all sorts of stuff. huge stuff. construction rubble, demolition debris scattered amongst the ground, tens of tons of things to carry and stack.

lets start inside, where things are nice and calm… and pleasantly lit, after a series of splendid finds in the Rejuvenation clearance area (read: we justified purchasing a shitload of new lights, because of the “clearance” status).

the living room went from a seriously classy oak veneer and wicker ceiling fan, to this craftsman style piece:

the brothel chandelier was next. not that there’s anything wrong with a piece of lighting that looks like it came out of a turn of the century lady of accompaniment parlor… because really, we all know nothing says class like that (not even a oak and wicker fan)… but the feeling that any moment the madame of the house would appear, was getting a bit odd.

couldn’t leave outside untouched… the spider web encrusted (and it turns out, wasp nest infested) 1950s glass light was replaced with this bit of sweetness… complete with mica shade, giving it some awesome light at night…

there’s also new kitchen lighting, which appears to not be on my camera. i could get up, walk the 15 feet over to the one out of 3 lights that’s installed, take a picture, come back and upload it (probably in about as much time as it’d take to write this explanation as to why i’m not)… but i’m not.

ahh… now for the real mess progress!

start with digging. lots and lots of digging. luckily it wasn’t me doing the digging… though i’d not mind taking credit for it, the digging was done by a couple friends. i was almost ready to be content with just the trench… toss the garden hose in, fill it up… get some anwry guppies and call it a moat. a quick draw bridge, and we’d be set…

but then this arrived:

roughly 30k pounds of dry stack block, concrete and gravel.
the wee one looked at me and said “do you want to play blocks with me? i help you!” we spend some time playing with legos… it was pretty cool that she put it together in her mind that these huge things are like huge legos. huge legos that weigh 65 pounds each.

with great luck, i had lots of help.

it’s not quite done… but already worlds of difference. now there is visible PROOF that something is being done! that huge f’ing mound of dirt looks less like a prehistoric ant hill, and more like a temporary mound (despite having been there for the better part of a year).elsewhere on the house, we’ve hired a contractor. it was admittedly a bit tough for me to accept the fact that i can’t do everything by myself, i don’t have enough free time, and i need to hire someone to pick up where i’m failing. may not sound like a failure, but it kinda feels like it… at least a pretty good hit to my pride. but… on the plus side… a bunch of stuff is getting done, which should make everyone happier.

• the cedar shingles are being pulled off the house, to be replaced with #1 shake.
• the rear chimney is being pulled down and rebuilt, as there was worry any time a bird landed on it, the chimney would come tumbling down.
• the side chimney is getting strapped to the house, so it doesn’t come tumbling down
• the house is getting wrapped so it has an actual vapor barrier
• all new marvin dual glaze, low e, argon filled all wood windows are going in the upper floor. 3×5′ double hung for the bedrooms, 2×3′ double hung for the bathroom, 2 casement and 1 picture on the front dormer.
• finally, those new shakes are going on… all nice and treated

we also decided to ditch the biodiesel furnace in favor of a natural gas furnace. permit in hand, gas company scheduled to come install a meter, 80 some feet of black pipe and tons of fittings ready to go in… now just to figure out what furnace we’re gonna get. it’ll be NICE having actual heat this winter!

i changed my schedule at work a bit, so i could have more time at home… 7am to around 4pm. might try to do 6am to 3pm in a bit… but the 7am is already kicking my ass… not to mention it’s after midnight right now and i’ve gotta be at work in well under 7 hours… shower, sleep, get up and ready for work… work… by the time i get home, i’m f’ing beat. time to stop playing around blogging, and do that sleep thing…

the sun has broken through the drizzle for nearly a week straight! the eco lawn (actually fleur de lawn) has come in reasonably well, with only minor patches that failed to do much of anything. it’s had the first mowing and seems to be doing well…

it sure as hell beats the prior landscaping… mud.
the yellow car is my newest project… a ‘72 volvo 142e. 2 liter 4 cylinder ohv (not ohc… pushrod motor), 4 speed. cool little thing, with some entirely ancient electronic fuel injection… runs beautiful, though.

