Basement, Finished

Since 2010, I had been working at finishing the basement (as many of you knew, due to countless updates).  It was a long process that not only included manly tasks like installing studs, drywall, wiring, plumbing, soundproofing, and flooring, but also figuring out furniture and what to do with the space.  Fortunately we were able to do it on a very low budget, finding lots of furniture from garage sales, and borrowing or acquiring used tools.

I had set the deadline to have it mostly finished (walls, ceiling, paint, floor, trim, etc.) by the time Matilda was born, so that we could immediately enjoy the extra space.  In late July 2011, on the morning of the day we went to the hospital to have Lynne induced, I painted the last of the baseboards.  Nothing like a deadline!  Then it took a good number of months to go through everything in our storage space, clean it (thanks to tons of drywall mudding dust), and decide what to keep, donate, or toss.  The construction projects were way more fun than that chore, and we had many minivan loads to the recycling center, Goodwill, and dumpster.

There are still a few more small projects to do, including painting the stairwell, plumbing in a utility sink, and installing a door to the unfinished storage area, but all the parts and equipment are ready and waiting.

It felt so good to finish the project, and we love spending time in the basement.  Everything looks as good as we had hoped (thanks to far too much attention to detail on my end – it made the project last much longer than anticipated and was probably mostly unnecessary).  We enjoy family movie nights in the living room, special dinners at the table, and Eliza loves her play area.  I’m thankful for the space everyday, since my office is now located down there.

I learned so much during the process and owe a lot of thanks to my dad for his help a few weekends to do some of the two-man tasks, like studs and ceiling drywall, and answering my countless phone calls and questions; my grandpa, for teaching me to wire; and friends and family who helped me transport drywall (pre-minivan) and clean/move furniture.

Before – heading down the stairs

After – heading down the stairs

Before – family room

After – family room

Before – play area

After – play area

After – the office and dining area/work table

After – dining/work table space

After – turning the old coal closet into Eliza’s toy closet

Not pictured – the laundry room.  Trust me, it’s just as nice and clean.

A Van with a Plan

We are now officially minivan owners.  Bring on the baby!

Eliza calls it “Eliza’s new van” and wants to play in it everyday.  Thankfully she doesn’t know it has a DVD player yet, but she gets plenty of entertainment out of pushing the button to open and close the side doors and pretending to drive.  We’re pretty excited about the extra space, clean interior, low miles, and four stow-and-go seats (which have already come in handy hauling flooring).

Anyone want to buy a 2000 Buick Century?  It’ll be a bit sad to see her go.

Extreme Makeover – Garage Edition

We are so excited to have our garage back and looking better than ever.  It took over two months for the demolition, tree removal, construction, and door installation.  It also took some time reinstalling all the tools and equipment I had strategically hung in the garage, but it gave me a great opportunity to build some overhead shelves for seasonal storage.  Here are the pictures of the process and what we had to look at for the last few months.

Demolition

Keeping it dry

Framing

Protect that wood

Shingles!

Gutters

The final product. We love the look of our new fancier garage doors.

This can also be a little illustration on the impact different times of day/positions of the sun have on your photographs. :)

Construction Zone

Yesterday the garage was cleaned out to start demolition on the roof and garage doors. Most things went into a storage unit while a few things found there way into the house. Eliza loves that her helmet was one of these items, and that it is now easily accessible. As soon as she saw it this morning it had to be put on. Due to the fact that they are starting construction today, we will call it her hard hat.

It looks like we will have a day of entertainment! I think she is explaining to Otis what is going on, giving him the play-by-play.

Then we had to get out the toy truck and play with it, too.

The hard hat had to stay on for breakfast and snack time.

Eliza has become an expert at using her fork, and she also loves ice in her water (it's hot out!).

Hopefully we can remove the hard hat for nap time (and maybe hide it while she's sleeping).

