Snow / Leaves and Christmas Trees

Yep, we got our first dose of snow two weeks ago. About 6 inches fell overnight and we woke up to a white blanket of snow all over everything. The steps walkway, patio and of course the car. The parking spot that we have is street parking and I am concerned that when there is a lot of snow on the street the plows that maintain the road may not see the car and either run into the car or plow us under. I've already tried figuring out where else to park it in that case; though there is nothing nearby. I'm not ready to face winter, however the snow that fell was amazing. When we got home it was already dark but I happened to snap a few shots while it was still coming down. We had Juno with us out in the backyard and she was going crazy for the snow. She's not one for rain but the snow she's totally into. She started running and would go faster and faster in circles until we started throwing snow at her which she would then eat. Ironically, the leaves that everyone had been raking for the past month were piled in the street awaiting cleanup and removal by the county, the last day for removal was supposed to be Saturday, but the leaves were covered in snow; removal didn't happen. The piles of leaves with six inches of snow on top of them looked like huge snowbanks in the street; Juno loved trying to make her way through those piles immediately sinking after jumping in.

After all the snow melted B and I made our way out to the Christmas tree orchard up the street. We picked up a nice Blue Spruce and brought it home. There's really no great place to put it in our living room. We tried several options before setting it near the side windows. We decorated it and hung some lights. Although I wasn't into it for one reason or another at the outset of the project it became really nice to get something out and up. In a way it was comforting to begin a tradition; it was probably the first time that I had felt that we were in our home; rather than somebody's apartment rental that we were going to move from in a year or so. It was with that set-up that we really have begun our own way of celebrating the holidays. I shot some photos, we put some seasonal songs on, started a fire and drank some Egg Nog, it was enjoyable devoting the evening to it. We somehow are hosting Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and now there's even talk about throwing a New Year's Eve bash so it's also nice to know that the tree we set up and decorated will be enjoyed by everyone.

Floorplans

Yesterday Bethany spent about 2 hours measuring everything and completing a floorplan and at the end of it she calculated the living space; 1450 square feet. Yep, we've been had, screwed by the man. We're a full 150 feet short of what our contract says that we bought, which is precisely why we should've calculated it BEFORE we offered.

Okay, okay, I know what you're thinking, who cares 150 feet, well you're right, I really don't care about the extra footage that we had on Friday that disappeared when Bethany did her calculations, but it's the idea that it exists on paper someplace and that we signed our name to it. It's just one more reason that nobody is really looking out for you when you get into a house; especially not your realtor.

Anyhow, things here are progressing slowly if anything. Too much Tofurky this past weekend and plenty of naps. I'm almost done with the insulation and when I'm done I'll begin on doing the insulation under the house in the crawlspace, actually, I'll probably begin the vapor barrier. I've got two days of vacation left for the year and I fully expect to finish the year out at my present position even though I'm not happy there, so I'll most likely devote one of those days to working on the house. One thing that is almost done is my office. I started it awhile ago and installed my monitors on my desk, hooked up my new machine and put in a shelf about 10" from the ceiling. The idea of the shelf was to put my speakers and lay some of my unframed artwork and things that I didn't want to get too dusty up there. I was even going to use it as a home for my external drives but I couldn't find a firewire cable for less than $30. The only thing I need to finish is to get something to place my printer/fax machine on and possibly a wall mount for a television B's Dad gave us.

Good Neighborhood Signs

How can you tell if you're in a good neighborhood or a bad neighborhood? What are the signs? Some people might say that if you see a cop parked on your street everyday it is neither a good or a bad neighborhood, rather a neighborhood in transition. But the idea of a "good" or "bad" neighborhood is something that realtors harp on so they can extort more money from you doesn't seem to be too far from what I believe. Sure there is good and bad to everything and each word is subjective; but when I ask "would you rather spend time in an area with bars on the windows of houses you pass while walking or pass mr. or miss sprite-like neighbor who says "howdy neighbor" while raking his leaves. To be honest both of these situations scare me, but if I were to pick I would have to go with the dork across the street who's life might be similar to the world in The Truman Show.

