late night to do list.

i firgured i would post a to do list of interior and exterior projects still remaining for completion. obviously the events of this evening add a new wrinkle to things, plus i will be traveling quite a bit over the next 2 months so it may not be until the end of september before i have everything done. basically, i am really working my ass off to get everything done so i can relax a bit. anyway, the list:

exterior:
1) finish white trim paints on high, end points of house and a few other areas.
2) finish painting base of house around the deck.
3) repaint deck and top rail of deck dark brown/saddle color.
4) paint concrete in back to match front sidewalk.
5) install new light fixtures on deck and on rear door (motion sensor).
6) finish brick walkway leading to the garage.
7) remove phone line running to garage.
8) plywood interior of shed. cut swinging window facing deck. cover in bamboo sheets and thatch roof for tiki hut.
9) kick living shit out of neighborhood kid who keeps fucking with Double E's garden gnome.

interior:
1) finish painting all doors
2) finish painting all trim and few primer spots on walls
3) repaint kitchen and bathroom cabinets
4) paint bedroom
5) replace hardware throughout
6) fix kitchen floor
7) finish painting fireplace
8) remove rest of carpet nails in living room
9) install toe boards or quarter round or whatever you want to call them
10) paint music room
11) install floating floor in music room
12) repair kitchen light
13) replaces light fixtures in den
14) install old dining room chandelier in music room

... in list form it seems like a ton of stuff, but the painting and hardware changes could probably all be done in a couple days and the lighting stuff in an (productive) afternoon. the only thing that may take some time is delivering the much needed, severe beating to that neighborhood punk who keeps steppin' in my yard.

my first setback.

so i picked up Double E from work today (we've been carpooling) and planned on coming home to work on the sidewalk leading to the garage (i did about another 4 feet last night after work) with the hopes of getting another chunk of it finished.

when Double E and i walked into the kitchen i saw two fist size spots of water in the middle of the floor and my stomach immediately turned into one giant knot. pretty much from the time i ripped up the vinyl in the kitchen and put down the lenoleum, the old GE fridge seemed to be leaking water from the compressor or some other internal component. it only happened occasionally and seemed to puddle up in front of the fridge and maybe worked its way under a tile or two on the right side of the fridge. it seemed like it had ceased and since i am saving as much money as possible to buy another old car next month, i figured i would put off buying another fridge until after i purchased the car. the car is now starting to look like a pipe dream, my friends.

when i saw those two puddles i immediately knew that the fridge had never stopped leaking, but had fully worked its way under the tile and was so saturated the it was starting to spread out to the middle of the kitchen. i immediately pulled the fridge out from the wall, unplugged it, and Double E and i bagged all of the food and drinks and took them out to the beer fridge in the garage. i came back inside with the hand cart (editor's note: if you don't have a hand cart, you should seriously consider the $30 investment ... i can't tell you how handy this thing has been for me the last 6 months) and loaded up the fridge to get it to the curb before it leaked water all over my floor ... getting it out sucked ... for all of Double E's many wonderful qualities, physical strength alludes her, so when it comes to transporting appliances i am pretty much on my own (plus i severely lack patience) ... i had to tip it on it's side to get it through the doorway leading from the den to the music room and then had to knock off the handles (with a 30 lbs. dumbell) to get it out the sidedoor to the deck ... needless to say i was sweaty and disgusting.

i came back inside and began prying up the tiles ... by the time i got all of the tiles up that had moisture underneath, i had removed about 1/3 of the kitchen floor. witness:
i'm not sure how well this picture illustrates justh ow nasty the situation really was, but everything wa wet and it smelled horrible ... basically like damp plywood and flooring adhesive.











this is a shot of under the fridge ... again, the smell was terrible. i have a fan on the area as we speak and i'll give it a few days to dry out before i touch it again. at that point, i will probably scrub it a tad with some bleach water to make sure there is no possiblity of mold forming at any point in the future. i don't think it's anywhere near that point, but i would like to side with caution on this one.




so now i need to figure out what i want to do with the kitchen floor. i am mulling over the idea of pulling up the rest of the tiles in the kitchen and putting down something else. i am using the same tiles in the adjoining den and i probably won't touch those, but this might be a good chance to switch this flooring and separate the 2 rooms a bit more visually. there is this glossy white apoxy you can buy, i have no idea what it's called, but it's a compund you just spread on the floor kind of like that leveling compund people use before they put down laminates, that looks really cool. it's basically what they use on the floor of fallout shelters and what not. it would be more than durable and would go well with the tiles in the den and the wood floors in the dining room. i don't think it's really all that expensive, either. another idea i had was to put in floating wood floors like i'm going to do in the music room. since the kitchen butts up against the dining room (with oak floors) it would have to be a pretty close match in order to no drive me crazy (i am a bit if a perfectionist).

my dilemma with the whole fridge thing is that i know which one i want ... it's the faux-chrome frigidaire model. the consumer reports say it's really good and it's fairly cheap for a chrome/brushed nickel job. unfortunately, the dishwasher and stove are the same cream color as the old fridge, which means i would probably need to replace them all ... again, the perfectionist thing. if i had a different colored kitchen i would consider not getting a new stove, primering it and repainting it with some marine grade paint, but i can't think of any color that would match the kitchen and not clash with the vibe of the other brushed nickel appliances. i hate things like this.

