FeralBlog

All those love letters that my pool kept getting finally paid off. I guess it sprouted opposible thumbs and started calling some numbers, because some guy started coming and dumping chemicals in this week. At 6 this morning, in fact.

All he really does is pump in some chlorine gas and whatever else it takes to get everything all balanced, and I’m in charge of vaccuuming/skimming. I even tested it out for 5 minutes this afternoon to cool off before coming back to work, and the chemical guy must know what he’s doing because I ain’t dead.

There is a plumber here at the moment taking care of a persistant leak in one of the faucets in the house. I’m sad to report that, contrary to stereotype, his butt is both small and fully covered.

After having slacked off a good deal on house improvements, this past weekend I dove back into it. First up was the horrendous shrub/bush/whatever in the front yard, which looked like a christmas tree run amok.

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A trip to Home Depot and a chainsaw rental later, and the shrub/bush/whatever had started to significantly shrink.

And then there was none.

I think it looks a whole lot better. The plan is to re-rock the front yard with something a little more asthetically pleasing than what’s there now… maybe some small dark brown stones or something like that.

Oh, and as an aside, using a chainsaw is the Scariest Fucking Thing I’ve done in a long time. I tried to do the manly “hold the handle in one hand and yank the starter cord with the other” thing, but twice the whole thing twisted and I banged the blade into my shin. Lucky both times I hadn’t actually started the thing, or I’d be Petey the Peg-leg Pirate by now.

When I was finishing trying to cut away the stump to a reasonable size I guess I hit a rock or something, because there were a few sparks, and right then the chainsaw became about as effective at cutting the stump as a stick of melted butter. I still have a large mulberry tree to cut down in the backyard, but given the choice of trying to figure out how to get the blade sharpened or returning the saw under the 4-hour window for a cheaper rate and trying again another day, I opted for trying again another day.

Next was floors. I finished up the two small hall closets and the threshold into the bathroom. Doing the small tricky little spaces is way less satisfying than laying down big chunks of floor in wide-open rooms. Also, I discovered an interesting side benefit to taking up carpets and reflooring. If your dog happens to puke on the carpet in a room that you’re going to be reflooring, you can just cut out the offending section instead of actually cleaning it.

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Work has been progressing pretty quickly on flooring. I finished up the master bedroom last night (working around the closet door track was a huge pain in the ass), then started on the infamous blue room. Rather than clearing that room out, I just started moving everything away from the one wall so I can get enough floor down to move stuff back over it. I did something similar in the master bedroom, and dancing around the furniture seemed to work out ok. However, in the blue room there’s so much crap in there that it feels like the trash compactor scene from Star Wars; there’s this big pile of stuff in the middle as the floor is edging closer. “One thing’s for sure, we’re all gonna be a lot thinner.”

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Chimenea abuse, originally uploaded by feralboy.

Yesterday involved all kinds of house errands. First stop was at Gerson’s, which is a pretty cool building supply surplus place. It’s like a giant junkyard of building stuff, and you can find some really neat things there. I needed a replacement toilet tank lid for the guest house at Paul and April’s. My cat had decided to break the old one by knocking a candle off the windowsill and catching the corner of the tank lid, shattering it. I had tried Gerson’s once before, but the lid I had gotten didn’t quite fit. This time they had the EXACT lid from the same manufacturer, so that was pretty awesome.

Next stop was Lowes to pick up a grill. It was one that was very highly rated on Consumer Reports, and only $200, so how can you argue with that?

Finally, on the way back I stopped at a mexican pottery place to find out about getting a chimenea. I love the idea of having one of those in the backyard, especially for when it gets cooler. Plus, there’s been lots of dead fronds coming off the various palm trees on the property, so that plus all the big cardboard boxes from grills and table saws means that I needed a makeshift incinerator! I didn’t think I’d actually be getting one because I already had a huge box in the back; I just wanted to get an idea on prices. There was a very nice one there that was a little smaller, and only $45, so in the car it went.

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Getting back to the house, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to get the grill box in the house by myself. I had needed help getting it in the back at Lowes, and it certainly hadn’t gotten any lighter. Whipped out my handy box cutter, and started unloading it a piece at a time, until I had gotten enough weight out that I could drag the main part (the housing , lid, etc.) inside. Assembly was pretty straighforward, and in about an hour I had a new grill!

After all that assemblin’, I was pretty toasty, so I took my very first dip in the pool! I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get the pool in swim-able shape, but it was a pretty nice feeling to go for a swim in MY pool.

Now it was time to get grill accessories! A quick trip to the local casino to get funds (heh… +$160 in 2 hours), then Target for grillin’ tools. Neat example of knowing your target demographic; my new grill spatula has a bottle opener on the handle. Gas station to get a propane tank, a run to the grocery store to get some chicken, and I was cookin’. Next time I need to remember the non-stick spray. Oops.

I sat out on the back patio, watching a small fire in the chimenea, and eating my chicken and veggies. Then it was early to bed (exhausted!), and falling asleep to the sounds of a huge thunderstorm. A great day.

Lots of action at the house over the last week or so. Last weekend The Great Floor Adventure began. I had picked up a saw earlier in the week, the boards had been sitting and getting used to the temperature and humidity, so it was time to get started.

So far, it’s going well. The hallway is mostly done, and right now I’ve got about 3/4 of the one bedroom finished. The only tricky parts are going through doorways, and cutting the weird leftover bits for the short distance to a wall. Putting down the big boards in an open area is like nothing now. Long board, long board, measure the end, flip, cut, start the next row with the leftover piece. I’m hoping to maybe finish the one bedroom today. It’s very satisfying to see the progress, especially considering how crappy/smelly the carpet that was there was!

In other house news, I got a random call from the cable company the other day. I figured they were going to ask why my bandwidth usage was so crazy, but it turns out they just wanted to offer me “free” cable? How’s that? Well, they’d give me ultra-basic service for $10 a month, and take $10 off my internet bill. I asked the rep why they would do that, and he said (quite honestly, I think) “If you have more services with us, it makes it harder for you to leave.” Fair enough. The antennae reception is crappy, so I figured why not? Contractor guy came, and said “Hey, you don’t have a trap on your line, so when I flick it on, you’re going to have extended basic. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”

So now I’m enjoying about 100 channels of crap for free. I think I had forgotten how useless live TV was. My beloved TiVo is still in storage, but the one problem with me plugging it in here is that I don’t have a phone line in the house, so no way to call and get updates. Guess I’ll have to bust open the cover again and add Ethernet support!

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monsoon, originally uploaded by feralboy.

This is what monsoon season looks like out here.

Last night Kim and I picked up 20 boxes of wood laminate flooring from a local building supply warehouse. At only $1.10 per sq foot, it was just about the cheapest price I’ve seen for this particular brand, either online or in a store. The 20 boxes and 5 rolls of underlayment just barely fit in the hoopty, so no need for 2 trips. I’m going to have to go back for more anyway… what we got yesterday will cover about 500 sq ft, and we’re looking at doing somewhere around 1000 sq ft total. Carpet has been fully ripped up in one of the bedrooms, exposing the concrete subfloor. The boxes of flooring are laid out all over the house so they can get acclimated to the temperature/humidity of the house before I start installing.

I’ll be picking up a table saw with my gift card to Sears that I received from my lovely mother later on this week. This weekend I should actually be able to start putting planks down! I’m sure there will be lots of pictures, stories, and most of all cursing for you to read about.