HFM

A few things this week: First, I hung up this very nice photo of AJ that Jon took while they were in Japan a couple years ago: It has been in storage since he gave it to her for her birthday last May. About time for it to come out & be seen! I hung it in the sun room part of the kitchen: Second, AJ lent her Taiko drumming muscles to help me finish the fence/wall thing at the bottom of the stairs: I also hung up my trusty shovel on the side: Next step for that project is to get the panda/bamboo mural started. The weather was beautiful this weekend so we also spent some time working in the yard. AJ positioned some succulents in this planter, to see if they looked good there before transferring them: And we made another big succulent planter out of old foundation stones that came up out of the pit when they excavated down (the plants go in the spaces between the stones): Lastly, I put the hammock back out, after more than a year without it: And this is how I spent the rest of the aft...

You guys! The plumbing is finished! Sink! Toilet! Tub! Well, mostly finished. If you look back at the sink, you'll notice that the faucet doesn't really match the tub fixtures (click on the tub picture to see it larger). That is a temporary faucet, put in while we waited for the final one to come in. The final one arrived on Friday, so it's just a matter of swapping it in. The main thing is that we have a fully functional bathroom downstairs, and we have passed the final plumbing inspection: I think I see our friend Susie, the bath aficionado, on the front steps right now, towel in hand. We are very excited about this, both because we can now fully use the room downstairs, and because it feels like an enormous milestone: it's one of the three remaining things that we can't do ourselves. The other two are painting the exterior and putting up the gutters (well, we could do those things ourselves, but our being on a ladder 2 stories up seems...unwise). Those are just ...

Both of the cabinets started last week got finished this week. First, the bathroom vanity is now a much more manageable 33 inches tall: Second, I pretty much finished the hidden garden tool cabinet at the bottom of the stairs. I still need to add panels to cover the 2-foot-tall open space across the top -- they're cut and painted, and now just need to be installed. But the cabinet itself, and the access door leading to the space between the houses are just about done: A couple more bolts, and a little more paint, and they will be completely done.  Next week: finishing this project, and possibly working on succulent planters in the yard.

Mr. Bunkport sent some guys over to do a little work this week. First, they scrubbed the concrete floor clean of all the construction junk that has accumulated over the past months: Second, they brought in a custom fabricated bathroom cabinet, made from an old pallet. Here it is with the concrete counter on top, and the sink: It comes complete with the carpenter's drawing taped inside: The height needs to be adjusted, the surface sealed, and a backsplash poured, but this is pretty much what it's going to look like. As for me, I spent a couple hours on Saturday cleaning and organizing the garage, getting everything out of the storage lump I mentioned last week, and into some semblance of order. Also, I realized that the 4-inch-deep space on the left of the fence/wall at the bottom of the outside stairs (the project I started last week) would make a great hidden storage cabinet for garden tools and plant food boxes, so I got the hardware for that. This is the space I mean: I spen...

Adrienne & I were busy with lots of small doings this week. First, there was Christmas. We had our usual table-top decoration, made from a discarded bough of a Christmas tree, ornaments given by family and friends, and paper decorations we made ourselves: Under the tree (and the table), were numerous presents: The big box in pink on the left contained a circular saw, which I have had my eye on for a few months to speed up the completion of a few of my projects around the house. Top of that list is replacing the fence/wall under Adrienne's office that separates our property from the property of our neighbors to the north. Here it is, off to a decent start: This fence/wall is key because cats, raccoons, rats, and other assorted animals like to hang around in the 2-foot-wide space between the houses. Do you know who likes to chase animals? Pickles, that's who. The fence/wall is made with reused scrap materials from other parts of the construction project. Eventually, it and th...

This week, we tried to make more progress on the bathroom counter & backsplash downstairs. Mr. Bunkport took the counter out of the form today: With all the rain we've been getting, it hasn't hardened enough to sand it down and seal it yet, even after five days. So now we just wait.

Four things this week! First, I finished sanding and sealing the back door. Just in time for a massive rain storm! (I skipped taking photos, because you can't see a before/after difference. It looks great, though, and is similar in color to the counter.) Second, I replaced a piece of backsplash next to the sink that came off at some point a couple months ago. Probably when that half of the kitchen came off that one time . Before: After: Third, I took out this bush that mysteriously died: And replaced it with this succulent planter, made out of red concrete garden borders that were part of the garden when we moved in (every single plant in the yard was surrounded by these things), and old clay pipe fragments that were dug up out of the pit during the excavation phase of the project: Here's how it looks, from across the yard: Over to you, AJ, to work your plant magic! Speaking of plant magic, after all this rain we've been getting, that random lily that the construction worke...