awww....

last night when i went to bed, this is what i found. this is Ozzy's bed, mind you. but Harriet has curled up to sleep there, too.



when the camera flashed, she looked up to see what was going on. who could resist this sweet little face?!


but where IS Ozzy? oh, THERE he is! under his blanket, of course. "if only this other dog would be still, i could get some sleep!"



and there she found comfort and peace, and off to dreamland we went.



but this morning it was back to playing. it sounds ferocious, but looks so loving...

it's hard to tell from the angle, but they really are the same size, only she's just got longer legs and so can move a lot faster. little Ozzy has been really patient with her, despite the fact he can't get away from her. :-) i think they're going to get along just fine.

the new and improved, and yet to be finished

here's what the windows and frame looks like today, after two full days of work. new, solid, beautiful wood, inside and out. still needs to be trimmed out, and eventually painted, but at least it's all secure and SOLID. :-)

looks can be deceiving

VERY deceiving, in fact. this is what my window looked like after the new ones got put in. looks fine, right? ah, but wait...




in the process of putting the new windows in, the guy finds some rotted wood. so my guys come along saturday and take out the new window, as well as all the wood around it.


and found this...








and this...



these lovely pieces of wood got trashed. yes, they were holding my house together, and my windows in, and shielding me from the outside world. yes, people, this very wood...

Ozzy & Harriet

when i was a kid the Disney channel was good. they played the old Mickey Mouse cartoons, the classic movies, and reruns of family-friendly shows like Ozzie & Harriet. and me being me, the avid TV watcher that i am, tuned in to see these reruns, enjoying every minute of the Nelson family antics.

when i bought my first dog i knew i'd get him a playmate eventually. and because of that, wouldn't it be fun to have corresponding names? so it should come as no surprise (to some) that i named him Ozzy. however, because of The Osbornes being so popular at the time, everyone i told his name to thought i named him after Ozzy Osborne. when it's written i guess it could be confusing, because i didn't like the way Ozzie Nelson spelled his name. i have a Y in my name so i liked it better as Ozzy.

and now, the rest of the story...

this little dog needed a home. she was a stray found by girl who had two dogs and a young baby of her own, so she brought her to the country home of an older couple. the sweet little dog kept running to the neighbors for attention, because they would let her sit on their laps on the porch and feed her treats. not that the older couple was mean to her, mind you. they were loving parents, too, but they didn't want an inside dog and don't have the energy for such a springy pup.

since i bought this house and since we put Dweezil down, Ozzy has been feeling lonely and disoriented. the subject of dogs came up at church and the lap-providing neighbors asked if i was looking for a dog. a few weeks later i went to meet this little sweetheart of fur. she immediately rolled over for a belly rub and that was that.

hence, meet Ozzy & Harriet. :-)

Harriet moves fast, so i haven't been able to get any good pictures of her sweet face yet.

steps to completion

meet Toby the cat. Toby was left by the previous owner who didn't think of him when she was preparing to move. for the first couple of weeks i was to try to catch the cat and call her to pick him up. but since i didn't even live there, that made it quite difficult. then i move in and a few days later, MEOW ... he shows up. hungry. and willing to eat dog food. for several days he would come home around 9-ish at night, meowing fiercely for food. i gave him dog food, because afterall, that's what i actually own. he ate and rubbed all over me and was thrilled to have ANY owner. now he has cat food in his belly and finds safety on the front step, not minding the dog only inches from him. Ozzy, on the other hand, is quite uncomfortable. i was making him sit still for the picture. notice his tail is tucked so much he's actually sitting on it. *L* poor Ozzy. i think deep down he WANTS to like Toby, but for some reason he's gun shy. i'm hoping he'll get over it. of course, keeping Toby around the house during the day to actually keep Ozzy company is a whole other story, or should i say an act of Congress. i guess Toby actually likes roaming during the day.





this is the laundry room, after Juan and friends taped and mudded.


and this is the laundry room after i textured and painted it.


check out the close up of the texture. they make this stuff that you actually mix with paint and roll it on. so that's what i did. the entire room could still use another coat of just paint, but i think it looks darn good for my first time at any kind of texture attempt.



