On with the program

You've miss a LOT.  Ok, you haven't missed it; I have neglected to show you the LOT.  We've had lots of drama and turmoil and blood, sweat, and tears.  Some about the house.  Some not about the house. I won’t go into them here and now.  For now, let’s just show you where we are today.

Remind me to tell you how it took 2 weeks to get the water shut off at the curb. 

To save time and money, we don’t start at one room and work our way around the house, mostly due to cost of and storage of supplies.  Also, because sometimes there is time involved.  Drying time for plaster. Hanging time for drywall. Itchy time for insulation.  More drying time for plaster and tile. Time for grass mowing and tree felling.

So here is what has been going on…

Walls.  We've hung a LOT of them. This is from the living room through the laundry room wall.

Same view from the front entrance to the living room and into the kitchen and the laundry.

Plastering in the master bedroom. I don't have many photos of painting.  That is hard to see and really not that exciting to look at.

 From the kitchen into the living room.

Laundry room floor. More drywall hung.

Insulation time. 

Now jump back and hang some purple drywall in the laundry room. One of the reasons we jump so much is that we have project we work on together and projects we work on individually.  I'm working on plaster, Walt Kowalski is working on cement board on the floor.  We both work on drywall together.

Steps down to the basement.

Walt Kowalski fitting a piece of drywall.  "Quit taking pictures and come hold this."

Insulation done and ceiling drywall in progress.  

Kitchen and nook drywall.

Now jump to the basement to prepare for the electrician.  Walt Kowalski removed some old wood and found nothing.  No insulation no nothing.  So insulation is a must.

But first, plumbing. 

Walt Kowalski loves his copper.  He's so good at it, too.

Then we jumped up to the second floor to work on the floor.  I was finished painting and we were tired of stepping over the boxes of flooring.  (Ok I did buy it 6 months prior because it was such a good deal! So stepping over it for 6 months was a pain.)

Still need baseboards and trim.  Oh and doors.

Then ChainSaw Johnny said he could get us a deal on cabinets.  So we got kitchen cabinets.  We weren't ready for them, but couldn't pass up the offer.

Finished drywall and seams and screws plastered.

Then I arrived one evening to find Walt Kowalski took the carpet off the stairs.  We left it on to protect the stair treads.  Little did we know there was a rubber/plastic stair tread glued to each stair under the padding, under the carpet.  1000 staples later...

More mud in the laundry room.

While Walt chipped away at the glue (and got high from the fumes of remover) I jumped back up to the bathroom to work on tile.

Sand, scrape, sand, scrape.  We just want them smooth so we can patch the holes and paint them clean. 

And that's where we are today.  We're getting close.  We're pooped.  But we're so close to our self-imposed deadline of July. 

We can do it!

New Year Catch-up

Previously on the Cat Ranch...

We haven't given up on our project house.  We've just been busy with other things (stones, trees, more stones, more trees, holiday, holiday, another holiday, more trees).  We've squeezed work in when we're able. 

But it is a new year. The motto for this year is:

 "Get Shit Done!"


No project, big or small, is going to get done by sitting at home on the couch talking about it.  Time to prioritize.  If that means a few late nights or the Cat Ranch doesn't get swept for a few days, that's what it means.  (Ok, we might be overtaken by fur.)

Here was the last post about the project house:  Click Here Yes I know this was back in June.  Yikes!

Now time for everything you missed.  

To insulate and hang drywall above the stairs, we had to create a platform. It was great, but the "floor" board had to be removed every time we needed upstairs or downstairs.  We ended up bringing all of our supplies upstairs for the day before installing the "floor"

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen...

As I was working on seams and screws over the stairs, Walt Kowalski was hanging boards in the bedrooms and bathrooms.  

You haven't missed much.  Lots of drywall.  Drywall, drywall, and more drywall. Ohhh, pretty purple drywall in the bathroom. 

I skipped the photos of installing the tub.  Nothing to see there.  No swearing or cursing or mashed toes.


