Pantry Phase 2/Goodbye gum tree/What else is left to break?

With space cleared in the garage last weekend, we put up the back wall of the pantry.  By "we" I mean Dad and Patrick did most of the work.  Ok all of the work.  I congratulated them on a good job and refilled water glasses since it was 900 degrees inside the garage.  Patrick's wish list of tools doubled before the day was over.

Patrick working on putting drywall up on the new pantry wall.

On Monday we crossed another major project off the list which was taking care of the trees in our yard.  Our neighborhood was built in the 1970s and is full of mature trees which I love.  I have already expressed my un-love for the gum tree, so we had it cut down.   The tree company also trimmed limbs from some of the other trees.  I doubt anyone else would notice, but things look a bit more cleaned up to us.  And there is no longer a limb touching the chimney.

We plan on planting another tree in the gum tree's place and burying Miller's ashes under it.  I love Crepe Myrtles, so that's a strong possibility.

My nemesis the gum tree.

No more!  Now I just need to pick up the remaining gum balls. 

Tuesday morning I got a nice surprise as Finn and I were headed out the door.  I noticed the garage door hadn't shut all the way when Patrick left for work at the ungodly hour he has to leave.  The door opened fine, but once Finn and I were in the car and I tried to shut it I knew we had a problem.  It tried to close halfway and then went back up.  I could see the top bar bending and then the door was stuck open.

It was a Sears door so I called their repair number and luckily someone could come out before noon.  He could have fixed it, but since it was old and didn't have any of the newer safety features we decided to go ahead and replace the opener.  Apparently all new openers are required to have sensors that keep the door from crushing something beneath it, like a pet or child.  We feel better having those installed.  And in true house fashion, the original had been installed completely wrong and the repairman told me he didn't know how the door hadn't been ripped off by now.  Great......but he installed the new one properly.

So, what is left to break?  We've replaced the a/c unit, roof, refrigerator, oven, and now garage door opener.  That leaves the dishwasher and hot water heater.  Hopefully our bank account will get a break and those will hold out for awhile.

I've also painted the French doors in the dining room, so my major painting is all finished for now.  Until the pantry is done and then I get to paint in there.

Dining room door.

So, it's all coming along!  I cannot wait for the pantry to be finished so I can get organized.  Everything that was in the fake pantry is sitting in our living room which I'm trying to ignore since it stresses me out.  Sandwiches from the sandwich maker on the living room floor, anyone?

Here's a bonus picture of Finn since he's so adorable:

Pantry: Phase 1

I guess kitchen pantries weren't a big thing in the 1970s?  Our house was not built with a pantry and previous owners/tenants attempted to create one in combination with a laundry room.

"Pantry."

That's what we've been working with since May.  The "shelves" are maybe 8 inches wide and obviously aren't strong enough to hold much.  They are attached to DIY cabinets over the washer and dryer which we recently had to temporarily reattach to the wall after they almost fell on my head when I opened one of the doors.

I don't even think it needs to be said that this isn't sufficient.  My KitchenAid mixer currently lives on the kitchen floor.  That is not a way to live.  Unless you want to end up on "Hoarders" or in the ER with a broken foot because you dropped the mixer while trying to heave it from the floor to the kitchen counter.  Granted, in the future I'll be carrying it from the pantry, but at least I can start off not at ground level.

So, this weekend begins Operation Pantry.  We are expanding the existing laundry room/pantry into the garage, taking down the crappy cabinets and shelves, and putting up new shelving.  There is a vent above the door in the picture, so the room is more of an extension of the house than an enclosed area of the garage (meaning unopened boxes of food won't be sitting in extreme temperatures).

Last weekend we moved these cabinets in the garage to the back wall and hung them.  

Patrick now has his man space in the garage.

We will be framing the cleared out area this weekend.

Nothing seems to go according to plan with this house, so cross your fingers we don't find anything crazy behind the wall to the left of the door when we knock it out.  We're moving the entrance into the pantry around to the side by the water heater.