rebecca’s garden is giving tons of lettuce… and some other cool stuff, like the baby carrots:

summer is kinda-almost upon us.  it’s about damned time.

the back yard’s eco lawn (fleur de lawn, to be exact) is coming in quite well.  nice to have some color other than dirt back there.

the driveway has it’s 5 cubic yards of 3/4- gravel laid out.  it still needs tamped, but it’ll do for now.  think we’re gonna hold off on pouring concrete for a while.  the gravel is a HUGE step up from the mud that it replaced.

hauled home a ‘72 volvo 142e. the second cheapest car i’ve purchased in my life. it’s a project car that’s not too far off from being my daily driver. cool little thing, it is.

other than that… not much else done to the house: have been working on other projects and basically feeling a complete lack of free time… which partially explains the lack of posts, and the diminutive size of this post.

damn, i’ve gotta be at work in 8 hours. wish i could afford (and justify) a vacation.

this weekend marks the first time the weather in portland has seriously pissed me off. sun and spotty clouds most of the week… then saturday comes and it: rains, hails, sleets, snows, hails… sun comes out for 3 minutes… repeat. this had the oh-so-convenient effect of turning our clay-like soil into… well… clay. sticky, slippery, mucky clay. you could actually watch the backhoe sinking as the ground turned to quicksand, err, quickclay.

on the plus side…

the two trees along the street, which were horribly diseased and rotting away, have been removed complete with their root packs.

the *huge* evergreen stump in the back yard is gone (unfortunately a great deal of soil gave way when the backhoe sank/got stuck for 4 hours).

the driveway is removed/cut in and (almost) ready to be poured.

and let’s not forget… the wee one got to drive a tractor! she sat on my lap and we went up and down the street, while she steered!

more pictures to come once i get a chance to get the camera outside while it’s still light out. after the usual work day in the office, i came home and we went to home depot not once… no… but twice. by the time we got home, the sun had set, it was time for dinner, and the chance to get anything productive underway had gone. maybe tomorrow…

i woke up early this morning, planning on working feverously until the dumpster was removed. that would have been great if they came and got it within an hour of me starting… because that’s about the time i was beginning to tire. my back being trash from the day before, you’d think that stretching and moving would be good for it, right? maybe so, but it turns out that stretching to yank out english ivy, and moving the landscaping axe with great force towards intimate objects doesn’t work so well. back is now worse than it was last night.

on the plus side, though… this is full!

tons (literally) of yard debris, felled tree, random crap, heavy crap and actual crap (see last post).

no more ivy, holly, rose bushes, dead flowers or fur (pulled a ~2lb “mattress of fur” out from there)!

(nice dead grass, though)

luckily the foreman approves of the work:

(more…)

… so this will just be “yard stuff.”

we got a 20 square yard drop box/dumpster (8 feet wide, 20 feet long, 6 feet tall… math doesn’t seem quite right, does it?), for 2 days. took the remains of the evergreen to it, and a bunch of other stuff that succumbed to the business end of a chainsaw (my favorite toy).
before:

after:

cut the shrub/bush/tree/horribly overgrown thing back about 2 feet, to the property line. we’ll continue the fence that’s on part of the back yard (our yard backs up to 2 other people’s yards… they’ve got narrow lots). the “dog house” is also gone… smashed it up and drug it’s ant-encrusted carcass to the dumpster. removed a complete (rusty) swing set that was hidden in the shrub, too.
spent a few hours digging an enormous hole to remove the old laundry rack which was buried 3′9″ deep (i measured)… in packed rocks.

