Had the thought today that a good portion of my time deals with water management.
With regards to water I am at one point or another:
Today I was trying to keep it out of my garage.
The old steps from our breezeway into the house have always been difficult to traverse for humans and dogs. They were too short and abrupt and due to the height difference between the breezeway floor and the house, very tall.
So, fixed that this weekend. Went full Frank Lloyd Wright and cantilevered the top step/platform out to a bench. The kids would always sit right in the doorway to put their shoes on and then no one could go in or out. Maybe they won’t now. 50/50 chance.
I feel like the mice and I had come to a fairly reasonable understanding about our shared lease on the Bike Clubhouse. Then they hit the fun gear drawer. Shots fired, meeces.
Photos don’t really do the ‘red’ in the last two justice. It’s so deeeeep.
I’ve been quiet here on the interwebs lately. Hardly still in the real world though. Very busy with work, hockey season and working on Emma’s room. I realized I hadn’t posted an update for awhile. Got the first coat of primer on the walls today. Chugging along. If I’m done with it by January 1, I’ll consider it a win. Don’t ever mud drywall yourself folks. Just, don’t.
So, renovations are afoot at The Fack Ranch. We’re adding a bedroom in the basement for the 2nd oldest kid as she will maybe be staying through university. The previous window was not large enough to allow egress in the case of a fire, so that meant cutting a bigger hole in the foundation to allow for a bigger window.
I found a contractor who had done many of these, he would excavate, cut the hole and install the window well/drain – he just didn’t do the window, so after waffling on it a bit, I decided to do it myself. My biggest concern, being the first window I’ve installed, was that I’d get the measurements wrong and have the contractor cut the hole the wrong size. I was a bit paranoid. But drew it all out (the photo here actually has the wrong dimensions) and did the math many times. I figured I had it.
It was a fascinating process watching him cut the concrete and then even more amazing to watch his dexterity with the mini-excavator. I wish I’d gotten video, but I only got stills when he used the bucket on the thing as a pick to gradually move and pivot the huge slab out of the window opening. I have a whole new appreciation for these heavy-equipment operators.
Overall the install went really well, I’m really happy with how it turned out. I’ll be trimming up the outside to hide the waterproofing membrane and working on raking out the yard and throwing down some grass seed.
Still to come, a new electrical panel, then finish framing, drywall, paint, drop-ceiling and floor installations.
Looks like I’ll be working from home for the foreseeable future, which is alright with me for a lot of reasons, so I rearranged a bit and hung pictures.
We’ve had good turnout with the garden this year. We’ve had a great bean crop – more than we can eat – peas, zucchini, peas and tomatoes aplenty. We’ve started harvesting and eating the potatoes and the broccoli is on it’s third round. Still have zucchini, squash, peppers and tomatoes going and in another month or two we’ll harvest the carrots. And all this time we’ve had enough lettuce to feed the herd without buying any.
The blackberries are coming, though they’re not huge and some plants dried up – I don’t know if it was due to a stint of brutal heat and dry weather we had or the fact that I moved them this year. Still some to munch on though and there’s been new shoots growing for next year.
