Dad always joked that the cobbler’s children go without shoes. This house has been a bit like that: We’ve been here for almost fifteen years, and I’ve barely done any seismic strengthening on the house. So I finally decided to pick the most vulnerable wall, and make it a bit better.
But first: Mole almost finished the photo wall… and did I mention she made a rainbow cover for her keyboard?
Oh, and with all the masks, mole perfected her mask strap technique: This allows her to hang it around her neck, or loop behind ears. Super easy on-and-off without the mask-beard that seems to be the vogue right now.
When Arwen isn’t relaxing on the couch…
… she’s decided that oatmeal is one of her favorite treats.
Bella found the new power position in the bedroom…
OK, the garage door: It’s been begging for some attention for decades, and I’d just been ignoring it. Too many other pressing things, and besides: Who looks at the front of our house??? (not me, obviously).
It took about a day to get the door sanded and prepared for painting. I decided to paint it, instead of staining it. Stain and polyurethane may be nice, but they don’t last as long as paint. And it’s a garage door. I’d rather not be doing this again soon.
It took a couple of coats of primer (the door is made of redwood).
I tried to match the rest of the house somewhat. Still need to paint the walls on the sides of the door (I also want to put a couple of lights up)…
Now to the project at hand: I took off the old random pieces of wood, shelves, etc to get down to the studs on this front wall. And I found some rather nasty surprise: Looks like some termites have been living here.
I drilled and installed all the anchor bolts, but had to pause on putting up the plywood until I could get a pest inspector to look at it.
He said it was old damage. But I soaked it all in wood preservative all the same (made the garage stink).
Hmm, it didn’t happen this quickly, but here I am putting up the last of the drywall.
The amount of electrical wiring in the ceiling is quite mind boggling. And I added to it by putting in an additional four way light switch so we can turn off the garage lights as we leave with bikes.
Don’t hire me to be your electrician, OK?
OK, now almost ready to start putting shelves and cabinets back in. Got to make them first, though.
Arwen has been really enjoying the overgrown back yard. The area she’s sitting in gets watered by our shower and bathroom sink, so it stays lush and green.
Bella prefers her cat tree – like everything, originally it belonged to everyone, but now it’s exclusively Bella’s: She rules the house like a despot.
Oh, and instead of the wire shelves, we now have a beautiful fancy wood cabinet with a full height mirror. The first time we’ve had a full height mirror since we lived at Rousseau St!
July fourth weekend this year we took a trip to Tahoe to escape the war zone fireworks on our street. The girls still hate the ride, even with their thunder shirts on.
You didn’t think this was going to be a vacation, did you? What’s that?
After we finished putting in a new water heater and fixing a pipe broken by freezing last winter, we were up scaffolding installing sheet metal over holes that woodpeckers had drilled into the house. Lesson learned: Get enough scaffolding to cover the whole wall. Then you only have to assemble and disassemble it all once (instead of four times).
We didn’t realize what we were making…
The girls really like the rock cabin – particularly the spiral stairs. They even got to go outside for some walks in the rocks.
I also managed to get a run up to the ridge trail in. This is lake Tahoe on the morning of July 4th (click on the image for a larger picture)
On the way home, Bella got a bit better at traveling, but it was still traumatic. I can’t decide if the fireworks, or four hours in the car, are worse for them: Might be a wash.
How d’you like our matching jerseys?
Watching ice melt is fascinating… for Arwen.