House Updates: Shed's workbench

WOOHOOO! We finally have our shed! Only 6 weeks after we ordered it when we were told three, but whatever we have it now. So before we started loading up everything we have that needs to go into it, we wanted to build a workbench to put in it so we could better organized the multitude of tools that we have gotten from my Grandma and Grandpa after he passed. So Scott drew up the idea he had, did the math on what all we needed and off to Home Depot we went! We had them cut the plywood in half and the 4x4 posts as well. The 2x4s we cut ourselves.  We then put it all together.

This is the underside of the top. We used brackets to attach the 2x4s to the legs. 

Finished bench!

We still have to cut and put up the pegboard for behind the workbench, but we're trying to decide if the pegboard is going to need more support in the middle of the board since we'll be loading it up with tools. 

But yay we have a shed! Now we just need all the frustrating things to stop happening with our basement work so we can work on getting that completely finished and we'll be able to move on even more! Hopefully we'll be able to catch some good sales over Black Friday for flooring. I'll try to do an update on the basement later on in the week.  

Goodbye bushes!

Before- with bushes

Since we moved in to our house, I have been saying that the bushes were not going to stay. I hate them. I don't even know WHY I hate them, but I do. I think part of it is the fact it's two and three, not three and three, not two and two. The sides don't match, and that bugs me. They also don't grow evenly, so there is no hope of shaping them into similar looking bushes. So last week I got some money from my awesome family for my birthday, and they kept saying "use it for something you REALLY want!" and after thinking about it, I'm going to use it to get some flowers for the flower beds! But before I can really even start planning those flowers, the bushes had to go. So today, they did! The front of our house is now bush-free!

I'll be the first to admit that after so much time with the bushes, the house looks REALLY WEIRD without them. Despite that, I am happy they are gone! Now the next step is to finish evening out the dirt on the right side and figure out how much topsoil we need to get to fill up the boxes. Then it's time to officially decide what will be planted. We are thinking we want some juniper right up against the house if it is something that can grow in partial sun. I would also like some creeping phlox towards the front of the flower beds- partially because those tend to drape and I think they would look SO pretty, and my parents have some in their yard and I love them. But neither of those are 100% what will be done. But hey! the 2nd step of the front flower beds is done! Flower beds built: check. Bushes gone: check. Next up: DIRT!

Basement finishing has begun! With ripping stuff out...

I realize that most basement finishing projects probably don't begin with ripping out drywall and framework, but then again most basement projects don't deal with the previous owners of our house. So, yes, to begin the process of finishing our basement we have to start by ripping out drywall and some, if not all, of the framework that the previous owners did. This is because they did not pull any permits for the work so none of it is any good as far as the county is concerned. Quite honestly it wasn't good as far as we were concerned either since we couldn't use any of the outlets in one of the rooms without the cords overheating and destroying whatever we plugged in. Just what we want to happen with electricity right? (note: that was dripping in sarcasm).

Before we started the ripping out project Elizabeth talked to the county about what all we needed to do. We started out just by looking on the county website and that was intimidating as hell and started to freak us out. Luckily when she called the county and explained what was going on and our plans they gave her the name of one of the building officials who came out (free of charge!) to look at what we had going on. He said the previous owners were "f-ing idiots" and confirmed that yes, we needed to rip stuff out and proceeded to tell us how much the permit will cost (which is not as bad as we were thinking) and what all we needed to do to start. We might call on him again with some additional questions since he was so incredibly helpful to start.

So some things the idiots who owned the house before did :
- Have a SMALL closet right by the door, serving to close off the doorway which would have made it very hard to move any furniture into the bedroom.
- Left the light switches INSIDE the closet.
- Left the outlet boxes just hanging around in the basement.. not secured to ANYTHING at all. Just floating there in the middle of the wall.
- Did not add any additional insulation or fire blocking material that we can tell. This is a problem.

So things we have left to do:
- finish ripping out the drywall
- find out if we need to rip out the frame work
- get permit
- put in the frame work- all or just where the closet would go
- electric
- first inspection.

The order of the above list is not final and probably not in complete order, but it's a start, a very exciting start.

Organizing: Pots & Pans

Every now and then, Dork_Syd or I get the urge to organize, or re-arrange something. A couple weeks ago Dork_Syd got that urge about our living room/kitchen furniture and rearranged everything (with help from me once I got home from work). A week ago, about an hour before I had to leave for work I got a similar urge- only mine was to organize the pot cabinet. I really don't know why I had that undeniable urge, but I did. It might have been triggered by noticing a dent in one of the pot lids that came from pots falling over on top of it (but that is a guess). I remembered seeing a post on pinterest that suggested using command strips and hooks to hang the lids. Of course, I didn't pin that post apparently because now I can't find it. But there you go.

So anyway, an hour before I had to leave I got that urge and I went with it. I grabbed my tin of command strips and extra hooks and pulled everything out of the cabinet and proceeded to match up the size of the hooks with the lids. I ended up short so I have one pot lid that doesn't have a home on the door but that is ok. One is much better than the large number I had before.

Once I got the idea of the hook sizes needed for each lid, I attached the hooks to the door and tested the hang of the lids. I ended up having to move around a couple of the hooks- so it was a good thing I had extra strips because I needed a few of them! The first couple times I had the hooks too close together so the lids just toppled over. After a few mis-sticks I got the hang of it and finished up quickly! I put all the lids in their places, put the pots away and went off to work!

It was a quick and easy project that left that kitchen cabinet much neater! Now it's so much easier to find the lids that I need!

