Good-bye FishBowl

This weekend, the long awaited window treatment for the living room went up. Take a look here to see how close we came to the intended idea. I think we did pretty well. It was a true team effort. Greg had to drill eleven hole in the ceiling, and screw in the brackets which hold the track to the ceiling. If you ever need an opinion on which toggle bolts work best, he can tell you. My mom helped me mark the length of all the vertical panels, which I trimmed. Greg added the top and bottom rails to each panel. Jeff stopped by last night and got to stand with his arms above his head for a considerable amount of time while Greg fastened 11 set screws to secure the tracks to the brackets in the ceiling. My mom and I clipped the drapery clips on and hemmed the purple drapes to the right length. And finally, we get to it back and enjoy it all. 

This shows how flexible the system is. Here, the center of the window is open, while light is filtered thought the panels at the sides. 

It’s hard to see the pattern in the center panels in the photos, so here’s a peak at what it looks like from outside. 

And here’s an evening shot taken by my mom of the two of us enjoying our transformed living room. We have one major project left in here, which is to create the new storage to the right of the fireplace which ill have some display, as well as house the components for the television. I think we might take next weekend off though. Whew!

Comments from previous blog:

CHRISTINE

LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

Monday, February 21, 2011 - 09:19 PM

Miss Scarlet with the lava lamp in the library

Another task that was accomplished after the arrival of Task Master V on Saturday afternoon was the population of the library. We unpacked dozens of boxes of books, some of which had been stored away for years. 

Greg carefully planned where each book should live. What is a library without categories after all? We still have some fine tuning to be done, but for now, I am thrilled to have the library wall I’ve been dreaming of for years. Not to mention the fact that our storage area on the other side of the basement is much better organized, not that it is not full of books that are waiting to live on a shelf.  

Comments from previous Blog:

CHRISTINE

Wow - this looks great!

Monday, February 21, 2011 - 09:14 PM

Good-bye Fishbowl

This weekend, the long awaited window treatment for the living room went up. Take a look here to see how close we came to the intended idea. I think we did pretty well. It was a true team effort. Greg had to drill eleven hole in the ceiling, and screw in the brackets which hold the track to the ceiling. If you ever need an opinion on which toggle bolts work best, he can tell you. My mom helped me mark the length of all the vertical panels, which I trimmed. Greg added the top and bottom rails to each panel. Jeff stopped by last night and got to stand with his arms above his head for a considerable amount of time while Greg fastened 11 set screws to secure the tracks to the brackets in the ceiling. My mom and I clipped the drapery clips on and hemmed the purple drapes to the right length. And finally, we get to it back and enjoy it all. 

This shows how flexible the system is. Here, the center of the window is open, while light is filtered thought the panels at the sides. 

It’s hard to see the pattern in the center panels in the photos, so here’s a peak at what it looks like from outside. 

And here’s an evening shot taken by my mom of the two of us enjoying our transformed living room. We have one major project left in here, which is to create the new storage to the right of the fireplace which will have some display, as well as house the components for the television. I think we might take next weekend off though. Whew!

Comments transferred from previous Blog:

CHRISTINE

LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

Monday, February 21, 2011 - 09:19 PM

Bathroom Progress

Last weekend was a busy weekend around here. In addition to chasing mice and squirrels, hanging up the TV, and putting the living room back together, Greg also made some progress on the hole in our bathroom wall. Next step, tiling. 

And a reminder of what it looked like before Greg put up the cement board.


Comments transferred from previous blog:

VP

The home improvement never stops. This record of it all is an amazing historical document!

Monday, February 14, 2011 - 07:44 PM

Garage Door Fail

Wednesday night, we made a trip down to IKEA to pick up some book shelves for the basement. When we got home, we were tired, and the shelves were heavy. So, we left all the packages in the garage, and left my car outside. We were watching a little TV before bed, and we heard the horrible noise. It sounded like a shelf had fallen on top of a kitty or something equally as bad. We looked around a little, sound both boys and they seemed fine. Greg peaked in the garage and none of the packages had fallen. By the next morning, we’d forgotten about it. Since both cars were outside, we went out the front door, instead of the garage like usual. It wasn’t until I got home that night, and the garage would only open halfway that I discovered what had made the noise. 

One of the springs had broken. The force was so great, it sheared off the bole holding the angle into the ceiling, and bent it backwards. 

The pulley was left dangling. And the spring was useless. 

We are now considering getting a brand new door instead of just replacing the springs. The door is old. A new one will have much more insulation. But, it’s yet another thing we weren’t planning on spending money on just yet. 

Comments transferred from previous blog:

VP

That's a shame.

Monday, February 14, 2011 - 05:17 PM

Media Wall

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a bit of a home improvement frenzy around here. Saturday was spent assembling these new bookcases from IKEA. Task Master V is returning next weekend, and we’re hoping she’s going to help us finish unpacking our books once and for all. So, we wanted to get this assembled before then. We have one final piece, that will fill in the blank spot in the middles, but it is designed for a flat panel TV. It will be a few years before we build it. Well be buying a garage door, among many other things, before we buy another television!

