down and dirty and lovin' it

Last Saturday was a good intentions day that took a bit of a detour. Originally, I had planned to finish up the half bath and then proceed to touch ups in the master suite. But it was turning into such a beautiful day that after I laid on the first coat of trim, we headed outside to see what we could do.

Mike took on the garage. It had been pretty clean when we moved in ... but then we moved in. Many things just got shoved into the back to be dealt with later, and of course, our cars had tracked in salt and sand. So Mike put everything in order and gave the garage a bath.

We've decided we're going to rip up the gross carpet on the stairs and paint them sometime this summer.

After wandering around the house, I decided to take on the task of cleaning up leaves and random muck that has gotten into all of the flower beds. The first task was tackling the front hedge/bush thingies. I don't have a before picture on the very front, but I ripped up some dead bushes and leaves from the brick half-circle portion.

We'll plant some perennial flowers there, and now we think we'll rip out the hedges and plant rose bushes further back. These hedges have a weird, huge gap behind them that you can't see straight on, but you can from other angles. Behind it is this:

Someone was going for the most impact at the cheapest rate.

As I worked, I also got to enjoy my birthday present from Mike: Bluetooth speakers. Tired of lugging my big, corded speakers around, I asked for some wireless speakers, so whenever we're doing projects, I just have a little box (and laptop, tablet, or phone) to work around. This has already made life wonderful, and I have to say this is a safety purchase, not a luxury buy, because there are no cords to trip over. Totally practical.

So, while Mike slaved away in the garage, I rocked out in the flower beds. I have to admit I had very Walden Pond-esque (yes, that's a real English major term) thoughts and was very philosophical while getting snagged on vines and bushes.

The west side of our patio. Note the pile of leaves. I don't think they are ours, but I think we got lucky, judging from all the bags everyone had piled on their driveways during trash day. You can see the overturned hull of Old Blue between the two trellises.

We are still trying to figure out our garden placement, since the sunlight doesn't hit all day except for way in the back by the service boxes. We're thinking of doing an herb garden on the northeast corner.

There are a lot of rocks in this bed and plants starting to poke up, so it'd definitely need an overhaul. Mike's thinking of extending the bottom of the L out (so, not an L anymore), but we need to start tracking how light falls throughout the day. After midday, I think this area is completely in shadow. Hmm ...

Oh, and our sidewalk heaved over winter, so we couldn't open the patio door. Mike took it off and ground it down until it could swing freely. Our patio furniture has been wintering on the sidewalk, because the boats called dibs on the covered shelter. We'll be throwing them on the trailer soon and putting the chairs where they belong.

The east side of the house aka the garage exterior is full of rocks, chips, and hostas. We also need to take paint along the bottom edge of the siding to reseal it from moisture.

The back of our house also has some siding issues we'll need to start dealing with. The back/north wall is softening at the bottom, and we even have a chipped away spot that I think we should protect, even if we aren't replacing siding this summer. It's not bad yet, but I'd like to slow the progression down while we save up for new siding. 

Mike read that some people with this hardboard siding gradually replace it, especially at the bottom, with fiber cement siding, because 1) it's the best thing ever (we had it on the first house), and 2) it blends well with hardboard, so once the paint's on, you wouldn't know one from the other. Many people in our neighborhood have replaced their siding with vinyl, but I've seen some fiber cement, so we know there isn't going to be any HoA issues there. We tried to use the siding issues in negotiations to get our ideal price, but the sellers wouldn't have it. Oh well. We still got a good price (under appraisal!) and our brains are popping right now on how much other two stories are going for in this neighborhood with some basic updates. We got in at the right time! And we have a brand new roof, so I guess we'll just have to deal with a siding issue that we'd probably have in just about any other house we could've bought other than something brand new.

It's okay, house, we still love you.

She looks a bit imposing at this angle. I blame the front yard's slope.