Hopefully for the last time

So two years ago I was digging a trench for a new sewer.




















I had to dig again to re-route part of it, because, (who knew at the time) we'd be adding on to the house! We were hoping it would be outside of new foundation walls, but no such luck.

Spent about an hour digging the adjusted main line (below, on right of photo) as well as most of the hole for the new clean-out (filled in, where the white dot is at the top-right).














After about 2 hours this afternoon, all the trenches, except for where the new bathroom will be (bottom left), are filled and soak-in.

What I do while Isaac's napping

With some friendly encouragement from the city, I get to replace the cracked part of our sidewalk. Note the nice tree roots in the foreground. About 10 years overdue, this should be completed in the coming weeks. A good thing really, since a few weeks ago Joe fell off his scooter while trying to manage the cracks and other hazards.

Catching up

August has been busy and haven't had much time until now. Rhonna went to Denver for a 3-day library conference then just after a couple days off to recover she worked the next weekend. A few more days at work and she left last Friday morning for the University of Alabama to attend grad-school orientation. With Rhonna gone and Joe in school all day, things have been pretty quiet around here. Rhonna comes home tonight and we are all looking forward to staying home for a while.

The remodeling is done and the house is ours again except we are now in the middle of having a new roof put on due to the June hailstorm. Next up is major work on the sewer line.

The math is quite easy:

add together:
One 90 year old house + 2 sewer clean-outs in past year
= we get to spend lots of money

All that's left after that is the water main! Yea!!!

Hopefully it can wait at least few years from now!

Now for pictures:

At the county fair

Playing with mom's birthday present from the boys

5 Years Old!

First day of Kindergarten!

Day out in K.C.

We needed a day off before beginning the rush of August so we dropped of the boys with their aunt and uncle and headed out to Kansas City. We did some classic K.C. activities: we wallked the Plaza (ho-hum), and went to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which is great if you haven't watched the Ken Burns Baseball series he did for PBS. The true highlights of the day were Andre's and Architectural Salvage. Andre's is a Swiss restaurant south of the Plaza. It has a cozy atmosphere with a touch of class. The cost of your meal includes dessert, as our waitress said, "We force you to eat sweets." You've already paid for it, it would be a shame to let those luscious desserts go to waste. We had paprika pork with penne pasta for our main course and it was delightful. You must go to Andre's the next time you're in town.

Architectural Salvage is a huge warehouse of items saved from old houses: everything from chandelier crystals to doors and mantels. It was just fun to walk around and see all the beauty and quirkiness.

It was a good day out and we are now ready to face the challenges ahead (I think). We did decide that we need more little days out. There are nice museums here in town that we've never been to and that's just pathetic. We'll keep you updated.

Homework: Almost Done

Here are the (almost) final before and after pictures.








Everything is done except for a few touch-up items and the gutters! Those are on order and should be done next week. We are thrilled with our cute little back porch and the lovely crisp paint. Kirk will probably paint the trim bit by bit over time. I think we'll go back to the navy blue, although we've also tossed around orange (rust?). Any opinions? Overall, we are very pleased with what they've done with our cute little house. Now if we could only make the inside look that good! We're also enthused about finally having central air. No more loud, cold air blasting on us while we eat. No more nasty dirty window that we can't clean without hiring a crew to come over to help us move the AC. If you know anyone that needs a huge window unit that works quite well, let us know. We would be thrilled to get rid of it!

Homework: End of Week 3

Well... it looks like we'll also have a new roof thanks to the 2 hail storms earlier this month. Not only that, but we found out that it's best not to have a window a/c unit sitting in our new windows. It could be done, but the windows aren't made for a/c and it will void the warranty on the window. So maybe as soon as a week from now we'll have central air. What next? (what's left!? dare I ask?)

As for the "original" project, about all that's left is to finish the back porch, some electrical work (note the wires below), and install the gutters. All but the gutters should be finished next week.

Progress

Big strides were made today. Our back porch is gone. It only took them about 45 minutes to rip it off. They've also scraped and primed the north and west sides of the house. It already looks much better! While digging up the porch, they found an old Pabst Blue Ribbon can, old enough that it didn't have a pull tab. How far back did you have to use a tool to open a can of beer?

Before:
After:

Homework: Week 2

No gutters, new doors and windows, scraped paint, and a deconstructed porch.

Homework update

Day 0 became day -8. One very bad hail storm last Monday morning - we were lucky with hail only slightly larger than golf balls. Sounded like we were surrounded by people using our house as practice for kickboxing. Two or three inches of rain that day. Then last Thursday night I had supper in the basement while we waited out more hail and funnel clouds. Rhonna enjoyed the time at the library basement since the sirens sounded 15 minutes before her shift ended. About three inches of rain in an hour and we couldn't see our street nor the curbs when it was all over. Needless to say the contractor for our house is well behind with his other projects and he hadn't even started with ours.



Rhonna and I spent Monday night (not the whole night, just until midnight) creating easy access to all the windows.



This much work and we're not even moving, although it feels like it. So today we now have a new front door and a few new windows with the remainder to be completed by week's end. The fun begins....

Homework: Day 0

Starting with some pre-(re)construction photos. Imagine new windows, gutters, back porch and fresh paint. When finished, the house will look like the photo of the front porch. Until then, flowers can help only so much to distract the eye from the horrid gutters and sagging porches. The screened back porch will be replaced with an open and, if the roof is salvageable, covered porch.

(now if only I can I fit the word "porch" into the first sentence....)

Just in time

Let the chaos begin! Today we signed the contracts for the work on our home. The contractor's supposed to start by June 2, but could start earlier. Two weeks later than planned is perfect timing for our temporary residents. I've only ever seen two, but they appear to be ready to fly. We have a pair of finches hanging around as well, but I haven't seen their nest.

For the birds

With the delay in the remodeling, there might be a chance for the Robins to fly the coop before the gutters are removed.

Painting our house

Kirk's parents came up for the week to help us out. Kirk's dad painted the house while his mom and my mom watched the boys. The house looks a million times better. . . on two sides. He only had a week after all. At least it's a start.
I apologize for my rant in a previous post about housing. You shouldn't have to hear that. I love our little house and I know it has great potential. We're lucky to have a house at all. If we had waited a few years to buy, we wouldn't be able to afford the house we have.
Anyway, I love the new green paint. We're thinking navy accents. We're also almost done painting the cabinets in the kitchen and Kirk can put down a new floor in October. We're chipping away at the projects