Projects, projects, projects

I've had my hands full the past couple of weeks. Here's what I've had going on.

Garden
A couple weekends ago I did some initial work in the garden. I went out and bought some onion sets and romaine seeds, and was thinking about putting them in the ground then (in late March) but two things stopped me. 1) We had forecasts for a ton of rain that week, and I didn’t want my sets to wash away; (And the rain happened: we got over 4” at our house, and Boston got even more. In fact, March ended up being the wettest month EVER in Boston. Not just the wettest March, the wettest MONTH EVER. Over 19” of rain. No wonder everyone has had flooding problems.) 2) The soil was only around 40-45 degrees. That’s probably fine for the lettuce, but the onion sets suggest closer to 50. So I raked up the leaves/pine needles from the bed and laid down a black tarp to try to get the soil warmed up.

But another surprise was in store for me: I discovered a dead skunk near my garden beds. Some backstory: Ever since we moved in, every once in a while we would smell a skunk, and the scent was usually strongest in our garage. We were worried that somehow the skunk was getting into the garage, but it would usually dissipate within a few hours, so we didn’t fret about it too much. Then one day I was outside and smelled the skunk again, and this time I noticed it was strongest on the outside/far side of the garage. On that side is a shed that I’ve never had a need for, and I noticed that something had been digging under it. Apparently that was where the skunk was living, I determined. But I decided against catching it, as it’s just a skunk. They don’t usually bother anyone, and as long as I didn’t scare it while mowing or something, I should be fine. But obviously the skunk had other problems, and when I found it lying dead in the yard I was worried. Not about the skunk, though I did feel some empathy there. I was worried about how/why it died. Skunks could be carriers of rabies, but if it was I was surprised I didn’t see it acting up in the yard earlier. So I called the Town of Natick Animal Control, but they don't work on weekends, so I ended up getting on the phone with the Police Department instead. When I asked what do I do with a dead skunk (thinking they might want to pick it up and test it for transmittable diseases), they said that I should just wrap it up and throw it out – and that animal control doesn’t come out to the house to pick up dead animals. I was surprised at that, and worried about throwing it away, mostly for what would happen if it exploded in the garbage truck. I mean, I know at that point it wouldn’t affect me, but it would be a pretty bad day for those garbage collectors. I was at my local garden center later that day and asked around there as well. Their consensus was to dig a 10 foot hole and bury it. Not having a backhoe handy, nor a desire to emulate Stanley Yelnats, I decided to do what the town told me, wrapped it up in 3 separate bags, and threw it in the trash. Now let’s hope that the skunk didn’t leave a litter of babies under the shed as well.

But back to the garden. The first weekend of April turned out to be really warm (in the 70's on Easter), and the following week was forecasting even warmer weather, so I figured that it was a good time to do my sowing. For the early stuff, I decided to plant across my beds, instead of lengthwise, which means I have shorter rows, but more of them. For my first bed of the year, I planted: 2 rows of lettuce; 1 1/2 rows of shallots; 2 1/2 rows of yellow onions; and 2 rows of peas. For the peas (which Roy informed me at Easter that I planted too early -- but we'll see what happens), I also put in a fence/trellis. If you remember the peas were the food of choice for the rabbits last summer, so I'll have to see whether they get through my upgraded fence this year.

My first bed of the year. And the Guardener makes a return!

Watering during the warm weather last weekend.

The weather did turn warmer, with a record high in Boston of 89 degrees on Wednesday, but that didn't last long as this morning it was closer to 38 degrees. As of today my romaine is starting to sprout, and the yellow onions are also coming up. No sign yet of the peas or shallots, but there's time.

One last note: I mentioned in an earlier blog this year that my blackberry bushes seemed to be gone, as a couple had been broken/chewed off. Turns out they're not dead at all, as all three have sprouted new leaves this spring. I plan to fence these in later this spring in case any of those pesky rabbits have ideas on chewing off my stalks again.

Selling the cedar
As I mentioned last blog, we’re getting our new laundry room made over. But before doing that, I decided to put my cedar panels on craigslist. The cedar had some holes in it, some bigger than others, but overall it was still in relatively okay shape. I added up my square footage and looked up how much that would retail for at Home Depot. Turns out it’d be worth $250! Obviously I couldn’t get that much for it, with the below-average quality, but I put it on craigslist asking for $100. With no bites, I dropped it to $75. I finally got someone who offered $35, and when there were no other offers, I took it.

