The Old Man and the Street

The house came with this swingset in the backyard

but we really don’t have any use for it, so I called up my friend J., who has twin 2 year olds, and asked him if he wanted. Well, “free” is J.’s favorite word, so he drove over in his truck and J., D., and myself set to work taking the set apart.

As I ducked down to start removing the bolts that held the bottom parts together, I noticed some writing under the swingset:

Joe and Augie, if you’re reading this, sorry about the toys, but they had to go. 🙂

Off to an early start this morning, we gave the bathroom it’s first coat of paint: Behr “Neptune Blue”. It’s already looking very nice.

We primed the kitchen and breakfast room with a Ralph Lauren “Deep Tint Primer” that looks reddish-pink.

After letting that dry, we put the first coat of Behr “Autumn Maple” on the Breakfast Room and then the kitchen, but it doesn’t seem to be covering as well as the blue in the bathroom.

The plan for this weekend is to prime and paint the kitchen, breakfast room, and the half-bath off the breakfast room.

After work today, we got everything taped and tarped. I encountered a bit of a problem when I tried to take he bathroom door off the hinges–someone put the bottom hinge on upside down, so the only way to get the door off was to remove the hinge from the door frame.

*sigh*

D. came up for the weekend to help paint, and we primed the bathroom (including the ceiling, which was the same lemon meringue yellow as the rest of what we’re painting) before heading off for dinner.

We’re going to paint the kitchen, breakfast room, and powder room this weekend, so I went over to the house and gave the walls in these rooms a light sanding and a good spackling. M. picked up the paint this afternoon. She found a really deep red for the kitchen, called “Autumn Maple”, that provides a nice contrast to the very light maple cabinets and natural oak trim (which of course doesn’t match the rest of the house). The powder room is going to be a nice shade of blue–dark, but not too dark.

The Exterminator came today to check for termites and give our house/yard the once over for any other critter problems. He reported that there is no evidence of termites and all the wood in the basement is in great shape. However, the basement bathroom, which is non-functional and has some rotten baseboards, seems to have been a home for wood beetles at some point in the past. Fortunately, they only survive in damp wood, and the bathroom is pretty much bone dry now. This means that demolition of the downstairs bathroom is bumped up a bit on the todo list, which is fine by me.

Outside, under the breakfast room, some animal (like a raccoon, rabbit, or possum) has made a nice comfy nest out of some insulation. He said that we’re going to have to nip that in the bud or our uninvited guest will be bringing his family and friends along in the winter.

Lastly, our towering sugar maple in the backyard seems to have quite the colony of carpenter ants, and we’re going to need to make sure that those stay in the tree and away from the house.

A crew from The Dust Connection came over and scrubbed away layers of dirt and grime inside of the house–now it seems much more ready for us to move in.

The Plumber came and pumped all the junk out of our catch basin. We never had a catchbasin when I was growing up, and apparently, it acts as a sort of gathering place for debris, sediment, and general flotsam and jetsam that drains from the kitchen, stationary tub, washing machine, and in some cases, gutters. Keeping this stuff out of the city sewers seems to be A Good Thing.

Word from The Plumber is that our basin is structurally in good shape, and now it’s squeaky clean (not that you’d want to eat dinner down there or anthing like that) and good to go for a number of years.

It just doesn’t get much more exciting than this.

As promised, here’s a picture of the toys that M. found when cleaning behind the radiators.

Can you believe how much crap was in there? I’m especially fond of the Mr. Potato Head parts. And now off to the dumpster with the lot of it.

Well, the house still reeks from the Swedish Finish, but that’s mainly because we haven’t had time to go over and air it out properly. M. Got there early after work today, opened up the house and cranked up the attic fan (more on that later), which helped a lot.

We tried a few paint colors in the kitchen/breakfast room and the the powder room. We chose a nice darker blue for the powder room and have decided on a pretty dark red (Some kind of Maple) for the kitchen. Since this side of the house faces West, a dark color should look quite nice.