58. Outside and Inside

I've been at Grandview for a full week as I write this... I'm hoping to find a Starbucks or someplace with wifi so I can do a blog post from here.  I will be home in a few days but I have so much to write about!

If I haven't mentioned it before, in the front yard of the burned-out Misty Shores Apartments there were some beautiful landscape stones – some really large and a lot of little ones.  Every day I thought about sneaking over and scalping a few, despite the “No Tresspassing” and “24 Hour Police Surveillance” signs designed to scare away squatters.  I don't have an arrest record yet and have never spent a minute in jail and I certainly don't want to start now, so I looked the other way.  Then on the way in this week I had a brilliant idea: Ask The Owner.  I called the Realtor and she actually said I could take whatever I wanted, as long as it wasn't holding up something else.

I cut a hole in the chain link fence (see photo above) and proceeded to rescue 50 large landscape rocks and a whole bunch of little ones.  I'm guessing $500 worth of stuff!  And I discovered that a hole in chain link is a lot easier to cut than it is to “sew” back up... not sure what I'm going to do about that.

Work on the landscaping front continues... I added another leg to the retaining wall and a bunch of those lovely stones.  Along with a couple of plants from Home Depot and a bunch of stuff I brought from home, the place is starting to look a little more loved, don't you think?

Right behind that I added the four posts for the fence and gate that will enclose the side yard.  I guess this has been a kind of alley way and cut-through between the two streets, and many times people would walk right through even when I was there!  It takes a while for it to register with the neighborhood “wanderers” that someone actually lives there, and I'm hoping a fence will do the trick.

Here is a view of the back yard, after I got everything kind of cleaned up and laid out the way I want it.  It still needs some plants of course, and it would be nice if Roscoe didn't create a race track around the stair case, but it's a big improvement anyway.  It's hard to adjust to this little bitty yard, and I try to give him a little leeway on this.

When they're not quite in the mood to get their feet dirty, or I'm a little to aggressive with my hosing, this is where the two puppies hang out.  They really love it because it allows them to look out over me and the whole neighborhood... kitties and all!

Here's another view of the back yard, in the afternoon...

And here's the side of the house after I planted the ruellia I brought from home. That stuff eventually takes over, so it's perfect in an area like this where it can't go anyplace. I'll end up moving some of those stones to other places, like when I do the front yard. I want to make the front into a cottage garden, with a path and mounds of flowers everywhere. That will be a good project for next spring.

Let's move inside, shall we?  I finished grouting the tile in all the spots I had to fill in.  Here of course you can see one of the ones that is not exactly a match – it will be under the fridge.  You can see where I have run the icemaker water supply line under the cabinet and out – it will end up tucked underneath the baseboard and you won't even see it. It connects to the line from the fridge when I move it back into place.

I also moved the dishwasher into place, but of course it's not functional until the kitchen sink, garbage disposal, and drain are installed.   This is the underside of the dishwasher, where I've connected the drainline, water supply, and am about to hook up the electrical.  Looks like a mess, but it's really not all that complicated.  When I put it in place I realized that the toe kick is missing (a skinny piece of metal on the front bottom that covers up the guts).  I can't remember if it ever had one, I disconnected this so long ago.  It's $45 to order a new one for this model, so I'll probably make something myself that will do just as good a job.

I cleaned up the dining room “Ace Hardware” in anticipation of the arrival of the most awesome dining room table that I found at a Habitat for Humanity thrift store last weekend.  I won't describe it here, you'll just have to wait for the pics.  I put a couple of shelves in the under-stair closet in the kitchen – that's nice birch plywood that I had salvaged from something years ago, and it's been waiting at my other house for just this kind of thing.  I moved most of the hardware store in here... I call it the “Tomboy's Pantry”.

I also got to do a little electrical this week.  This outlet was just bouncing around loose in the drywall, and needed to be secured.  It was placed vertically, but there was no way to secure the outlet box with the drywall in such bad shape.  I cut the drywall to turn the outlet and put a new box, secured to the adjacent stud (A).  Then I cut out a neat rectangle of drywall and held a piece of lathe behind it, using two screws to secure it in to place as a backing (B) for the replacement drywall patch (C).  I ended up with a lot of these drywall patches this week, so I'm going to mud them later on, all at once.

I cut this hole in the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom, to install an exhaust fan/light that I had also picked up at the Habitat thrift store.  It's helpful when somebody takes a hot shower – in Florida we're all about moisture control.  It's also handy when something stinks but we won't go there.  I learned doing this that I can fit into an 8.5” x 16” hole... yes I had to get up into the ceiling. It was a bit of a challenge figuring out the wiring, since the existing light and the vanity light over the mirror were on the same line and I wanted to change them to separate switches.

Here's the finished installation (sans mud, or as they call it up north "spackle") which doesn't at all reveal the drama that was required to finish this job.  I had to take it down three times because something was loose or not hooked up right.  I stuck to it and got it done though... earned my glass of wine that day for sure.  I think I also earned a massage, but that's not likely to happen any time soon unless I get a volunteer because I'm too cheap to pay for one.

Here's the 3-gang switch box in the bathroom, with all it's guts still hanging out.  I have also added an extra outlet, essential for hair beautification devices.  You can see there's another drywall patch job – there was just one switch there before, and there's another switch on the reverse side of the wall so to put the big box in there it had to be lowered.

And here is La Stove in place, slid right in between the two cabinets that used to be one!!  You can't see it but there's yet another drywall patch job behind there.  Believe it or not, when I moved the thing in, my beautiful little range outlet that I installed months ago was in the exact spot where a box sticks out of the back of the stove and it wouldn't slide all the way in!!!  Talk about aaargh.  I recommend having the appliance on site before placing the outlet, if you ever try anything like this.  Anyhoo, I had to cut out the outlet, move it down six inches, and when I finally got it plugged in the dang thing wouldn't turn on!  I thought maybe the breaker was bad so I bought another and braved the opening of the main breaker box in the basement.   What I found was that one of the wires was loose, and after tightening it up everything was fine. I tell you if I had to hire someone to do all this I would be broke now for sure.

The highlight of my week though was a visit from Dave.  He graciously offered to pick up the dining table that was sitting on my carport at home and bring it to me.  I left it home for two reasons: It was raining the day I drove over, and also I can't move the thing myself!  It's a monster.  We got it moved in together though, and he also climbed up on the roof with me to help do a patch job up there. I think I mentioned in a previous post about the vent pipe that was left in the wall in the laundry room that was leaking.  Fortunately there were some leftover roof shingles in the basement (remember that mess?) so we took care of that this weekend.

Here's the most exciting picture of the finished roof job.  Not bad, huh? It was such a beautiful day to be up on the roof – it was windy and you could see the ocean all choppy out there.  We decided we would watch the air show from up there next year.  I have to say I didn't enjoy the climb down and I was so grateful to have someone who was willing to assist - I wouldn't have tried that alone. 

I snapped this shot facing north – there's that building, still there... no comment, right?  At least I got the rocks out of the yard before they ended up in the land fill.

We wrapped up the day with "Key Class".  This little jewelery box is Dave's key kit – all those little pieces are what goes inside the lock to make your key fit right. Pins and shims, little ball bearings and all the associated tools.  I actually learned how to change a lock!  We re-keyed all the locks in the house to the same key... not sure I could do it without supervision, but it was fun to see how it's done.  And it's awesome to have all the doors on the same key!  Thanks Dave!

I already have more pictures but I'm going to save them for the next post.  Maybe tomorrow!