So much fun

I was so excited to get home today since the weather cleared up. It was muddy out, but the Bobcat needed some exercise. There were a few things that needed moved around and a few tree stumps that were about to be owned. As you can see I did a good bit of damage. We now have a bunch of shovels and a wheelbarrow for sale... Definitely won't be using those anymore. I was thinking about renaming the blog "Shit I run over with the Bobcat." Catchy... Expect to see many Bobcat related photos and pictures of me playing in the mud the next couple of months.

The biggest, baddest cat on the block

There is no way to say this without extra exclamation points and gratuitous capitalization - WE BOUGHT A BOBCAT!!!  Yes, it's an old model (circa 1970-something) but it's in great shape and it runs wonderfully and...oh, who am I kidding, I'd be excited about owning one even if it was a piece of junk (which it most decidedly is not). 

This all started when we decided to do the patio and yard grading ourselves (which later morphed into also doing the driveway ourselves).  We looked at renting a Bobcat - totally manageable at a few hundred dollars a weekend or several hundred per week - and then, of course, we checked out our old friend, Craigslist.  After a few weeks of browsing, we located this one, which was being sold by a guy who had done pretty much the same thing we're doing now (albeit on a much larger lot) and was finished with it.  We mulled it over, thought about how nice it would be to not be on a timeline, drove out on Saturday to see it, struck a deal, and he dropped it off this evening.  Presto, we are the proud owners of a new/old Bobcat 610!  And,  however smart (or not smart) the economics of buying a Bobcat to landscape a 7,000 sq. ft. lot may be, I'm just really, really happy to own it.  I may be a city/suburban girl now but there's something about owning farm equipment that pleases me to no end.  I'm pretty sure that Brian feels the same way because he's been driving it around out back since it arrived and is showing no sign of coming in anytime soon...

We also managed to be relatively productive around the house, finishing up some more small jobs and one big one - replacing the basement walk-out door - with pictures to follow later this week.  But without a doubt, the Bobcat is the big news of the weekend!

Timber!

I'm a little late with this post since it's about our weekend work, but better late than never.  We added to our power tool collection on Saturday with a new 20" chainsaw and broke it in on Sunday by cutting down a big tree in the backyard.  Like so many DIY projects, we didn't think this one was going to be quite as big as it turned out to be (lesson of the day: trees look smaller while upright).  With some effort, though, we got the tree safely down and chopped up so we now have a good stack of logs for next winter, a big pile of brush for wood-chipping (thank you, Arlington, for your free brush pickup service), and some much-needed sunlight and space for two smaller trees that we planted last year.  And, with a new chainsaw in the house, we're suddenly looking forward to the next big storm.

In order to create...

We didn't actually destroy this shed so the title reference may not be quite on point but we did manage to sell it on Craigslist to a very nice guy who proceeded to dismantle it bit by bit and take it away to be reassembled in his yard - which leaves us with room for our future garage to be built.  We originally thought the shed could be hauled away in one piece but after a little measuring, it became clear that the 8' x 8' shed would not fit through the 8' 4" opening between the house and our neighbor's fence once we accounted for the eaves.  Before we revised our ad posting and price, though, I learned that sheds are a hot commodity on Craigslist.  Our initial post practically incited a bidding war for it and a rather random email with the observation that the shed would be perfect for a chicken coop.  Having had some unpleasant childhood experiences with raising chickens (I now find them particularly delicious in barbecued form as a result), I vetoed that idea and we found someone nearby who was willing to put in a couple days of work to take the shed down and take it away.  So, in addition to getting a little cash for it, I'm happy that the shed is off to live another life because I hate throwing good material like that into a dumpster. No word yet on the new owner's chicken-raising plans.

Progress on the house has slowed down a bit over the past few weeks - as you may have noticed from the scarcity of blog posts - as we work on getting bids for the garage (generally frustrating) and have been spending a fair bit of time watching the Washington Capitals playoff run (generally fun).  On the garage, we decided to GC the project ourselves after the first round of bids came in much higher than expected.  We then had to locate subs for and bid out each part of work that we either don't want to handle or are a good cost/time benefit for us to sub out.  If all goes well, we'll sign the last contract this evening, submit for our permits next week, and get the project underway soon thereafter.  We decided to contract out the concrete work (footers, slab, driveway), framing, and roofing. We'll do the window/door/gutters installation, electrical work, siding, and all other finish work ourselves.  It'll be our first run at GC'ing a project so I'm glad we're trying this approach out on a garage first.  Without a deadline or an impact on our living area, the garage feels much lower-stakes than work on the house itself.  That's not to say, of course, that it won't be time-consuming and stressful and lead me to ask (many times) "why did this seem like a good idea??" but I'm sure it'll produce some good pictures and stories for future posts...

 

  

Odds and ends

I was searching around for photos to take to accompany this post and, well, this is what I've got.  We're back in one of those lulls again where not much is happening except for details (caulking, cleaning, installing window coverings, putting on second coats of paints) and the details don't change the overall look of the rooms very much.  We've also been spending a somewhat ridiculous amount of time getting bids from contractors for the two car garage planned for the backyard, and coming up with a plan of attack for installing a patio, driveway, and landscaping.  So, it's been busy but not in a look-see-what-we-built! kind of way.

Brian did spend the weekend installing blinds in the master bedroom and finishing the electrical and we started moving some furniture out of the basement and upstairs.  We're reusing our old furniture for now, although at some point we'll probably look to sell some of our existing inventory and pick out some space-specific furnishings.  At the moment, though, it's nice to think about moving into a bedroom that has enough room for a sitting area in addition to the bed.

It's Good to Own a Sawzall

We decided to move a queen-size bed upstairs and into one of the guest rooms this afternoon only to run, literally, into a problem - the door to the second floor staircase is set into the stairs and thus too low to get the box spring through and up the stairs.  Obviously, the so-called third "bedroom" that used to be in the attic never had a queen-size bed in it!  We'll be taking down that wall anyway, though, once we start with first floor demolition so we decided to get a jump start by cutting into the wall now.  It took a bit of effort with the saw and created a great deal of dust but now we have plenty of room to move things upstairs! 

Chugging Along

It's starting to feel like Groundhog Day around here - an endless cycle of putty, caulk, paint, and clean - but we are making progress.  The second guest bedroom is now finished, newly painted in silver sage, a Restoration Hardware color (for which I have to thank my friend Kris, who stopped my endless fretting about colors by pointing me to their helpfully limited color selection) and the second floor guest bath is finally, completely finished, down to towel bars, mirror, and shower curtain.  I think that may be the first room that we can call fully finished.  We've spent the rest of the weekend, yes, painting and have finished all the trim and doors in the master bedroom and bath.  We'll give the master bedroom a touch-up coat of paint today and then do some cleaning so we're ready to move furniture up there next weekend.  It may seem like the same old, same old but every day gets us a little closer to moving upstairs.