Tag Archives: projects

Well, he thought he was done.

June 24, 2020 Rivergirl 27 Comments

The baby barn.

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Now that we’d finished the h~~oly crap did it really take that long~~ construction and paint, it was time for me to begin the beautification process. This meant doing something with the empty flower bed and border.

The ground has always been uneven there… and when I mulched, it tended to wash downhill. So I gathered up a bunch of the old weathered bricks I love and started stacking.

While the husband was watching.

Best.

Idea.

Ever.

Before I knew it?

He was on his hands and knees telling me I was doing it wrong.

And while I normally don’t react well to that statement… if it means someone will step in and do all the work? I can swallow my pride.

In no time flat it was being done properly.

As he gleefully pointed out how my eyeballed straight line wasn’t so straight.

Look at him with his little level.

Isn’t that special?

I damn near burst out laughing when he started trimming the bush with a pair of scissors.

Who is this man, and what have you done with my husband?

Be still my heart.

He actually dipped into his sacred pile of dirt that’s been behind the baby barn since we built the big barn years ago and… look!

He even spread it.

I don’t mind telling you the rare sight of my husband gardening was positively orgasmic.

While he loves to mow the lawn and chop down trees…. anything resembling planting, weeding, mulching, bordering… aka gardening?

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It was a miraculous sight.

Unfortunately it used up a lot more material than I had, so I sent out an SOS for additional bricks.

Next door neighbor to the rescue.

They have a lovely old farmhouse with a huge 3 (4?) story barn.

Which the husband was scoping out while I loaded bricks into the truck.

She had enough to let us (and by us, I mean him. All I did was take pictures and moan with pleasure) finish.

And I’m quite pleased with the results.

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Behold the majesty.

June 22, 2020 Rivergirl 40 Comments

The majesty (and the God damn miracle I’m not divorced) that is the completed baby barn remodel.

And yes even though it’s as small as a shed, there was a horse living in it before we moved in, so it’s a barn.

A baby barn.

And I have the hay holder thingies to prove it.

Please note ‘hay holder thingies’ may not be the correct equine term, but I was born in Jersey. The only thing I know about horses is who placed in the fourth at Belmont.

We started with this….

And finished with this….

Looks a little better than before, eh?

No comments on the empty garden bed, that has yet to be redone.

Before….

After…

Before….

After….

And to think it only took us a 10 mere months.

Which shouldn’t be a surprise.

We started it’s larger father in 2012…. and haven’t really finished that yet either.

rush

Yup.

That’s our motto.

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I needed a holiday from the holiday.

June 19, 2020 Rivergirl 19 Comments

Our last day of the long Memorial Day weekend meant a morning of yard work.

Tag team mowing with the husband on his new toy and me slogging along with the old push mower.

It was a gorgeous day.

The pear tree was blooming.

The mallows I’d planted were thriving.

And everything had finally turned green.

Except the baby barn which I decided to start painting that afternoon.

Let me preface this by saying I used to love to paint.

I used to.

Until I had to use an artist’s tiny brush around all the nooks, corners, flashing and crooked angles on that beast.

Did I wear some paint, get covered in dirt, rip my pants, tumble off a ladder and work until almost 8:00 at night?

Yes I did.

But paint was applied.

And covered a multitude of sins.

Three sides done, one to go!

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Back to the nightmare.

June 17, 2020 Rivergirl 32 Comments

Oh, you thought the squirrel eviction was the end?

No, that was merely a side story.

The nightmare was the hole.

And the decades worth of squirrel nests concealed there in.

Appropriately masked, the husband approached.

Pulled a panel and…

How’s that for an action shot?

Man, you would not believe how much stuff he pulled out of there.

It was, in a word…. disgusting.

And landed everywhere.

If that isn’t enough to make the husband pay attention when I wave the honey do list in the future?

Nothing ever will be.

So now we had an empty hole.

A big empty hole with a badly installed spotlight fixture.

And a momma squirrel… who even though she found and moved her babies… still wanted back in.

So as the husband worked, with an audience, and stomped my geraniums to such a pulp I had to temporarily relocate them…

Momma squirrel was watching.

Many frustrating hours later, just as I was willing to admit defeat and use this-

It was done.

Hole plugged.

And momma red thwarted. We think.

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Nightmare continued.

June 15, 2020 Rivergirl 25 Comments

So…

Momma squirrel was not happy we’d disturbed and scattered her children.

Not. At. All.

Matter of fact, she was downright pissed. And as the husband was working on fixing that awful hole…

She was positively manic, running to and fro….

Climbing….

Perching..

Even trying to get in the house.

It was crazy.

But what she really wanted was back in that hole.

And as the husband worked, she watched.

See her up top?

The longer it went on…. the braver she got.

There were times I thought she would climb right over the husband to get in there.

She was one mad momma.

To be continued…

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What a nightmare.

June 12, 2020 Rivergirl 28 Comments

Saturday morning on Memorial Day weekend we planned to finish the baby barn remodel. But that didn’t happen, because I started hearing the scritchedy scratch every homeowner dreads.

Squirrels in da house!

I thought they were in the attic, then the walls… but finally pinned it down to the eaves. And I was certain I knew how they got in.

