tired

Here is the contents of my bedroom and half bath. When the guy who is doing the work said we needed a garbage bin I didn't believe him. Sure am glad I listened now! It's full!

I'm so glad I didn't listen to the people who were saying I didn't need to do this. The smell of mold and mildew in the bin is unreal. The smell would have never left the house. And we discovered I had NO insulation in the room! I'm sure it's the same throughout the house. New dry wall next. My guys aren't coming back until Thursday but they should be done by mid-next week. I'm going to pick out hardwood floors this week sometime. I'd like to buy enough for all three bedrooms and hall as I want the entire house to match. So hopefully by the first weekend in April I'll be done with the walls and floor and then I can move onto the painting and trim work. I'm going to ignore the bathroom for the present time. I want to get in the bedroom first and then work on the bath when time allows. I have the tile already as I purchased enough when I bought the tile for my main bath last fall. The plan is to put in a new pedestal sink and new matching toilet with a six foot high white/cream wainscoting throughout. It's going to look great and I'm so happy I've finally started.

My other project over the weekend.

I should have taken a before photo because this doesn't start to show how much work I did. This is what I call the wayback. It's an area of my yard behind the garage and shed. Last spring in order for FHA to approve my mortgage I had to do a ton of repairs on a house I didn't even own. I took the chance and as you know it worked out - I got the house. One of the tasks was repairing the stockade fence that surrounded the property. However when I got there to do the work it was obvious that the fence could not be repaired as it was falling down. I got permission from the owner and FHA to just remove the fence rather than spend money to try to fix it (it would have been replacing rather than fixing). It was in such bad shape that it only took about an hour to remove 60/70 feet (I left one side up as it wasn't in such bad shape and we replaced boards and such). But I didn't want to take the time or spent the money to have it removed so I put all the sections and the 4x4 supports in the wayback planning to deal with it at another point in time. So fast forward nine months of not being to particular when I put all my lawn detritus and trash back there. Well the weather so nice this past weekend I figured it was finally "another point in time". :-) And I also thought I have that big old bin in the front of the house that will never be filled so why not start the work and put the fencing in the bin? Well it was obvious within an hour of the demo starting in the house that there would be no room in the bin for all the sections of fencing so I had to break it down. So 12 or so hours later the sections of fencing are all broken down in to pieces that can be burned or tossed little by little into the trash (I can burn wood where I live). But I'm going to try to get as many of the support 4x4s into the bin still. There should be room for most of them. Of course I have to get them from the back all the way to the front. And I only have the bin for seven more days. That two or three posts a day. :-) So after two days of solid sawing, breaking, ripping and raking I got back a huge area of lawn. So the plan is to get rid of as much as I can so I can plant grass in April and maybe put in some raised veggie beds.

It was only until much later Sunday evening that it occurred to me that I could have paid someone to haul all the stuff away. I did a little a research on Angie's List and figured it would have only cost me around $100 to $120 bucks. Bummer - I would totally have paid the price - and it would be done. But I know have that knowledge for the next big (read huge and impossible for me) task in the backyard. Taking down the shed. It's attached to the back of the garage and it's 10 x 20 feet. I'll never use it and I just want it gone as I want the lawn back. But it's a real room with a shingled roof, wood siding and electricity. I'm estimating at least $1,200.

Ouch.