After Walt Kowalski gave me more board to finish in the bedrooms, he moved downstairs to work in the living room. (View from the kitchen into the living.)

View from the front entrance up the stairs and into the laundry room, which will not be seen from the front entrance.  You can see the crown we put up along the ceilings.

The electrician was busy running wires and grounding switches.

Walt Kowalski added the cement board to the laundry room.

 Then he moved to the kitchen to do some insulating and drywall hanging.

All the while, I was upstairs sanding and pasting and sanding and mudding and sanding and priming and sanding and painting. 

So that brings you up to date on our progress.  See you in another six months. 😀

Totum Poles

Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved on poles, posts, or pillars with symbols or figures made from large trees, mostly western red cedar, by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America (northwestern United States and Canada's western province, British Columbia).

 

Now if we had the skill or the time, Walt Kowalski and I could totally do that.  We can do most anything we put our minds (and backs) to.

 

But pretty or not, we were tired of looking at our totem poles.

 

 

They have been standing "drying" for almost 2 years now.  The wires are ugly and the trees, that's extra ugly.

 

Here's the six of them.  How do I know it's autumn?  My spring alazlea is blooming.  Strangest shrub, it blooms in the spring AND the fall.  The crocus are blooming,  too. 

 

 
Add a blucket truck, a good breakfast, and a littel bit of courage...It took Walt Kowalski a few minutes to get his "bucket legs" back. The plan was to tie off an section of the tree, cut it, then lower the cut piece down to me.  I'll grab it and haul it over to the log pile. They weren't heavy logs, just awkward.

 
It started as a cloudy rainy day and turned into a beautiful afternoon and evening.

Now those are a lot of wires.  All important.  Some more dangerous than others. Luckily, he only had to go through the not so scary wire and the telephone wire.  He was away from the scary power wire.

 
I got to wear the hard hat and "catch" the logs after he cut them and lowered them to me. Luckily, I didn't need the hard hat for logs falling on my head.  I did need the hard hat because I kept running into the mirror on the truck!  *sigh*

We got the trees cut below the lowest wire and tied a rope around each one.  Now Chain Saw Johnny can come with his big saw and cut the remaining down to the ground and Walt Kowalski and I will pull the pole up onto the driveway to be cut into pieces. 

Here is the final product before the finish:

 

Bring on the fall outside fires!

Rocks and Roll

What do you do just before going on vacation?  Pack clothes and towels and shoes?  Yes.  Grab your swimming suit? Yes. Make snacks for the ride? Yes.  Get 21 tons of rocks?  Yes! Only at the Cat Ranch.

We're not just talking about stones, we're talking about ROCKS.  Rocks, baby.

Walt Kowalski and I directed traffic as the tri-axle truck delivered the stones.  Some cars didn't mind waiting a moment and other were jerks and speed off like they were late for surgery.  Those are the same people that pass you and you catch up to them at the red light. 

The truck couldn't get off the road any more because there is a dip and he didn't want to get stuck.

Now that is a pile of rocks. As the driver was empting the load, our neighbor stopped to watch.  Normally, when we see him, he's half in the bag, but today he was leaving.  (Probably to go GET half in the bag.) He stopped his truck and watch the stones pour out of the truck.  As the driver was unloading, he said "Yeah! Jerk it man, jerk it.  Yeah!  You got it.  Good job!" 

Then came the hard part, which Walt Kowalski did most of, moving the stones one by one.  By hand.  We wanted the largest ones as a base and fill in to the top.  I used the smaller stones to fill in from the bottom up to Walt Kowalski's edge.

The pile slowly decreasing.  Every day, move a few more. 

My work of making a "river" up to meet Walt Kowalski's.

I like how the rocks follow the contour of the land.  We want to add some more so the "river" isn't as small.  

We've had so many people stop and tell us how nice it looks.  Some stopped right in the middle of the road. Several times, people looked twice and almost sideswiped the guardrail! One guy even pulled up in the driveway, got out of his car, and walked over to talk to Walt Kowalski.  Snuck up on him and startled him.  This guy had a whole list of questions.  "Where did you get the rocks? How much did the cost? How many tons?  Are you a professional?  Are you the homeowner? Can I get this for my yard?  Can you help me with my yard?"

