Adrienne's Office: Done!

We did it! Adrienne's office is finally done!

Before:

Looking in, from the door

Looking out, from the window

Day 1: Prepping & Patching

Once we took all of Adrienne's stuff out, we found another hole in the wall to patch. Cut down a couple shims & nailed them in place over the hole, hoping that they would look more or less like a shingle when we finish:

A piece of shim left over from that ended up fitting ok into the open spot on the side of the hole I patched the other day, too:

Next step: sand the drywall!

Adrienne in action

Me, covered in dust

After that, we cleaned up the dust & the Dirt of Ages from the shingled walls, & wrapped it up for the day.


Day 2: Priming

Painting these shingles is no joke, let me tell you.

Making it look easy!

It was a long day, but of course, we eventually finished:

We also discovered that the red thing that everyone, including real estate agents & contractors, has assumed was a pencil sharpener -- despite it's being 8 feet off the ground & not actually built like a pencil sharpener, if you stop & look at it -- is not, in fact, a pencil sharpener:

It has some string wound up inside it, so we're guessing that it may actually be some sort of old mechanical clothesline. Maybe dating from the time before Adrienne's office was built? I'll have to do some research.

I'll also have to help Zoey get this paint off her ear:

She comes by to inspect our work every couple of hours (to make sure we're on track, I suppose), & while she's touring the work site, she brushes up against things she shouldn't. At least she's not walking through the paint tray on her way through.


Day 3: The Top Coat! 

Big, big thanks to Amanda & Matt, again, for donating this can of paint to our endeavors! It's such a sharp color!

She's about half an hour from saying, "I will never paint a shingle ever again."

Another long day, but we are both happy to report that it's finished!

Here's the finished room:

Added a couple jacket hooks to the door:

Ok, I just have to brag that I eyeballed spacing these evenly from either side of the door, & when I measured later, I was only 1/16 of an inch off. Pretty good!

Added a new set of shelves:

And that's it! A couple touch ups, & her moving her stuff back in there are all that's left! 

Thanksgiving on Mars

Our first Thanksgiving since moving to Mars was a very happy one. Good friends, good food, good times!

We decided to keep things simple & skip the turkey, so Thanksgiving morning was pretty relaxed. We even slept in. Matt & Amanda stopped by for nibbles & champagne around noon, before going to a party hosted by other friends, & then Susie & Paul came over to Mars for dinner, after having visited other friends first.

The night before, Adrienne baked some beautiful cornbread for the stuffing:

And I pulled up a feral carrot that I recently found in the garden bed where I had grown carrots over the summer:

I was hoping it could be part of dinner somehow, but it was too gnarly & had too many bug nibbles. Unappetizing.

The next morning, Adrienne got started roasting vegetables for a gravy, & I assembled the table of nibbles. Zoey again tried her best to help by curling up in the little bit of sunlight on the kitchen floor:

Here is the table of nibbles, featuring some ridiculously delicious additions brought by Matt & Amanda:

Clockwise from the top left: cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto, celery sticks with cream cheese & spanish olives, tamari roasted almonds, freshly baked baguette, killer sicilian olives, cornichons, cheese & salami plate, more olives, mozzarella wrapped in prosciutto.

While we celebrated, Zoey got a treat of her own -- a giant bone from the butcher's:

When Susie & Paul arrived around 4pm with big bags of mouth-watering ingredients, the main cooking of the day began:

Sauteed kale & onions were put into a baking dish...

...then covered by cheddar-gruyere cheese & big crispy bread chunks, & baked.

Cornbread stuffing!

Instead of a turkey, Adrienne stuffed some quail.

Ready for action!

Just out of the oven.

Susie & Paul are vegetarians, so they cooked up a tofurkey.

Delicious!

Delicious!

As we started moving the wine, silverware, & Susie's incredible homemade plum chutney into the dining room, Zoey, again so helpful, plunked herself down right next to the table.

"If I lie here quietly, someone might trip over me & one of those quail will land in my mouth."

