Moving In

My last post was prior to moving in to the newly acquired house, which makes it about a month ago.  I got swept up in the process and the projects that I didn't even think about this little blog until a week ago.  If this blog is a reflection of my daily thoughts, then there are going to be a ton of home improvement project articles forthcoming.  So what the hell, let's dive in, eh?

The first thing we had to do was paint.  We tried to do this as much as possible in the week between closing on the house and vacating the apartment.  My life became a bootcamp of going to work at the gym and working on the house.  This lasted for a week.  12-14 hour days, but it felt good.

Then we moved in.  Lisa did the lionshare of distributing boxes and unpacking.  She basically moved us in while I doubled down on painting and home improvement.  My fear was that we'd get lost in the process of settling into the new place, and lose all progress on projects.  This, I discover, is my driving fear; that I disliked the perpetually unfinished projects of my parents (sorry mom and dad), and I didn't want to have them here. 

So I painted, which is a never-ending process (I still have touch-up work that needs doing), but is at a point where the popular spaces are finished, and only smallest patches need touch-up.  The transformation of the feeling of the space has been awesome.  Lisa remarked at how amazing it is to so completely change a house so cheaply.  So we're feeling good about that, although if I met the man who painted the original trim a dark green-brown, I'd probably bitch slap him to the ground.

One of the unexpectedly fun aspects of painting was organizing work parties.  Many friends and family came to pitch in, which probably saved me from death.  But the challenge of it is making sure everybody works to a quality standard, and that they are used to accomplish the most amount of work in the time they've given.  So I wrote a couple flow charts, detailed directions, and priority lists, and put them up on the fridge.  Knowing what had to come next, I could always keep people doing the  work that most needed doing. 

The first challenge of using the space was the lack of counters or storage in the kitchen.  We'd pull food out of the fridge and have no place to set it to prep it.  This is compounded by having no dishwasher, so precious space is taken up by a dishwashing station.  My next task then, was to create more counter and storage space.

So I built a couple of tables, which I cut to fit the spaces around the stove.  I have to admit I was proud of how they turned out, and now Lisa likes to show them off when people come to visit.


That finished, I decided to make myself a magnetic spice rack.  I had seen magnetic spice containers at World Market by the mall which would save me the hassle of gluing magnets onto spice jars.  I got a thin sheet of steel (I took one of the spice containers into Home Depot to make sure I got a magnetic one) and a piece of an aluminum cut-out design which I put over the metal to give it a more interesting look.  I used my label maker from work and took Finley on a spice-shopping trip.
{Insert spice rack pic)

Then the office needed attention.  Lisa requested shelves in the closet.  So I built those.  While doing so I made and painted a much larger set which I will use in the kitchen in the future.  For now, I set those aside and kept going.  I installed the tv onto a wall post and made some shelves out of scrap to go next to it and hold dvd, cable, modem, and router.  Somewhere in there I built and hung a pot rack.

Along the way I pruned the trees and roses, weeded the beds, and cut back the neighbor's encroaching laurel.  There were 200 bricks in the basement which I carried outside, then dug out the ground, and laid out some of the bricks on the pathway to the door so we don't track in mud.  This wasn't actually that difficult, the ground was soft and didn't have any plants on it.  I also sprayed Roundup on nearly the entire back yard.  Yesterday I spread lime and complete organic fertilizer.  This weekend I'll rototill it.

I just received 5lbs of Crimson Clover seed from Terrestrial Seed Company.  I'll sow that this weekend as well.  Crimson Clover is a green manure, a Nitrogen-fixing plant which will be tilled into the soil next spring when I make garden beds.  I'm nervous about what I'm going to find in the yard.  I've already dug up several chunks of concrete, and the center of the yard is hardpacked gravel.  My only real hope is that the majority of the yard isn't totally f-ed up due to neglect by the previous owners

Which brings me up to the moment.  I have one more counter top/table to finish in the kitchen, but that's it for woodworking at the moment.  I still want to install shelves in the kitchen as well as some in the basement, but those can wait.  Along with the yard, the task at hand is to set up the office, which I'll start by visiting the file cabinet.