I do like my neighborhood; though it is in the suburbs; about a mile from the beltway, it does have some niceties that I have come to appreciate. For instance I like the people that go for walks with their dogs in the park without leashes, I like the same people who decide it's time for a walk at midnight and prance around the neighborhood with their gloves and mittens on (not at the same time) with junior and I like the tall trees that line the yards of our neighbors, the absence of graffiti and crack whores on the corner by the bus stop are also pluses. I would say that it is a good neighborhood if given the chance. One sign however that may not be a sign of a 'good' neighborhood is a crowbar through your driver side window in your 2003 Honda Accord and shattered glass both inside and outside of your vehicle. Yes; it is real, and it happened not only to me and my Honda, but another Honda down the street and around the corner from me on the same night. I'm not saying that I live in a bad neighborhood, but I'm feeling though this incident has added more character to it than neighbor Truman raking his leaves.

Our Boring Blog by Brian and on occasion Bethany...

So I spoke with a friend of mine the other night and he mentioned to me about how he and his roommate were talking about boring blogs and our blog came to mind immediately. Take off your address and don't do any shots of your house from the street; no identifying factors which means that I'll have to remove the link to our house for our Labor Day part too. Thanks Jerkface, now I feel like I have to come up with things on an everyday basis to talk about so I don't bore you. 

Well there are plenty of things that need to be done with / to the house and everything seems to take on a life of it's own. Every moment that I don't spend working on the house I spend procrastinating or trying to figure out what would make the most sense to do next on our long list of things. We've been in this place for three months; and yes it is sorry that my last post was more than a month ago. In that time it's gotten a lot colder; we've turned on our furnace and found out that it does still work, we've also planted new grass and spent considerable time raking leaves down into the street. Getting ready for winter. I've found out that I've got a leak in the roof, I've ordered a 1/2 cord of firewood that was never delivered and installed weather stripping to the front door. Today, more work on the yard; raking and such. It's been rainy lately so there is a lot of dampness in the leaves which makes it impossible to blow leaves. I'm still working on my insulation in the attic; I haven't even touched the crawl space. We've built several fires in the fireplace and realized that it really doesn't add any warmth to the front room. If you think about it it makes sense; heat rises and when you've got a big hole in your roof called a 'chimney' it allows all the warm air to escape. Regardless, it's nice if only aesthetically to have a fire going in the front room. The first time we set it up it was a replay of our wedding night at the Jefferson hotel where we forgot to open the flue and wasn't evident until everything smelled like smoke and the lights became so foggy that we were bumping into the coffee table and walls when we walked to the kitchen to fetch another glass of wine. Well, I embellish; but not much. The stank from the smoke lasted for more than a couple of days. So maybe it's better that the fire wood was not delivered after all. 

What shall I do next?

So I'm having trouble trying to figure out what I should do next. I thought that I would get home from work early enough to get somthing done but alas here I am an houre before I go to bed with nothing but large projects in front of me. There are several things that I've been talking about doing for awhile now; and here they are in no particular order. Insulation, Insulation, Vapor Barrier and new to the list is the Seeding of the Lawn. There are actually more lawn / garden projects than just that. A few days ago I came outside to notice a bunch of sawdust particles in front of the house to the right beneath the dogwood tree. Wondering what it was I walked over an looked up to find a perfect circle in a branch about 8 feet above the ground measuring about an inch in diameter. And when I say 'Perfect Hole' I mean perfect; I couldn't figure out if something in nature did it or it was something that a large drill made. I grabbed a ladder to checdk it out and sure enough it went down into the tree's branch about four inches! I was consumed by the thoughtt that someone may hve been in my front yard with a large drill making holes in my tree so I started asking around about Dogwoods and woodpeckers. Without a concrete answer I came home late that night and shined a flashlight into the tree and noticed a small bird poke it's head out as to scream "What's the big idea?! Can't you see I'm trying to sleep!?" The thing is really tiny too. No larger than 6". I can't imagine raising a family in that lille hole. It's so tiny; I hope he's not thinking about adding on. I talked to this guy who is considered by Montgomery county to be a 'master gardener' about the problem and he was absolutely no help. He said whatever you do; don't put tar in the hole to fill it. I spoke with another person at a gardening store who told me the safest thing to do is to fill it with wood glue. I dont' think there is really anything that can be done. I have a sinking feeling that in about a year it will need to come down. I've attached a photo of the tree at night. What do you think?

