A busy few days

The baby has been sick - which means we have not slept well and didn't get a lot done on the house from one day to the next. Over the last few days we did get a bunch of little things done though. Today with the help of our parents we got a lot more done.

1. Swag dinette light over - Mike had replaced the light in the dinette a while ago but we kept hitting our heads on it. We have a rectangular table not a round one so every arrangement was awkward. Mike got a hook and it was a quick fix to get it a bit higher up and centered over our table.

2. Cleaning out the chemicals, still - The previous owner left a lot of chemicals around the house. I've been collecting them from around the house and garage and putting them on the side of the house. Some of the cans are so rusted we can't even tell what they are. There are multiple cans of Lysol, Windex, Comet, Raid,  garden fertilizers, pest controller, paint, spackle, car cleanser, etc. The pile just keeps getting bigger. I finally had the time to pull out what was actually useful (and not expired) so I think what remains (below) can go to hazardous waste finally.

3.  New Hallway lights - The gaudy old crystal lamps are gone! This two lamp set was only $20 and totally worth it. We don't know if we want to replace them with recessed lighting or not but now that they look so much better we're really not worried about it.

4. Cleaning out the garage - We can not fit two, yes two cars in the garage! Anne came to help me for several hours today and we were able to get a lot done. First we were able to get up into the rafters in the garage and clear out the junk left there. There were tons of empty boxes, (no Playstation in that box like we hoped ;) and a bunch of other finds. We pulled down:
  
 1 vintage 80s step exercise kit and an old Zip drive kit ...

An old bike rack and fireplace grate (which is odd since we have one in our single fireplace already?)...

And this jewel (right) was wrapped up in a towel and a piece of the old blue carpet in a Mervyn's cloth bag. I'm totally sporting it in the patio. Wrought iron and solid glass body so its heavy as hell.




Perhaps the strangest thing was all the luggage. There were eight different suitcases in the rafters. Many are old enough to count as "vintage," the old hard Samsonite type. Maybe someone wants them for decor??

After we got all of the previous owner's junk out of there we were able to get ours up. The rafters in the garage are partially covered in 1/2" plywood across the beams. There are several 4'x8' sheets of plywood and the highest point of the garage can hold up to 4' worth of stuff. It took a lot of manuevering but we manged to get Mike's old wood bunk bed set and an extra mattress up there. We also got the extra pieces to the baby's bed, all our holiday stuff, extra carpet, extra insulation and most of our memory boxes up there. Its seems almost full already but there is still room. Its a little hard to get up there but its definitely usable space. The tricky part is getting around all the garage doors and their supports. I couldn't reach all the way back onto the 4' plywood so I had to use a stick to maneuver everything around. That "stick" was actually an old shower curtain rod so every once in awhile the spring function was not helpful. 

After lots more moving, sorting and compiling Anne and I were able to get everything that remains in the garage into one bay. All of our tools are spread out everywhere so we really need a workbench and tool box to hold it all. Once we have that we can get the rest of it put away. We also have some heavy boxes we can't put away yet of CDs, DVDs and books. Mike has to finish the media closet before the media can go away and we don't have a bookshelf which makes the latter hard to store. But its close! So close!

While we haven't done it yet, there is now space for two cars in our garage! You can also see that we were able to store our extra baseboards up at the top above these two bays. I'm a little concerned about the integrity of the shelving though.

5. Retaping the air return - Mike and his dad had planned on moving the thermostat today. It is currently in the family room which is usually colder than upstairs. When we run the heater at night we often end up boiling in our room and actually closed our vent. Mike had hoped to run the wires up and over the stairwell to come down into the stairway across from the return.

While discussing the plan, Bob opened the air return and didn't like what he saw. Like much of the house venting and ductwork, it is taped up in asbestos tape. As long as its not disturbed its okay for most people. Bob wanted to remove it all which required wetting it so that it didn't become dust and scraping it off. At the least, he planned to retape the area with silver duct tape (actual duct tape meant for ducts). He also decided to bend some sheet metal to close in the box a little more. He and Mike found one hole that was covered up with cardboard that they had to fix. When it was all done its sealed up pretty well.

6. Fixing the back sprinklers - Mike has been looking at the back sprinklers and noticed that the sprinklers don't rise high enough to water as they should. The grass is well established and is turfed really high. He decided to pull up all the sprinkler heads up in order to attach longer ones. Some of them he was able to replace easily. Some were more difficult. When I checked on him today there was a a big hole (1'x2') in the middle of the grass. He said that one was being "stubborn." Apparently at the bottom of the sprinkler body, where it should attach to the main sprinkler line to get water, there was another strange 90 to 90 angle connection that he thought was leaking.

He also decided to completely eliminate one sprinkler in order to replace it with two others along the same edge of the lawn. He's hoping that will help distribute water more evenly. After he got everything connected he tried to run water through it but found one sprinkler failed to pop up completely which means it doesn't have enough water pressure. Which means the water is leaking, somewhere. He also discovered he broke a pipe somewhere, he's not sure where. That's where we stopped for the day, we'll have to take it up again tomorrow. The "Sprinkler Whisperer" may be getting a call tomorrow.