r.i.p. fake duck

everything is so loud and startling here!






well, that's the end of that!

An Animal Got Into The House!

Luckily, we captured it.

It seems to be sleeping happily now in the corner with a little pig, so I think we'll let it stay.

Note the fashionable boots.

It was a totally exhausting, information-overload kind of day. I'm not far behind Zoey here, on the bedtime thing. Although I do hope I won't be snoring as loudly.

16 Things Over 6 Hours To Prep For Zoey!

Zoey comes tomorrow (Sunday) at 10am! We spent 6 hours today completing a list of 16 different things to prepare for her arrival. Lots of moving things around, cleaning up all the dust left from Bunkport & Company's efforts, & laying down no-slip mats (the kind of sticky pad you put under a throw rug) to help Zoey avoid slipping on the hardwood floor & re-injuring her knee while she continues to recover from a surgery she had 4 months ago.

Here are the results!

This is Zoey's 4'x4' pen. We decided to put it in the dining room, where it's warmest & where she can be in the middle of the action, no matter where it's happening.  (Apparently all she wants in life is to be around people.)

Honk if you're cozy!

Here's the rearranged dining room, as seen from the kitchen (note all the attractive & exciting sticky mats):

The thought of the amount of dust these sticky mats will want to hold is horrifying.

Here's the view from the living room. Wait, what's going on in The Treehouse?

Adrienne has moved in! 

We weren't able to prime or paint before today, but that's ok. We'll just paint later. We needed to get Adrienne's stuff moved in here before we could get the dog situated -- obviously, that was the most important thing for this weekend.

In related news, to thank us for our business, Bunkport & Company have offered to cut out the sheetrock in the kitchen that is blocking this window in The Treehouse. Thanks, Mr. Bunkport! We'll take him up on his offer over the summer, maybe.

That red thing is a pencil sharpener that is mounted almost 8 feet from the floor. 

We don't get it either.

Look, the built-in is now the liquor cabinet!

Shabby chic cocktail, anyone?

Bunkport wasn't able to finish blocking off the hole in the fence that leads to the space between the houses, & also the neighbor's open basement. Concerned about the raccoons getting in there, & not wanting the house to look like a hazard to the folks bringing Zoey over tomorrow, I used what was available to block it up temporarily myself:

This being Mars, what's available is wood panelling, landscaping edging bricks, & random sticks.

After a day like this, Adrienne couldn't resist laying down for a second, under the guise of "testing out the pen:"

Verdict: comfy & cozy! I suspect Zoey will have some competition for the space...

Ok, Not Done. But Close.

So, as it turns out, Bunkport & Company aren't quite finished. But they're close! And they swear they will be done & cleaned up right on schedule, by end of day tomorrow!

Here's what they've been working on:

Final cement & trim work on that wall that is also supporting the kitchen.

They also opened up a section of the rotting wall (a fence, really) that is dangling there over on the other side, in order to take a look at the heater vent in between the houses. This is the wall before all this started:

You can stick a pen through this wood.

This is what's behind there:

Look! The neighbor's basement! Those are cans of paint on an Ikea-style dresser, and the waste line from their kitchen. Those blue things appear to be swim noodles.

Let me say again: this is literally the inside of the neighbor's house. I could climb in there & go on up to dinner if I wanted. Say what you will about our messed up back extensions, but at least the foundation of our actual house is sound.

I hope no raccoons find their way in there tonight.

In other news, the house is hosting this nice foliage in the back:

I don't think this counts as "green building."

This is the part of the house that will someday become the sun room. The beauty of vinyl siding is that it seals in all the moisture! Very valuable in a damp city. We already knew there was water damage in this wall, even before this living proof presented itself, so we're not all that alarmed. They're going to get rid of the plants -- it's jasmine, I'm told -- & plug up the holes tomorrow before they leave, as well, to hold things over until we're able to start work on this part of the house. Someday.

Bunkport & Company Success!

Hooray! It looks like Bunkport & Company are done with The Treehouse!

Phew, that door is back where it should be.

New threshold. Very nice.

Pergo & trim! Done!

Construction workers are known for their love of Lindt truffles.