Here’s just a hint of what’s waiting to be stashed away on our great new shelves. 

Comment transferred from previous blog:

CHRISTINE

Those look like they were custom made! Awesome.

Monday, February 14, 2011 - 11:28 AM

VP

VERY NICE! Task Master V is on the way.

Monday, February 14, 2011 - 05:12 PM

It really was a squirrel

Many of you have heard that we’ve been dealing with a bit of a mouse problem. There is/was a soffit running around the perimeter of our basement which we discovered has essentially been a mouse condo. Greg has been working at taking down the soffit little by little. The good news is that we’ve now been an entire week without a new mouse. But, as you can see, it was not a rodent free week. 

Last Saturday, I heard Greg laughing the laugh of a slightly insane person from the basement. When he finally spoke, he said he had seen a squirrel. We got the cats out, and he spent some time trying to root out the new rodent, to no avail. Sunday, there was no sign of our latest visitor, and Greg began to second guess himself. He thought maybe it was Ziggy’s tail instead. He had not seen the face. 

Monday, I was on the elliptical in the basement, and I heard a terrible clatter coming from the wall near the boiler closet. I finished up my workout, and Greg suited up to investigate. We found our squirrel, who had been stuck in the wall, and injured himself. Thankfully, he was in the boiler closet, which allowed Greg a contained space in which to finally trap him. 

As you can see, Greg does not mess around when it comes to safety precautions. He brought the squirrel outside once he was contained, and released him in the bak yard. Unfortunately for the squirrel, he is still in the same spot where Greg left him. But I can’t feel that bad. He was a rodent, and he was in. my. house. 

As for the soffits, here’s a few shots of how they are looking these days. 

Greg has since pulled down the ceiling tiles, so we have a little ceiling refinishing in our future. 

Somewhere above this wall is where we think the mice have been getting in. Greg did his best to plug the hole, at least temporarily. 

This is what the soffits look like before demolition. There is just one portion left that needs to come down. And someday, there is going to be a lot of priming and painting of paneling going on down here. 

Comments transferred from previous blog:

VP

Oh, the adventures you have. Amazing!

Saturday, February 12, 2011 - 06:04 PM

CHRISTINE

Whoa... Insane! Just insane.

Sunday, February 13, 2011 - 12:28 PM

Snowy Scenes

Everyone knows we’re dealing with snow of epic proportions. I thoughts I’d share a few shots taken around our house. 

This is the snow bank at the corner of our driveway LAST Saturday. It is now over my head. I need to get another picture for comparison. 

This was the scene on our corner a few weeks ago. This front loader was chopping the tops off of the snowbanks at the corner of the street and sending them off with in a dump truck. It’s much worse since then. I wish they would come back. It’s getting hard to see to pull out on to the main road. 

Today, the town snowblower truck came by to do the main sidewalks. The pile on our corner grew exponentially...

...as you can see here. It would make one heck of a fort. 

This gives you an idea of just how deep the snow in our yard is. (still from one storm ago, so there is more now). Greg decided to create a path around the house, mostly so the oil delivery guy can fill the tank. But, it might come in handy if we need to get to the back yard for any reason. 

And lastly, some frost I discovered on my bedroom window one below zero (yes, that’s below ZERO, not below freezing) morning. I thought it looked sort of like a flock of birds of a pillow fight. 

Comments transferred from previous Blog:

VP

First winter at 5 Kingston. Memories!!!!

Sunday, February 6, 2011 - 03:30 PM

We Have a Fireplace!

Could you even tell? We can’t use it yet, due to some repair work that is needed in the chimney, which will take care of itself once we finally convert from oil to gas. But it sure is nice to look at, right?

Greg was able to put the TV up on the wall today, now that the wall has been painted. And you can be sure, that it’s not going anywhere. 

First, the bracket was bolted to the wall. It’s off center to be sure it’s in the studs. We’re not taking any chances with our TV! 

Here, you can see the way the bracket folds off the wall. This allows it to swivel in either direction. 

Jeff was kind enough to stop by to help life the TV up on to the bracket. I was grateful, because this had to be done several times to get the proper alignment. Because the bracket is not centered on the way, the TV was placed to one side of the bracket to compensate. This caused some deflection, which required some adjustment to avoid having a tilted, yet centered, TV.  

It’s a pretty cool bracket with lots of adjustability. We’ll be able to see the TV from the dining room table...if we wanted to. 

PS - in some of the photo, you can see the old brass fireplace screen. We decided to stash it away for now, since I’m not really a fan of brass. The fireplace is a little sooty, but I think it looks much cleaner and simpler without all the accessories. Someday, when we’re actually using it, we’ll find some black wrought iron ones instead. 

Comments transferred from previous Blog:

GINA

looking good

Saturday, February 5, 2011 - 08:37 PM

VP

Looks amazing. I love the swivel bracket. You are so lucky to be married to an engineer with such an accommodating brother. I am lucky, too. XOXXOXOXOXOXOXOO

Sunday, February 6, 2011 - 07:46 AM