No more hole in the floor

Ignore the white bits, which Ray claims will come off easily when dry.

In the meantime, Ray did a lovely job fixing the hole.



Still needs to be finished, but, the major hard work part of this task is done.

Holes in Ceilings...

Again, not things that prospective buyers or real estate agents are all that thrilled about. So, we're fixing 'em... Here is that hole in the downstairs bathroom ceiling. Ray is fixing it...




Then, here, there's some bizarre hole in the garage ceiling, which I don't totally get. I think it has been there pretty much since we bought the place, but Ray is fixing it anyway.


You are really lucky if Milo decides he wants to help you.

No stumps

Once I had a rosebush, then I had none. But I did have some stumps.

Now I don't even have those.

Go, Ray!!

Once I had a rosebush...

Here you can just see its leggy tendril (up in the right hand corner of the photo), reaching out behind the little kids... the roses smelled lovely, greeting you warmly as you walked up the path to our front door. Sadly, this is apparently not what buyers are looking for, by way of a welcome...

to repeat:

Once I had a rosebush...

and now I have none.

Instead, just a stump - just the kind of yard project Ray LOVES. I'm not kidding. For $20, he'll come to your house and dig up YOUR stumps (let me be clear, this is not necessarily a great economical or labor deal for Ray. Yet still he seeks out these opportunities.)

Major Project

I think the most significant thing we are doing is dealing with the kitchen. Nanner, our real estate agent goddess, said we had to deal with the kitchen.

Why, you ask?

When we moved in, we painted the walls a lovely blue, and the upper cupboards a white with very light purple doors. I think it looks great, and I have really enjoyed being in my kitchen these last four years. But, bottom line, it was not the most professional job; it turns out to be really hard to go a good job painting cabinets. Now the cabinets don't look that great, the counter tops - which have always looked crappy, look evencrappier, and then there are the funny wall pantry cupboard type things, which we started to paint but never finished, and which we took the doors off of. There's also the fact that we never finished painting the lower cupboards.

So, to get to the point, we have thrown a bunch of money at the problem, and are having the cupboards/cabinets/countertops totally replaced. And, the wacky, now doorless cupboards? we are ripping them out - really, that is the cheapest and easiest way to deal with that problem. But, alas, that leads to all sorts of other issues, as you'll soon see.

Here's one of the cupboards I speak of:

Here is Ray taking the shelves out of the cupboard.

We knew we would find wallpaper behind the cupboard, and that renting a steamer and getting rid of the wallpaper was part of the job.

What we did not know, but were worried about, was the floors underneath the two cupboards. The good news was there was a proper wood floor underneath the first cupboard. The bad news was there was a big nasty hole under the other cupboard.

We'll talk about that more later.

The Irises are nice...

that is, in contrast to the dandelions.




But then we have the truck as dumping facility, just to the side. Ray would pipe up now, arguing that it is NOT a dumping facility, but rather a temporary firewood hauling and storage facility. And, of course, note also the 1988 Nissan. Another reputable rig to have parked in front of the house.

uh-oh, a dandelion

Some of you may know about Ray and his dandelion obsession. He'll spend hours in the yard uprooting the dandelions. He thinks he is winning this battle. But, the sad truth is, you just can't win against the dandelions.

We are getting some work done

although really, the place is just getting messier and messier. I'm thinking if I try to document some of what we are doing, we might feel a little bit better about the progress we are (maybe) making.