Tree’s Company

Not only has our little girl kept us busy this summer, but we’ve also had some clean up to do. The last few months have seen some terrible thunder storms. One produced the results below on Sunday, June 27. I had just walked in the door (from the garage) a mere three minutes before we heard a deafening boom and “pop” and saw a bright flash. Lightening had hit our neighbor’s tree. I looked outside to find this.
These are not some of our best photos but it was not the time to improve our craft!

So a tree fell through our garage. The bad news – damaged cars, damaged garage, ugly tree, dead grass (from the tree laying on it too long), slightly tilted swing (which Kirk had finished only a few days prior). The good news – I didn’t pull into the garage three minutes later!

The reason for banged up vehicles.

It took a while dealing with IPL (power), their emergency tree crew, and then the power guys, but by 3am we were finally back to normal (and with 80 degree temps we finally had some air). The food didn’t spoil, and Eliza enjoyed watching the tree crew work until 10:30pm when she crashed, despite having to sleep in a very warm house. When the tree fell/lightning hit, it didn't just knock out power on half the block, but it also fried a couple appliances in our house and partly welded the circuit box closed in the basement.

This is not something I ever expected to see in our narrow driveway! The tree guys had some trouble making it to our backyard in their wide truck. They did some damage to our rocks and trim lining the driveway but after seeing all this, that was minor compared to what I thought may happen.

It was close to 11pm by the time they were able to start sawing the tree . Since this was considered an emergency they worked through the night! When IPL has an emergency tree removal, they only remove enough to get the power back on, but fortunately for us they determined the whole tree needed to be removed from the roof for IPL crew safety. But the tree service does not remove the tree from the property, so we had limbs and large trunk pieces all over the yard still.

Just this week the neighbors’ cut down the other 2/3 of the tree, which is better in the long run, but it also takes away some great bits of shade throughout the day (one reason why Kirk built the swing where he did).

Starting this week (we hope) the crew will finally start repairing the garage. We look forward to the new framing, roof, and garage doors, and we can’t wait to finally park inside a garage again after two months. The Buick already spent over a week at the body shop (it must be the nicest 2000 on the road now!), and the Infiniti will get it’s cosmetic surgery soon.

It Don’t Mean a Thing…

Any given evening you could take a walk around our house, looking at our yard and our driveway, and you wouldn’t see any signs that a kid lived inside.  I kind of prided myself on that.  No toys sitting in the driveway or laying in the grass (getting filthy all day and night) because they were all organized and stored in the garage.  I can’t say that anymore.  The yard has a bit of a permanent eyesore, albeit a fun one.

I built a swing for Eliza this weekend.  You can see that she’s already having a great time with it.  She loves to giggle as I run toward her or sneak behind her to push her higher.  She also enjoys trying to kick me as I tickle her feet.  Hopefully she’ll get a lot of use out of it as long as we live in this house (the frame can support over 300 pounds, so I think we’re set).

And yes, I know you are all eagerly waiting for posts about our Paris trip.  Don’t worry, they are coming.  It just takes a while to sort through over 3,000 photos!

Spring

This has been the most beautiful early spring that I can remember.  We have been doing many spring activities to help soak it all in!

Eliza went on her first bike ride.  The helmet is still a bit big and the whole time she tried to get it off (literally, the entire time).  Hopefully she will get the hang of it more and enjoy long rides.  We have planted about half of the garden by now as well as many spring flowers!  I missed getting out in the yard last year, but my nine month belly wouldn’t allow it!  So, this year I am trying to make up for lost time. 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even though the bike is still a work in progress, we have found some things that Eliza does LOVE to do outside.  The first is going on walks in her car.  We can’t even let her catch a glimpse of this or we will have to at least go down the block and back.  She loves to open up the car’s hood and see what is inside (which is often poop bags, thanks Otis).  The only negative is this thing is pretty loud rolling down the street, but it doesn’t seem to bother her.   She now can say car pretty well too but I don’t think she quite has the right meaning down for one yet.

