Big Step

It may not seem like a big accomplishment, but the garage is cleaned out enough so we can fit both our cars in. Not totally clean, but clean enough. Three months ago the entire garage was packed with boxes.

The smelly visitor

Looking out the kitchen window the other morning, I saw what I first thought was a black cat walking in the back yard. I thought - that's interesting, I have not seen a cat before and then I took another look. It turns out that the cat was in fact a rather large skunk! The skunk wandered around the back of the shed and then disappeared. I just hope he does not decide to cohabitate with the wood chuck who is living under the shed.

I have not seen the skunk again, but with the windows open you can sometimes smell him when he passes by at night.

Guest room finished

The guest room is finally finished !!!
The new closet shelving and the window shades have been installed.
The only question is, who will be our first guest in this new room ?

Guest room

The guest room is almost finished! The last things left to do are to install the closet shelving and hang the blinds. The new ceiling fan really adds a lot of light to the room. We had originally thought this room would have pink accents, but when we found the blue window treatments, we were hooked.
One more guest room to refinish - but that will be our winter project.

Shark Fin Soup

This from Yao Ming (NBA Player) yesterday:

"I pledge to stop eating sharks fin soup and will not do so under any circumstances."

That's a fight I can join.

Doe with fawns

There is a doe with two fawns who often stops by the backyard for a snack. The doe appears to have no fear of people - she does not run off, unless you get too close. The fawns are more skittish, which makes picture taking difficult. It is a lot of fun to see the fawns playing together - already they are getting big and losing their spots.

Office Done

We finally put the finishing touches on the office on Monday. Considering how much work had to be done and our limited schedules, it was pretty amazing (if I do say so myself) that we were able to get it done in three weeks. We ended up painting the whole room; trim, doors, walls, and ceiling. The walls were given a warmer field color and a fresh coat of trim always makes the woodwook pop. We also added some shoe moulding to the baseboards and I put a ceiling light in. We capped it off with new window treatments and hung our pictures. If it weren't for Valerie's help and motivation, there's no way it would have been done on time. The office is very cozy now and I look forward to spending as little time as possible in there!

Before:

After:

Hawk Update

The hawks which were around so much last week, seem to have gotten shy. I can still hear their screeching, but they are not perched in any obvious places. Wish I could say the same for the woodchuck, who was sunning himself this morning on the wooden ramp that leads to the shed. I have no doubt, he was eyeing all the plants on the deck (just a few feet away) and deciding what to have for breakfast.

The lights in the downstairs and upstairs hallway were completely mismatched, so we bought some new Waterford lights. The first one has been installed and it is beautiful.

Just for giggles

Saw this on MyLeftNutmeg and thought it was funny...

Hawk

There seems to be a pair of hawks nesting somewhere nearby, or at least using our yard as a hunting ground. The last few days this hawk has landed on the back deck about the time I get home every night. Where was he the day I came home and found the woodchuck sitting on my pot of petunias having his dinner?

The hawks are beautiful to look at, but tend to wake us up at 5:30 with their screeching back and forth.

The king of all conspiracy theories

I sometimes wonder how so much imagination can be wrapped up in the head of Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert. Still, I wonder if anybody is checking up on this? Sounds like a "Days of Our Lives" plot line, but sounds plausible...

Are you kidding me?

Wow! The perennial giant killers, College of Charleston, may have landed their best catch ever. After up-and-coming Gregg Marshall of Winthrop pulled a Bobby Cremins on them, Bobby Cremins comes out of retirement and brings years of ACC coaching experience to the Cougars.

Who knows, maybe we'll see Dean Smith come out of retirement to coach the Campbell Camels. Then again, maybe not.

Anonymous Comments, Round 2

A couple weeks ago I enabled anonymous comments so you could comment on each post. Since that time, a couple people have told me they couldn't post comments, but I got emails with the comment. I have tweaked the commenting a little bit and think this will be easier.

If you read this blog, feel free to post a comment to this entry just to see if it works.

Squirrels 1, Valerie 0

You may remember a certain member of my household has been having trouble with the squirrels at her feeders.

Well, the squirrels have won this battle, but not the war!

Seems as though they have chewed through the four layers of electrical tape and dislodged the linoleum. In fact, I think they were a little ticked off because they pryed open the steel around the feeder and poked another hole through it!

Right now, there's a 33% chance it will get fixed, 33% chance it will get tossed, and a 34% chance it will wind up on Long Island for a little welding treatment by our friendly neighborhood Mr. Fixit. Stay tuned...

Project Upgrade, Phase IV

With any luck, we're rounding the corner on the "initial" projects.

One of the cabinets in our kitchen is essentially worthless. It's about five feet high, but has no shelving in it. Sure, maybe good for a broom, but not much else. The other side has pull-out shelves that are very useful. About four weeks ago when we were in Home Depot, we talked to a kitchen designer and found out how to measure our cabinets so we could put roll-out shelves in them. We came home, measured what we needed to measure, and went back to the store to order them. Three weeks later, they were in.

I started putting them in last Monday night. I just got done Saturday. It was just like every other project in so much as it took about three times the amount of time and money I thought it would. Spent lots of time making braces, shimming this, trimming that, and screwed about 20 extra screws. I the end, found out the the drawers wouldn't open because the european hinges blocked the drawers, so I had to put external hinges on the doors.

In the end, they came out nice, gave us some extra storage space, and I got a table saw out of it.

Project Upgrade, Phase III

Phase three of the Kitchen upgrade is complete. We upgraded from a plain-jane Magic Chef oven to a KitchenAid convenction oven. The good part is it only took a couple hours to swap the old one with the new one. Next up, changing the broom closet to usable storage.

Triple thanks to J again for her discounting magic.

Landscaping the front yard

Last weekend we picked up a couple bushes that Valerie's sister was holding for us. We had the perfect place for them in the front of the house, so we planted them Sunday. Valerie decided to put her new birdbath in the center of the whole bunch to give the area a focus. We added a couple perennials and, voila! Instant landscape.

Project Upgrade, Phase II

The new Cooktop went in relatively easy. We replaced this older Magic Chef unit with a five burner Jenn-Air unit. We ended up with the Jenn-Air unit because I didn't really look forward to cutting granite and the Jenn-Air had the dimensions that would fit the best.

The electric connections were extremely easy since the old cooktop had the same connections. Only had to take one trip to Home Depot in the middle of the project to get the right connector.

Next up, the stove.

Double thanks to J for her discounting magic.

Things I didn't need to know

Got this from leahpeah.

Project Upgrade, Phase I

Why in a kitchen of dark granite countertops and black appliances someone decided a beige refrigerator would look nice, but who knows what the story was. We would have hung onto it, except when you opened it up, strange fuel-like smells from it. In fact, the ice smelled and tased like fuel. Needless to say, that had to go.

We researched various makers and with some advice from a family member in the business, chose a GE Profile. We ordered from Planet TV and the guys came in to deliver the new refrigerator and take the old one away.


We have ice again!!

Thanks for the tips and finagling J!!