Flutterby™! : House accomplishments for the year 2009-01-04 04:35:29.516754+00

House accomplishments for the year

2009-01-04 04:35:29.516754+00 by Dan Lyke 6 comments

One year in the new house! Things we've done:

Yard and Garden

Cleared out the shade structures in the back yard
Turned manure into the flower beds
Planted boysenberries, herbs, dwarf Meyer lemon, tomatoes, peppers, kale, chard, parsley, fennel, cabbage, brussels sprouts, carrots, peas
Installed pop-up automatic sprinkler system, in the front and back
Built a lattice for climbing plants
Installed wood for copper surfaces for snail control in the side flower beds
Removed Rhododendron from the front beds
Tore up plastic under flower and vegetable beds
Re-did bike shed so that it would fit in the shed structure
Built limestone and fir table
Built workbench

House Exterior

Installed a new front door
Built a new front entrance
Had roof replaced
Examine rain gutters, cleared downspouts, replaced section at bottom of back left
Removed fence and gate with rot in the back left
Painted and caulked the east wall.
Painted and caulked the south wall.
Filled hole and painted over old electrical connections on the west wall.
Replaced the back door
Had solar attic fan installed

Inside

Removed carpets, and had floors refinished
Pulled down faux paneling and painted living room
Put in a new closet, and installed cedar linings in that and Charlene's closet.
Put new shelves and tracks in the hall/bathroom closet.
Built and installed two of the new kitchen cabinets
Built drawers for those two cabinets
Shortened main countertop to let dishwasher roll in beside fridge
Milled and finished baseboards for the living room and hallway.
Changed out all door handles and locks
Reworked Dan's old workbench into temporary entertainment center

Wiring

Ran phone wire to better place.
Had new electrical panel installed
Rewired socket in living room for air conditioner

Plumbing

Installed a hot water recirculator
Flexible connections, water and gas, to water heater.
Replaced kitchen faucet
Put in new shower head

Shop

Put up shelving in the garage
Put up new flourescents
Built the Systainer cart
Installed new router in the router table
Put up clamp racks

Underneath

Installed jack under broken beam in crawlspace
Cleaned organic material out of crawlspace
Set up new sump pump pipes to outside.
Ran GFI connection for sump pump
Put insulation on hot water pipes.

Wow. That compares very favorably to what I've gotten done in five years in my house.

#Comment Re: made: 2009-01-04 13:15:49.036456+00 by: Mark A. Hershberger

I'm certainly impressed!!! Excellent work. (Not merely the quantity, but by all observations, the quality!!)

I was thinking of dropping you an e-mail asking if you felt fully settled into your new home, and I think the answer is a resounding YES! Well done, Dan!

Because I am retired I can average 20+ hours a week on gardening, woodworking, firewood, maintenance, and so on, But you have made it clear that I am naught but a slacker.

It looks like a hell of a lot more work than it seemed like at the time, except, perhaps, for those little lines like "irrigation system" (3 days with the jack hammer) and "front entrance" (if only because that required yet another hour or three to put another coat of oiling on last month). Even the phone wire thing, which involved me discovering how the house is laterally braced (something that's giving me nightmares as I look at how I'm going to do the re-wiring, and making me think I'll go in from the bottom rather than down from the top) has faded to a check on the list. And it's also just house stuff (although some of the garage storage list is pushing that definition), it's missing things like my office chair.

I think what that really means is that the house tasks are actually, for right now at least, fun!