So buying a gallon of wood glue and dumping into a hole in my Dogwood tree is also on the list.

So Much To Do...

This will probably be an ongoing post as the projects mount up. There is so much that Bethany and I have to do to make this house our own, but even before that it's a question of maintenance and efficiency. Over the past few days I've done a little bit of the things that I've needed to but have just been putting off. For one thing I called and researched Plumbers after logging onto and getting a subscription to Angie's List, at angieslist.com. In addition to that I actually hired one for less than two hours and found out that the Plumbers are much more expensive than any other profession on this planet. I also got an HVAC guy to come out who was familliar with this house's heating system and got him to go over our options for a new heating system so our bills wouldn't be so astronomical. We've got more than a few options and all of them seem to be more expensive than any of the ones I could think of. Regardless, I think it was helpful to speak with someone who would be able to give us some direction. On the HVAC front Bethany and I would like to be as efficient as possible. we don't really want to do some half-ass job of heating and cooling our house. Right now the furnace is under the house and is just hanging beneath the utilty closet; It's huge, enormous about 85,000 btu and has been there since the early 70's. The furnace normally has a life expectancy of about 25 years, so we're well overdue for a new heating system. People have told me many things about the heating and the one thing that I know the most about is what to do before we do the heating; Insulation. We've got to place insulation under the floor in the house. Before we do any of that we're going to have to place a vapor barrier on the ground beneath the house in the crawl space; which I am not looking forward to and working my procrastination on. But alas; I'm going to have to do it sooner or later and it might as well be sooner and get it done and done right than later just trying to get it done because I'm miserable doing it in the cold and damp air of the fall. Regardless, I've still got the furnace to worry about. Grrrr. Well, the one thing that actually did get completed was the work of the Plumber. Mr. Plumber man fixed a couple of leaks, one in the shower (he charged me $30 for a part that probably retails for about $5) fixed the shower head in the front bathroom; I thought it was a diverter valve, but it was only the shower head itself which was dirty and corroded and finally he fixed the leak on the side of the house which entailed cutting out a bad piece of PVC and replacing it with a patch. All of that cost about $300 and took about an 90 minutes to do... With that said I can't wait to find out what a new furnace will cost...

Is This What Homeownership Is?

Everywhere I look, I keep finding things to do. I can't be in this house wihtout noticing something that needs to be fixed, replaced, or removed completely. This is seriously stressful, I guess it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't understand the value of money and how little we have. I feel like we got into this house by the skin of our teeth and now here we are in it, unpacked and everything but not able to figure out what we should do now and what we should put off until we have more money. I think Bethany feels the same way.

Yesterday I called out sick, because I was really sick and thought I needed to rest and get better so I could go in on Friday I couldn't relax because I knew there was a ton of work to be done. So there was this leak in the shower and a leak outside close to the side yard spigot so I decided to call someone to take a look at it and fix it. But who? Who should I call? The previous owner was really good and gave us the list of contractors she used before she moved to Portland Maine but somehow never used a plumber after 19 years here. No wonder there are leaks. So I called some friends, my Realtor that sold us this place and the neighbors who may have advice; then I signed up with Angie's list; a friend told me about the site. I thought it would be a good thing to do since we've never done anything like this before, and it was; I found out how much a plumber costs. The advice he gave me was worth it, barely but he fixed three problems for me and gave me all kinds of answers to all of my problems, I guess that's what you get for spending close to $300 for two hours of work, which by the way, is making me reconsider my current career.

There is so much to do and so little time or money to do it. Grrr, I'm so glad I don't have any kids right now; I would be pulling my hair out.