masonry.

since today was the first non-blistering hot day in recent memory (in fact, i'm not sure if it broke 80 today), i decided that i would get restarted on the sidewalk running from the garage to the deck. i had aborted this project when my parents were here, because even though we had tremendous success clearing the ground, cutting tree roots and leveling things out, the basketweave pattern i chose for the brick pavers didnt work around the sharp turns. today, i decided to give it another shot with a less intricate pattern ... but got equally frustrated when the same problem popped up. i decided i was going to take a brief field trip over to this house on the lake that has killer landscaping and an even more impressive brick sidewalk for a brief tutorial. about halfway over to the lake house i realized the cure for my woes (it hit me like a ton of bricks - heyooooo! pun for fun!) and confirmed it when i saw the sidewalk over there. spacing between the bricks instead of a snug fit against one another. i felt pretty dumb ... i blame it on the heat.

anyway, once i got back i pulled up all the brick i had previously put down and replaced it with the same pattern ... except more spaced out. i got through the first turn and decided to stop for the night:
to brace everything, i backfilled the sides of the brick with the potting soil i dug out of the two huge flower boxes (it was still in the wheel barrow) and spread out a bag of paver base over the top of the brick, then brushed it into the grooves. i am not gonna lie -- it looks really fuckin good. Double E came out and said, "jake, you are really good at this stuff ..." which pretty much confirmed it for me.











i'd say this is about 9 feet worth of sidewalk, which means it's about 1/5 of the way done. see for yourself:
after i took this picture, i put down the rest of the weed barrier (although i still need about 5 more feet of it) and then spread out the bags of paver base i had to hold it all down. when i was finished, i sprayed down the sidewalk with a hose to help everything settle. i may go back once i am done and put a little more paver base on top and sweep it in and then hose it down again ... but the real last step is to cover it in sand and brush that into the cracks ... this fills in all of the tiny air pockets and makes the pathway virtually unmoveable.


oh ... and those little round dirt spots are actually the holes left behind from the paver stones that used to be in the backyard. i filled them in today because i think Double E was getting tired of twsiting her ankle every time she walked to the garage.

that's pretty much all i did today. actually laying the brick didnt take that long once i figured out what the hell i was doing, so i am hopeful that i will have it done by the end of the week by just working on it a few hours a night after i get home from work.

there was going to be a minor reveal of my den here ...

... but i decided against it. last week i had taken some before and after pictures of my fireplace when i primered and thought i would post them, but the painting i am doing tonight is on aforementioned fire recepticle and i think i will just wait ... the den will be the next room that is finished (i put some artwork on the walls tonight) and i will post complete pics here. the flooring has been done for months and the walls have been painted for a while, too, but when you're a crew of one these things take time, i guess, no matter how hard you try. i really just have the lighting (which i have really good ideas for) and some trim painting to finish ... oh, and hardware changes, but that is everywhere.

Landscaping really done and what not.

dear loyal readers,

i sincerely apologize for the lack of posts. i am kind of a big deal around here and my time being in high demand as such, i haven't had a lot of time or desire to post ... fear not, however, progress is always being made on El Rancho. also, i work on computery stuff all day, so the last thing i want to do at night is ... you guessed it, use a computer even more. i see carpal tunnel syndrome from all the tappy tap tapping on the keyboard and sterility from whatever emissions are released from the monitor of my laptop in my near future.

anywho, it is saturday night and i have been doing a bit o' painting and drinking of various beers while Double E attends a concert you couldn't pay me to sit through and needed a break, so i thought i would update this here blog. last weekend (has it really been that long since i have posted?) i finished up the landscaping and thought i would take you on a visual odyssey of sorts, muchachos. behold:

i replaced the burnt out verbena (likely from over fertlizing) with bright red salvia. good choice - lets hope i don't kill it this time. things will look much better when i get my new (red) front door in a few weeks. i am starting to understand thsi gardening thing a bit better: it sucks because it requires patience and nothing sucks worse than something that requires patience ... however, seeing everything bright and colorful and beautiful, even if it only looked that way for a single day, was well worth the time and cost, since that is how i will probably always choose to remember it - perfect.









in the old flower box in the back, i decided to plant some petunias, since the tend to do well in full sun and what not. i did some quick maintenance on the box by driving a few nails into it to tighten the structure up a bit, then repainted the whole thing red (from grey). didnt turn out too bad, if i do say so myself, considering i did it at night (neighbors, you may thank me later for my late night diligence and noise making). the ensuing beauty lies below:


forgot to mention that i dug out all of the dirt that was in the box and replaced it with a combo of fresh potting and top soil. sidenote: i am glad i am done with all of my digging projects, since i have officially run out places to put the dirt. it has all gone on the side of my garage nearest the shrub line, but i think i may need to borrow a tiller from somewhere to grind it down a bit and thin it out.











i also put some begonias in the box on the deck to finish thing off:

ok, i just realized that this picture simultaneously blows and sucks, so you will just need to trust that they look good, i also forgot to mention that while mulching these two boxes, i also remulched the beds in the front and along the sidewalk.

