On our way to a real yard

So this weekend will go down as one of the busiest, hardest working in our history, I think only to be topped by the other weekend spent on the yard breaking up the brick/concrete sidewalk that extended 5” into the dirt. After looking at the projected weather for the weekend, and realizing that spending a weekend inside working on the closet sounded less than appealing, we decided to tackle the yard- something we’ve been thinking about, but avoiding for quite some time. In part this is because we just didn’t feel like all the mental work that we first needed to do- figuring out the tiller rental, then figuring out how much and what type of seed, fertilization, etc., not to mention that our yard was riddled with a nice combination of rocks and glass- two things I’d rather not have mixed in with our grass when we have a little one running around the yard barefoot. We decided to face it one step at a time, starting with tiller rental. I was worried our project was doomed before it even began when I began calling around looking for a rear tine tiller. Naturally waiting the day before one of the nicest weekends of the year isn’t the best idea, but we managed to get one of the last ones available. Next step, transporting it. The cost of delivery was a mind-blowing $80 each way, but we also had to factor in that I could in no way help get it in or out of a truck. We thought about a moving truck with a ramp, but settled on a pickup truck with billy coming to our rescue. Two hernias and a couple of hours later we had a giant, fancy tiller in our back yard. This is about where we started out at.

Clint got to work churning up dirt, while I pulled up our paver patio, and shoveled out copious amounts of sand. We thought about leaving it for a split second, but in redistributing the soil we lost about an inch or two overall, which would have made the patio unlevel. That and we have a penchant for undoing what we didn’t do, just so we can make it ours. Then the raking and root removal began. We had to first level the dirt, then create the necessary slope from the house. In doing this we uncovered thousands of roots running across the yard, some we could pull up with a good deal of effort, and others where we just gave up and clipped below the surface of the soil. We literally filled three landscape bags full of these. We also spent hours raking and picking up rocks and glass by hand. The only objects of particular interest we uncovered were a mini screwdriver, a spoon, and a marble, but alas no buried treasure. This is where we were end of day Saturday.

Once this was complete, (Saturday evening) we headed to Lowes (one of our 6, yes 6 trips there this weekend). Then we started our questioning. Did we need to conduct a soil test, did we need fertilizer, what type of seed should we use, should we cover it with straw, etc. We did a fair amount of research on the internet, but it seems there are many schools of thought when it comes to how best to go about all this so we thought it would be easier to try to get an answer out of someone. Turns out though, there are just as many different answers with the Lowes people. We got every answer from “you’ll never get grass to grow in the spring” (umm, why are there aisles and aisles of grass seed in the seasonal section then?) to “no you don’t need fertilizer” (but the grass seed says we do!). We ended up using a mix of common sense, the package instructions, our best guesses, the input we liked from others, and the guidance of a magic 8 ball. With all that we closed our eyes, throw down some topsoil, seed, fertilizer, and covering to protect it from the copious amounts of birds around us, watered it, and hoped for the best.

We’ll tend to it over the next couple of weeks and hope for some sprouts. We’re thinking as long as we get something we can revisit in the fall, overseeding and fertilizing until we eventually come out with a green lawn. Although we’re both quite stiff, tired, and in need of a few days for recuperation, we’re pretty proud of what we accomplished, even if it does end up just a dirt yard. At least it’s a level, glass free dirt yard anyway.

Fun with Appliances

As some of you may or may not know, Clint and I have spent the last year or so hand spinning our washing machine, meaning that when it was time for the spin one of use would need to be on hand to just give it a little help getting started. Of course we recognized the inconvenience of it, and the absurdity of not getting it fixed for so long, but as we contemplated the extra loads of laundry we’ll have in about 6 short months, and the ease with which it could potentially be remedied, we finally put the call into sears and had the repairman out. about 3 minutes later and $60 poorer we found out that fixing it would cost in the neighborhood of $500 dollars- conveniently about the same cost of buying a new one. As I slid the dryer back into place and plugged it in, I heard a lovely popping sound that I realized with a sinking feeling meant the dryer probably wouldn’t turn on. I exhausted my knowledge on how to fix it (meaning I flipped the circuit breaker) but to no avail. At this point, wildly frustrated that the dryer choose to break a mere minutes after the repairperson left, and hesitant to spend another $60 to hear the dryer was forever broken, I decided to see what I could do about any of it. I got as far as disassembling the washing machine before I realized with the cost of parts and my risk of further breaking something, it just wasn’t worth it.