A lovely dinner with lovely friends (& a lovely dog who mostly wasn't a nuisance):

But Thanksgiving isn't over on Thursday -- just as important as Thanksgiving Dinner is Thanksgiving Breakfast the next day. Adrienne always takes the leftover mashed potatoes & makes them into cheese-stuffed croquettes. Add bacon, & a couple of eggs over easy, & you have the most important breakfast of the year:

I am thankful for truly wonderful friends & family, for a silly dog, for Mars, & I am thankful that Adrienne knows how to make croquettes. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cleanup

Finally got around to cleaning up after this month's flurry of brewing & home improvements. (Sorry Adrienne!)

Here's the result of progressively taking out every tool, can of paint, tub of spackling paste, & sheet of sandpaper you own over the course of 3 weeks:

Yikes!

Buried in there somewhere is a jar full of assorted screws, nails, hooks, wall anchors, & washers. I've been wanting to sort them into this plastic spice rack thing I got as part of the 5-year "service anniversary" gifts from my company (no, they don't give you a watch anymore), ever since I actually had my 5-year anniversary a couple years ago:

There's no time like the present!

Here's the result of the afternoon's sorting & carrying downstairs & sweeping:

Look! You can actually get to those shelves again!

In related news, while I was busy cleaning up, Zoey was busy enjoying the bed she shredded a couple weeks ago:

"This is way better after having been re-packed. I'll have to unpack it more often."

We are discussing the possibility of tackling Adrienne's office next weekend. With all those shingles, I'm figuring it to be a 3-day project, so Thanksgiving weekend would be perfect.

Made a couple repairs today to get ready for the initial sanding & priming:

Hole for the chimney of Mars' original cook stove?

Hole no more!

No idea what this was cut for.

Hole no more! Mostly.

And that's about it for now. Have to keep my strength up for Thursday's festivities -- Adrienne is planning a very demanding event. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Leak on Mars!

It's been raining for the last day & a half. Judging from the puddle on the bathroom floor, we seem to have a leak. Must be where the ventilation fan exhaust duct meets the roof. 

As soon as it dries off a little out there, I'm going to borrow the neighbor's extension ladder & get up on the roof with the last of that leftover window glazing, & seal that right up.

My mother's heart just stopped. Just kidding! I have no business being on an extension ladder, & we all know that. I'm going to call a handyman on Monday.

I was just on a 6-foot ladder in the bathroom, however, looking up under the fan cover -- I learned how to take that off while helping my dad replace just such a fan when I was home in September -- & on the top of the bathroom cabinet, I saw a giant dusty coin:

It's a 1968 Mexico silver 25-peso coin, minted to commemorate the Mexico City Olympics. From what we know, Abuela, who was originally from Mexico, moved into Mars with her husband in the early sixties -- maybe she picked it up while on a trip back to Mexico around that time, or maybe someone sent it to her to share the Olympic excitement? 

Another mystery: the bathroom was renovated, including putting that cabinet in new, in 2009, so Abuela must have put it up there on purpose. Why? For luck, maybe? My family tosses a few coins under the floor mat of a new car for luck, so maybe that's it. Anyway, I figure Mars can use all the luck it can get, so I put it back where I found it.

I also found a Gillette disposable razor up on that cabinet. We have even less idea what that was doing up there.

Mustard Sprouts Are Already Up

In vegetation news, the mustard seeds that I planted on Sunday came up in just two days. 

Here they are this morning, reaching for the last sun they're going to see for a little while:

This Weekend's Weatherproofing & Other Things

The weather is much colder this weekend -- in the 50s. Too cold for some of the things on my list, but I still got pretty far:

Project #1: Sealing The Gaps In The Front Door

The front door generally needs to be refinished -- the finish is so old that about a third of the wood is exposed, & it's scarred with all kinds of nicks & scratches. It's too cold to crack open the can of polyurethane, however, so I just spent my time putting some silicone caulk around the panes of glass to stop the drafts. I'm also hoping it will stop the rattling that happens every time a truck goes by, or our neighbor backs into her garage.

