Catsup... aka Catch-up!

Sorry for the delay in posting!! I'll try to catch you up in pictures of our adventures from the last few weeks. :)
This project is done now! What a huge improvement! Next on my list is to repaint that ceiling fan, and we'll put it in one of the guest bedrooms. We plan on moving the fan location to the peak instead of having it sit 12 inches off center... that drives me crazy! You might notice the window in this picture isn't centered either. It's off about 2 feet from the true center of the room, but there's not much we can do about that, short of tearing into the wall!!
Cans in...
Lights and finish work done!
Our hostas are blooming!! They are quite pretty - this last week of dry heat has wilted them a bit, but we enjoyed their color just outside our front door for the better part of two weeks.
Well hello... welcome to 1486. I'd like to get the letters that spell out your address to put above the door... like these. Someday. :-)
My favorite! The bumblebees love these blooms - they barely fit inside!
Dozer's first experience outside in over a year... he immediately started eating his greens!! I guess we should have been feeding him salad all this time!
Another project! Our backyard was pretty close to being designated as a forest, so Peter's been cutting down all the scraggly trees. We still have over twenty back there, but they are mostly around the perimeter, plus some of the larger ones in the middle are left. Now we actually get sunlight in the back windows & the deck sees a bit of it too!
Just the start of a woodpile!
This door will hopefully be gone before too long!! The edges will be squared off and we plan on putting a rock fascia on the face of the garage - instead of siding. The rock will be similar to what was on our place in Oregon. We're attempting to make this colonial style house look more craftsman style! The rest of the house siding will be replaced with hardi-plank concrete board... color to be determined still! Oh, and we're hoping for a red metal roof! :-) I'm so excited for all of this!!
Upon unpacking boxes the other night, I came across this VERY exciting discovery!!! When we moved from Oregon, we marked a number of our boxes with red dots, to remind us that what was in them probably wouldn't be needed for the interim period that we were in an apartment... I hadn't seen these dishes for over a year!! It was like Christmas in June! I might just pack some other things up and store them til' next June to do it all over! :-)
Coffee mugs!! With cream? Honey? Tea? Come'on over!
We were brainstorming the other night and came up with a pseudo-plan for the front of the house. I'm really not a shutter-type of girl. But the house would look so stark with out them, so... we're thinking about putting a porch along the front. Big sturdy pillars that have a base made out of the same rock that will be on the garage front. Then we'll trim out the windows and garage door with some sort of dark stained wood... Like this window/garage trim maybe? Just ideas for now, but it's fun to dream anyway!
The big D again... he's found his new love - CRICKETS! They are plentiful around here, so I'm not complaining! It's amazing how he disects them tho... we find two perfectly intact pairs of legs over by his food bowl on a regular basis. Somehow he eats everything but the legs!
New exterior faucet. The old one was plugged, way back at the valve in the basement, so Peter replaced it.
The plumbing for the aforementioned project was a bit of an experience, but it's done now! Eventually Peter plans on replacing all of the plumbing in the house. Back in the 80's they used a material called PB (Polybutylene) piping (the grey stuff below), which these days isn't used or produced because it's SO horrible! They say there are two types of PB piping - the kind that leaks, and the kind that will leak. Great! Well, ours has already had one catasrophe (thankfully before we owned the house). The pipes burst and flooded all of the main floor. Anyhow, hopefully we don't experience that again before it is replaced!
And dinner tonight! Quiche is such a great meal when you need something quick, but healthy. I mixed this up and we were eating in less than an hour... yummm!
Washed the cars tonight. Simple little things like that I'm appreciating so much now that we have a house! We certainly couldn't do that at the apartment!
In other news, we booked a trip to Aruba this week! We'll be hangin' out in the sun from Sept. 3rd-8th! Can't wait!!! Then Dellas and Jill's weddin' is right after that, so we'll be in Boise the 16th-21st! I'm SOOOO excited to see my family again - it's been WAAAY too long!!

Carpet, cabling, leaks, squirrels & electrical!

Now, isn't that blog title exciting! Bet'cha can't wait to read this one. :)