Upstairs bathroom makeover pt. 1

We decided to kick off 2013 with a makeover! Thanks to gifts cards from our very generous family we've been able to buy stuff for the house, including a bathroom makeover, and the first step was taken today. But first, the before pictures!

Now, one of the reasons we decided to start with the bathroom is.. well.. it's small. So it's easy and relatively inexpensive (in the grand scheme of things) to do. That and the previous owners tore the towel racks and toilet paper holder out of the wall and did a HORRIBLE job repairing it, and it bothered us. There is also the issue of the bathroom light switch- there are two sets, the one by the second door is on the outside of the bathroom door  instead of inside the bathroom. So we took off the big mirror so that eventually we'll be able to get the light switch put in the correct place. Below are the after painting pictures! However, the pictures DO NOT do the color justice at all! The color is more of a turquoise, robins egg blue- instead of the light blue it looks like here.

The War to Clear the Backyard: The Battle of Oak and Pine

I've decided that the backyard fight isn't a battle.. it's a war because it's going to be fought in parts. So the second battle happened yesterday and on our side it was myself and my Dad against the backyard. The focus was clearing the stack of fallen wood that Superman and I had accumulated next to the house. I also wanted to start clearing some of the smaller trees, pulling them up from the roots if possible so they wouldn't grow back. However, some of them, mostly the oaklings (baby oak trees) I ended up just having to cut because they were growing from the roots of the big oaks. So while looking out the back window it might not looks like a lot was done, in fact a lot was, so I'm going to go ahead and declare the Battle of Oak and Pine ( so named because we have mostly oak and pine trees) a victory.

We filled up Mom and Dad's van about half full of wood- all cut down so it will fit- this picture is from the side

And the van from the back. Now if you're looking at this picture and saying to yourself "well the wood on top looks a little wet" that's cuz it was. It started raining on us about an hour before we were done. It had been sprinkling off and on but no, it started RAINING. But did we stop? No! Because we're stubborn...and maybe a little insane. 

While Dad was sawing away to cut down the pile of wood, I was pulling up some of the baby pine trees that were taking over our yard. This made me pretty sad cuz I LOVE PINE TREES but it needed to be done. I left two nicely sized (but still baby) pines. If they will remain but the time we're done...I'm not sure, but for now they will. One plus side from doing this was that my work gloves smelled AMAZING for a while.

This was before the Battle of Oak and Pine (you can't see the wood pile here)

After the Battle of Oak and pine, you can see one of the pines that I'd like to leave for a bit there on the left, but you can also notice a lack of little pine trees all through the middle, also a lack of the oaklings around that middle-ish tree (ok the left most middle-ish tree)

So there you have it, photographic evidence of the victory that was the Battle of Oak and Pine.

Battle of the Backyard...

On December 1st I decided that it was time to start attacking the backyard so that when spring comes around it might be usable... I'm thinking that a hammock at least would be nice, especially so that I could go outside to read :-)

When we started the backyard looked like this :

Only less green and more leaves EVERYWHERE.. and I do mean everywhere. I'm pretty sure there are more fledgling trees growing as well.

Now....after this many bags of leaves, that didn't really make a dent....

And filling this hole left from a fallen tree trunk with leaves (not that you can tell from this picture that it is a hole).....

Now the backyard looks closer to this:

Since I'm pretty sure the only reason the pictures look any different is because this one doesn't have all the baby trees in bloom I've decided that for this first Backyard Battle... the backyard won. 

However, we do have a nice stack of wood piled up in the back for my parents to use in their fireplace. Right now though, it attracts squirrels and that entertains the cat.

~)O(~ Elfie~)O(~

May your hands always have work for you to do.....

Pictures in the Living Room! (Some of them)

We really are almost done unpacking our boxes! We have a box of coats left, and we have a box of "study" stuff that is open, I just have to suck it up and finish unpacking it all. We've also gotten almost everything hung up! The only things left are my degrees and a painting a friend's brother made me of a UMW building, but I think that needs to be reframed since I think the frame is broken.







As you can tell. We have a lot of pictures and wall hanging things! Everything got hung up upstairs since downstairs isn't finished and I just don't see the point of hanging stuff up in rooms we don't use yet.

I LOVE this picture. It's a signed
print that Mom and Dad got me for my birthday
this year. LOVE IT.

I've also started moving on from working just on the stuff on the inside of the house, to also working on the outside. Yesterday, I spent a couple hours outside working on weeding the front flower bed and pulling up the damaged boundary markers. It's not the best weeding job ever, but since I didn't have any gardening tools, just a rock, I'm happy with how it turned out. I'll be putting newspaper down around the plants underneath the mulch once we get to that point to help with weed control. The only issue is that I got eaten alive by mosquitoes which gardening. My legs are COVERED in bites and I'm trying very hard not to scratch. But still PROGRESS! I'm hoping tomorrow to be able to gather up all the fallen branches and stack them in the backyard to turn into mulch in the coming weeks (since we don't have a fire place) and rake up the leaves in the front yard that are remaining from last year (I'm guessing here).  I also need to pull up the ugly damaged garden barriers on the other side of the front steps, but there really aren't any weeds in that flower bed so it will be a lot faster. Although I was reminded that I HATE DANDELIONS! They are one of the hardest weeds to pull up. RAWRG. We also have to try to clean up the side of the house, and we really need to clean the gutters but neither one of us particularly likes ladders, but it has to be done. That's all for now as far as house updates! Hope to have more soon! :-D

Weeded front flower bed

~)O(~ Elfie ~)O(