The garage door

Our two-car garage has a wooden door - nothing fancy, but it works. However it had a couple spots near the bottom where it had rotted. Bob and I didn't want to buy a new steel door - this one was fine, just needed some love.

I think we spent about 10 hrs total scraping, sanding, filling, and priming the garage. Every weeknight was a rush to finish as much as possible before nightfall (which was around 7pm at the time). We also added new weatherstripping to the bottom of the door to finalize the project.

It looks 10x better now, though we still have to do the rest of the doors and all the trim/siding on the garage. We'll save that (as well as adding some color) for next spring...

Sorry about the crappy pictures! They were taken in a hurry.

Long time, no post

The whole idea of buying an older home, fixing it up - I'm still enjoying that (for the most part). But the concept of blogging about the process quickly lost it's luster. Take before pics, do project, clean up, take more photos, edit photos, write entry - how do people do it? But I'm still trying to give it a go. Bob has been pushing me to "take pictures for the blog!" so there will be some posts soon.

Below is the list of projects we've completed since we bought the house on April 30th. Some are small, some bigger, but I'm happy with the progress made so far. Also, thanks to both our families, who helped us with several projects!

Adventures in caulking

Last week I spent one night after work removing this disgusting, old, moldy tan caulk:

And a couple hours re-caulking the next evening to end up with this (excuse the dirty tub):

What a big difference! I'd never done a caulking project this big, so it isn't anywhere near perfect. Also I ended up with both hands completely covered in a caulk.

I used this silicone caulk we got at Lowe's. Smelled like vinegar gone bad, but other than that was fine.

 
*Another stalled post from July.

From one Honeywell to another

We installed a programmable thermostat just in time for the cool fall weather.

A Honeywell 5-2 Day we got a Lowe's (with a b-day gift card from Mom R - thanks!)

Now we just have to find a place to recycle our old thermostat, as it contains mercury.

A nice surprise to come home to

When Bob and I got home from our trip to MI this weekend*, we were surprised to find the previously dirty pink guest room had been painted a clean crisp white!

Our summer house guest, Dan, painted it while we were gone (even the pink ceiling!) It makes the room look so much bigger, and did I mention cleaner? Thanks Dan!! :)

Before (taken during the inspection):

*This draft is from back in JULY people. I need to catch up!

Dryer update

For those of you who heard about our dryer woes (it wasn't igniting, just pumping gas into the dryer - not effective and definitely not safe!) no more worries! It has been fixed by the hubby and I!

How we did it:

1. I took apart the back of the dryer
2. Vacuumed all the lint out of it
3. Looked it over with a flashlight
4. Got frustrated and gave up
5. Then Bob helped me take apart the FRONT of the dryer (didn't even need to bother with the back)
6. Figured out how it worked
7. Did some trouble shooting and testing
8. Found it was working again
9. Put it back together

Resulting in a fixed dryer! In moving it all around we must have bumped something back into place, or maybe the cleaning helped. Either way, we just saved ourselves several hundred dollars so I'm happy.

Nevermind, I actually DID find money in the rafters!!

JACKPOT!

Garden/yard update

This blog is turning out to be more about our yard than our house... but moving forward.

Bob and I did a lot of yard work over the holiday weekend. No pictures of the front, but the back is looking quite nice:

Those round stones in front of the small garage door were all uneven and piled up on top of the cement, and causing water to go inside the garage. We pulled them all out and fixed them. The green bin by the shed is our new compost bin, which I'm excited to have again. And next to that is "our" rabbit.

He comes into the yard almost every morning and evening to eat the clover in the corner of our yard. We have named him Pierre "The Hare" "Mon Frere" Van Dusen.

I finally pruned the roses (per the instructions in my gardening book) and they are looking great:

I do need to replace that lattice at some point though - the wood is getting rotted.


House updates will be posted sometime this week hopefully!

So much for finding money in the rafters...

Check out these *hidden treasures* I found while cleaning out the laundry room last weekend:

All sarcasm aside, I did save the jar (sans lid) - it has a nice pattern on it.

Cooking with rhubarb

Thanks for sending along some of Grandma R's recipes Aunt Joan! :)

We made rhubarb crisp and it turned out pretty darn good:

A quick house tour...

I took some pictures of the house after work today.

Garden update

Things are starting to get colorful now. These irises are so heavy they are falling to the ground! And look at those hot pink peonys! Only one has bloomed so far, but the rest are close behind.

 

My garden

Pictures of the house will come soon, but in the meantime I need help identifying some of the plants in my garden. You can see I've got a quite expansive (i.e.- overgrown) garden.

The "new" mower

Thanks for the freebie Grandma H!! We (and by "we" I mean "Bob") already got to use it last week.

Welcome to our renovation blog!

I thought this would be a fun and easy way for me to document the renovation of our 59 year old house - both for ourselves, and family who'd like to keep up with the progress. Hopefully I'll be able to keep this up, even with my never ending to-do list :)