... and the landscaping is done, too.

funny story: so last night i think my neighbor died or something ... basically, i was sound asleep and around 2:30 the police knock on my door to ask me questions about my neighbor. the following conversation ensues ...

cop: do you know your neighbor?

me: a little bit ... i've talked to her. what's going on?

cop: we can't find her and she's not responding when we knock.

me: hmm. what's the problem? is she okay?

cop: she is having problems with her medication ... have you seen her at all?

me in a perfect world: *it's 2:30 AM dipshit ... i have no clue where the neighborhood crazies are*

me: well, i was out here all day planting in these beds and i didn't see her.

cop: *pausing* yeah, man, it looks really good. really good!

HA! are you shitting me? there is a missing person who may or may not have ODed and you are admiring my landscaping?!? good lord ... let's hope i never have an emergency.

so, i watch the cops try six times to kick in the front door with no luck even though one of them probably weighed 280 punds and the other was around 240 ... pretend it's a sandwich, boys, and eat your way in! i guess they didn't notice the front door has plywood on it instead of glass ... i probably would have pushed against that instead of snapping my ankle against a deadbolt, but they have training for this type of thing, so why should i intervene, right? eventually they moved to the backdoor and it proved to not be very resistent. about 10 minutes later i saw the paramedics cart my neighbors limp body outside and onto a gurney. i am guessing that she really wasn't dead, because i think they don't move the body for a while when that happens and dudes in suits show up, etc. ... that's how it happens on tv, anyway. i noticed today that her dirty mutt was tied outside and i walked over to see if he had any water ... i had never been over there before and now i know why. it pretty much smelled like there was a dead body over there ... and of course the dog she used to let run ape shit all over the neighborhood had no food or water. it's water bowl had some kind of weird fleas and roaches in it so rather than fill it up, i took this huge bowl i had in the garage that i used to strip the wallpaper in my house and filled it with water. i think someone was over there tonight, though i really have no idea what happened to the chick who "lived" there ...

oh yeah, so the landscaping ... aight, getting tired of typing, so i am just going to show pictures from the left and right side of the sidewalk. the backrow on both sides are rhodedendrons, the borders are mums (red, then yellow, then purple, then white) and zinnas to fill in the area next to the steps.

left side.













... and ...
right side. oh, yes, those are garden gnomes at the end of the beds. BOO-YA!












and one more from the street because i like you:

fills out the front nicely ... will look great when the hydrangeas grow. a cop liked them ... and a few weeks ago the mailman told me i shouold win the "yard of the month" award for the village. let's hope you're right my parcel carrying friend. let's hope you're right.

Tiki Puka Puka v. 2.0

Just a quick note to let everyone know that thanks to a tip from my mom and Double E i found some huge tiki idols for the soon-to-be-built tiki hut. here they are safely strapped in for a ride in Double E's car:

this actually gave me a funny idea to constantly have these strapped in the backseat of my car rolling around town. probably won't happen, but would be pretty damn funny ...
















and in what will eventually be there their natural habitat:

i can almost taste the fruity drinks as i type this ... just a few more months, amigos. just a few more months ...


oh, and the lovely plant on the left is courtesy of my moms ...

Jumpsuits, crawlspaces, sidewalks, and monoliths.

So, the posts have been few and far between lately, but that's mainly because i have been doing so much work/busy with guests in town, etc. anyway, i had to go into the crawl space a few weekends ago to see why the air doesn't seem to be blowing into the back room (the music room) and there is no flow ro movement at in point in the tueb or duct. i got gussyed up for the occasion:

big pimpin'. anyway, crawlspaces, as you may or may not know, suck. worst of all, i was not able to resolve why air is not flowing to the very back of the house ... hmmm ... i'll figure it out eventually.















feeling defeated by the air conditioning, i set out to re-establish my manhood by building a sidewalk in the backyard running from the house to the garage.

yard before:




















yard a couple days later (thanks to considerable help from my dad who was here "vacationing"):

he did lots of digging .. i did lots of root chopping thanks to that tree in the foreground.

















when i came home from work on friday my dad had finished clearing everything, but there seemed to be a large rock in the path. umm ... turned out that it wasn't a rock. after much digging on saturday morning we unearthed this big ass thing:

yup, really damn heavy. took two of us to pry it out. it looked like an old sewer pip that had been filled with concrete ... maybe as part of a filter bed for an old septic system, but who the hell really knows. could just as well have been something that fell out of the sky ... makes me believe that the concrete vault built into the side of the driveway (not sure if i mentioned this, but ... yeah, there is a vault in the driveway) probably contains an old septic system and not gold doubloon as i had initailly hoped.



anyway, we dug out around the area we pulled it from to create a bigged hole the reburied this chunk of whatever back in the ground where we found it. sadly, i laid about 4 feet of brick in a basketweave pattern before i realized that this specific pattern can't be used around bends and turns. oops ... after a little research i have a new pattern (albeit, not as cool) that i'm gonna use, but i won't likely getting around to working on it until this coming weekend.