this week is dedicated to flooring in that little room. i bought some tile and have a guy working on it in the evenings. so, i'm REALLY hoping that maybe as soon as next weekend i'll actually get to wash clothes in my very own washer and dryer in my new laundry room. :-)

windows and tree pictures are still to come.


meanwhile, i pulled off some more paneling in my bedroom to find some pretty bad and scary looking wood. but i'm thankful i didn't find any live termites continuing to eat it. i stopped at about three feet in either direction from the hole i made previously, so i'm just hoping i don't find bugs or even worse damage beyond that. my family still thinks i got duped and need to take some kind of legal action. i guess i'll have a consulation with a lawyer to see what action should be taken. my pessimism tends to lean toward the side of, "i bought what i paid for." *sigh*

farewell old tree

i finally found some new bedding i liked for my bed this past weekend.

and here, finally, is the termite hole. the top layer of the paneling peels off real easy, which is why it's peeled from top to bottom. the actual panel of wood takes a little more effort, which is where the hole is. when we found termites, we stopped pulling. you can kinda see in this picture the termite damage in the actual wood that makes up my house. thankfully since termites don't like light, they aren't crawling around for me to see on the surface, otherwise i don't think i could be living there right now. the hole already freaks me out a bit, but if there were visual bugs to go with it, forget about it!

the new windows are supposed to be installed today. i'm very excited about that! also, a big change happening yesterday and today is that i'm losing a bunch of trees. apparently the big tree in the front yard is rotted and needed to be taken down. and then the trees in the back yard need to be trimmed and cleaned up and some of them even removed along the back fence which are leaning and damaging the fence. so yesterday after work i pull up to my house to find my entire front yard full of tree limbs - probably 80% of that tree is now on the ground. in the back, about 1/3 of the yard is full of tree limbs from those trees. what a mess! but it'll be so much better when it's all done. though the front of the house will look strange w/o a tree, that's for sure. when it's all done i'll post before and after pictures.

the latest saga of my life

there's an actual wall there now. looks kinda weird, because it's a wall, and it wasn't there before, and now you can't see the window on the other side. funny how i got used to seeing the garage as it was even though i hardly spent any time there before the wall came. but i heard once that it only takes two weeks to make something a habit. it might look weird right now, but give it two weeks and it'll look original.

this weekend was a process, as usual. seems like i always make more work for myself. Mom says i'm like Tim Allen on the show Home Improvement. all i can say to that is, "that's probably true, but at least i haven't blown anything up yet." anyway, i decided it was time to accessorize the kitchen. all of the bottom doors and drawers didn't have any hardware, nor holes for the hardware. the upper doors did, but they were ugly (in my opinion). since the uppers already had handles, i decided to replace the handles with handles. but i really like knobs, too, so i decided all the bottom stuff could have knobs.

here's the before....

and after...

i decided the fake drawers at the sink looked neglected, so i added knobs there too. but ultimately, as i do with nearly everything, i thought about it further and decided maybe i should have put handles on the drawers and knobs on the upper doors. *sigh* i always over think everything to the point of not liking it. so now i'm looking at my kitchen liking it, but thinking i could like it a lot better. but to like it better would cause me a TON of more work.

as it turned out, my entire weekend was spent working on one WEE kitchen. and all i'd planned to do was add knobs and handles. no big deal. but the doors aren't hung evenly. and they don't close all the way. so after i spent a couple of hours adding the knobs and handles i tackled the hinge issue. and THAT is what took up the rest of my weekend.

i thought maybe it was the hinge's fault as to why the door won't close all the way. so i took the hinge off. but first i had to scrape the paint off the screws. then i got the hinge off the door and decided that the unevenness would be fixed by moving the hinge location up a little bit. ok. great idea, but it didn't work. well it did, for the unevenness, but ended up making the closing even worse. doubly worse!

i worked and worked at it, never making it better. *sigh* maybe it's the hinge. maybe the hinge is too old. or not the right kind. so off to the store i go to buy a new hinge. but now that i have the door off the cabinet and the hinge off, i might as well scrape the paint off since the paint is already ruined from the previous handle so i can repaint it and make it look new to match the new handle. went to the store and bought all the necessary supplies, came home, put the stripper on the door, opened the hinge package, looked at it up against another hanging door and decided it's not the right kind. it's flush and i need inset. i think.

