Around the house

We finished painting for the year, a couple weeks ago. Here's a picture of the back of the house. There's still part under the deck that we haven't painted, will have to wait until next year. I wanted to do 2 more coats of varnish on the beams as well, just ran out of summer.

I painted too late in the day, and when we came down the stairs the next day the wall was dripping with paint. I had to wipe it off with a rag. We'll be fixing that next year. I have to caulk around the windows and doors anyways.

We moved the barbeque up on to the deck. It's natural gas, and the hose was just long enough to reach from below. We figure we'll use it more when it's up on the deck. I think it's time for a new one soon, it's looking pretty haggard. I just replaced the burner, so hopefully we'll get a little more use out of it.

We trimmed the hedge and the Camilia at he back. It was long overdue, I think we waited a little long.

We got rid of the grass on one side of the front. We went and got 2 apple trees (Fuji and Honey Crisp) and a pear tree (Flemish Beauty), from Art's Nursery. The kids really enjoyed being driven around in the golf cart at the nursery.

We put a layer of cardboard down to keep the weeds down, we're going to build it up with compost and leaves. I think we used most of our compost to do one side. We're going to have to get some leaves from around the neighbourhood, since we don't have any large deciduous trees. There are lots of tree lined streets, so it shouldn't be difficult.

As well I've been working on the outdoor couch. Too late for this season, I know. I figured out that the couch is too large to assemble in the basement. All the pieces are ready, so we'll put it together in the spring. I'll take some pictures of it when I test fit all the pieces.

We've got mail...box

I put up the new mailbox today. Our neighbour gave it to us, they didn't want it. We think it's from Restoration Hardware. It's been collecting dust for over 2 years in the basement. It's a pretty big mailbox, maybe designed for monster houses that get lots of mail order catalogues. I painted the front of the house around the door yesterday, it needs more work but we're running out of weather to paint in. I need to replace some shingles, and fill more holes. We're going to replace the light at the front too, the one there we have we bought when we did the electrical, just to have a sconce at the front. There was a broken ceiling light when we moved in, someone broke the original, so that the screen door would open. We're looking at the Rainier from Rejuvenation. And of course, why stop there, we'd like to get rid of our cheap wireless doorbell and replace it with something from Rejuvenation. We'll have to rewire, since all of the wiring is kind of messed up, probably why they replaced it with a wireless model.

Watch Out For Falling Rock!

We started taking the stone off the front of the house today. This side has been redone before, some of the studs and the sheathing was replaced. They did a better job than the other side, which still have cedar siding underneath. This took less than 10 minutes to take off, just using my brick hammer, my masonry chisel, and my prybar. Water has been leaking behind the stone, there's no flashing between the stucco and the stone. We're going to be replacing it with cedar clapboard.



An action shot of the stone coming off. Some of it came off in surprisingly large chunks.



The prybar in action.



Here's a picture of some of the rot. I knew it was rotten, not that rotten though. I could break it with my bear hands. I used the sledgehammer to take off the bottom stones that were on the foundation. I dug underneath them, then hit them straight down. I bought 2 sheets of plywood to replace the sheathing, so I'll take off the rest of the stone tomorrow, then put on new sheathing and tar paper. I'm going to wait to put on the siding, until all of the stucco is off. It's not prepped yet anyways, I have to coat it with wood preservative, and prime it on all sides. I have to do the water table as well, so I'll have to go get some more 2x8's and flashing.

The Fence Day 3 and 4 - a pair of strappy hinges

Here's the fence so far, I finished putting on the rest of the stats during the week, it only took a couple hours. I kept the template for the curve from the back fence, it's just an old piece of OSB plywood, with a 10' radius cut in it. It worked well on the longer spans, it doesn't quite look right on the shorter spans though.



