Den Demolition

We filled this trailer to overflowing twice and took it to the dump. We dumped a total of 1600 pounds of wood, drywall, etc cleared from our demolition.















We are very happy with the size of the new room after we got all the walls knocked out. We hired an electrician to put in some new dimmer switches for our light fixtures and fans. 

Garage Door Opener

Last week I finished getting the garage door opener installed! Our garage is really coming together now.

Garden Intruders

Our two tomato plants were eaten - again!

We were trying to figure out how birds could have gotten through the net, and then we found two holes just like the one above. Judging from the size of the holes, it was the work of mice or rabbits. Whatever it was ate both our tomato plants and left everything else alone. So I bought some chicken wire to go all the way around the garden fence to reinforce everything. I don't think they can chew through metal. We are really learning some lessons for next year.

One of our tomato plants is growing back on its own, and we bought another one at Lowes to replace the other.

Stucco First Layer

This is what it looked like after I cut the hole in the wall and got the door up. The exposed wood needs to be refinished with stucco. 


















Before the stucco can be applied, the surfaces have to be covered in black construction paper, then covered with styrofoam, then covered with chicken wire. This was very tedious work. The stucco, which is basically just concrete, is applied onto the styrofoam and chicken wire.
















Hillary was a huge help putting up the first layer of stucco. She figured out that it worked best to just pack it in place by hand. I had to run into town to get more stucco mix, so she ended up doing almost all of it while Haddie napped.

Now we need to apply a second layer to make it look nice and try to match the texture on the rest of the house.

Garage Door is Done!

The rear track hangers were a big source of worry and headache for me, and I was feeling really relieved when I finally got this first one up. Then Hillary asked "How are you going to get the ladder out?" Oops.










This is me opening the garage for the first time after finishing everything. It works! But it has to be opened by hand because there is no opener yet.











Now I need to install the opener and finish clearing out the garage. And I need to stucco over the exposed wood where I cut the hole in the wall.

Garden: Round 2

 

Today we planted a new garden. This time we are equipped with a bird net recommended by David. We will see who will win this round!

Birds: 1  Culps: 0

Screen Door

The screen door that was here when we moved in was full of holes and would not have kept bugs out. A new screen door would be $50, but I found an $8 kit from Home Depot - I was able to keep the screen door frame and just replace the screen itself.