2 posts tagged “home”

or, Let Them Eat Cake, Just don't Make Them Eat it on the Floor.

It's been a seriously productive, active and exhausting month since I moved in. So much so that I can't believe it's been a month already! The house is starting to come together and feel like home. It seems like it doesn't take much, really...a piece of furniture here, some art there. That is until you see the credit card bill. Things are shaping up though so perhaps I can slow down on the getting stuff.

So far I found a couch I wanted (and had to build), climbed up into the attic and wired the speakers for the iPod, soldered the wiring for the iPod connections down in the closet, painted the bedroom (California Pine), installed a ceiling fan and light in the bedroom, mounted and hung the TV, set up the surround sound and Blu-ray player, started installing a new stone path to the deck, treated the lawn for the massive number of mosquitoes that seem to live there, wired and installed landscape lighting along the drive so I can see where I'm walking in at night, fixed the front porch light and weed whacked the edging. Oh, and somewhere in there I bult a dining room table and ordered chairs to go with it. I looked all over and just couldn't find one I liked so I got tired of looking and just found lumber. Much easier to find.

The Top, legs and bracing are red Oak, and the base is Poplar.The chairs are Rubberwood and came from India. I like that the chairs are Rubberwood, it's about as sustainable as lumber gets since the trees produce a sap that's used in latex. After 20 to 30 years, the trees produce less and less latex and are cut down and replaced. The cut down trees are then used for lumber. They are never grown just for lumber, which is kinda cool.

Table

Before staining.

Table

After staining with new chairs. Two were broken in shipping so those are on their way.

So life has been busy. But really I have to say that life has also been good. I've been spending a lot of time working on the house but also hanging out with friends. Somewhere in the middle of all that house stuff I found some time to go to the Tweet-up at the Center for Puppetry Arts, saw some old friends, made a couple of new ones, hit Marlowe's Tavern and just enjoyed the relaxed evening.

Maybe it's time to slow down a bit and just enjoy the last days of the summer. Right after I get some patio furniture...

“I think that people don't know how to do anything anymore. My father was a janitor. He could take a car apart and put it back together. He could build a house in the back yard. Today, if you ask people what they know, they say, 'I know how to hire someone.'” - Walter Mosley, American Author

I like that, though it makes me kind of sad. Maybe it's better for the economy not to do stuff yourself. I don't know. I do know that I couldn't build a house in the back yard if I wanted to, though. Not because I don't know how to, but because I don't have a back yard. Which sucks.

So I bought one.

Fortunately, it came with this neat little house in front of it. :)

Dining Room

I still have to get through appraisals, some inspection stuff and the final steps of some other junk...but if everything goes well my back yard is just past the hardwood floors on the other side of those beautiful glass doors.

I don't plan on building another house out there, but I might take a car apart and put it back together in the garage. You just never know. Isn't she beautiful? :)