Category: House
Trials, tribulations and accomplishments as a home owner.
Weekend Project – Foundation
From last night’s receiving
Them: "When I was a child, I drove a mini-bike into your house."
Me: "Oh, so that’s why I have foundation problems!"
Someone else: "I lived in your house for 6 months."
Another person: "We once drove a car into the sinkhole in the creek."
My house has a colorful history.
Making a girl’s 8th birthday wish come true
Amy has her mind set on a club house for her 8th birthday (tomorrow!).
The Fantasy
On Saturday morning, Ty Pennington and his crew from Extreme Makeover Home Edition show up with a bobcat and the materials to build The Queen Anne or the Spoiler. By Saturday evening, a portion of the yard has been contoured, landscaped and become home to Amy’s new playhouse in which we celebrate her birthday inside.
The Reality
Saturday I build the Little Miss by myself leaving landscaping for a different weekendlifetime. Sunday afternoon, we celebrate Amy’s birthday inside and around her clubhouse.
Cathy’s fear
The construction will be delayed and problematic and Amy will go without any semblance of a birthday present until the end of the summer or worse.
The Wishful Desire
Any volunteers want to grab hammers and shovels and help me put this together in one day on this coming Saturday? Does beer and pizza still work in exchange for labor?
And you can bet there will be a timelapse of the build.
After 10 years I rented a bush hog
I cut down a tree
The tree has fallen, the tree has fallen!
Man Toys!
Sometimes I find things
So I planted a flower
iGardner
Today I’m learning garage door repair
Well, file that one under, "oh sh*t! that’s what the big spring does!"
Seeking Referral – Surveyor
KNOXVILLE: I’m about to start some landscaping projects. Can anyone recommend a surveyor? I want to reconfirm the boundaries of the yard, easements, and underground utilities.
And if the crik don’t rise…
Rains have come. The creek out back has enough water in it that we can see the water from the house. I just checked the trench, wanna be French drain, that protects our basement from flood and sure enough, the sides have collapsed. We don’t have water in the basement yet but will if I don’t get out there and dig us out. I need to be programming every second of today but this has to take priority. Back to the Mosquito Coast.
Note: On the above video, after the first twenty seconds or so I figure out how to not have that obnoxious noise.
The creek in this video is at least 5 feet deep.
Brrrrrrr
It’s 69°F (that’s 20.5°C to the rest of the whole) inside the house and probably 10 degrees colder in the basement. That’s with the emergency heat on and the thermostat set to 75"F (23.8°C). I can’t use the woodstove because 1) it needs to be cleaned, 2) Tommy now lives in that room and has piled stuff all over the stove, and 3) I haven’t put the fireboard up on a wall I built near it. That stove used to heat this house in the winter. I really need new windows and to re-insulate the walls and attic.
*temperature conversion by OnlineConversion.com.
That blows!
A friend of mine loaned me 2 rakes and a backpack leaf blower. I believe this may be the first time in over a decade I come close to actually winning the War of the Leaves!
