Month: September 2020

Last week’s rain and cold was replaced with warmer and drier air, marking the return to working on our outside projects. The week turned out to have quite a bit more activity than anticipated!

At one point we had Bob the Builder, Marv the cement guy, and Pam and I working on projects all at the same time. Painting, [overhead] garage door installation, sidewalk work, and a new door in the catio rounded out the major work done this week. I am going to jump about a bit and describe each project as if they happened in isolation.

Painting was the first and foremost activity. I began painting part of the house and managed to get large areas of the garage and garage addition painted. Pam continues to detail paint the back porch.

Photo above is the south wall next to the back porch. We were anxious to see how the house would look in Barn Red. Other parts of the house exterior need repair work before painting can begin but at least this is a start.

Part of the house painting included a cleaning of the old gutters and washing the walls. Note the gutter below; the left side has been cleaned and the right side has not. Just cleaning the gutters and porch walls made a huge visual difference! (Growth on the plastic gutters appears to be some type of lichen.) I am also pleased that I will not have to remove the gutters to re-paint them. That would have been a major job.

Most of the week’s painting was of the garage and garage addition. The north wall of the old garage received paint, as did the garage addition east wall and alley wall.

Here is the painted north wall of the garage:

The photo below shows the nearly completed east wall, alley side wall, and the garage door being installed.

I must say that having the overhead garage door installed makes the garage feel like a garage instead of an open shed. However, we had gotten used to looking out the kitchen window and seeing the alley through the back door of the garage; now we will have to get used to a different view.

Note the small tree in the lower right hand corner of the photo above. This Black Hills Spruce was one of two trees planted this past week. The other was a small oak placed near the west side property line. These two brought the total number of trees, shrubs and arborvitae planted this year to 23.

Flowers were relocated as well; the phlox that used to be near the garage addition is now out near the 7th street sidewalk and has been joined by another phlox Pam ordered from a greenhouse.

Four potted mums were purchased from a local greenhouse and Pam put them in the ground today. Shasta daisies joined them. Other plantings will continue to happen over the next couple weeks as more of Pam’s fall planting materials arrive.

I am going to skip ahead a bit and mention another project that was completed: Adding a door to the catio.

This was something Pam had wanted and planned for since we bought the house. The current door is on the south side of the catio and faces the garage. In winter, or rainy days, the low area between the catio and garage floods and/or freezes, making access hazardous at best.

I had picked up a door at Home Depot but had not installed it. When Bob the Builder showed up to install the overhead garage door I asked if he might also install the catio door and he agreed to do the work. Here is a photo of the completed installation:

The major story of the week, though, was not even on our horizon when the week started. Monday afternoon Marv, the cement guy (he poured the foundation slab for the garage addition) stopped by with a quote covering the replacement of the broken sidewalk running between the back porch and the garage. After we accepted the quote, Marv indicated he could begin the work later this week. Huzzah!

Note: I have raw video clips of the sidewalk work and will try to have a finished video by my next post. Until then I will include numerous still shots of the work in progress.

The new walk includes paths to the catio and to the garage addition. The step-out from the original garage was made into a gentle ramp. A last-minute change was made to add a curved segment to join the old walk to the new one near the house. This eliminated a 90-degree joint that looked a bit out of place considering the number of curves in the new layout.

Marv’s crew arrived Wednesday morning and promptly began tearing out the old walk of broken cement pieces, placed forms for the new cement, and cut/placed the reinforcing rebar rods in the appropriate places.

All the prep work was done Wednesday. Thursday was the “pour” as the new cement arrived. Of course, one of the outside cats walked right across the cement while the crew was working it with trowels. We decided to put up some cat barriers after the crew was done and the cement was drying.

Once poured and worked the cement had to ‘set up’ before the next steps: removal of the forms and cutting expansion slots in the surface. Marv and his crew arrived Friday afternoon to take care of those tasks.