Please look at the upper right hand corner, behind the lights.

It’s been like that since we moved in…. 18 years ago. The previous owner’s gerry rigged spotlight installation.

Naturally, ‘Close Hole’ has been on the top of my honey do list for 17 1/2 years because birds have been nesting in there.

So the husband grumbled, and cursed, and got a ladder to deal with it.

Which is when I heard the scritchedy scratching…. somewhere else.

In this corner, under the hanging plant.

So we yanked back the bushes, grabbed a pry bar and started pulling off decking and lattice….

To discover the noise was coming from inside the vinyl siding corner post. I pounded and knocked and banged on that post like a wild woman and before long?

Baby red squirrels were tumbling out of it like a clown car. They were terrified, and scattered to the 4 winds… so we plugged up the holes and called it good.

Mission accomplished.

Well, not quite.

To be continued….

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Back to work.

June 11, 2020 Rivergirl 24 Comments

At what I believe is the slowest pace humanly possible.

We started on Memorial Day weekend Friday by attacking the baby barn again.

Trimming the window at a glacially slow pace because as we’ve previously established…. geometry is not our friend.

After more hours than I care to admit, we moved around to the door trim.

Which the husband insisted be wider than the other trim.

Did this work out well?

Not really. But neither has anything else in this remodel and he refused to do it over, so it is what it is.

The night before, we took a trip to Lowe’s for door hardware. I argued for 6 inch hinges, because well…. I’m a woman.

You know we love our 6 inches.

But the husband was having none of it and went with 4 inch hinges, trying to prove size doesn’t matter.

As we started to assemble the doors?

He realized in some instances, size does matter…. and sent yours truly back to Lowes for 6 inches.

Hinges!

I’m talking about hinges!

I won’t even describe the nightmare that was Lowe’s on Memorial Day weekend.

By the time I got back the day was done and we got virtually nothing accomplished.

Yay us.

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Baby barn progress.

June 4, 2020 Rivergirl 26 Comments

So work continued on our project from Hell.

Trim completed, we started shingling the back half of the roof….. and if you know anything about the baby barn?

You know it wasn’t going to cooperate.

Oh, the first row was perfectly level.

Unfortunately…. it was also 5/8ths of an inch short.

If you’ve ever done roofing, you know what a nightmare this is. Tiny little strips of shingles had to be cut for every row and you can’t put them at the end. No, that would be too easy. They had to be tucked somewhere in the middle so it didn’t screw up the pattern… which meant cutting one other shingle on every row as well.

Time consuming? You could say that.

It literally took us all friggin’ day to do the back half of this little roof.

Okay, so the fact that the husband bought the wrong size flashing at Home Depot the night before (because he went without me and therefore to the wrong store) and then had to go back to Home Depot to return it the next day and get the right size flashing (again without telling me and therefore to the wrong store ) and because Home Depot doesn’t sell the right size flashing ( we’d bought the right size flashing across town at Lowes a month ago ) he also had to take a trip to Lowes.

The moral of that lengthy run on sentence? Tell your wife before you go somewhere so she can tell you you’re wrong. It will save you time and aggravation….. and she’ll thoroughly enjoy it.

No, that ridiculous waste of time didn’t help.

Of course, yours truly telling the husband he should have checked with me first didn’t help either…. but you know I had to.

Needless to say I put some physical distance between us after that comment.

I’m not sure the big barn porch was far enough, but at least it was out of hammer strike range.

So progress was slow, but it was progress.

And here’s a picture of a spider carrying off a dead fly….

Just for variety’s sake.

And then finally it was done.

But I didn’t get a picture because I was inside cooking dinner.

Hey, you’ve seen one crooked baby barn roof, you’ve seen them all.

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And we’re back.

June 1, 2020 Rivergirl 25 Comments

Baby barn work commences…. again.

And I have to ask – are we the only ones who take a year to remodel what is in essence a small shed?

On second thought, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.

So we’ve moved around to the back half to finish our utterly favorite part…..and by that I mean the hellish nightmare that is angled trim work. I believe we’ve established we suck at this and not wanting to break tradition, we still do.

How badly do we suck?

I’m glad you asked.

Badly enough to require shaving corners with less than modern tools if you’re my other half.

What….

You mean 1940’s saws aren’t still viable members of the tool arsenal?

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Yes, that’s always my reaction as well….

But the husband says it still has life left in it.

Corners were turned…

Though not all of them where they should be…

As the poppa barn ( who’s still screaming for paint and agrees with River how wonderful he would look in a nice rusty red with white trim ) looked on in horror.

To be continued.

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So… this happened.

May 23, 2020 Rivergirl 14 Comments

The husband mowing the grass over the septic tank?

Not blog worthy.

But the husband mowing the grass over the septic tank with one arm because he’s done some kind of damage to his left shoulder and the appendage is hanging uselessly?

Relatively blog worthy.

It took me a week of him alternating ice packs and heating pads. A week of him moaning, groaning and being perfectly miserable before I could get him to the doctors for an exam and an X-ray.

Thankfully nothing was broken or dislocated. They said it might be muscle trauma, might be a pinched nerve. In other words they have no idea.

A weeks worth of Prednisone has helped a bit, but just when we were making baby barn headway….