something, but boy was I surprised by what I saw!
A hawk! Just sitting on the fence that separates our yard from our neighbors'. We've been seeing this hawk flying around lately, but never this close, and never just sitting there, relaxing.In other news, we got our new furnace today! Get ready for some super exciting photos....

There must not be any other bird feeders in the neighborhood...

Our latest purchase? A bird feeder! Jesse got "the Squirrel Buster" off of Amazon.com and man, this thing is heavy duty! Once we finally found a hook tall and strong enough for it, we filled it up and set it outside the front window, the perfect spot for Sam's viewing.So far...no squirrel problems! It does seem as though word has gotten out though, as I type this, there is much less bird seed left than in the picture above and there are four birds on the feeder and one of them keeps chasing other birds away!