Here I am putting on the gate. I tried putting it on earlier, only it was 8" too small. I made it 42" instead of 4'-2" and I had it all sanded, the curve on the top cut and ready to hang this morning. So I had to take it apart, I broke a couple slats taking it apart, plus there were already holes from nailing them on. I decided to use screws instead of the casing nails, since it's a gate and it gets more abuse than the rest of the fence.



Here's a picture of the "strappy hinges". They're 36" wide, and I used 1/4" lag bolts to attach them. There's 6 - 2" screws holding each hinge to the post. The gate is 50" wide, so it needs something, or it's going to sag. The posts don't seem to be quite as stong as I hoped, maybe I should have had 4 posts for the arbour, we'll see how it last, I might have to add more concrete around the sonotubes or something.



Next was the latch, it went on without a lot of problem. It seems like a heavy duty latch, we'll see how it lasts. We put a spring closer on it too, so it doesn't get left open. We still have to do the post caps, and there's a small section to close in against he existing fence. We're going to wait probably a month, before we stain the fence, it's still really wet the wood, it's soaking wet when I drill in to it.



Here's a picture of the old douglas fir table that I stripped, and stained. It looks a lot more glossy in real life. I've been working on the cedar couch as well, hopefully a couple more weeks and it'll be done. Well, not the cushions, since we haven't ordered the outdoor fabric for them yet. Now the fence is there, we're going to start working on the front of the house. I bought new clapboard for the one side, for some reason, it's been removed on one side behind the stone. The stone has been redone on that side too (it's a lot better job too). I think there was an oil tank in the basement, maybe some oil leaked around that side of house, it's been reframed, and the sheathing is new too, as well as the stonework being new. There's a pipe that comes out at the bottom of the wall too, so probably something to do with the oil, seems really low for filling the oil though. We're going coat the foundation wall and finish the draintile around the front. We'd like to redo the pipe to the water main as well, since it's galvanized, and mostly plugged with rust as well, looks like we have our work cut out for us.

Fence Day Two

We got quite a bit done on the fence yesterday. All the cross pieces are on. I figured out all the spacing for the pickets, we're using 1x3's and 1x4's alternating. We're going to cut an arc in the pickets, once they're all on. Right now, the tops of the pickets don't line up.



It was nice and sunny here yesterday, and the fence is on the south side, so we moved the umbrella to the front. There are only 2 sections left that need pickets, plus we have to built a filler piece against the neighbour's fence. We're not doing one section right now, since we have to remove the stucco off the front of the house, and do the drainage at the front. And then there's the gate to build, so there's probably another days work, and then it'll be ready for stain. I was going to finish the pickets tonight, but I'm taking the night off. Good thing I ordered some extra wood, some of it isn't useable, it's been written on and some of it is so old, it's grey. I'll be returning those pieces, I don't know if they'll believe that it wasn't me that wrote on it.

Fence Day One

Well, I guess it's not exactly day one, since we did the footings last weekend and last week. We did the arbour first, it's going to be a wide gate, it's over 4' wide. I like the steel brackets so far, seems easier than setting the posts in concrete, and keeping them plumb. We'll see if they stay plumb over time. I put a shim under each post to raise it off the ground, so the post doesn't suck up water from the concrete. On the cross pieces, I used my pocket hole jig to drill the holes. The top pieces are screwed from underneath, the bottoms are from the top, so I probably should use some epoxy to fill the holes.




All the posts are in now, so hopefully we can do all the cross pieces and the slats tomorrow. It will take a while to figure out the spacing of the slats, since I'm using 1x4's and 1x3's. I don't know if we'll get the gate done tomorrow, could probably get the rest done. We got these anti-sag hinges for the gate, the straps on them are 3' wide, we'll see how they do with the over 4' wide gate. It's kind of annoying working in the front yard, feels like you're on display, everyone that walks or drives by checks out what you're doing. Other parents at the kids school keep asking Deb what we're doing to the front yard, seems pretty obvious to us. Nice to do a project that's almost done in a weekend.