Xiaoniu 小妞

Finally, after many weeks of planning last weekend came into fruition. I planned to install lattice on the front porch and to create a small room in the basement. Thanks to dad’s offer of help we were able to get both done. If the weather and my schedule make it possible I’ll take some pictures and share them. So far I’ve been busy and when I’m available it’s been raining. It is still raining today.

The lattice was a must have. With the number of trees we have on our property and in general around our neighborhood we get a large amount of dead foliage each autumn. We were warned and fully prepared for the onslaught. To ensure that we were not stuck raking leaves out from under the porch (again) we had to put up some lattice.

We ended up finding a nice, clay colored, plastic lattice. It matches the color of the house and porch very well. The plastic stuff should hold up a lot better than the wood lattice. We were lucky enough to install just about all of it on Saturday. We finished it up on Sunday morning. Dad did all of the framing work and I got to install everything. It went pretty well once I got the hang of attaching everything.

We had only one “real” problem with the very last piece. For some reason every time we cut it, it wouldn’t fit. Go figure. At least it was a small piece and we had plenty of scrap available so that we could get the fit just right. The only thing left to do with the lattice is install some trim pieces. If the weather improves I may get a chance to put it on next week. Keep your fingers crossed.

The next task was to replace a support column in my garage. I didn’t notice it when we inspected the house, but the support column in the garage was completely rotten. The bottom 10 inches were starting to rust, but if you took a look at one side, at the bottom you got a chance to see the horrible wound that it hand. There was a 3 inch wide, 2 inch heigh gaping hole in the column.

We added some support to the beam and quickly ripped out the old support column. It took all of 10 seconds to whack the bottom loose and tear it down. We quickly installed the new column. Everything probably took no more than 5 minutes. It’s a good thing we made the swap. The old column barely had enough strength to hold up its own weight let alone an attic full of stuff and a roof covered in snow. I cringe thinking about what could have happened this winter.

After the pole we made our way downstairs to our final task for the weekend. We put to get a small storage room. Actually, there was already a storage area there, we just made it a little longer. It has an oompa-loopa sized door way, but is a nice storage closet. We can’t wait to get our stuff down there instead of clogging up the baby’s room.

Like the lattice dad did most of the thinking work and I did most of the manual work. Cut this, nail that, screw the other thing to the first and cut the wall board. The only thing I didn’t do was the taping and applying joint compound. It’s more of an art than work putting that on. I let the old man do it. I ran out to get some pizza.

Dad left on Monday morning, which gave me a chance to rest. I can’t rest when he is there. It’s non-stop work. After a few hours of rest and lunch I got to work on the yard. The tree in the front yard had a couple of large branches that broke during a recent storm. I got out there with a pole saw to cut them down. I followed this up with moving all of the leaves into a big pile near the road.

Why would you care about all this? Well it’s what I do nowadays. It seems like non-stop work around the house. Things should calm down now though. There are still things to be done, but nothing major. I’ll get about one month respite before I have to get outside to shovel snow.

At least we get to park our cars inside now. I can’t say it enough how much I like that. No more getting in/out of the car in the rain. No more chopping ice off the windows during winter. No more waiting for the car to warm up enough to defrost the windows. I must be driving Sue nuts. I ask her once a week if she likes parking in the garage just to hear her say that she loves it. I’ll never tire of hearing that.