House Projects

Since we arrived in our new house we have had lots of family who have come and helped us with projects on the house.

The first round of projects was my brother Mark and my Dad.  They fixed up the yard, so well that my realtor asked me how to get them to come over and fix up his yard. The weedeating, mulching, pruning, watering, and fertilzing really made the yard look better.  But the big project, was my brother lined all the flower beds with huge white rocks that are natural to the area.  They really made the gardens look sharp.

My Dad and I lowered a hideous black box that covers the water pipe. It was a huge pain to dig it up, and then we took the saw and cut off the bottom.  Now it's level with the ground. I wish I had a before and after shot of it.

Over the ensuing weeks, I did as many things around the house I could.  One big project I did was to lower the front garden bed because every time it rained all the mulch would go streaming down the driveway.  However, it seemed everytime I did a project I found 4 more to do. Luckily, Angela's Dad came down to work, I mean to visit, no, I had it right the first time. Angela's Dad spent his "vacation" ticking off my whole list of house projects.  It was ridiculous how much he did. Towel bars, blinds, the tail light on my car, our fence, he did it all.

Here are some of the big projects we did while he was here.
The roof.  When the inspector went through our house he noted that the attic was too hot because it didn't have any roof vents.  The previous owners had a roofer come out who said he could install a few more vents for $300.  I was all ready to pay the roofer for it, but Joseph scoffed at that and said we can do it.

 It doesn't look like we were that high up, but our neighborhood is on a hill, so from the roof we could see hundreds of miles in all directions.  It was an amazing view, until I started seeing flashes of lightning in the distance which were rapidly approaching.  No big deal right, we'll just install the vents over these two huge holes we just cut into roof before the rain gets here... except our calk gun broke right as we were installing the vents!

 I drove quickly to Home Depot. At Home Depot one worker wisely remarked, "If I were you, I wouldn't be working on a roof with those storm clouds up above."  While I certainly shared his sentiment and would rather have not been on the roof myself, the two gaping holes needed to be covered.  I would insert at this point that I had checked the weather the night before and no rain was predicted in the forecast.  In fact as I drove back from home depot, the local radio station's weather report said there was just a 20% chance of rain for Temple... I've come to have my doubts about the scientific validity of the field of meteorology.  Temple is not that big, and I could see that the huge storm rolling in had a 100% chance of hitting my open roof.  Luckily, I made it back just in time for us to put the asphalt on to seal the vents.  It started pouring about 10 mins after we got off the roof!  From now on, instead of tuning into the local weather forecasts, I think I'll just climb up on my roof and see if I see any thing coming.

The Vegetable Garden:
The next big project was the vegetable garden.  Angela and I had talked about putting a garden in the corner of the yard, and when one morning Joseph found these great sandstone bricks to form the border, we went to work.  Hauling all the bricks was exhausting. Then we dug up the sod.  I thought digging up the sod would be no big deal.

It was a VERY big deal.  Both Joseph and I were quite exhausted by the end, but it looks great.  We have been enjoying collecting compost for the garden.  Everyday Christine and I go out and dump a load of scraps onto the pile.  It is really fun.  Of course you know me, when I get into a project I really get into it! Last week we had a breakfast at the hospital and I collected everyone's banana peels for the compost pile.  Angela says I may have crossed a line, and she forbade from doing that ever again.

Jospeh installed a fan on our back porch, a bigger light in the garage, and we put in another plug for the deep freeze in the garage.  I think he needed a vacation by the time he was done with his vacation here in Texas.

The trip was not all work.  We went to have a picnic at our local lake one afternoon.  Yes, I'm wearing Angela's nursing cover.  It was to protect Jacob from the wind, but I look really strange in it.

The last big project we have done on the house was to install a work bench.  It took an entire day of work with my Dad, but I think it turned out pretty amazing.