What else is new?
-
We had our house painted this week as well. Nothing as elaborate as what you’re doing though. !!
@Mik We hired it done this time. It took a crew of four to six people over three weeks to get it almost done. That included both the house and the carriage-house style garage. We use five colors, but it's still very subdued compared to some of the wildly painted Victorian houses.
The painters are returning this fall to put the storm windows back in place, and to do some touch ups. Yes, we have the original windows and storm windows. Hubby is so proud of the little black bow-tie turn buttons I found for him to use with the storm windows. He paints them a shiny black so they stand out proudly.
We are total house geeks!
-
Very nice to hear from you Brenda!
Walnut trees are interesting - when we moved in 2022 there was one in the front of the house which really constituted an existential threat to my skull. The nuts came down unexpectedly and violently, and they were everywhere. Apparently, I was expected to mow the lawn on a semi-regular basis, so it had to go. Also, it was touching the house.
Speaking of house upgrades, we've recently updated our kitchen. New floor, cupboards, sink and stove. I finally got to buy an induction stove which I've wanted since I was a kid (we don't have natural gas here, so it's the next best thing). Next is the dining room, which currently resembles a building site, and over the next 2-3 (or possibly 5) years we have to get somebody in to do the upstairs bathroom which the previous owners had decorated in a tasteful dark brown colour from the 1970's. This included the toilet, which has to be seen to be believed. Or not.
-
Very nice to hear from you Brenda!
Walnut trees are interesting - when we moved in 2022 there was one in the front of the house which really constituted an existential threat to my skull. The nuts came down unexpectedly and violently, and they were everywhere. Apparently, I was expected to mow the lawn on a semi-regular basis, so it had to go. Also, it was touching the house.
Speaking of house upgrades, we've recently updated our kitchen. New floor, cupboards, sink and stove. I finally got to buy an induction stove which I've wanted since I was a kid (we don't have natural gas here, so it's the next best thing). Next is the dining room, which currently resembles a building site, and over the next 2-3 (or possibly 5) years we have to get somebody in to do the upstairs bathroom which the previous owners had decorated in a tasteful dark brown colour from the 1970's. This included the toilet, which has to be seen to be believed. Or not.
@Doctor-Phibes
Oh, yes, walnut trees! They are both majestic and messy. I grew to seriously dislike them and their nuts. They also create juglone, a chemical most other plants hate and refuse to be near.I don't miss any of the walnut trees we removed. A couple were at the stage of losing limbs, and near the garage, so it was necessary to take them down. These were roughly 150 years old, and they were enormous, much too big for us to handle.
The power company took down another walnut near a power pole on the other side of our property. That was a sweet deal to have them take it down. Hubby got to have more boards, and we did the clean up of branches and such.
My 1991 pickup truck is still running great, and it's a 3/4 ton with an lined 8-foot bed. It knows the way to the brush dump by heart, and she is eager to go with a full load of tree debris. We could not do all the brush and branch removal without her. I still love
my truck, Sally.She's still agile, and she can step right down from the road behind our property to get to the Back 40. The state DOT has a right of way there, but we own it. If Sally wants to drive down from the road onto our land, I just let her. She's careful and there's plenty of room for her to get around back there. A gal's got to have plenty of room with an extended cab and an 8-foot bed, but she's still got the moves.
Sally still loves to go fast, too. For an old gal, Sally still has the power and speed to get into trouble. I try to keep her in line, so she doesn't get caught speeding. She's only been caught once, back in 2006. That hasn't stopped her from trying. I pat her on her dashboard to let her know she's still loved. She's still beautiful, too, and always will be in my eyes.
-
@brenda you've essentially "built" the house yourselves at this point, that is really remarkable. I'd like to do a fresh painting of the exterior (trim and garage doors), since we face east and a lot of it is sun baked at this point. When we moved in in 2021, we had painters repaint the big rooms but I painted most of the bedrooms and bathrooms. Felt good finishing the last room to be painted (the kids' bathroom), so that chapter is over. I don't particularly get pleasure from painting, so good riddance.
@Doctor-Phibes The previous owners also had "heavy" taste (really dark/heavy curtains, lights, etc) so we've slowly swapped those all out. It's funny what looks good to one owner, and not another...
-
Here are some before/after of our back yard (starting far left corner and going clockwise until the stone steps) from 3 years ago when we did the first refresh. Yes, not on purpose, but indeed the "after" benefits from a blue sky and grass that has turned green... The biggest changes were:
- Fresh mulch (northern white cedar)
- Removal of satellite dish
- Prune/removal of many trees/bushes
- The 2 large lilac bushes at the end near the stone steps I just removed this year... major PITA (hard to prune at nearly 10-feet, and grew inwards to basically scrape people walking up/down the steps), instead I planted bluegrass feather grass along the steps, and will be putting in a limelight hydrangea tree in that right spot
- Also cool, we "discovered" (like finding an old ancient roman road) 3 decorative but functional drainage paths of river rock, you can see one of them clearly in the 2nd pic
-
Two other smaller projects, thanks for letting me share in your thread @brenda !