(more…)

… it would be so much easier. you could just turn ‘em upside down and shake: clean slate!

unfortunately they’re not. they’re more like ever growing mounds of junk; horribly ugly trees; holly, nightshade and other poisonous plants; dog feces decomposing containers (don’t ask); mystery holes that you find while carrying something heavy; and dead grass.

luckily, the little one is great with garden tools!

all sorts of lovely stuff stashed under the hedge/bush/thing at the back of the yard

at least some of the stuff found under there is usable

alll that stuff above, rebecca drudged out on her own. it’s a lot of stuff! there’s still an old swing set stashed away in that bush…

the lovely “dog house” left by the previous owner. they must have hated the dog.

now… in any real yard, i’d enjoy a real tree… something majestic, and of beauty…

these, unfortunately are not in our yard. they’re in a close-by rain forest… i took the pics while we hiked to the top of multnomah falls (when i probably should have been working on the house… but this was more fun!)

instead, we have this:

nothing says “majestic beauty” like a butchered, overgrown and diseased evergreen… so out came the chainsaw.

countless saplings, turned into branches… turned into trunks of their own.

i tried to clean it up a bit, to see how it looks… but the thing has been topped, poorly trimmed and then neglected for a couple decades… so it’s pretty pointless. plus the position of this thing in the yard is pretty bad… so more chainsaw fun

chainsaws are loud!

now we’ve got firewood and a bunch of evergreen branches for the dumpster. (they’ll actually get chipped and recycled, so not to worry about ‘em being carted off to the landfill)

the yard now looks quite a lot larger. we’ll have to get the deck built and bring in sod, pretty quickly…

***

a bit of an update from inside of the house… rebecca found chewbacca! at least half a wookie, from under the stove

we also got a really, really cool house-warming present! not only is it beautiful, it actually eats annoying bastards like fruit flies and other pests! they’re drawn to the attractive leaves, and down the tube towards the nectar… where ‘hairs’ that grow downward keep the insect from getting out, and they’re slowly digested by the very nectar they were looking for… brilliant!

edit…

etch-a-sketch

chewbacca (a wookie)

back yard, this time.

we’ve got this monstrous fig tree (bush?)…

reckon i’m an arborist, me…

and let there be light…

this thing had countless saplings that had become 2″ trunks…. and at least eight 5+” trunks… otherwise known as a complete mess. it’s looking a lot healthier at this point, but i’m not sure how much life is left in it. the main three trunks to the left in the photos have major rot/disease issues, and are somewhat un-sound. it’s in a pretty poor place, anyway…. so i figure once it gives the ghost we’ll plant something better, in a location that doesn’t make one lose blood from the head when navigating the ankle-twisting mess of a yard and running into it because the damned thing is in the middle of that area.

the structure behind the tree is a carriage house that’s had the front door framed in, a cheap big box store entry door, and vinyl siding slapped on it. the sashes are original, pretty dry… but likely can be restored; the structure is sound with no rot; the roof is re-sheathed and only a few years old; the foundation/floor is somewhat cracked, with a good 2.5″ of settling in a rear corner. i’m hoping to find a salvaged carriage house door with some kinda cool glazing/windows, re-siding in cedar, and painting to match the house. it’ll make a fine (albeit wee bit small) workshop… but for now it’s just good storage.

esmee having fun: (and a view of our horrible 80’s remodeled kitchen)

spent a couple hours with a shovel and a chainsaw, removing the horrible english ivy which has been taking over the yard. this stuff actually had stumps, about 3″ in diameter… and a lot of them.

most of the time was spent with the shovel…

more shovel time…

done, for now… the ivy was covering about 2 feet of the driveway, roughly 100 square feet of yard/planter space, and growing across parts of the house.

we need to get a large dumpster for stuff like this, the carpet that was pulled from the house (which sits stacked on the front porch, ghetto style), and a lot of other growing piles of miscellaneous junk.

going to trench for the curtain drains and gas line… then build the retaining wall to level the yard and wrought iron & cedar fence and gates… sprinklers, sod, moving the camellia bushes (trees?), tons of landscaping… need to find a lawnmower that can actually deal with damp grass (48″ of rain per year, here), and some other toys… i mean required equipment.

****

the bathroom also received a bit of attention (to which esmee approves)…

sign of the crab tub filler/hand shower combination. we searched high and low for a salvaged original, with sad results. this thing cost more than my first car (and not much less than my current car’s purchase price)… but it sure is pretty… and it’s very nice being able to take a shower, again!