I've been looking at pantry organization pictures on Pinterest.  I still don't understand why people feel the need to dump all dry goods into plastic containers that are the same size or larger than the original packaging and then claim that everything is more organized.  Cereal is still lined up on a shelf, it's just in a different container.  But what do I know?  I don't have room to store more than one box of cereal at the moment.

Squirrels Round Two

The past two mornings while I've been drinking coffee before His Highness gets up, I've heard scratching coming from an unknown location outside the new window in the den.  When I heard it yesterday morning I froze because it sounded like it was coming from the attic.  "It can't be!  How did they get in??" I thought.  I ran over to the window and saw a large squirrel racing along the top of the fence and assumed that was the noise I heard.

It happened again this morning.  This time the noise lasted longer and was a bit more dread inducing.  I stood by the window longer and noticed the same large squirrel flinging himself at our roof.  I can only assume one of the holes he or a comrade chewed into the attic was near there.  He got up on the roof, jumped down onto the fence, flung himself at the house, and scrambled around quite a bit.  I finally went outside to get a better look and he jumped up into a tree.  We stared at each other for awhile and I shook my finger at him.  He cocked his head at me and ran away. 

Later this afternoon I saw him and another squirrel doing recon in the backyard and can only assume they are plotting my demise.  I am onto you, squirrel.  I do not condone physical violence against animals (I won't even go to the circus), but mark my words I will take you down if you chew on my house. 

And shout out to the ground cover popping up in the flowerbed on the other side of the front door.  Don't think I don't know what you're doing. 

I think Nature is rebelling over the impending doom awaiting the gum tree. 

A roof and other updates.

We have a new roof.  There was a slight setback due to an angry neighbor who didn't like the noise and a little problem of no building permit, but everything got straightened out and we don't have to worry about leaks anymore.  The crew pulled off old, clogged gutters and replaced squirrel-chewed soffit boards as well, so we are very slowly fixing everything on the outside.

Before hell descended on Hampton Roads, I pulled out the oh so lovely ground cover in the front flower bed.  I guess when originally planted it looked ok, but it was getting out of control and resembled a mass of weeds to me.  You know those Home Depot or Lowe's commercials that play in the spring with happy people bounding around their yards while a voice-over says "Let's get to doing!" or "Take back your lawn!"?  I did not experience that jubilance while ripping out a million leafy stalks.  And that was just the tip of the iceberg with what needs to be done to this yard.

Before

After

You can get a glance of our new roof in these pictures too.  We will be putting white vinyl trim around the edges (where you see the unpainted areas) later this summer or fall.  Won't that be an interesting color combination until we paint the outside of the house later this fall?

In the midst of the roof, gardening, and general life I have been painting doors.  We replaced every interior door in the house and after Dad trimmed them to fit the door frames, I painted them.

We went from brown and ugly to clean and white.  And let me tell you, there is a reason Home Depot never has commercials with happy couples replacing doors.

Before.  Notice the brown and ugly.

After.  This picture isn't great, but dark wood doors no longer pop out at you.

I also painted the inside of the French doors in the den. 

When it is no longer eleventy million degrees outside I will work on painting the exterior.

So, what's next for the short term?

1.)  Paint exterior of den doors.
2.)  Paint both sides of French doors in the dining room.
3.)  Clear out the garage and move things around to prep for expanding the laundry room/pantry.
4.)  Build the pantry!  Yay!!!  I cannot wait to have more storage.

This probably isn't the best idea due to the recent storms, but I will be calling a tree care company this week to get an estimate for cutting down our gum trees and trimming limbs in any other trees they think is needed.  I have literally almost fallen and/or rolled an ankle every day on the gumballs.  I loathe them, so the trees are coming down.  I do feel a bit guilty about cutting down mature healthy trees that were probably on our property before the house was, but we will plant new trees in their place.  Preferably ones that will not kill me.  Oh, and not drop big limbs that dent my car during summer storms.  Google tells me that gum trees are notorious limb droppers.  Who knew?

