tales of interest: house

Showing posts with label house. Show all posts

Playing catch-up

Well, it's been ages since my last update, so here's a hodge-podge - a smorgasboard, if you will - of visual and textual descriptions depicting my life over the last few weeks.

Ok, this is an oldie, but a goodie. I joined a new team at work a few months ago, which afforded me the opportunity to choose a new work area (read "cube"). Somehow I had some level of seniority, so I got to pick fourth. This is the view I have every day :)

We have asparagus! Right in our back yard! This is from our first cutting in mid-May. We found out that aparagus grows very quickly, and until yesterday we had about 10 asparagus trees.

After moving into our new house, we wanted to treat Jack to a new bed (one that he could fit into). When we got home, we just threw it on the couch haphazardly, but as you can see, Jack found it and made himself at home.

While he was on a business trip, Carolyn's dad graciously lent us his barbeque. That whet our appetite for burnt offerings, and soon we found ourselves the proud owners of a Broilmate barbeque (made in Waterloo!). It's a great barbeque and we use it at least a few times a week. Thanks to Ryan for taking this sharp photo.

One of the joys of home-ownership is having gardens with loads of different flora (and unfortunately, pesky fauna too). We have a group of poppies that have bloomed; here are two that haven't yet. If they weren't plants, I'd say these were having an intimate moment.

Another flower. Does anyone know what kind it is? I'm horrible with horticulture, but I am slowly improving.

Another poppy close-up. I love my macro lens! It's actually not as sharp as I'd like; or rather, I don't have as much in focus as I'd like. But I still think it's amazing to look at the water droplets suspended between the hairs.

This is Jack, jealous of my ability to get outside. Actually, he is quite able to get outside; thanks to my dad, he can open the screen door by himself. He hasn't quite learned how to close it yet. He seems to be in his element when he is outside though; in the past two days, Jack has caught a chipmunk and a mouse. He doesn't quite know what to do when he catches something, so he typically just sits on it. We know something's up when we hear muffled squeaking noises. If only he could learn to catch rabbits.

So why have I been too busy to post? It seems I have to mow the lawn every day... but seriously, we have been slowly chipping away at our renovations. Two weekends ago, we installed three new ceiling fixtures in the three bedrooms (with Ryan's help for the first one... thanks Ryan!). No pictures yet, so I guess you'll just have to come visit. And last weekend I added a new wall-switch and connected it to a receptacle in the living room. And I'm not dead yet! Carolyn, meanwhile, has been busily scraping away the wallpaper, and has finished the second of the three bedrooms. So after one month, we've done a fair bit, but we still have a ways to go.

House project #1

There's not very many renovations that we have to do, but this one is a no-brainer. In the main bathroom, there was a hanging light... in the bathtub... right in front of the shower. If I were to stand under it, I would probably hit my head. So, we decided that it should go.

On Tuesday night, we went to Home Depot and picked up a fancy shower lamp. After playing with the breakers for 30 minutes, we finally shut off the power to the bathtub light, and I proceeded to remove the light fixture.

I got the light down, but realized that I would need to buy an insulated housing for the new light, as it was recessed, and would be sitting beside insulation in the attic. I almost called it a night, but decided to replace our front hall light fixture with the less gaudy cracked glass globe I had just taken down. We are much happier with this change, but there are still about a half-dozen more light fixtures to go.

The following night, I went back to Home Depot to get geared up for the attic. I bought the insulation box, and a mask and coveralls. It's fairly risky posting a picture like this, so i'm trusting all of you to be nice. :)

Unfortunately, not having a ladder of the appropriate height, I had to wait until Carolyn came home, so that she could bring a ladder from her parents. It was about 10pm by the time I first went up into the attic. Figuring it would be a quick job, I wasn't too worried.

Before I continue, I thought I should mention that fibreglass is not at all as fun as it looks. Also, balancing on two joists in a stiflingly hot suit is also not fun. And the nails coming through the roof were downright nasty.

Anyway, I imagine it was around 10:30pm when I saw the light. And by that I mean, I touched two seemingly dead wires together and created a spark, and melted some of the wire. Fortunately this happened inside the insulation box as I was feeding the wires through. It was shortly after this that I had Carolyn call our good friend Ryan, who happens to know a thing or two about electricity, and a bit more about not getting killed.

After he showed up, he determined that that light must have been running on two circuits, and I had only shut off the one. (Feel free to ask him about the details) Seeing as I had broken the second circuit, we were ok to proceed. Now we were at the interesting part... fitting object A into slot B.

Two hours and a few curse words later, the new light was installed. Isn't it pretty?

Here's a sneak preview of Project #2. Carolyn got a headstart on this while I was stuck in the attic. Bye bye plaid.

House photos

I've finally had a chance to sit down after a busy week. The move on Friday and Saturday went amazingly well, and the housewarming on Sunday was even better. Thanks to everyone who helped and who showed up! We had such a good time, and I imagine we will have more parties, once we get our own BBQ (thanks to Carolyn's dad for bringing his). Here are a couple of photos from last weekend.