it's now about 8 p.m. on saturday night, i'm in the garage scraping paint off ONE cabinet door. good grief. i got the white paint off one side of the door, but the brown paint underneath is being stubborn. after two attempts i finally decide i've had enough of this project for the day and go to bed.

the next day i took back the flush hinge and bought an inset one. i sanded the one side of the door and hung it up with the new hinge. it's ugly, but the hinges look good. :-) and, even better, it closes!!! but of course, this is ME we're talking about. the new old unpainted door with new black hinges and handle hanges beautifully and even with the other door, but it overlaps the other door, by about half an inch. well, that's because of the different hinge. solution? take the other door's hinges off and put new ones on it too, making it move to the right half an inch and all will be well with my kitchen world.

except both doors will have hinge holes on the outside that will need to be filled, the other door will need to be scraped and repainted, and the same thing will need to be done with ALL the OTHER doors. there are 10 of them, mind you. and now there are 9 matching and one oddball. of course. plus there are 8 doors on the bottom that don't match any on the top at all because they're newer and are thicker and have hidden hinges.... *sigh*

such is my life ... this from a woman who likes consistency, things that match. i think i'll scrap the entire thing and just buy new doors, ones that match the bottom ones. of course, i still have to decide if i want knobs or handles. ugh!

my little sweet pea

Dweezil Mills
April 1992 - September 2008

Dweezil lived a good life, full of barking, kissing, camping, digging, and running. he wasn't much of a player, but loved to chew. he ate beef and ice cream with much anticipation, but wouldn't go near a carrot or grape. he put up with annoying younger dogs who came to visit and even started learning how to play at the very end.

but ultimately, his little legs just wouldn't carry him much anymore. though nearly blind and very deaf, his love never failed. he still welcomed us home with happiness each day.

he was preceeded in death by his human father, Bobby. he is survived by his primary human mother, Oma; his other human mother, Jenny; his furry companion and playmate Ozzy; and many other dear human family members.

Dweezil, little sweet pea, bubba, little man, The Dweez ...... you will be missed greatly, remembered fondly, and loved dearly for as long as we live. thank you for being with us.

garage progress

a frame exists. awesome! i doubt very seriously that i'll be washing anything inside that little room by next weekend, but that's ok .... i guess. i will eventually, and that's really all that matters. this is one giant step for my little house and i will rejoice, even if it's still a couple of weeks from being finished. :-)

maybe next week i'll show you the termite hole. it's amazing to me that i keep forgetting to take a picture of the one thing that has caused me much frustration. can we say denial? hm, maybe.

the prettiness of my house

my house is so small that it's hard to capture it in pictures and do it justice. seriously. it looks a lot better in person, so i guess you'll just have to come visit me and see for yourself. nonetheless, here's the living room, dining room, and kitchen. the rest of the house is just not photogenic.

pictures

here's a basic view of the garage, a.k.a future utility room. see the window? the washer and dryer sits on either side of it. where the step up is will be a wall. you'll see, eventually. the guys are framing it today, so i'll get a picture up soon.

this is a view of the dining room. notice the trim scuffs. i really shoulda noticed those. thankfully a little paint goes a long way.

the bathroom door. again, a little paint goes a long way. apparently this room used to be baby blue. ugh!


Here is an example of nearly ALL my baseboards. some actually have shoe moulding, but even with that they look beat up and neglected.

Notice the napkin stuck in the corner of my kitchen window... yes, that's filling a hole in the glass. no, i didn't put it there. and no, i didn't notice it until after i got the keys to the house. i'm tellin ya, you'll never see all the little things during walk-throughs. just ain't gonna happen, unfortunately.

this is my bedroom as it stands now. i'd like to replace the bedding, but i haven't found anything i like yet. the headboard is sitting in the other bedroom for now, because i figure the bed will be moving around when we start working in here. this is where the termite hole is (still no picture of that), so i'll be tearing out the paneling as soon as possible. i'm also missing nightstands, but at least i know where they are! (storage, of course!)

