Adventures in Remuddling

… continuation of M’s dad’s reno.

Tig helped M install a new ceiling light (upper left in the picture) before hanging the upper cabinets. You can see the hanging rail on the wall. There was a change of plans in the middle of all this. I was taking a nap at J&M’s apartment when they decided this at night. It required some reshuffling of cabinets.

Continue reading “Sell This House: Kitchen Mostly Done” »

… continuation of M’s dad’s reno.

Here are some of the other army members painting the upstairs bedrooms.

The upstairs was painted in a couple of days.

… continuation of M’s dad’s reno.

Once the old kitchen was torn out, it had to be painted. J, who has fabulous color sense, picked out this neutral beige color that really warmed up the room.

Continue reading “Sell This House: Kitchen Painting” »

Our friends J & M took on an ambitious project a couple months ago. They did a quick reno of M’s dad’s place to get it ready for sale in a down real estate market. The plan was daring: tear out the existing kitchen and replace with new IKEA kitchen cabinets, install new lights, paint all upstairs rooms, living room and dining room. Luckily, they had an army of friends to help them, including us (we’re only a very small part of the army). We spent a week in the trenches. Here is a before picture of the kitchen.

Continue reading “Sell This House (Not Our House): The Beginning” »

Tada! Our fence is up.

Continue reading “Our White Picket Fence” »

The posts are the first order of business - actually, the post holes. That’s where a post hole digger comes in handy. An electric auger would have been even more helpful, but probably not worth my expense.

Post hole digger in hole

I did run into a little bit of a snafu.

Continue reading “Installing the Fence” »

Another modification to our master landscape plan is the use of a fence instead of a hedge.

After lugging home 6 posts and 4 panels of cedar fencing (another story in itself), I decided to stain the wood before installation. Cedar is naturally more weather resistant than many other kinds of wood. However, we did not like the gray-ish color of aged/weathered cedar. Serena being who she is, opted for the white picket fence look (she really likes white colors). We briefly considered a PVC fence - weather resistant and practically maintenance free! - we couldn’t get past the “plasticky”look and feel.

All the paint shop was done on the front lawn, which subjected me to lots of neighborly gawking, but I had no place else.

Fence staining set up

Continue reading “Prepping the Fence” »

Or more aptly named, “Have Wet Saw, Will Cut Anything”.

Our landscape designer put into the landscape master plan a narrower walkway made with nice paver stones or cobble stones. This involves ripping out the concrete walkway from our front door to the sidewalk. After installing pavers in the back driveway, I knew that this would be a BIG project - and would require much more money than we’d like to spend. So we decided to modify the plan and narrow the walkway (from 5.5 feet wide to 4 feet) before adding edging. Narrowing the walkway seems a bit obscure, but it helps “connect” the two parts of yard into one garden.

So here’s where the wet saw comes in.

First cut

Continue reading “Narrowing the Walkway” »

Ah privet…They’re definitely not in our landscape master plan. It’s way past its prime, old and straggly and let’s weeds through.  Even Serena’s parents lobbied to have them removed. Now that the icy New England winter has given way to spring, it’s time to put our landscape plan into action. We did changed it a little bit, opting for a low picket fence rather than new hedges.

Continue reading “Tearing down the hedges” »

Spring is finally here in the Northeast. One of our peach trees already has a (singular) blossom.

It’s exciting, especially since the little tree looks so sad after I “whipped” it.

Continue reading “Springtime” »