We've had a VERY productive last few weeks!! The installation of carpet was our first BIG project. What a HUGE difference it made!!
BEFORE - Ugly, stained & unstretchedOld comes up, ready for new!
Padding goes down...
Ready for cutting! To remove the roll from their van, the installation guys tied a fire hose around the carpet roll, hooked the other end to a tree and drove the van away... I was a little nervous they would hurt the carpet, but it only damaged a small corner, which wasn't used anyway. :)
Installation in process
Stretched and vacuumed! I love it!
I love the pattern and texture to it!
Peter spent one evening after work removing all the unnecessary cabling from the house & sealing the holes they drilled to mount it...
Remember this leak? Here's where water was getting in... The crack has since been sealed and we're hoping for no more moisture in our bedroom walls now!! :)
...And remember these (see the end of the linked post) unwelcome critters that were squatting in our attic? Well, Peter found out how they were getting in. They ripped the shingles back and chewed through the plywood!! Squirrels sure are destructive little creatures!! Peter has "disposed" of five of them now!
Of course, they couldn't be content with just ONE hole in the roof! They chewed through two separate places! Ugh.
Might as well give ya' a view from our roof while we're up here. :)
Our friends Ken and Liesl came over last weekend to help move the heavy furniture upstairs (ie, a tempurpedic CA King bed that weighs a TON) and rearrange the furniture downstairs into a livable space!!
Finally where it should be after sleeping in the living room for three weeks. :)
More squirrel destruction! All electrical cabling that ran through the attic they chewed through. It's a miracle this house hadn't burned down before now!
Here's our temporary, safe solution! After assessing the damage to the electrical, Peter disconnected all the wiring that ran through the attic and just connected the outlets inside the house for now. Now we won't have to worry about burning up in our sleep!
Remember the leak in our bedroom? Not-so-funny story to go along with that one now! Last Sunday a.m., we're soundly sleeping (note, the hole wasn't covered at this point) and some insulation falls out of the hole. We both think, no-big-deal, it's probably just come loose from the fan blowing... back to sleep. Then scratching. Wake up & look over to see a squirrel head peeking into our room! AAAH. Peter runs downstairs to grab the "squirrel remediator". Meanwhile, I watch as squirrel #1 jumps across the hole to the other side and scurries off into the deep dark depths of the attic. Mind you, my eyes are still peeled on the hole & I'm milliseconds away from screaching when squirrel #2 decides to make his lovely presence known as well. However, S#2 is not as acrobatic as S#1 and when he tries to jump across the hole he... Doesn't. Quite. Make. It. He's HANGING from one little paw from the ceiling sheetrock in our bedroom!!! S#2 frantically (at this point he's as freaked out as I am) whips his tail back and forth until he can swing his rear end back up into the attic & scampers off. Meanwhile, Peter climbs up into the attic and works his magic. You should probably ask him about it sometime. :) That is also a very exciting story.
Yahoo for organized closets (as much as they can be at this stage) and not having to pull our next outfit out of a box!
HIS...
HERS...
Drumroll... LIGHTS!!
Our bedroom is quite a sizable space but had only ONE switch which turned on ONE outlet in the entire bedroom. Talk about inconvenient. Not any more!! :) We're installed four can lights in the bedroom, and they are SOOO nice!! It's lovely to have light in there at night now.
Tracing the holes...
Here we have the COOLEST tool I've seen in a long time. (Right up there with this one). $20 at Lowe's gets you this handy attachment. It's a serrated blade that spins in a circle (when attached to your Dewalt drill) with a plastic tray underneath it to catch the drywall dust and the hole that you just cut out. Awesome eh?
Here's a demonstration in case you're unclear as to how it worked, even after my very precise, detailed explanation. :)

Perfect circle! (he had drywall dust in his eyes and could still smile - quite the multi-tasker my hubby is!)
Just because it deserves it's own picture... :)
Holes cut, ready for can lights! The lights are installed, functioning and beautiful now, I just haven't photographed them yet... you can look forward to seeing those in a later post.
That's all for tonight folks!!! Can't wait to have some company soon!!

Rain brings...

...a leaky roof. :-(
We've had some torrential downpours this week which have revealed a leaky roof...
Peter's cutting the ceiling out to assess the damage.
No big deal, just...
...rotted out studs!AAAAH!
There's supposed to be BRAND SPANKIN' new carpet where this mess is tomorrow! Attic project - still in process, but the insulation is removed on 1/4 of it! Oh, and there's one less squirrel in our neighborhood today. :-D
Another project tonight - pulling out all the staples from the previous carpet installation. Talk about back pain!!! After spending about oh, six-ish hours bending over pulling them out, both our backs were screaming!
Now here it is after 1am - I better get some sleep. Hope every body has a great weekend!

Kitchen & other corners...

I stayed home sick from work today, but got some more boxes unpacked! The kitchen essentials are out of boxes and in cupboards now, which makes dinner a lot easier. :)
The "baking corner" - I LOVE these new canisters, they are huge and have great seals!!
The "coffee corner"
Dozer's corner. No, not in the kitchen. :) We can't put him in the garage yet as he tries to eat the carpet scraps, which causes him to vomit all over... When the carpet gets hauled away, he can have his "home" back.
Tonights project - a HOT, DIRTY one. We have squirrels that have taken up residence in our attic. It's about 97* in the attic, smells horrible up there, and they have nests in much of the insulation. So Peter and I spent the better part of the evening rolling up old, smelly, pooed on, urinated on, slept on insulation and bagging it. After Peter plugs the holes where they are coming in, we'll blow new insulation back up there. Thankfully the carpet is still out so it doesn't matter so much if we are messy. :) We packed 16 trash bags full tonight - our lungs are full of insulation now!
If you noticed the 22-rifle, I'm sure you can imagine what it was for**. No, the squirrels were not afraid of us & even kept us company while we destroyed their home!!
Time for some shut-eye again! Hope y'all had a great Tuesday!
**no squirrels were harmed in the making of this blog post