Tomorrow I'm going to pick up a gallon of primer, & we'll get it slapped up on the walls & ceiling tomorrow night. We may or may not have time before Sunday to actually paint the walls the lovely blue that Amanda & Matt gave us, but at least it will look more finished than it does now. Zoey won't mind, but we want the house to look as good as possible for the foster person who is dropping her off. Don't want her thinking she's dropping the dog off to a couple of fools.

Speaking of looking as good as possible, we have reached our stopping point on the built-in for now. This is how much paint we got off it:

I'd say this weighed about five pounds.

We were working on the doors with the heat gun when the glass started making popping sounds. There's no telling how much it would cost to replace the glass, so we just decided to stop there & figure out what to do later. In the meantime, this is how far we got:

Shabby chic?

Getting closer!

Came home to find more solid progress!

Looks promising!

Although that door against the wall should really be on the outside of the room...?

Hello Pergo!

Hello sheetrock! Wait, what's that on the window sill?

Um, who's this little fellow?

The patron saint of small-but-worrisome construction projects, perhaps.

Rain in the forecast for the end of the week, but it seems like all the outside work is done, & it's just down to some final electrical stuff, some finishing work, & then clean up. We may just squeak through for an end-of-week finish yet. Fingers crossed!

Coming To The End

Mr. Bunkport tells us that they're just about done. Here's what they accomplished today:

A very nice looking threshold. No toe-stubbing here.

Lots of insulation, lots of sheetrock.

Window trim!

Trim on the section that got cut back to avoid head-bumping.

And then this weird Blair Witch thing.

Next, the rest of the sheetrock & putting in the floor, then some odds & ends, like replacing the dryer vent. If the weather holds, we should be in very good shape for the weekend!

Steady Progress On Doggie To-Do List

While Bunkport & Company make steady progress on The Treehouse, we have been making steady progress on our very long Doggie To-Do List. There are 16 items on the list, ranging from calls that need to be made, to small fix-it jobs we need to do around the house, to a sub-list of stuff we need to get before she gets here. Today, we scratched off 3 big ones:

1. Finished the sub-list of stuff we need to get: a 4' x 4' exercise pen (which is where she will stay during the day, while we're at work), dog food, & treats to give her while we're training her to do things (like rolling over, or picking up her toys, or making the coffee in the morning). We also got this fine duck, that for some reason honks instead of quacks:

Honk if you love pit bulls!

2. I fixed the front screen door, which had a giant hole in it. I didn't think to take a photo of it before, so you have to try to make out this black & white photo from one of the inspection reports:

Ineffective at keeping out bugs. Or pugs, for that matter.

Here is my handiwork:

Sealed tight!

Ok, I realize that no one is as interested in the photos of the screen door as I am -- mostly I'm just impressed with myself that I didn't put my foot through the screen at some point, & got the door back on without a lot of hassle.

3. I also tinkered with the screen door mechanism to make it stop slamming. I guess this could fall under #2, but it's called out as a separate line item on the list, & I want full credit.

I also made more progress on stripping the paint from the built-in. We aren't going to have the whole project finished by the time she arrives next Sunday, but we do want to have the bulk of the paint off & the dining room (which is where her pen will be) well vacuumed by then.

There are five things left to do in the next seven days. It's going to be a busy week. But then, at the end, there is this reward waiting for us:

Electric Boogaloo

Today Bunkport & Company did all kinds of electrical work!

Look! Unlike how it was before, the electrical things are now inside the wall!

A light switch!

Outlet #1!

Outlet #2!

A place for electricity to go in & light to come out!

They also put the motion-sensor light back up, also with the electrical stuff inside the walls, instead of outside in a metal pipe thing (that's a technical term).

The motion-sensor light is in a somewhat different place now than it was before, so we're hoping that the raccoons using the side of our house to get onto the neighbor's roof -- our portion of the Neighborhood Raccoon Superhighway -- won't trigger it anymore. It was a little irritating, going on & off all evening long. I don't know if the new placement will make much of a difference in the end, however, because the raccoons around here are awfully big.

Surprise! A Window!

The rain let up a little today -- enough for Bunkport & Company to come in & do some stuff:

Window! Insulation! Hooray!

Ok, that's about it. In other news:

This is Adrienne's Sinkhole.

A very large fern used to be here before she attacked it that day she conquered the yard.