Anne and I have been busy with the yard lately. We've been moving some plants and adding a few here and there and also trying to grow some food plants. We moved a lot of the peonies and tulips last fall and they seem to be doing well in their new location. A few tulips we missed and moved early this spring, they didn't like that so much, we'll see if they come back next year I guess.

We got a ton of hostas from a lady selling them on craigslist and planted those along the fence in between a lot of the tulips that we moved last fall, then we put down mulch around them, it looks pretty nice!

We also went to home depot and got some yews to plant in the front of the house. That area was looking pretty bad, part of it was sort of being overrun by irises, but none of them were flowering, probably because they're almost always in shade. We dug up and moved some of the larger irises and just kind of turned the rest into the soil and planted our yews and then mulched the area. It looks a million times better.

Next to the rain barrel you can see one of my vines. Speaking of, my vines are doing really well, lots of new shoots and leaves. They also all have produced a number of clusters. However, since they are young and in their new home this year, I want them to concentrate on growing strong roots and good cordons, so I removed the clusters from all of my vines. I did leave one, I just couldn't bring myself to remove them all, I want to taste my grapes!

It's a light replacement extravaganza, or quite possibly a bonanza. The fact is, we've had a bunch of these lights that we've been meaning to replace for a long time now, some close to a year. We'll we're finally getting around to it. Today we're featuring a brand new foyer light as well as a new dining room light. Next is the bathroom light which I hope won't utterly suck. These have actually been getting easier? maybe?

Starting with the foyer, it was a very difficult decision to replace this beautiful fixture that showed off the light bulb itself as the focal point of the fixture. It was especially nice with a twisty CFL in there. Anyway, as usual it was sporting the crazy cast iron box and extra misc wires as well as a wealth of vermiculite insulation to pour out on me. This fixture was installed on a rafter, which I actually prefer since I can just get a low profile box and screw it into the rafter. It's better and easier than those 'old work' blue plastic boxes with their little plastic flaps.

We got this light for a crazy awesome price from someone on craig's list, the only problem was the cord coming out of the light was cut really short. Fortunately there was a bunch of excess cord in the ceiling fan that I had cut out so I replaced the cords in this light with those, yay recycling! It looks awesome and provides light, what more can you ask for?

Additional foyer light photos

The new dining room light also came from someone on craig's list. The supports were originally metallic aluminum but Anne painted them bronze and then did some nice dry brushing over the top for an awesome antiqued look that matches with the rest of the house. She also added a little yellow glass paint to the back of the glass and added the prairie style lines that really add character to this fixture. The former light was a seriously ugly number from the 60s that we were glad to see go.

This box was also nailed to a rafter in addition to the iron rod that had to be hacksawed, luckily I only had to hacksaw one side of the box instead of both due to the rod not going all the way through. Long story short, the new light got installed, Yay!

Additional Dining room light photos

I'm starting to become a pro at replacing the lights in our house. I'm still not a fan of hack sawing; don't think I ever will be. I've described before the electrical 'box' that the existing lights use. This crazy cast iron thing that's embedded in the lath and plaster that I have to hack saw to remove.

I'm also a huge fan of the number of wires I have to deal with. A simple hot and neutral would be way too easy, instead lets have three neutrals all stuck together, one hot, and three others (one black two white) that are just together for the fun of it! It's like a little party inside the new box I installed!

Luckily the placement of the box in the ceiling was right next to a rafter so I could attach the new box to that, when you're putting in a fan it's important to make sure the box is well secured and that the weight and motion of the fan isn't going to cause it to tear out of the ceiling at a later date. To ensure this I installed the first plate of the fan to the box, it has a hook on it to hang the fan motor on while you're wiring it up. I filled a backpack with 40 pounds of weights and hung that from the hook for about 30 minutes to make sure it was secure. It didn't budge, much to my pleasure. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of that.

In the end, of course, all the hassle is worth it. The new light looks and works great. More photos

You know how much I love replacing light fixtures in my house. Actually, I don't mind replacing light fixtures. I dislike replacing electrical boxes. Though it's not so much replacing as it is adding, since I'm not sure the pre-existing cast iron thing can really be considered a box...

The former light fixture

Wiring protruding from the previous 'box'

This time didn't seem quite as bad, perhaps because I knew what I was in for. A constant shower of vermiculite insulation as I saw through the piece of steel that's holding this thing in place. Further chiseling and sawing to get the new box to fit in the hole. Miscellaneous wires in the box that simply connect together for reasons unknown. Two neutral wires and one hot. etc. etc.

