Tortoise-Proofing the Back Deck

Tammy the Tortoise will occasionally push through the lattice surrounding the back deck and hide under the hot tub. Which is fine in the summer. But it's not going to work if snow falls and blocks her in.

So I picked up some pressure treated 2x4s and some spikes from Home Depot, and anchored the lattice in place.

Turns out a 10-foot 2x4 just fits inside my car.

While I had my tools out, I replaced the step to the back door. The planks had actually started to curl upwards and become a real safety hazard. Not anymore:

Hmm. That deck really needs to be repainted in the near future.

Tree Trimming

A tree in our backyard had a couple of branches that were rubbing against the house. The temperature got all the way up to 55 degrees Fahrenheit today, so I took the opportunity to trim about a dozen branches off the tree.

I mostly cut the branches down to fit in our fireplace (you can kinda see a stack of small logs between the stepstool and the tree). They'll need to dry out for a year before I try to burn them, though.

Since I was out in the yard, and most of the snow has melted, I also cleaned up the extension cords from our christmas lights, and restocked the freaking chickens with food and water.

Nursery Nesting

We got a couple other things done in the nursery. Brianna was pretty interested in nesting tonight. We picked up a bunch of things (this kid already has a ton of "stuff") from the horizontal surfaces and organized a bit, running a load of laundry. I also installed a hook in the closet to hold the wet diaper bag and got the changing table anchored to the wall so it can't tip over.

Pretty soon we need to get that baby seat installed in a car. Its lining is in the washing machine currently.

I also moved a shelving unit into the nursery closet. (Brianna doesn't know about this one yet)

Tired Monday

Brianna and I both crashed pretty hard around four o'clock today, and may have left work a little early. Brianna stopped by the grocery store on the way home to buy milk. Somehow she found discounted diapers and bought those as well. I shopped at Home Depot - I kinda want to finish this insulating kick I'm on. I bought some materials to insulated the attic access and winterize the evaporative cooler. I didn't have the energy to actually deal with either tonight, though.

I did put some wall plates and other accessories back on the newly-painted walls, though. The yellowed plastic of the doorbell blends in surprisingly well with the wall color:

I do want to replace that doorbell - one of the two chimes has fallen off, and I really want a doorbell that can send a push notification to my phone. That way I'll be able to "hear" the doorbell even when I'm making noise in my shop in the basement. But considering that I've blown through eighty-five percent of this month's house budget on insulation projects and that Link is due to arrive next month, I don't think I'll get around to replacing the doorbell anytime soon.

While I was doing that, Brianna was working on the nursery. She got a number of new outfits at the baby shower this weekend, and just generally had a lot of sorting and nesting to do. She was clearly enjoying herself - tired as she was, she didn't want to go to bed.

Sunday Odd-Jobs

Between coats of paint, I touched up paint in some other areas around the house, including a "whoops" of a wrong color on the kitchen ceiling, a scrape on the wall of the main floor hallway, and fixing holes from an old towel rack in the master bathroom:

The new towel rack is anchored on studs - I call it long-term child-proofing.

While I was painting, Brianna took a nice nap in the early afternoon, and then did some shopping. Among other things, she picked up some plastic tubs to help organize the closet, after I so rudely dumped everything out of it yesterday.

Brianna also made some delicious enchiladas for dinner, with enough leftovers for several lunches this week.

Sprinkler System Winterized

Brian is away, so... it is time for me to hire out jobs. :-)

Brian and I were talking about having our sprinkler system blown down. He was on NextDoor (like a Facebook for neighbors with no videos) and one of our neighbors has been in the commercial lawn care business for 17+ years and was recommended by another neighbor. He was about the same price as the unknown flyer person, so I think a reasonable fee.  

He arrived on-time with his large compressor.  Look how pretty the leaves are... it feels like fall.

He got the compressor started, turned the water off.

And assembled a drain on the line when the vacuum is broken.  The bucket is to catch the water when it drains down the line.

Attached the air hose.

Then he started to blow out each zone.

Brian told me about an app called Hyperlapse.  It is for long timelapse videos... has some cool stabilization technology built in.  

This is one zone finishing and one complete zone cycle.   I think the original video was 4 minutes down to ~30seconds.   It is fun to play with the speed of these. 

Then he cleaned up. The process didn't take very long, 30 minutes from him pulling up to him cleaned up and leaving. 

I am very happy with how professional and quick he was. He also was very happy to talk me through all the ins and outs of sprinkler mainentence, compressors, how our sprinkler system compares to other residential and commercial ones. I liked him a lot. His name is Steve.  (Brian would you please find his # again...?)

Odd Jobs

I also took care of a couple of things that were a lot higher on Brianna's to-do list than they were on mine.

First up was repairing the ottoman that goes with the gliding chair in the nursery. The screws on the right leg of the ottoman had completely stripped out. I replaced them with a few bolts, and everything is working normally again.