It’s been a week and we haven’t gotten around to replacing either yet- we looked, but we were paralyzed in indecision and decided we first needed to do a bit of investigation. In the meantime, yesterday I decided to run a few loads of laundry and again tried to plug in the dryer (hoping for a miracle). Instead we got a shower of sparks and a burnt plug. Conveniently we had an appliance repair person out this morning, which leads us to an different story entirely.

This one starts with our carbon monoxide detector falling down the stairs, and ending up in pieces on our landing on Monday. Over dinner I put it back together, where it promptly began going off. While the instructions on the back warned us to immediately vacate the house and call 911 we were less concerned, given its recent tumble and high likelihood of malfunctioning. After a couple of experiments however of moving it from room to room where it wouldn’t go off, we decided we might have an issue after all, and put a call into our gas line warranty company. This was one of those situations where if they send someone out and there’s nothing wrong, just a malfunctioning detector, we get charged- BUT if they find something wrong, it’s free. This goes down as one of the first and only times we’re praying something is wrong with the house. They promptly sent a heating and cooling person who waved his detector wand around, and noticed a loose exhaust pipe on the furnace and a slightly elevated reading around the stove. After calling for a smaller person since it required shimmying on one’s belly to reach the pipe, they replaced the entire exhaust, free of charge. My next move was to check out the stove. I called and got the same response- if there’s nothing wrong it’s money out of our pocket. Torn between not wanting to spend the money, but wanting to make sure the stove was safe (and secretly hoping for a new, free one) we put in the request and out they came this morning. Naturally, nothing was wrong (costing us $80) but I did get to pick his brain about the dryer. Turns out either the dryer cord or the outlet box is shorting, which should be easy to determine by opening them both up and seeing which one is burnt. Supposedly a cord replacement is an easy thing, but it is nonetheless one more thing. We’re a bit overwhelmed at this point, both by the tasks at hand and the mounting pile of laundry, but I’m not going to lie- the thought of a washer running an entire cycle by itself is exciting. All in all, although it’s been a lot of repair people, we at least know our furnace, water heater and stove are safe (which you would never know by looking at them), and we’re about to have a washer (and maybe a dryer) that should be trouble free well into the future. I suppose it's all better it happen now too, while we actually have the time (relatively) to address these things.

More Closet Nonsense

I have been long remiss in my publishing responsibilities, in part because blogging about progress became difficult until everyone knew the factor impeding any progress for a few months. But I am now emerging from the fatigue first trimester, everyone has been informed, and we are off!

First stop, conveniently right where we left off, in our dining room closet. Just in case I haven’t reiterated it enough, we have a problem that is our undying pursuit of perfectionism. Often times this is laudable, particularly in details where this extra effort can be observed. A coat closet where hardly anyone will ever see though? Puts us a little bit closer to that edge of crazy. Nonetheless we plastered over the various bumps and ridges, slapped on a fresh coat of paint, and pulled up countless carpet staples from the floor, along with some odd material I can only describe as shingle-like. The closet floor was unable to be touched when they refinished the rest of the floors downstairs because the giant drum sander would have come crashing through the trap door to the crawl space. At first this was a frustration, as it left us to figure out what in the world to do with the floor; I’m now liking it for the character that will show future homeowners the condition of the floors before they were refinished. We do still have some trouble spots though, especially as laying carpet tiles requires somewhat of an even surface. Particularly we need to figure out how to address a hole in the floor that was previously covered by a tin can lid (top quality workmanship). As much as I’d like to believe it was from something harmless, like butterflies flapping their wings or a cute little kitten scratching, it looks a lot like a hole a rat would create trying to dig its way out of the crawlspace. (This fear is only heightened by the rat poison still remaining on the ledge in the crawl space just under the hole). Rest assured there has been no sign of any rodent activity since the great adventure, but I can only imagine when the neighborhood when through its blighted phase that there were numerous questionable going-ons taking place in our lovely home. We’re thinking as a fix a hole cut out of wood, buttressed by nails underneath, with some well-placed wood filler. Any other suggestions? (it’s about a 3” diameter).