Yard work!

My mother and sister came out last week(end) to help out with some yard work as both my wife & sister had the week off from work. The ivy in the front yard is now gone and the pachysandra is on its way, and we'll likely replace with sod instead of trying to grow fresh grass. We've also started planning out some flowerbeds and my mother helped identify a lot of the vegetation we have. Quite a few herbs, 2 dozen Bleeding Hearts, lots of Hosta varieties, and plenty more. I think she's a little envious and wants to take some of what we have. There's some wild stuff out there in the ground.

Still plenty to do, like marking off the flower beds and mulching. That'll make a big impact in the appearance.

One step closer

The family room is actually approaching completion. Strange, but true. Last Sunday & Monday I got the quarter-round moulding installed around the baseboards, and finished running the fan and speaker wires through the conduit that will be hidden behind the crown moulding. All that's really left is to actually hook up the fan wiring, install the fan, and take care of the crown moulding and over-TV shelf. It's amazing that we might actually be living in that room by the end of May!

Lovely wildlife

It seems we have a woodpecker who enjoys our house. He's been pounding away at the fascia board on the east end of the bedroom. I can't tell if there are bugs in the wood because he's opened up a hole, or if he's opened up the holes because there are bugs in there.

Either way, I need to get up there, get the bugs gone, and then seal things up. Possibly with a sheet of aluminum over things to keep him from pecking at it any more. Upon closer inspection, it looks like this board was replaced previously - it doesn't match the fascia boards on the other end of the bedroom! Recurring problem, perhaps?

Out on the tiles

The weather was just plain craptacular yesterday, so we finally got ourselves motivated to tile the backsplash behind the kitchen stove. I had hung the concrete backer board a few weeks ago, but other things came up taking focus away from the tiling itself.

For the first tile job either of us has ever done, we think it came out pretty good. We have a few little spacing issues, but we're not too concerned. We still have a few tiles left to hang, way up at the top, before we can grout. Which I'm sure will be an adventure unto itself.

The mortar (which smells like a bad day at the beach, I might add) was a little tough to work with at first; I kept dropping bits while I refined my technique. Once I had that down, we were in good shape. We're pretty happy with the results and can't wait to see it with the grout finished. It adds a lot to the room and adds a lot of dimension to the area behind the stove. As always, photos are in the gallery linked at the right.