I also moved the power cord to one of the lights in the master bedroom. I thought it was perfectly logical to have the vertical line run above the outlet when I installed it, but turns out Brianna had a plan for the corner the whole time.

More Firewood and Back Yard

I finished up the last couple of logs from yesterday. I finished filling up the wood shed, and stacked the remaining small, un-split logs next to the woodshed. So, I'm all done with all the big logs. There are still a number of branches with leaves on them in that back pile, though.

Brianna's been asking me to trim off the bottom layer of branches on this tree for a while now. According to her, the prickly branches give the local rabbits an "unfair advantage" over Eva during chases.

Since I already had the chainsaw out, so I made 3 or 4 quick cuts, and had it trimmed down.

I couldn't think of a better option, so I threw the branches back in the same area I've been cleaning out.

Does anyone know if conifer branches are safe for chickens? I think that tree is some kind of fir. Or at least, it smells like a christmas tree. Apparently it's a Blue Spruce.

FIrewood and Back Yard Clean Up

The sellers left quite a few logs between the shed and the fence in the back yard. They also clearly used the area as a composting/dumping area. My father-in-law lent me a chainsaw and splitting maul this weekend, so I could chop up the logs for use in the winter in our wood-burning fireplace.

Once again, I forgot to take a "before" picture. The earliest photos I have are after cutting the logs down to size. Brianna had a "before" photo:

Eva would follow Brianna anywhere, as long as a gate didn't get in the way.

The following photos are from after I cut the logs into sections.

I stopped cutting when the chainsaw idled to a stop and wouldn't immediately restart. I split the logs with the maul, then did a first pass at cleaning up all the dead vegetation by throwing it in the chicken run. The chickens loved it.

I really wished I had a wheelbarrow when it was time to truck the split logs from the back corner of the yard to the front corner by the garage. But Brianna came out and did a few trips with me, and the little neighbor girl apparently thinks we're cool enough that she even volunteered to help us carry wood, as well. Overall, I think we made a vast improvement on the back corner of the yard. Still have another solid afternoon worth of work ahead of me, though.

I'll add that bale of hay to the chicken coop when I finish up with this area. Another day.

We have a good chunk of wood set up for the winter, now.

There's some darker wood on the bottom-right, which was in the woodshed when we bought the house, but the rest is wood I cut and split today. The quantity worked out pretty well!

Weekend Update

I finally managed to get the toilet tank off so I could paint behind it. I had to cut the bolt - it was completely rusted in place. By Sunday afternoon, I had touched up the primer coat and gotten the first coat of color in place.

I also finally got some shelves installed in the closet of the master bedroom. The top level used to be wire racks, anchored into the drywall. We pulled those out when we painted the bedroom, and this weekend I finally got around to installing these wooden ones. Certainly not a top-notch carpentry job, but it's a lot more solid than the wire racks were.

After Brianna and I both went through and picked up all the visible debris from chicken coop construction, I went through the grass with a magnet bar and found this:

I got the evaporative cooler working! And the fan blasted a ton of dust and grit in my face the first time I turned it on. In fact, the fan spewed so much grit that I had to vacuum the room once I was reasonably confident I had blown out all the dirt. It works pretty well, though, and I believe Sunday was the first day in Colorado I experienced humidity greater than 40% when it wasn't raining.

And finally, we primed and painted the trim (but not the siding, yet) of the chicken coop, so I was able to fasten down the last of the wire mesh. Still have to weave the ceiling mesh strips together, though:

Lots of Little Things

Brianna wanted a second shower curtain so the curtains in the first guest bedroom could be parted down the middle. The first one came from the "last chance" bin - they had been discontinued and were being cleared out. I stopped by IKEA on the way home from work, and found one last shower curtain in the bin. I grabbed it and ran. (well, actually I walked to the as-is section).

I picked up a small bedside lamp for $5 in the as-is section, and headed home. The filing cabinet from the garage sale this weekend is going to pull double duty as a bedside table in the guest bedroom for now, and the lamp completed the set.

Once I got home, I finally installed the last light switch I had planned to do the weekend before last:

The switch on the left controls the ceiling fan and light in the family room off the kitchen. So I'm done with electrical work for a while (phew! I was getting tired of shocks!)

I had picked up another ceiling lamp last week, to replace the one in the laundry room. I took care of that this evening as well. Even in the laundry room, the existing light fixture was grody and the interior insulation was stained black and brown with tobacco smoke. Now that this one is replaced, I think I only have one more light fixture in the basement to replace.

And I wasn't done yet! I put some wood filler in (and on) nail holes in the trim around the kitchen - I'll sand it down tomorrow:

Finally, once the upstairs had cooled off in the evening, I finished assembling the new bed frame. Brianna strung up the curtains, and I brought up another garage-sale find: a gliding rocking chair and ottoman:

Together, they certainly seem to fill up that room. And eventually we'll get a mattress on that bed frame and dig out some appropriately sized sheets.