Falling Trees

We have been so busy with everything.  (Isn't everybody?) We have neglected so much.  Lately it seems like all we do is laundry and clean up cat hair.  How many cats DO we have?

When I'm at work, all I can think about is everything I want to do at home. After work we've been working on drywall and patching seams at the project house, then by the time we get back to the Cat Ranch, all I want to do is sit and watch the sunset with a cocktail and Walt Kowalski.   

Two months ago, in the middle of the night, I heard a big crash of a tree.  The crash in the silence of the night woke me out of a sound sleep.  It was a clear night with no breeze.  In the morning, I told Walt Kowalski and we went out to the patio to investigate.  Nothing. Maybe it was in my dreams. 

Several weeks later, we were sitting on the patio and Walt Kowalski said "Look at that big branch that fell over in the forest!" We went to investigate and found the branch I heard fall.  It wasn't just a branch, but a branch the size of a tree.  

Last month, we were at the neighbor's cookout when we heard another branch falling in the forest.  Same tree. Not as big of a branch, but still a big crashing noise.  Everybody at the cookout stopped to watch.

Our trees are self-destructing.

Two weeks ago, we were sitting on the patio enjoying the sunset and having a quick dinner.  With the humidity so high lately, the evening breeze has been a relief. As we sipped our cocktails, we could hear the branches in the canopy above us.  We thought we heard what sounded like a cracking noise. Nothing alarming, no visible branch falling.

Then last week, we were once again enjoying the remains of the day on the patio when Walt Kowalski happened to look up and say "Holy crap look at that branch!" Just off the patio, in the canopy of leaves above, was a HUGE branch that had fallen. The leaves and small top branches were caught in the crook of a branch on another tree.  The trunk of the branch was still attached to the main part of the tree.  It was hanging precariously over the entrance to the shed.  

So what did we do?  We went to look at it and stood directly underneath of it and looked up.  Of course. 

It was ripped, but still connected to the main part of the tree. 

Everyday we looked and it was still there.  Still attached. But the rip was getting longer.  And the amount attached was getting smaller. 

Then this weekend, while we were away helping a friend move, the neighbors called.  

Neighbor: "There was a big crash of a tree up at your house. Everybody in the neighborhood came to look."
Walt Kowalski:  "Oh man, the branch fell.  Did it hit the shed?"
Neighbor: "Nah, but one of your tiki torches took a direct hit and there is mulch all over the patio."

It was a nice sized branch and is blocking one of the doors to the shed where the tools to cut up the branch are located. 

You can see how high the branch was when it was originally attached. 

And the dagger that speared the mulch. We figure this is where the initial impact of the branch hit, then it splintered again.

We were bummed we missed it fall, but we're glad it fell. Had it fallen when we were home, we would have probably been working in or around the shed.

Rain on vacation

Just a little. 




Rain on vacation doesn't bother me.  There is always LOTS to do if it rains, but the thing with rain on vacation, is that it because it's hot, humid, and sunny, a pop-up rain shower in the afternoon is not a surprise.  It is usually quick, passes fast, and produces really cool clouds.








The days are beautiful.

And then, there was a disturbance on the horizon to the North of us. "Uh, oh, Delaware is getting a storm.  The radar says it's moving out to see."  I said. A few minutes later, Walt Kowalski said "I think Delaware isn't the only one going to get a storm.  We'd better gather our things and adjourn to the balcony."  I'm glad we did.  Before we knew it, the rain was upon us.  Nothing severe, just a passing shower.

As we were having our cocktails on the balcony (watching the rest of the people on the beach make a run for it) a beautiful rainbow appeared.












Not just a rainbow, but a double rainbow in a perfect arch over the ocean.

And just as fast as the shower appeared, it disappeared and left us with a beautiful sunset.