And here is the finished walk:

We are delighted with the new walk. It is solid, level, and makes getting to and from the garage doors much easier. We had not realized how much care we had to take when walking on the old, broken, and uneven walkway. The new walk looks better as well!

Pam “customized” the new walk with heart imprints.

Walkway replacement was a project we had planned to do this year but had not heard from Marv since he was out to discuss the work several weeks ago. We were beginning to think it would not get done before cold weather set in. To have it completed is a great boost for us – Pam defined it as a health and safety issue due to her difficulties on that walkway in the snow and ice last winter.

On yet another front, Jake the electrician, who had done the repair and rewiring of the house earlier this year, stopped by to give us a quote on wiring the garage addition. (We also plan to wire the catio, equipping it with an overhead light and outlets for heated water dishes and heated cat beds.) At this point Jake’s schedule is running about 3 weeks out so it may be mid-to-late October before he can make it to us.

On the agenda? More painting for sure (mainly the porches), but the major projects for this year have been completed or, like the garage electrical work and a window replacement on the west wall of the house, are scheduled. A bit more fall planting is on the docket but that will not be a major task. Winterizing the house will be undertaken beginning in October.

Wow. What a week. Overhead and catio doors installed, new sidewalks, major walls of garage painted, house painting begun.

Photo Archive

Over time I looked for unusual situations that I could photograph. Here are a few of my “artsy” photos.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents

This week marked one year since closing on Heart House. Taking inventory of the finances as well as the projects, we’ve blown through tens of thousands of dollars to repair 702 Main and build the garage addition. That money had been primarily saved over the four years prior to the move, with the addition of the (somewhat disappointing) amount we received at closing on the property in DeBeque.

Money still remains for house painting next year and there’s a small cushion in the savings account, in case y’all thought we would bankrupt ourselves. The monetary improvements already put into Heart House have moved it from a resale value in the $60,000 range to a resale value in the $100,000+ range. That’s about all the local real estate market can bear, so additional improvements will be on our dime. (Plumbing, I feel, will be one of those “improvements” sooner rather than later.)

Himself received his first Social Security check this month; up to this point, we’ve been living on savings and pensions, as well as financing the projects from savings. I plan to begin my Social Security activity in January 2021, but due to potential COVID staffing issues, I thought it best to contact the local Waterloo SSA office this month to see if I need to begin paperwork early. After I explained this concept to the woman on the other end of the phone, she paused briefly and then replied, “Honey, I know you’re in a hurry to be retired – waited all your life – but you’re just a little ahead of the curve for us. Wait until Halloween or November before you start the paperwork.” Alrighty, then.

Happy Trails.

As anyone living in the mid-west can tell you, the last week was rainy and cold. Daytime temperatures were 25+ degrees lower than average for this time of year! These conditions impacted what Pam and I could get done on our various projects, painting in particular. Still, we moved ahead. Here is a recap of the past week.

Weather on Labor Day itself was still decent and we did some painting. Pam worked on the detail over two garage windows and two doors. Painting this detail is time consuming and took about an hour for each location.

I painted some of the garage addition west wall and under-eve trim on the back porch. The under-eve spot was bare wood, as the previous owner(s) never completed the paint job there.

Part of the job included cleaning the gutter which had a layer of lichen (?) on the outside.

By Tuesday, though, rain had set in and temps were colder, not conditions conducive to painting so we turned to other, and smaller, tasks.

Pam finished painting the light fixture trim ring she had purchased for the parlor bedroom and we installed it.

Other tasks included painting and installing a trim molding on the shelf above the washer and dryer, moving the last items out of the rented storage area, and putting up a few more shelves and unpacking some items in the garage.

I’m going to elaborate a bit on the emptying of the storage area. I moved the original ’48 Ford 8N engine into the garage addition but still had to deal with the non-running Yamaha XJ motorcycle. The storage area is about 11 blocks from the house and I did not want to push the bike that far so a plan of action had to be made.

