As evidenced by our apparent four-month-long blog hiatus, Trevor and I have been absolutely swamped with work and haven’t been able to work on the house as much as we’ve wanted, let alone write up blog posts about it.
Just a few weeks after we had spent all that time and energy hauling away over one-thousand pounds of tree from our front yard, a number of issues arose that led us to have the tree removed altogether. Now, I really am quite a bit of a treehugger, but when it came down to a) the tree’s root ball encroaching upon our sewer line, b) the roots growing into the next door neighbor’s foundation, and c) a pair of rabid(?) racoons living in the tree that would fight loudly in the middle of the night and maul the neighborhood cats, the tree had to go. The fifty-foot monstrosity had simply grown too large for the space, anyway. The owners of the triplex next door were kind enough to split the cost with us as it was affecting their property, too.
Check out the before and after:
In addition to ridding ourselves of the juniper and finally unpacking our boxes, we’ve tackled a few things, which I’ll write up individual posts for and eventually link to them here. For now, here’s a basic list:
1) Ripped out the faux door frame to our living room that had been built to accommodate a strange, tiny door.
2) Stripped and repainted the original doorknobs and escutcheons on two doors (two more to follow)
3) Removed upper cabinet doors in kitchen for an open-shelving look (although we’re anticipating a full kitchen remodel in the coming months)
4) Installed rain barrels to capture rain that was being dumped into our basement; then recently uninstalled them and had our downspouts tied into the sewer line instead (managing overflowing rain barrels on a constant basis with hoses running everywhere is somewhat of a nightmare)
5) Bought a desk for my office! A mid-century beauty with lots of drawers, brass handles, and caning on the back.
6) Bought our first pair of “real” nightstands, definitely an upgrade from wine crates mounted to the wall in our old apartment.
7) Learned we should just wait to do anything in the yard until we do “real” landscaping—after we twice seeded and ripped out the grass in the side/front yard. It’s now just going to be a dirt heap for awhile so we don’t waste time, grass seed, and money on water yet again. Sorry, neighbors!
8) Replaced our shower head!
9) Replaced our toilet seat! (amazing how #8 and #9 are so simple yet completely life-changing)
10) Removed the hideous cabinet above the toilet that I couldn’t stand, only to discover the previous owner had simply painted around it; so now we have a darker rectangle on the wall above the toilet until we finally redo the bathroom.
That’s all I can think of for the time being, but again, I’ll eventually upload some tutorials, specifically for #2 since I actually documented the whole process.