The two large arbor vitae near our gate, they grow about 8-10" each year, so I've been pruning it so that it's creating an archway, kind of fun. The first pic is what we saw in 2021, healthy but couldn't access gate without getting brushed by both, and the last pic I have is from 2 years ago, I'll have to take another one after I prune it this month as the archway is fully connected from the height 7 feet to about 13 feet above.
The other project is removing daylilies and replacing them with black eyed susans. Love that plant (HATE the bunnies that eat the stems, though!!). Even put the kids to work.
And yes, this is what saturday's look like these days...long gone are the golfing mornings... dunkin and tall ornamental grass from the hardware store
-
Here's our bedroom. The 'before' is a bit of a shocker. The previous owners were heavy smokers, and there was honeycomb in the AC unit.
The deck. When we moved in, it wasn't really safe to walk on.
I was only joking
-
Here's our bedroom. The 'before' is a bit of a shocker. The previous owners were heavy smokers, and there was honeycomb in the AC unit.
The deck. When we moved in, it wasn't really safe to walk on.
@Doctor-Phibes Wow what a difference, bet it feels great walking on the deck now. I like the hardscaping beneath too.. not only looks great, but also removes some PITA yard/weed areas on the far left and under the deck.
-
@Doctor-Phibes Wow what a difference, bet it feels great walking on the deck now. I like the hardscaping beneath too.. not only looks great, but also removes some PITA yard/weed areas on the far left and under the deck.
@89th said in What else is new?:
@Doctor-Phibes Wow what a difference, bet it feels great walking on the deck now. I like the hardscaping beneath too.. not only looks great, but also removes some PITA yard/weed areas on the far left and under the deck.
We had not one but two robin's nests under the deck this summer. I disposed of the first nest after the chicks fledged, and then they rebuilt it two weeks later and produced a second batch. The bigger dog was inches away from getting one of the chicks the day after it left the nest, but it discovered flight just in time. The noise the parents made during this episode was unbelievable.
I was only joking
-
Here's our bedroom. The 'before' is a bit of a shocker. The previous owners were heavy smokers, and there was honeycomb in the AC unit.
The deck. When we moved in, it wasn't really safe to walk on.
@Doctor-Phibes said in What else is new?:
Looks like some kind of engineered wood or composite. What material is it?
-
@89th said in What else is new?:
@Doctor-Phibes Wow what a difference, bet it feels great walking on the deck now. I like the hardscaping beneath too.. not only looks great, but also removes some PITA yard/weed areas on the far left and under the deck.
We had not one but two robin's nests under the deck this summer. I disposed of the first nest after the chicks fledged, and then they rebuilt it two weeks later and produced a second batch. The bigger dog was inches away from getting one of the chicks the day after it left the nest, but it discovered flight just in time. The noise the parents made during this episode was unbelievable.
@Doctor-Phibes said in What else is new?:
@89th said in What else is new?:
@Doctor-Phibes Wow what a difference, bet it feels great walking on the deck now. I like the hardscaping beneath too.. not only looks great, but also removes some PITA yard/weed areas on the far left and under the deck.
We had not one but two robin's nests under the deck this summer. I disposed of the first nest after the chicks fledged, and then they rebuilt it two weeks later and produced a second batch. The bigger dog was inches away from getting one of the chicks the day after it left the nest, but it discovered flight just in time. The noise the parents made during this episode was unbelievable.
I bet. Imagine you just built a home out of sticks using nothing but your fucking BEAK because you don't even have hands, then banged a chick, she gave birth to your kids in that home, then your kid falls out of the home and doesn't know how to use their wings to fly yet and you watch a creature the size of a dinosaur vs a cat approach your kid to eat it and you are trying to yell to your kid how to use their wings and instead of words all you can do is whistle out of your fucking BEAK. Man, what a nightmare.
-
@Doctor-Phibes said in What else is new?:
Looks like some kind of engineered wood or composite. What material is it?
@Axtremus said in What else is new?:
Looks like some kind of engineered wood or composite. What material is it?
Yeah, it's composite - Trex, I think. We wanted something that wasn't going to need painting and all the rest of the crap that goes with wood. Pay now or pay later.
-
@Axtremus said in What else is new?:
Looks like some kind of engineered wood or composite. What material is it?
Yeah, it's composite - Trex, I think. We wanted something that wasn't going to need painting and all the rest of the crap that goes with wood. Pay now or pay later.
Good choice. My deck is cedar. Only now, after 20 years, am I replacing any boards. No problem if it only a few boards per year- we plan to be out of this house within the next five or six years.
-
We have Trex as well. Very happy overall, it's been 10 years since the previous owners installed it and it's holding up fine. I can even pressure wash it (using a 30 degree nozzle) in the spring to get the winter dust/pollen off of it, even though they say don't do that.
-
The deck was actually our second choice after the guy who was supposed to do it disappeared without trace with some of our money. We ended up spending quite a bit more than we had planned, but got a nicer job done than the guy with the 10 gallon hat would have managed.
-
Trex is good. I did trex with my most recent build, but I’ve a question for @Doctor-Phibes : Did you have to replace those joists under your deck? I ask because I want to rip up the unfinished cupped and split front porch boards on another house (built in 2023) and redo it with Trex.