Eventually I decided to put the bike on the trailer, but this required the help of Pam and the ATV winch. (I wish I had taken a photo of this but did not.) I parked the ATV at an angle to the trailer which was backed up to the storage unit door. I routed the winch cable through a clevis hook, attached to the truck through a strap, down to the front of the bike. Pam operated the winch controls while I walked the bike up the ramp and into the trailer. Piece of cake.

Other projects were completed. We both applied for absentee ballots. I sorted though a bunch of digital photos and put them in appropriate folders. Several new scans were made of old slides. Furnace filter was changed. Garage was measured for gutters. More summer flowers were cut back and the refuse taken to the dump. Dogs were taken to the groomer.

There is not much else to tell. I will note that the bare dirt area I mentioned in my last post is starting to turn a very light green as the grass seed starts to grow.

Hopefully the grass will “green up” in the next couple of weeks and I see ground cover before the winter sets in.

There are two anniversaries we are noting this week. First, we bought the Colorado property, aka The Lot, on September 12, 2012. The 8 years since then has gone by fast. The second anniversary is September 16, the day we closed on the Heart House at 702 Main in Elma. Much has happened this past year!

Photo Archive

These slides were given to me by my parents. The year was 1967 and I was 15 and had my first car, a 1959 Austin-Healy Sprite. I have good memories of that car!

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents

(Looking at photos of Himself at 15, I can see where son Toby gets his curly mop top.)

Himself was a bit at loose ends during the recent five day stretch of rain. I told him I could assemble a list of indoor projects upon which he could begin, but he refused my generous offer. I additionally noted it would be best if Himself developed a list of indoor projects for the January-March period. Here in NE Iowa, other than snow removal, not much to do outside during that stretch.

Bits and pieces of my fall plant order will start to arrive this next week. We should see iris and phlox, which will result in relocation/consolidation of the few iris and one phlox already on the property. I also have a coupon from the large nursery in Hawkeye, IA where we purchased the honey locust and arbor vitae earlier in the year. The nursery is in their final reduction of stock for the season. We may be in the market for an evergreen for the back yard, to be placed near the garden enclosure/adjacent to the newly-planted grassy area. Field trip!

Just by accident I learned the massive plant we allowed to grow in the actual bed frame in the back yard was an American Pokeberry aka Poke Weed. It is a poisonous and invasive plant. I never liked the way it took over the space where it came up, much like the day lillies do in their various spots. “Our” Pokeberry was cut back, but, with root systems reaching many feet underground, it will be years before it is eradicated. Live and learn. I believe there is one shrub plus two trees still unidentified on the property.

Happy Trails.

While every week is busy, this past week was almost intense in the number and variety of projects undertaken. The cooler weather helped and we were able to start on long-held painting projects. However, painting is not all we did.

A number of repair projects were undertaken. I purchased a “multi-functional oscillating tool” recommended by Bob the Builder. Equipped with a wood cutting blade, I removed three sections of rotted wood, two on the east porch corner and the third on the east side of the house.

As with any new tool, there is a bit of a learning curve and subsequent repairs went better and took less time than the first job.

More work was done to the spindles and railings. The east steps received new rails and spindles on the right side; the right and left sides have now both been replaced. The south end railing was repaired with new spindles and bottom rail.

The right-hand railing of the front porch steps also needed the replacement of the bottom rail. However, this repair took on a life of its own after I discovered the end post needed substantial rot repair work. I was able to carve out a cavity in the post and fill it with 2x4s. This allowed me to salvage the post, which would have been difficult to replace. I just can’t run down to the lumber yard and find a matching replacement! Anyway, the repair turned out OK.

A (very) sharp eye may notice that the right-hand spindles are a bit shorter than the left. I salvaged the original spindles by cutting an inch off each end. This was enough to get rid of the rot and allowed me to re-use the spindles. At some point I will need to cut the left hand spindles to match, but that is a job for another day.

