October 17, 2014
It was great to see Bob working in Autocad, laying out a rough plan for where things should go. With the bulk of our work focused on cleaning and demo, it was exhilarating to think about future stuff – to think on the creating the new, instead of removing the old. I know that Liz in particular was very excited/happy afterwards.
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September 25, 2014
While she was doing this, I was out watering the front yard. From time to time, I noticed folks walking by and pausing briefly, looking down our driveway at Liz with her photo set up.
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September 16, 2014
At least once (if not more) every evening, someone will mention the yard to me as they pass by. They’ll say things like “Looks great!” or “Looking really good!” And each time that happens, I say “thank you” but I feel the need to correct them regarding their praise. I’m the guy holding the garden hose, but it was Julie and Liz who did all the hard work.
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September 13, 2014
Saturday was a big push to focus on our front lawn. It’s been sitting in a fairly blank state, ever since Liz and Julie powered through the overgrowth and managed the tame the craziness that was here previously.
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September 7, 2014
Sunday, Liz and I tackled the basement and back yard some more. While she continued to clean up the basement walls, I was working on hauling lots of sand back into the basement. We created this huge mound back in June, and it’s finally time to bring all this stuff back in to the house.
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September 4, 2014
Tonight, I worked with Bob on setting up the base for a hefty column in the basement. The goal is to raise up the first floor a bit, as it’s sagging significantly in a few spots. But to do that, we need a substantive base to rest the column on.
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August 28, 2014
We were hoping to ignore the back yard until the winter came, letting the cold and snow take care of everything for us. But we’ve heard rumblings from neighbors as to the state of the back yard, so we’ve decided to bubble it a little higher on our task list.
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August 23, 2014
Over the weekend, Liz and I spent some time attending to the piles of debris that have accumulated in our backyard. Though it’s a more expensive option compared to an actual dumpster, we opted to yet again go with a Bagster bag, just for the ease.
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August 18, 2014
One thing we are focusing on is getting the back basement area prepped and ready. We’re going to be installing a new security door in back, and filling in the back half of the large hole we dug. If we can get this back area cleared and cleaned away, and the floor poured, we could technically have the back basement area done!
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August 14, 2014
First piece down! We have strips of wood that were glued to the floor joists, and another layer of glue bonding the plywood with the strips. We used a nailer (powered by a pretty large compressor) to hold everything down. My first attempt at the nailer had me accidentally shooting out two nails at once. But after that small hiccup, I got the hang of how it works. Man, those things are powerful.
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August 11, 2014
We finally got around to putting together Jake’s old grill, which he was kind enough to give us. Last weekend, Liz and brought the thing inside and started assembling it in our kitchen. One night after work, I helped with the final install and I’m delighted to say we have the thing up and running again! The grill, relocated and…
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August 6, 2014
After work today, Liz spent some time clearing out a small pathway. On arriving home, I saw this and needed to take a picture – as it seemed like she was carving a very narrow pathway across the entire backyard.
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August 1, 2014
Last night, after dinner, Liz decided to let the rabbits out of their pen area so they could roam around a bit more. Our house is still pretty messy, and there are lots of areas where we’re trying to keep the buns away from… but we were able to cordon off the main room and the stairs, allowing them to explore just a bit.
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July 28, 2014
Tonight, after many, many months away… I’m happy to say that Phineas and Quincy are back home with us again. We were concerned that the state of construction at the house would be too much for their systems (lots of dust and particles in the air), so we kept them away while the bulk of the demo work has been going on.
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July 27, 2014
One of the pieces I took out was the original lead pipe that brought in water from the city. We’ve since replaced it with something more modern/stable, but this guy was just a crazy thing from the past. I’m really glad to see it finally gone, as it was not the safest thing to have in our basement.
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