We're now completely done with the upstairs. While we've been working on it, Tequila has taken to something hilarious. We keep the air compressor on a big piece of cardboard, so as not to gouge the floor. Tequila's decided that's the place for him to be, no matter what. We turn the corner to this sight often.
My compressor, he says.
Next big project was the staircase from the first to the second floor. Having been carpeted, it was built rather roughly -- and far from square, I discovered. Every step was a slightly different size and shape, so I had to make a poster board template for each and every one to cut the replacement. Fun.
When it was all finished, Liz had to give her approval.
Then it got stained and polyeurethaned to match the upstairs floors, meaning we can move downstairs, at long last.
When we hit a nice warm spell, Jeff taught himself to redo all the screens in the house. He did an absolutely perfect and much-needed job. Last year, the bugs weren't deterred much in a few spots. It'll be much more challenging for them now.
The major basement leak is now completely fixed with our new landscaping, but we've had another small one twice in the middle of terrible storms, this time originating seemingly in the middle of the south wall,. this is directly under the dividing line between the dining and living rooms -- pretty much the dead center of the house. It seems impossible we could have a grading problem causing this. However, there's a strange drywall column protruding from the wall nearby. Could that be the source?
Two hours' of backbreaking work later, I discover the **expletive deleted** who owned the house before us had BUILT THE COLUMN AROUND THE MAIN DRAIN COMING FROM THE SLAB HALF OF THE HOUSE. So, if he ever got a blockage in that line, how exactly did he plan on getting to the cleanout valve (see the bottom of the pipe), I wonder? He'd have to TEAR THE COLUMN OUT. As he was planning on finishing the basement all the way and had already carpeted it, I have to ask: What are people thinking when they do things like this? Shouldn't there be a law or something? I'll rebuild a similar column around it with a nice, easily-removable panel at the bottom for servicing the drain if needed. You know, like a person with half a lick of sense would do.
Anyhow, the leak was coming from where the drain comes through the basement wall, and it turns out this is a very common problem, and easily fixable. A good reference from a friend resealed it with epoxy, injected urethane foam behind that, and covered the whole thing with hydraulic cement to boot. We're having hellacious thunderstorms this weekend, and it's watertight as can be.
Back to the main floor. We've decided on a light green with notes of chartreuse and gray for the dining room and kitchen. But greens are super-difficult to choose -- so we got a bunch of different chips from the various paint manufacturers and taped them to the kitchen wall for a few weeks. We think we've landed on the color you see here, which we painted with a tester can. A month later, and we still like it. That's a good sign.
The dining room is next, so first step is to remove the popcorn, of course. We're getting lots better at this with every room we do. The key is soaking till there's almost no physical scraping required. If you're doing it right, you get big, nasty chunks pulling themselves down. Like this one.
There had been a door at the north end of the room at some point, so one of the three-way switches was located in what is now a corner far away from the room proper. The former dry bar also had two of its own can lights, which we're moving over and transforming into a pendant light for a little seating area we're making. So all the switches had to move around the corner, where they're now ganged in a single box with the closet's light switch. Very time consuming, but well worth it from a practicality standpoint.
Since we're carving out an entry for the new front door, the lighting fixture has to be moved over juuuuust enough to make it really, really difficult. So instead of trying to move the existing wiring, I decided just to run new stuff everywhere. The soffit made that much easier than it might have been. Four little, easily-patchable holes later, and there's all-new Romex everywhere.
And now the old ceiling fan (a real charmer in polished brass and wicker) is just hanging there with no juice and no purpose. The bare bulb marks where the new dining table fixture will go. More on that when we get it installed -- but it was a great find.
We're also turning our attention to the outdoor living spaces. Jeff painted the porch swing and a nice old wooden bench to match the front door and the house trim. The raw wood of the porch will very shortly become white, so you can imagine the contrast in store.
In the backyard, it's time to get the garden going on the site of the former stagnant pond.
Those aren't black boa constrictors you see -- they're two GIANT pieces of rubber plant bed edging that had gradually been buried over the years around the pond. Some of them were down several inches. This was a hard job.
We've got a landscaper coming in a few days to tear out several stumps from the strange bush/tree things that ringed the pond, but one of them was in our way to set the blocks for the garden. So Jeff set his mind to getting it out, and did it with brute force. Wow.
Then finally, today I built the patio-facing side of the retaining wall that will hold the garden. This is its highest point, as it will stretch into the yard, which slopes up quite a bit. At the back, it will be only a block or two high. It's already looking hugely different. Good riddance to the ugliest part of the exterior of the home (besides its doorless facade, of course).
