Adventures in Remuddling

Last year was all about renovating the inside of our house, and mostly the first floor (kitchen and bath). This year, the plan was to work on the landscaping.

Well it’s already mid-July and we have not done much landscaping besides the driveway (which was a much bigger project than I thought) . We had grand visions of a potager garden in the front and a serene, relaxing area out back. Not much has been done, although I did plant some herbs in pots.

Continue reading “Landscape Work” »

According to our landscape plan, we need 2 barrels to act as a rain water collection system. I’ve seen old wine or whiskey barrels used before. But most rain barrels are made from 55-gallon food grade containers (which are more plentiful and cheaper). A couple of months ago, we bought 2 rain barrels from our local home improvement co-op.

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Last year, during the heavy rains, we had a major water problem in our basement. With some strategic gutter placement, we had solved most of those problems. During the winter, however, we encountered another water (or ice) related problem near our back steps. Snow would accumulate on our deck, then melt and drip off the side of the deck (where there’s no gutter), and accumulate near the steps, and then would freeze (because it was in the shadow of the deck). Big chunks of ice by our back steps. Not good. Salt and various other ice melting formulas were used to break up the ice, but eventually more water/snow would accumulate and the process would start all over.

Continue reading “Water, Water, Everywhere…” »

We had a few months to enjoy our finished dining room.

Currently, all of our living room furniture is now in the dining room. Why is that you ask?

Continue reading “Cozy Dining Room (temporarily)” »

Original Living Room Wall (picture taken during home inspection)

The wall looks decent in photos. But already, you can see gaps (the black lines) between the moulding and the wall/ceiling. Up close, you can see cracks in the plaster. There is an especially long crack spanning the entire length of the ceiling. Also the sconces are not exactly the prettiest. It’s apparent that we don’t have the same tastes as the previous homeowners (chandelier, plates, etc). And they don’t work. The switch on the wall does not turn on/off the sconces, it only controls the outlet directly below.

So what’s in store for the living room?

Continue reading “Updating the Living Room” »

When Tig was researching pavers for our driveway, he scoured the metro area for quarries, stoneyards and gravel places. He would even look at Google satellite map images and compare different location sizes to see if they really had, “the largest selection” of stones. He called many places, but visited only a handful to scope out prices and selection. Thankfully, I was spared the shopping experience during the parking spot project.Last weekend, however, he twisted my arm and made me look at stones for hours.

Continue reading “Stoned” »