In the meantime, Finn and I are hitting up farm stands, playing in the water at the splash pad at Norfolk Botanical Gardens, and trying to find indoor activities in this heat.  Finn went on his first boat ride of the summer last weekend.  He had a blast going fast, eating snacks, and checking out the ladies.  He got a lot of smiles and waves.

Yes, that is a toothbrush in front of him.  He leaves the house with the most random things these days.

I'm a wannabe locavore.

In 2005 after eating a rather pinkish hamburger, I went to bed feeling a little off.  I will not go into the details, but I woke up the following morning being more than a little off.  I quite honestly thought I was dying and after the superb medical staff at University of Rhode Island told me my thyroid was off (which it was, but that is besides the point), Dr. Google diagnosed me with e. coli food poisoning.  A blood test I insisted on proved I was right much to the admiration of the moronic doctors URI employed.  Side note - They once told my roommate she had West Nile when in fact she had a bad sinus infection. Anyway, I lived to tell about it and thus began my brief stint as a vegetarian.

It was brief because I began dreaming about bacon.  In the meantime, I started doing very basic reading about the food industry.  You know, the typical books:  The Omnivore's Dilemma, Eating Animals, Fast Food Nation, etc.  All of it was pretty disturbing, but at the same time kind of paralyzing.  You realize what you are putting in your body is not actually food as it used to exist in nature, but what in the world do you do about it?  You browse in the organic sections in the grocery store and watch the $$ quickly add up.  Who affords this stuff outside of Hollywood?  And who exactly is ensuring it is in fact grown organically?

It gets worse.  Then you start reading about GMO's (genetically modified organisms) in our food, Monsanto, the end of the small family farm, and so on and your head starts to spin.  Granted, there are a lot of people who grow up only eating locally but I'd wager they are in the minority among average American families.  We grew up eating a lot of vegetables from a home garden and 99% of the seafood we eat is caught locally by my father and assorted friends and relatives.  But I guarantee you it never crossed anyone's mind when chicken was purchased in the grocery store that what we were about to eat for dinner was a freak of nature.

None of this is supposed to be guilt inducing, but where my food comes from is something I think about a lot.  Now that we are as settled as we're going to get for awhile in our house, I've been looking into the various local farmer's markets, farm stands, and local food options.  We are lucky in Hampton Roads that not quite everything has been turned into treeless neighborhoods of McMansions yet and some of the small family farms are holding on.  Farmer's Markets are popping up everywhere and the word is getting around as these farms come into the Facebook age and offer online ordering.

Old Beach Farmer's Market started up right as we moved to Williamsburg, but since it opened for the 2012 season we've been going on Saturdays mornings.  I recently bought chicken there from one of the market's vendors  (Full Quiver Farm in Suffolk) and last week had my first ever non-grocery store chicken.   To be honest, I can't say that it tasted much different.  I could tell a difference in the texture of the meat, but eating it felt different.  Yes, I know that sounds super lame.  We had local tomatoes along with it and while Patrick was eating asked "Are these the tomatoes from the market?  They are so good!".  I think that local produce most definitely tastes better and I like that by buying it I'm helping a family hold onto their farm and continue to produce for our region.

Unfortunately it's pretty difficult to find local grass-fed beef in Hampton Roads.  Full Quiver Farm sells out of theirs immediately and is trying to buy more land specifically for cattle.  There are some local butchers that sell grass-fed beef, but I'm not sure where they get it.  Trader Joe's offers it from New Zealand.  Hopefully in the near future more local options will become available, but Hampton Roads was never really a beef producing area.  There are some farms west of here that bring it to the Williamsburg Farmer's Market, but I can understand why they don't want to deal with tunnel tourist traffic in the summer to come Hampton Roads.