 

She has also found a love of swinging.  Thanks to our neighbors, Kirk now has another summer project :)  Since we have no tree big enough in our yard, I am hoping that this face will help convince him that we really need to build one like Jack and Brody’s across the street!

So, needless to say we have completely enjoyed the 70-80 degree weather and sunshine.  We are so excited for this summer and the memories that we will make this season!

It Couldn't Get Worse!

Since the day we moved into our house (two years ago this month!) we have hated these wall sconces in the main bathroom. In the right house they may not be so bad, but in our blue bath they are not so hot. They even had a matching mirror, which we replaced last summer thanks to an awesome mirror we found at a local garage sale! We have looked for two years but couldn't find anything that we liked at a great price to replace these lights, and I have even waited for something to go on special at my store, but no luck. So this week I tried to make something bad a bit better. I hope that it worked. We are happier...for a while at least.

The Garden

I realized that I write often about our garden, but I hadn't posted any full pictures. So here they are! We dug up the sod along the fence line this year to add to our quarter-cicle garden in the far corner, which came unsodded with the house. This gave us ample space for lots of things to plant, and next year, after seeing what worked well this year (i.e. what we have too much of!), we'll plant more diverse things.

Here's a shot of most of the backyard and garden.

Some flowers that get beautiful right behind the house

More colorful flowers behind the house

Jalapeno peppers! Last year we had two small potted plants we bought as starters, and this year, we planted one starter and the rest from seed and they are doing great! I've already eaten one that was way ahead of the pack, but there are dozens growing now, and the plants from seed are just as big (or even bigger) than the starter plant.

So I planted a lot of leeks and green onions. I find leeks to be expensive at the store, so apparently I planted a lot of them, just in case. They aren't huge, but they are larger than full size green onions at this point, and even though they are still immature, they taste great chopped up.

Here's a pic of the back corner, which was our entire gardening space last year. You will see the following:

-massive chive and flat leaf parsley in the front

-blank rows that used to be home to a lot of spinach. it was delicious, but sadly died out about a month ago, and we don't know why (maybe when you start picking it, the plant doesn't like it?)

-rows of swiss chard, so good (and also way cheaper to grow than buy in the store)

-a lettuce mix (mesclun I believe) that has some green leaf, red leaf, arugula, bitter frondy things, some mini-romaine type leaves, and some curly greens

-misc. green onion and leeks around the edges

-mint that I almost forgot about from last year that popped up along the edge

-garlic in the back

-yellow tomatoes in the back corner. we gres these last year and one plant yielded more than 50 tomatoes. this year we are harvesting less, but we're just happy to have any. many of our friends haven't had luck with tomatoes this year, since it wasn't hot enough (or dry enough?) and many others have had tomatoes that stay green and don't change color

Here are our yellow and misc. bell pepper plants. we heard they didn't do well from seed around here, and the tall one we bought as a little starter. he's doing great and has a few peppers already getting a nice size. the ones from seed are still pretty small, but we'll see!

More swiss chard along the north fence line! It takes a lot of this when you wilt it down (with some olive oil and onions, yum!) so you need to grow a lot if you want to eat it often (which I do).

More lettuce! It actually grew far better along the fenceline than in the corner, so I'll probably plant it here again next year, but definitely won't plant as much of this variety. I'll likely do some specific kinds, like a batch of romaine, because I love a good Caesar salad.

Anyone need any basil, thai basil, or sage? We have a ton, and we already made a boatload of pesto. We also have dill and cilantro growing.

Okra up close! So good in so many ways! these were from seed and are doing great.

Here are some shots of the okra plants, definitely a few feet tall now.

That's it! You can see I'm already planning for next year. Also, not pictured is the raspberry bush that almost died, I had to move, and now is doing OK and should produce fruit next year. The blackberry starter sticks failed miserably, so next year I will have to get some starter bushes. Cucumbers and radishes for sure (even though Lynne doesn't like the latter), but I'll take suggestions on things you've had success with, so let me know!