PoP

Come check out my interview with the Prince of Petworth here.

It's getting hot in here. . .

Nature is cruel! This weekend (ie: full days I can work on the house) was filled with sunny blistering hot days which broke records and made us break out in a sweat. Not the days you want to be hauling bricks. But, we did some work and made a noticeable dent in the pile on Saturday. I did not go out of the house on Sunday, instead I finally organized our bedroom (um, yeah, it took 5 hours). Dan worked outside for an hour and a half and got a bunch more of the brick moved into the dumpsters.

So, you know how I like to break stuff right? Well, the building behind my office is being demolished, like the whole thing. My office window is about 20 feet from the building and I have the best view of the cranes, the smashing, and the O.M.F.G.-that-is-a-mini-bulldozer. I spent about 20 minutes one day watching them remove the outside wall. It was magical. Then, I had to stop because I noticed that they were watching me. I waved and put my Gizmo figurine in my window to watch them instead. Oh, yeah, I have an originally Gizmo and you are so jealous.

Also, I totally painted part of the fireplace with the wrong paint and now I have to get some more and do it again. Bummer. But, I can't really do anything until the heat wave is over (Wednesday!) so I will be taking it easy until then.

I'm a skinny fat

Last night I decided that I had to get to work on whittling down the brick pile. I began tossing the bricks and concrete to the end of the yard and then throwing them into the dumpster. I am sure my neighbors were psyched by the noise I was making. Essentially, it was like completing in a shot-put competition. Since it has been raining the last couple nights, this was really the first night I could do some work at a decent time. I told myself I would at least work for an hour. Well, after 20 minutes my heart was racing so hard it reminded me of the time at the gym (which was a long time ago) the elliptical machine shut off because my heart rate was too high. I had to take a break. It was seriously depressing. If you saw me you would say "she probably is in OK shape". Not true! I am in dire need of a personal trainer to bark at me as I run around the park. Apparently people like me are called "Skinny Fats".

45 minutes later and I think I depleted the pile of rock by about 10% and depleted my energy about 95%. I was actually nauseous. Alright, pity party over now.

This weekend we are having a heat wave. Yiipppeeee!! I can't wait to work in that type of heat! This also limits the work days from 9am to about noon since that is when the yard fills with sun. I think this project is going to take a month . . . I should have just paid someone else to do it. Let this be a lesson to anyone attempting something similar.

I demand a retraction!

It turns out, I was quoted in yesterday's Express blog log. You can see it by downloading yesterday's edition and heading to page 36. Although, they referred to me as a man. Which I am not. RETRACTION!!! Kidding. But seriously, I am not a dude - just a lady who likes home renovations and smashing stuff and is called Ben. So . . . yeah. . . I can see how this is confusing.

Halfway there . . .

The construction portion of the fireplace is complete. Now all that is left is flooring and painting. Here are some pictures:

We mean business!

Our dumpster arrived exactly on time with the most courtliest driver. He also parked the large metal tub with extreme precision. Dan and I stood in amazement as he practically parallel parked the steel beast in one corner or our parking area. The price was also fantastic and he stayed and showed us everything we had to do and more importantly . . . what NOT to do. I guess there is a big problem with people chucking stuff into your dumpster, so they suggested tarping it. He explained that people see the dumpster and say, "Thank you Jesus, now I can clean out my attic!". Since we can only put brick and concrete in our yellow savior, that would mean we would have to climb in (a no-no in the dumpster world) and pull out all that stuff. We tarped it right away.

I also have someone who is taking some of the brick away and using it for an art project, and another who is re-using it for a patio/walkway area. People love free stuff. Which is fine with me, because it gets recycled and we don't have to pay for someone to take it. I love Craigslist.

Expect the Unexpected

Saturday was an aggravating day because it rained and ruined some of my plans. It wasn't just a light pleasant rain. It was a oh-shit-seal-up-the-windows-before-the-house-floods type if rain. So, I went to work finishing up some of the interior work I have been putting off. I painted the back of the front door and put another coat of varnish on the front (I'll put pictures when it is all done). I also painted the exterior of the fireplace because it was all scraped up. That didn't go so well and I will have to do it again soon.

A few more little projects later, and we were having a great dinner with our friends Matt & Michelle on our back deck. We were talking about our projects and how we were going to start on the backyard the following day. I finished by saying "want to come over", and to my surprise, they actually did. But, they had plans. Sure they did.

Sunday morning I woke up at the crack of dawn, and headed out to Home Depot to pick up some new plants for the front yard and to get a sledgehammer to start the planter demolition. I opted for the 8lb sledgehammer since I couldn't swing the other ones with ease (you can now mentally picture me swinging sledgehammers in the store). Once I came back I started to smash a couple of the bricks and realized it was going to be a back-breaking task. Little did I know what was to come. Dan soon came out to help and we proceeded to take down about 1/5 of the planter in an hour. We were getting into a funk about the project and how long it was going to take. It was like swinging an 8lb bat into a 6lb baseball that did not move and then picking up the 6lb baseball and throwing it three feet. My back and arms started to get shaky after about 30 minutes of that. It also didn't help that a bird shit on my neck and in my hair. Disgusting! Just when we were settling on the idea that we would not take the whole thing down in one day, Matt & Michelle pulled up. Taaa-daaa!!!! They ditched their plans to smash some bricks. It was our saving grace and we couldn't have been more pleased. Two hours later the planter was pretty much down and we soon realized the bricks went about four layers into the ground. This posed a problem. To dig them out and try to smash them was really hard, so we still have more work to do. Although we worked almost the entire day yesterday, it wasn't enough to get it all done. My jello arms also could barely pick up a brick in the end.

My tetanus shot came in handy when I scraped my shin on a rusted wire basket we pulled from the planter. Thanks Dr. Davis! I also ended up with about 10 welts on my legs from hitting myself with the sledgehammer, shovel or bricks. Oh, and although I put sunscreen on my arms and shoulders, I completely forgot about the back of my neck and arms. Sunburn city here I come! So, once again, I am a mess. At the end of the day I showered and put on shorts that Dan quickly called my "I-give-up-shorts", which reinforced that I did not look my best. My mind was also heavy with the fact we had a gigantic pile of rubble in the back and no place to put it.

Anyway, here are some pictures of what it looks like now:
I am not sure if these pictures capture the magnitude of this brick pile - but it is scary. Thankfully I ordered a dumpster and they are bringing it by today!