Home Improvement: 2021
Jul. 11th, 2021 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aYardwork. The yard here is constant work. At least two weeks out of three I'm out there, alternatively mowing the yards and whacking the hill (which is too steep to mow). But ever week I'm out there I also do work tidying things up: sometimes edging, sometimes cleaning things such as pulling buffalo grass out of the ornamentals, sometimes cleaning the fence line, etc.
One thing that I'm increasingly learning the more I work on the yard is that the ornamentals and trees and other plants around the front of the house are a mess. There's some ivy that's grown into everything else, there are some trees that look like they weren't originally intended to be there. (And, in fact, I just found that the one Google Streetview of the house, obviously from a while ago, shows no trees along the porch!)
Last Friday, I took a bunch of limbs off some of the trees overgrowing the porch, and it helped me see the shape of everything much better. I'm pretty sure we'll have a better-looking house if we take out all those trees right at the porch. But I'll wait until my dad gets back into town, and we can use his chainsaw.
The Doors. Kimberly's office has been largely done for at least a month with one problem: her closet doors. They're ready to go, but they were pretty banged up, so we decided to paint them. The problem is they really need spray paint to look good, so as not to have the texture of brush marks or rollers. (We tried rollers and stopped that really quick.)
However, Kimberly and I have learned that spray painting so it looks good is really tough! We've taken a number of tries, and we've ended up with lines and bubbling paint and pooling paint and paint that came out like dust, we think because it wasn't shaken enough! Today we decided we were going to try one more time and if we failed just hire someone.
My video consultations prior to our work suggested that we were holding the can too close to the surface, so we tried this time at a foot or so away. It seemed to go better. We can still see some lines, still see some places where the paint isn't quite right, but we feel we might be close. So tomorrow int he day we're going to haul them into Kimberly's office and see what they look like in the light in the office, and then I expect we're going to haul them out and see if one last coat can finish them up.
(Of course after that we have one other pair of doors. And we're still holding the "hire someone" option out there, but my dad has been great about showing me how to do work around the house since we moved here, so I'd like to do this if we can make it look good, as the rest of her redone office looks really good.)
My Office. The next step is reflooring my office too, which will remove the majority of the remaining carpet in the house (and make my office look *much* better, if Kimberly's is an indication). So I started that process today by relocating my work space out into the family room, much as Kimberly did early this year.
This gave me the opportunity to reorganize and clean everything. (How did everything get so dirty in just a year and a half!?) I'm mostly done with that, other than refiling my filing cabinet and moving out a few final boxes and stuff. We're planning to start cutting up carpet maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. There will be cutting of carpet, removing of carpet boards, pulling out of nails, grinding down of recalcitrant nails, and then filling to create a nice level surface. Maybe a few afternoon or evenings of work there, and then we're back to the planking.
This is part of the master plan for the downstairs in 2021, to really get it all usable in a way that we failed too last year, for any number of reasons, with pandemic obviously being one. We first had to refloor Kimberly's office (mostly done), then mine (getting ready to start), then we have to refit some of the stone flooring in the family room which has popped up, we're not sure why, but due to some problem with the floorers doing a bad job. Then we'll be ready to get in shelves that may or may not have floor level cabinets (but which will have the option because all of the floor will be ready to go). We intend to get that far this year, so we can finally get all our books on shelves! After that, we can put in a loveseat or chair in the Family Room, to finally have a comfy sitting area there. Whew.
One thing that I'm increasingly learning the more I work on the yard is that the ornamentals and trees and other plants around the front of the house are a mess. There's some ivy that's grown into everything else, there are some trees that look like they weren't originally intended to be there. (And, in fact, I just found that the one Google Streetview of the house, obviously from a while ago, shows no trees along the porch!)
Last Friday, I took a bunch of limbs off some of the trees overgrowing the porch, and it helped me see the shape of everything much better. I'm pretty sure we'll have a better-looking house if we take out all those trees right at the porch. But I'll wait until my dad gets back into town, and we can use his chainsaw.
The Doors. Kimberly's office has been largely done for at least a month with one problem: her closet doors. They're ready to go, but they were pretty banged up, so we decided to paint them. The problem is they really need spray paint to look good, so as not to have the texture of brush marks or rollers. (We tried rollers and stopped that really quick.)
However, Kimberly and I have learned that spray painting so it looks good is really tough! We've taken a number of tries, and we've ended up with lines and bubbling paint and pooling paint and paint that came out like dust, we think because it wasn't shaken enough! Today we decided we were going to try one more time and if we failed just hire someone.
My video consultations prior to our work suggested that we were holding the can too close to the surface, so we tried this time at a foot or so away. It seemed to go better. We can still see some lines, still see some places where the paint isn't quite right, but we feel we might be close. So tomorrow int he day we're going to haul them into Kimberly's office and see what they look like in the light in the office, and then I expect we're going to haul them out and see if one last coat can finish them up.
(Of course after that we have one other pair of doors. And we're still holding the "hire someone" option out there, but my dad has been great about showing me how to do work around the house since we moved here, so I'd like to do this if we can make it look good, as the rest of her redone office looks really good.)
My Office. The next step is reflooring my office too, which will remove the majority of the remaining carpet in the house (and make my office look *much* better, if Kimberly's is an indication). So I started that process today by relocating my work space out into the family room, much as Kimberly did early this year.
This gave me the opportunity to reorganize and clean everything. (How did everything get so dirty in just a year and a half!?) I'm mostly done with that, other than refiling my filing cabinet and moving out a few final boxes and stuff. We're planning to start cutting up carpet maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. There will be cutting of carpet, removing of carpet boards, pulling out of nails, grinding down of recalcitrant nails, and then filling to create a nice level surface. Maybe a few afternoon or evenings of work there, and then we're back to the planking.
This is part of the master plan for the downstairs in 2021, to really get it all usable in a way that we failed too last year, for any number of reasons, with pandemic obviously being one. We first had to refloor Kimberly's office (mostly done), then mine (getting ready to start), then we have to refit some of the stone flooring in the family room which has popped up, we're not sure why, but due to some problem with the floorers doing a bad job. Then we'll be ready to get in shelves that may or may not have floor level cabinets (but which will have the option because all of the floor will be ready to go). We intend to get that far this year, so we can finally get all our books on shelves! After that, we can put in a loveseat or chair in the Family Room, to finally have a comfy sitting area there. Whew.