the closet story

ok, here's how the story goes. at first glance, a closet is just a closet. a small hole, not much to see, certainly nothing to brag about, but a place to put stuff nonetheless. at my first glance, that's what i thought. the second glance i noticed "scuff" marks and thought, "oh, i'll definitely need to paint in here."


that is, until i really looked at it. "hmm, what's that?" well, that's wallpaper, on top of canvas, that they put on the walls way back then. looks like they got creative when plastering came out and actually plastered the wallpaper to make it LOOK like drywall. very deceiving.


i decided to be destructive and tore that already falling apart canvas. i found wood. my wood. THE wood that makes up my house.


either the previous owner took off the canvas in here, too, or the owner before her got tired of faking it and left the wood in this closet exposed, at least most of it.


so there you have it, folks, a tour of all four closets in my house. one size fits all. but they each have a different look inside. it's almost nice, having all that character there. but they will eventually match, with REAL drywall. i need consistency in my life.

progress

the termites have been treated. a garage door opener has been installed. new windows are ordered. rotted wood around three of those windows has been replaced with new wood. most of the garage has been insulated. cables have been wired mostly inside the walls instead of wrapping the entire length of the house along the outside. some plumbing pipes have been replaced. work has begun on the new wall being added in the garage. and many, many other little things have been completed.

i've also managed to move from storage most essentials for living. i've unpacked all the boxes i moved over and am making piles for the future garage sale. i finally got the refrigerator working and filled with food and i even cooked my first meal last night. and i've actually spent five nights on my own ... well, with Ozzy of course!

we're making progress. slowly but surely. things are still chaotic and work is a bit slow for my liking, especially since work on the inside of the house is on hold until the termites have had time to die. but at least i have some organization to my belongings and don't feel TOO cluttered.

i've tried to take some pictures, but they aren't very good which is why i haven't posted any. i will try again very soon though.

all work and no play makes me tired!

thanks to my very willing mother, i now have nearly all the necessities for living in my new home, and then some. what i'm still missing is a bed, clothing, and food. my goal is to fill the house with those items by this weekend. maybe. i'm pretty tired and three nights this week are filled up with other activities, so it might have to wait until the actual weekend.

Ricky and his son, Gary, are also hard at work in the garage and attic. i'm really hoping to see actual evidence of that work by the end of the week.

as for the termites, the bug man came on friday and treated the area outside the house where he found live termites. so, hopefully, they are spreading the poison as i speak, thereby killing each other. why do termites exist, anyway? for what good reason? are they food for certain other animals or insects? and even if they are, how do they get eaten if they're hiding so well within walls and such? all i really know is that i want them dead and out of my wood...

oh, i also now have a working garage door opener and new windows on the way. and i've introduced Ozzy (my dog) to the house and the back yard. he hasn't exactly made friends with the five dogs in adjacent yard who very rudely bark at him the moment he sets foot outside. there are also two other dogs two houses down that see him and start barking immediately, too, and will not let up for anything. needless to say, privacy fences are definitely on my list. maybe all the dogs will get used to each other eventually, but i'd still like to be able to go outside unnoticed.

bug be gone!!!

we all hit the ground running on Tuesday morning. by the time the day was all over with, it was determined that i DID have termite damage from the past and the guy who did the inspection before i bought the house missed it all. he also missed the fact that the house has wood touching soil, which is a prime condition for termites to enter the home. because of all that, the guy agreed to treat the entire house at his expense while apologizing and expressing his desire to keep me as a customer and to keep me happy. which i am and will be, as long as i have dead termites in a few weeks. (BTW, he went by today and found live termites along the soil/beam. bingo!)

last night i also met with the guy (Ricky) who's going to do some work for me inside the house. we discussed in more detail about the future laundry room in the garage. he started the prep work today. besides finishing the garage with drywall, he'll build a wall to separate the washer and dryer from the rest of the garage, add a couple of lights and power outlets, install some shelves, and put some tile on the floor. hopefully in two weeks or less i'll have an actual laundry room. :-)

i'm feeling a little better. i was very overwhelmed and VERY discouraged when we found bugs, but today i feel like we're making progress instead of problems. phew!