I must stop here to mention one thing: In my ad on craigslist I was extremely specific. I listed out every panel I had; its size; the size of any holes/rips that might be on the panel; and the size/placement of some 1x6 boards that were glued to the panels that I couldn’t get off. I also mentioned that these were ¼” cedar panels and even had 4 photos of the boards. You can see what I’m getting at: anyone who read/responded to this ad would have a very good idea of what they were getting, how much, and the condition.

So I emailed the woman back, gave her my address and cell phone and said let me know when you could stop by to pick them up. She called a couple weeks ago and asked if she could do it that day, which I couldn’t as we went to a Bruins game, but I could do Sunday. She said fine, then asked where I lived. I had given her my address already, but I gave it again, assuming – as anyone would – that she would utilize any number of online mapping websites or travel-search tools to determine her most efficient route to our house. Then she asked more specifically where in Natick. “I know where Natick is, but what part are you in? I’ll be coming from the highway.” Again, I thought a bit strange, but told her that we’re very close to the Mass Pike (the closest highway to us, which is what I assumed she had meant when she said “coming from the highway”), then gave her rough directions from the Pike. She said okay, and that she’d be at our place around Noon on Sunday. Around 11:30 on Sunday she calls me and says the following: “I just got off the highway, and we’re in Needham. I think I’m on Rt-135. Okay, what do we do now?” So apparently she decided against going online to Google Maps to get directions to our house, has never thought to open a map or atlas (kind of like this directionally challenged lady)
and assumed that I could bring her in easily as I mentioned we were close “to the highway”. Unfortunately she got off I-95, not the Mass Pike, and we live about 20-30 minutes from 95. I gave her directions, but she had to call 2 more times before she finally made it to our driveway. (And who knows -- maybe she just moved here from Anaheim. The area can be confusing.)

Her and her friend pulled up in what appeared to be a 1981 Chevy Caprice station wagon that looked all of its 29 years. They both get out of the car, along with their dog that jumps out and immediately begins to run around the yard and garage, unleashed. They’re both smoking cigarettes, and I remembered immediately why I hate selling stuff on craigslist. Immediately the woman starts in, first complaining that I didn’t tell her it was so far from the highway, then when she sees the cedar panels she starts in about how she didn’t realize they were in this bad shape (read the ad!), or that they were so thin (AGAIN – Read the ad!), or that there was so much of it (!!!). But her friend had already started loading the panels into the wagon, which I was gladly helping him with just so they could get the hell out of my hair. The woman turned to me when it was almost all loaded and said, “How much do you want for this?” I replied that we had agreed to $35, and she paused, asked if I’d take $30, and I almost blurted out, “I’d take $5 if it just meant you and your dog would get the hell out of my driveway!”, but said sure and we closed the deal. As you can tell, I really hate folks from craigslist.

Laundry room
In my last update on the laundry room renovation, I mentioned that we were waiting for the plumbing work to get done before moving forward on the room. That did happen a couple weeks ago without any problems. They installed the new hot & cold lines; extended the main sewer line out a couple feet and connected the drain pipe to it; added a vent line for the drain; and installed a dryer vent to the outside. (They also replaced the length of drain pipe that the previous folks had nailed through.)

New Hot/Cold pipe sections installed to the bathroom sink lines on the other side of the wall.

The laundry panel installed, with the drain attached to the main sewer line, and dryer vent installed.

The next step was to get the electrical install, which happened last week. That was incredibly fast, and took less than an hour. However, once the electrical install was complete, I was really on the clock. Why? Because the electrician had to disconnect the current W/D hookup on the breaker panel to connect the new one to it. So without the previous W/D available, we were without laundry until the new ones get installed. The new machines got delivered last week, but that’s not the issue. Before I can hookup the new machines, I needed to do the following: Hang drywall; tape/seal the drywall; sand down; repeat as necessary; apply primer; apply paint. And since all of that just can’t be done in a day, that’s why I was on the clock to try to get it all done before we run out of clean underwear.

New washer/dryer, waiting to be installed.

I got started as soon as I could last weekend. First, I went out and bought all the drywall and supplies that I needed, and rented a truck to get it all home.

Measuring out the drywall.

I called Vince to get some drywall tips, and the main one he gave me was, “don’t do it yourself”. Well, too late for that, but he also mentioned that I should start with the ceiling. This was problematic as Sage wasn’t around the day I started, and I really wanted to get moving. I thought about how I could hold a 6’x 4’ piece of drywall on the ceiling while I screw it in place, and then a brainstorm. I took 2 stepladders, put a milk crate on top of them, and voila! I was within an inch or so of the ceiling. With that in place I go the ceiling up with no problems.