Before!

While I was hard at work, Jon came over to visit. He took this action shot from inside the house:

Unbreakable concentration! Precision application!

After!

Project #2: Sealing Up the Haunted Garden Shed Windows

These windows & the framing inside the Haunted Garden Shed will eventually be replaced by some sliding glass doors, so I hadn't originally planned to do any maintenance on them. I had some glazing left over from the front of the house, though, so I figured I might as well use it & keep the wood from deteriorating any faster than it needs to while we save up for the construction project.

Before!

After!

While I was working on this, I noticed that the vinyl siding directly under the windows had warped & opened up toward the sky, getting ready to catch all that nice winter rain. You can just make it out in the pictures above. I fit the pieces back together as well as I could & sealed them up with the left over glazing & silicone caulk from the front door.

While working back there, I noticed that the finish on the wooden posts holding up the back stairs had also worn off. It's the windward side of the house, so it really should get done before too long. Looks like I have some more painting in my future. 

Meanwhile, Zoey once again offered her assistance, this time by squeezing herself into the tiny square of sunlight on the kitchen floor.

Project #3: Repotting Some Jasmine, Planting Some Seeds

A couple months ago, we started talking about getting a climbing plant to put on the front porch to cover the lower portions of the security gate. Something that would buffer some of the the dirt and noise from the street, that would provide a visual screen, that would be quick growing & smell nice, & also, ideally, something that would also attract some of the several species of butterflies we have around here. After a summer visit, where she got an idea of what thrives up here on this hill, Adrienne's aunt Jennifer suggested we try jasmine. As it happens, there is a very large jasmine plant growing out of the floor of the Haunted Garden Shed (you can see it in the photos above), so taking a couple clippings for the front porch was easy peasy.

Roots having been well established, they made their debut in the great outdoors this weekend:

Someday it will be a mighty mighty monster!

Another one in the far corner, plus a new planting of lettuce.

Adrienne also requested that we plant a new kitchen garden. This time I'm trying it out in a 30-inch planter in the front window:

The herb garden in the back yard is actually still there -- it's just all gone to seed. It will be interesting to see how things in that bed develop in the spring.


Project #4: Dog Shelves

The clutter of the dog corner on the kitchen counter had begun to destroy my soul. Made some shelves. Feeling human again.

Yes, that's a can of Easy Cheese. Easy Cheese makes nail clipping possible!

Project #5: Television on Mars Enters the 21st Century!

Now that we have a nice screen for projecting movies & the tv shows we stream on our laptop, Jon thought it was high time for a birthday present for us: two tiny tiny media-streaming boxes -- a Roku & an Apple TV!

Everything is now set up in our living room shelves:

Roku, Apple TV, & Wii are on the left, second shelf from the bottom.

These magical little boxes are about the size of a cocktail napkin.

We spent Saturday afternoon watching episodes of Good Times, & Saturday night with Amanda, watching episodes of NewsRadio. Thank you, Jon!

Still to be done on this monster list: finish painting under Adrienne's office, paint the posts under the stairs, finish Pink Trim Eradication Project, recaulk the shower, put the horrendous mess of tools & brewing supplies away, & sand the trim above the garage door (the damn thing is scuffing the paint at the top of the door). That's not bad -- that puts me about 75% of the way through!

I now need to add one more thing, however: Zoey, always so considerate, must have worried that I might get bored if I reached the end of my list. To help me avoid that peril, last night she decided to shred up her bed, so that I could spend time putting it back together today:

What happened is that we took the fabric cover off to wash it, & left the inner pad out for her to lay on. It's basically just a papery fabric bag full of loose stuffing. We've done this a hundred times before without a problem. Last night, though, she apparently decided to treat it like one of her toys, & pull all the stuffing out.

This is what, 20 gallons worth of stuffing? Nice work, dog.

Time to sit back, put Sanford & Son up on the big screen, & get sewing.