Moldings were cut and added to the front and east side steps. The steps were painted or repainted, and with the moldings and new railings, are looking pretty good.

As you can see, painting the porch decks still has to be done, but a lot of work has gone into these steps. Note the 3/4 inch trim moldings on each step, the hand-cut tread pads, and, of course, the painting and repair of the rails. Everything is a challenge, including the cutting of the trim pieces found at the bottom of the east porch posts. Because of the condition of the post, each piece had to be individually cut. This took more time than it should have but the end result looks good.

Speaking of painting, I have to include this photo Pam took of me while I was painting the new step rails for the east porch. The end of the board you can’t see is under the front porch railing, holding it down.

Another project was knocking down and spreading the large pile of dirt created when excavation for the garage addition cement slab was done.

The bottom photo, above, shows the pile leveled out. It has been raked and seeded, thus the sprinkler. I hope to have grass growing here in the next 7 to 10 days.

The leveling was done partly by hand and partly with the snow blade attached to the front of the John Deere LX 176 garden tractor. The blade allowed me to move some dirt around and create a more level surface than shoveling by hand.

And, finally, painting. I’ve already mention the painting of the steps, but we were also able to get started on painting the garage and back porch of the house. Here are a few photos of this work-in-progress.

In between cutting, painting, and leveling Pam decided it was time to clean the catio. Some repairs and alterations were required as I plan to put a door in the east end of the shed, which required interior insulation to be removed and relocated. I replaced the [north side] cat entrance with the original 4-pane window after removing one of the panes. This addition allows more light into the shed and will be a bit more weatherproof than the temporary insert we had been using since last fall.

Pam had to clean all the cat bedding and items used in the shed.

We also started to set up Pam’s permanent garden enclosure:

The hinge-side post (right) is set in cement. This project was part of a larger project of emptying the rented storage unit, as we have to have it empty and be out of it by the end of September. Rather than store the fencing, posts, and gate, Pam suggested I set it up now.

Other material was moved as well. The only two things left in storage are the engine for the Ford 8N tractor and my old – and non-running – Yamaha motorcycle. I will move those this coming week, when the trailer is empty after a run to the dump.

And that trailer is quite full, as another project involved cutting back the day lilies and other growth from around the house and from flower beds under the oak trees. Today Pam is cleaning around the giant sunflowers, as a wind storm last night knocked several of them down. (Ten of the 24 sunflowers that bloomed this year are still standing. The photo of the garden area shows the complete sunflower array prior to the storm.)

Watermelons were harvested and the old melon vines, as well as the pumpkin vines (which did not produce this year) were pulled out, put in the trailer, and the garden area mowed to make it look nice and neat. Even some non-blooming morning glories were removed, making way for the garden fencing.

A bit of time was spent scrubbing the green mold off the lower north side of the garage. Pam already had the hose near the garage for the catio cleaning so it was an opportune time to take on this task. Completion made the garage look much better!

Most weeks are busy here at 702 Main, but this past week seemed to have us in an extra gear. Much was accomplished, mostly due to the better weather/working conditions, but also because of the realization that we have only a few weeks left to get projects done this year.

I hope to get to Colorado for an extended visit later this month, then it will be off to Vancouver, Washington to pick up items from Felicity’s storage unit and deliver them to her new place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. When I get home it will be early October and winter will be fast approaching. Pam has ordered a number of items for fall planting, a task that will occupy several hours of work this fall. Time for project work is getting short.

One project that did not move ahead this week – the overhead garage door did not arrive. The supplier now says it may come in sometime between September 14th to the 18th. We hope.

Photo Archive

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

I do love the selected barn red paint color. It was a delight to finally be at a point to start painting the actual house – but – there is an insane amount of detailing to be done, around doors/windows and white trim. That color red is not as forgiving of mistakes as was the previous pastel shade.

My ceiling medallion arrived for the parlor bedroom, something which also requires an insane amount of paint detailing. Yippee. It’s a work in progress; stay tuned.

Happy Trails.