Adventures of Destructo Dog

Many of you know about our many adventures with the pittie mix we adopted back in August, well the adventures keep on going. Last week Nico figured out how to get out of his latest crate, which is a plastic airline style crate. That's three crates he's gotten out of. We've decided to give up on the crates, however, that means we are going through a whole new learning process on what is truly puppy proof in regards to Nico, aka Destructo Dog. We already knew we had to lock up the recycling bin, and while he's never gotten into the trash, we lock that up for good measure. Around Christmas, and crate number 2, we found we couldn't leave anything on the peninsula counter or the table, he could knock them down. We also learned then that we couldn't leave anything close to the edge of ANY of the counters or he would get it.

Well, this week we learned that we can't have ANY dirty dishes out. How did we find this out? Well, one of the mornings I was running behind and I got MOST of the dishes washed, except a pie plate. So I put that on top of the microwave thinking it would be safe there, but I was wrong. When the hubby got home, only a little before me, not only was the pie plate lying broken on the floor.... so was the microwave. So we no longer have a microwave. We're seeing how long we can go before getting a new one, partially because we are debating what to do. Should we just get another that sits on the counter? We both aren't fond of that idea because we like the counter space being open! Do we want to get shelves to mount above the peninsula and have the microwave either sitting on those or mounted below them? Not a huge fan of that idea- I feel like that will close off the kitchen a bit and one of the things I love about the kitchen is how open it is. The other option is to raise up the cabinets and to put the microwave above the oven/range. This is something we do eventually want to do- but since it will involve repainting, buying some additional shelving or small cabinets to put underneath the current ones once we range them we were planning on waiting on doing this until AFTER the basement was finished. This option also involves electrical work because of the fan that is above the stove now. Thank you Nico for yet again possibly  re-arranging our time line of home improvement plans.

This morning I spent some time re-arranging the shelves in the living room because yesterday Nico decided the DVDs and video games looked appetizing. That luckily was really easy and led to a better arrangement of storage down by the front door.

I guess today we will see what destruction Nico can cause in the 2 hours I'll be at work today- plus probably another 3 for errands/travel time. We'll see! One thing is for sure, once we have kids, the hubby and I will have to do very little baby proofing because our house will be puppy proof.

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.