So, I'm doing what I can.  On Monday Mom, Finn, and I drove out to Pungo to check out the farm stands.  We got some of the last strawberries of the season, tomatoes, peaches (from SC as they're not ready here yet), and I got the first of the blackberries.  I'm excited for blueberry season to start very soon, and I hear some farms are about to get the first round of corn.  I will be placing an order shortly with Full Quiver Farm for a broiler chicken, chicken breast, and eggs to pick up at this week's Old Beach Farmer's Market.

Isn't all of the expensive you ask?  Yes, it is more expensive than the grocery store.  But I'm paying for more than the food and am 100% more likely to make an effort to not waste any of it since I know where it comes from.   Plus Finn hasn't eaten meat in a good 6 months so we're not feeding 3 quite yet.  It's anyone's guess as to what His Highness will be eating on a given day, so I don't really factor him into the food equation.  If someone could start making a good local cheddar, I'd be all over that since it pretty much all he eats.

Next house renovations installment to come shortly:  A roof with a side of shame.

Two doors and a window.

We are taking a home improvement break this weekend.  While everyone else was enjoying Memorial Day cookouts last weekend, we were installing a window and two French doors.

Dad installed the window on Saturday while Patrick and I went up to Ikea.  It looks fantastic and really opens up the den.

Window!  I still need to paint the trim.

 The French doors were supposed to be quick and easy.  Much to the dismay of the delivery guys who brought them to our house over a week ago, they had to haul them into our backyard.  Heavy doesn't even begin to describe them.  We were replacing the sliding door in the dining room and the remaining sliding door in the den.  Once those doors were removed, it was apparent that the openings were an odd size.  Luckily Dad knows about these things and got them to fit.

However, after removing the sliding door in the den we discovered rotted wood.  We knew the roof above near the chimney had been patched before our home inspection.  It obviously had been leaking for a long time and even now we don't know the extent of water damage around the chimney.

Rotted wood.  No good!

The rotted wood was removed and multiple trips to Lowe's had to be made in order to frame the door.  After having a panic attack about how bad the roof actually is, I headed to Mom's house since we were down to 2.5 (Finn being the .5) for our Memorial Day weekend cookout.  I brought food back over to Dad and Patrick who were still working on the door and seeing as how I was of no help, went back over to Mom's.  By 9:30pm there was still no word about the door so I headed back over to the house with a sense of dread.  The door was in, but still didn't fit quite right.  When it had to be taken back out at 10pm I knew we officially hit DEFCON 1.  Everyone called it quits around 11pm, went home to sleep, and Dad came back on Memorial Day to finish it up.  He channeled Norm and got it done.  Both doors look fanastically better than the sliding glass doors and will officially be finished when I paint them.  Who knew French doors didn't already come painted?  That was news to me.

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After

Living Room Before

Living Room After (ignore the mess)

The pictures I took with my phone are pretty terrible, but you get the idea.  It definitely looks better!  And you can see why everyone needs a weekend off.  Next up are installing doors since we removed all the dark wood doors that came with the house.  Only Finn's room has a new door and I'll be working on painting them this week.

We're in!

We moved in last Friday.  Other than no one having any idea what happened to the Persian rug Patrick bought in Bahrain a couple years ago, the move went very well.  The moving guys remember loading it on the truck and I checked it off on our moving sheet when they were unloading.  Very odd, and I hope we randomly find it in our garage when we start shoving stuff in the attic this weekend.  No one screamed at me during this move about not providing them with a buffet of food and drinks, so it definitely went better than the last one.

Carpet was installed last week just a few days before we moved in.  Juan and his fellow installer did our whole house in one day!  Granted they worked from 9am-8:30pm and we had to repaint some of the baseboards when they were done, but they did a really good job.

Hallway with painted trim and carpet.

Family room with carpet and painted ceiling beams.  That fan must go soon!

Master bedroom.  Patrick was playing with his fish eye lense.  I can't really say that I dislike having closet doors at the moment other than it makes the room look cluttered.

This weekend involves a trip to Ikea and putting in French doors and a window.