In the end it was worth it though. We got the new fixture up and it looks amazing. We still want to buy a couple more lights for it but already really transforms the space.

The new lighting

More photos

I've been meaning to post this for over a week but I've been busy and also lazy. I finished my new workbench for the workshop downstairs. I believe the former one was built before the house and it was starting to fall apart. I was able to salvage a lot of the wood from it to build the new one though. Additionally, Anne's office moved and they were getting rid of three drawing cases, which have now been repurposed to store wine bottles (formerly they held rolled up architectural drawings). The cellar has the ability to hold over 200 bottles of wine. Additionally the three new racks can hold magnums (1.5 litre bottles) if I want.

That's a lot of wine!

In the photo below you can see the three 5 gallon carboys of bulk aging wine. One carboy of Zinfandel and two of Concord. Also most of the racks are empty, I guess I'll need to harvest more bottles and make more wine.

In addition to the wine I also tiled the kitchen this weekend. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, though it did take nearly all weekend to complete. Also, Anne painted the trim in our bedroom white (formerly pink) it's like a whole new room!

Things left to do to the kitchen:

• tile edges of the tiled area (after painting)
• grout tile
• paint walls
• paint trim
• install new light fixture
• add second light switch
• kick board with vent
• connect water to fridge for ice maker

Soon.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Anne and I getting our house. Since then we've been very very busy and we're nowhere close to done. But all in all it's been a good experience and I'm happy with our choice.

Here's the current to-do list:

• put up cement board and tile kitchen backsplash
• replace kitchen light fixture
• finish installing foot board on kitchen cabinets
• replace switches and add light switch in kitchen
• get or make LED under-cabinet lighting
• paint kitchen
• paint woodwork in our bedroom
• replace light in entryway
• install ceiling fan in living room (pray there is electrical in the ceiling cap)
• get or build new vanity for bathroom
• install new sink in bathroom
• install new in-wall faucet in bathroom
• replace light fixture in bathroom
• finish making light fixture for dining room and install it
• paint back and bedroom hallways
• replace lights in back and bedroom hallways

Whew! That's a lot of crap! Though that should pretty much take care of the first floor renovations and we can take a nap afterwards and start saving up lots and lots for creating the second floor space.

This weekend we finally finished the patio. I am glad to have that done and I don't ever want to make another patio myself again. However, considering the money we saved doing this ourselves, I may have to...

We went from this...

...to this.

Once we got the foundation in it wasn't so bad...

...and went rather quickly.

And, we're done!

The fireplace.

More Photos

Last weekend Anne and broke ground on our patio. As you may remember we got a bunch of pavers from my parents when they replaced their front walk. So we figured out how large of a patio we could make with them and determined where we wanted it and what we wanted to do. And finally we started digging.

The beginnings of our mud hole.

We're going with a basic rectangular shaped patio because we don't want to be cutting any of the paver bricks. It's just easier that way. We are adding a little bump out on one corner for the cast iron fireplace that you can see in the left of the above photo.

We made some pretty good progress until the torrential downpour ended our work. This past weekend we finished digging and I removed a couple of old concrete post anchors from the old section of our fence.

Sledge hammering is fun! Hack sawing is not.

This past weekend we began re-filling our hole with crushed limestone, which i don't have any photos of yet. At $2.50/bag it seems cheap until you realize how many bags of the crap you're actually going to need, yikes!

Our foreman keeps us on task throughout the process.

Just an update: I got our faucet and drain hooked up about a week ago. Also over Memorial Day weekend Anne's parents came to visit and my father in law helped me install the microwave over the stove as well as put up the crown molding on top of the cabinets.

Microwave and Faucet

Here's what's left for the kitchen at this point:

• Replace hinges on the island flip out bar
• Install finished kick board below cabinets
• Get water service to fridge for ice maker and water thinger
• Connect dishwasher air-gap
• Tile the wall behind the counters, (we have found the tile we want)
• Paint the walls and trim
• Replace kitchen light switches and add switch on the other side of the room
• Find and install new lighting fixture

And here is a refresher of what we've already done:

• Peel/scrape up old vinyl tile
• Have floor refinished
• Get new appliances (Range, Fridge, Microwave (thank you craig's list))
• Install 220V outlet for electric range
• Remove gas line for former range
• Install Dishwasher
• Remove old cabinets, counters, and sink
• Install new cabinets
• Have new counters and sink installed
• Install new sink faucet and drain
• Install new microwave (plus outlet for it)
• Install crown molding on top of cabinets

Let me know if I forgot anything