Using a kludge to get the drywall on the ceiling

The ceiling completed (and yes, I had to lay on the floor to get this shot)

The walls were slightly more problematic actually, as I had some problems with my dimensions and cutting. As many of you know, cutting drywall is relatively easy – when you are cutting off a large portion. You just score one side with a knife, pop the crease to snap the board, then cut the backside paper with a knife. But if you, let’s say, cut a piece at 79” and then realize it needs to be at 78”, the whole score/break/cut method doesn’t work at all. In that case it’s a bunch of sawing, cutting and swearing, and you’re generally left with a really rough cut. (Okay, maybe it's just ME that's generally left with a rough cut.) Also, the back wall in the room required a lot of holes to be cut out for the outlets, dryer vent, and 2 laundry panels. Cutting the holes for the drywall is not only annoying (for the same reasons I outlined above), but also because you have to make sure you get the placement perfect. You could either A) measure where the holes should be, cut them, then hope you’re correct, or B) Bring the drywall panel down, put it on the wall, figure out where the holes need to be, then cut them again. I went with a third option (again, Vince’s suggestion) where I measure to the middle of the hole needed, drill a hole there, put it in place, then rough out the cut so you can make sure it’s in the right place. This worked well, but just took a long time. (Probably because I didn’t have the correct tools – the story of my life.)

Trying to trim an extra inch of drywall

Doug looking for an extra hand to help hold the drywall in place. Sage can't help because she's taking this photo.

After about 6 hours of work, the room was finally hung with drywall…with one big problem. My last piece of drywall I had somehow miscalculated the cut, and it ended up being ¼" - ½" short of what I needed. Not really wanting to go back to Home Depot for another piece, I simply asked Sage for some creative ideas to cover it up. We had nothing, but fell back on a very common mantra during the weekend: “it’s just the laundry room; no one will see it.”

Back wall all hung with drywall, along with my gap.

With the drywall in, and Sage back in the fold to help, we started taping and applying the mud. Taping is not one of my strong suits, and considering neither of us knew what we were doing, it turned out pretty crappy. Lots of bubbles, plenty of places where the mud was too thin or too thick, and the paper peeling back in places as well. On the plus side, the screw holes were covered up professionally, and I have no worries about those showing through the walls.

Taped and mudded.

We let the compound set, and after Easter brunch in New Hampshire, we got home and set about sanding. Anyone who likes sanding should immediately be committed to a State Hospital for perpetual observation. There is NOTHING fun, interesting, or fulfilling about sanding a wall. It’s hot, the compound dust gets everywhere (yes, we work masks and glasses – it still gets everywhere), and it never seems to end. You sand and sand and think, jeez, how much compound is on here? And then all of a sudden – bam! You’re looking at the tape again, as if you haven’t even put the mud on yet. After plenty of mumbling and grumbling, we finished and looked at our handy work. I was all set to say, “this is fine, let’s paint”, but Sage insisted we put another coat on, and that was probably wise. The 2nd coat went on easier/better than the first, and I started to think that perhaps we might have a room that looks relatively decent.

During the week we went about the finishing tasks of priming & painting.

Priming the walls.

Getting the paint started.

Sage had picked out a shade of blue called "Tropical Vacation", as who doesn't wish they were on vacation in the Islands when doing laundry? We put one coat of the paint on and then examined our handy work.

Almost looks like a real room.

After letting the 1st coat of paint dry, we took a look and decided, "eh, close enough!". (I actually have 1 20" section of wall that's not complete yet, as I haven't finished roughing out the new door that I need to replace. So I can touch up any paint when I put in that new wall later in the month.) But before we could get Sears back to install the machines (which they do free of charge), I had to get the baseboard in, which definitely covers up a lot of mistakes.

Doug hammers home the baseboard, and is ready for the room to be done.

All done!

The last baseboard got installed last night (Friday), and Sears arrived this morning to hook everything up. I'm sure I could have done it myself, but was very glad I called Sears back. They mentioned that I needed an elbow joint for my dryer vent, which I didn't have, and knowing me I probably would have flipped the hot and cold water hookups. They were done in about 15 minutes, and Sage was able to finally do a load of laundry that consisted of more than 2 shirts.

Machines in place!

It looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Finally the room is complete...well, almost. As I said, I still have to get the new door in, then finish the last wall segment. But for the most part it's over, and what a pain.

Now, what to do with the old washer/dryer? Craigslist, here I come again.