Non-Painting Day

Didn't get much done around the house today.

Stopped by Goodwill and picked up a few button-down shirts that were a little lighter-weight and had sleeves long enough for my arms, then got a haircut that was nearly a month over-due.

Swung by IKEA as-is section on the way home from work. I had found a couple of cabinet pulls of the style Brianna wants in the kitchen yesterday, and was hoping to repeat my luck. I didn't find any new cabinet hardware, but I did find a combination microwave and exhaust fan marked down 40% because it didn't have its original box (it was still in its original plastic, though). It was relatively tempting, because Brianna has been wanting a vent hood over the stove since we bought the house, and I finally have that area empty and painted. The IKEA microwave was still $150 though, and I did not want to spend that much money right now, especially without researching this particular model. When I got home, I was glad I held off: the microwave was the right width for our cabinets, but would have jutted out in the other dimensions by a couple of inches. That money will live to fight another day.

I also had a package waiting for me when I got home: a new lint filter for the dryer. Man, they make you pay through the nose for replacement parts for appliances: Amazon wanted $30 for a bit of plastic and metal - I took a risk and got this one from a less reputable distributer for $22.

No sign of any mice in the garage, and the traps are un-sprung, which gives me hope that Bob nipped that problem in the bud.

More IKEA

Not really sure where the day went.

I swung by IKEA after work, and lucked out: I found the same color and model of bed frame that we brought down to Colorado Springs yesterday, but this time it was actually the correct size. Only $30!

Other than that, spent some time cleaning up the house, doing laundry and dishes, etc. And we got Brianna packed up for her next business trip.

I wanted to get the kitchen ceiling taped off tonight so I could start painting the walls after work, buuuuut I just ran out of tape. So I guess I have to tape tomorrow as well.

Painting Prep for Kitchen and Family Room

Man, I spent over three hours last night moving stuff out of this area, pulling nails and screws and such out of the walls, and removing blinds and ceiling lights. And I'm not done yet: still have to put in drywall putty, dust the walls and ceilings (there is actually a fair amount of cobwebs and dust still in this room) and put up tape and painter's plastic.

How in the world do people paint after they have been living in a room for a few years? We didn't even have that much stuff in here. And we had a mostly empty room to put that stuff in.

Anyway, after getting to this point I made dinner, and then just completely lost steam. Painter's plastic will have to go up tonight.

Prepping for Painting the Main Floor

Brianna is going on two business trips over the next two weeks, making it a good time for me to tackle painting the main floor areas without fumigating Brianna out of the house with paint fumes. I'm hoping to get the ceiling and walls in this picture primed this week, and painted the following week. We'll see if I can keep my motivation up.

We prepped by moving most of the furniture out of the room. But the china cabinet we inherited from the sellers is really heavy. I'm going to just move that a couple feet off the wall and drape it in plastic.

As part of moving furniture around, we finally moved the white couch down to the basement.

It was a tight fit:

Just a couple inches too long in this orientation.

but we (eventually) made it:

Electrical Work in the Workshop

I only had one electrical outlet in the workshop, but the previous owners left several junction boxes in the ceiling. I had to move this one a few inches to make it accessible, and add my own socket, but now I have power for my computer and 3D printer station :-)

I couldn't figure out what circuit that junction box was on, so I cheated and just flipped the switch for the whole house while I installed the outlet. Only had to reset two clocks after I finished!

***Update - May 3, 2014 at 9:30PM***

Totally forgot to turn the dryer back on though. Towels are still wet :-(

New Corner in Workshop

Pretty quiet evening. I went to an open house for a gym that is trying to drum up membership, then stopped by IKEA on the way home. I picked up a table for my workshop.

I had to cut out a section to fit it around the Radon mitigation system (that vertical white pipe in the center)

I thought the corrugation was interesting. The table top cost $10 from the As-Is section (the table legs cost $17.50) because it had some scratches on the top. I'm going to do a lot worse to it. Already have, in fact.

Weekend Summary

Aside from starting work on painting another bedroom and painting a shelving unit, we did some other work around the house this weekend:

• Our "new" chest freezer got cleaned out and turned on. Now we need to stock it up!
• Changed out the furnace filter.
• Two more boxes were unpacked.
• The pet stuff in the laundry room got organized
• The backyard was cleansed of Eva's "presents" 
• And the main floor of the house was vacuumed.

We also had some deliveries, both from Woot.com:

Brianna has wanted folding step stools in the kitchen since we moved in, and these actually put her right at eye height with me! As for the Pyrex...well, apparently a kitchen can't have too much Pyrex.

After a full day of work (including the inaugural Easter Egg hunt!) we went to see the second Captain America movie (which was pretty great!) and now it is bedtime before spending Easter Sunday with Brianna's family in Colorado Springs.