Meeting our Neighbors

Well, we have met several of our neighbors since we moved in and everyone has been very cordial and "neighborly". However, it's funny that they have all warned us of our one "crazy neighbor" who calls the police on everyone and is a general pain in the ass.

On Monday night we got a chance to meet said neighbor. And the story goes something like this:

We had borrowed the minivan from my parents to rent a chipper on Saturday and a stump grinder on Sunday to do some last minute yard cleanup before winter. We chopped down a bunch of bushes and ugly juniper bushes to get ready for the siding guys to come and also because we just hated a few of them. So we spent 4 or 5 hours Saturday chipping them all up into mulch. Unfortunately on Sunday all the stump grinders had been rented out from both local Home Depots, so we were left to try to get it all done on Monday night. With winter coming and the days getting shorter, we didn't have much light to work with. I left work a little early and got the stump grinder home by 5:30 and went to work. Around 5:30 or 6:00, I see our said "crazy" neighbor peering out of her window through the blinds at me. As she noticed that I saw her, she turned all her lights off and then proceeded to continue to peer out the glass at me.

So, about 6:45 or so a flashlight starts shining over our fence. It's the police. Instead of coming outside and asking me to stop or simply being a decent person about it, she calls the police? Is this person pathological or just bored that she needs to create this kind of drama? So of course there is some kind of village ordinance that says you're not supposed to be operating loud equipment after 6 or 6:30 or whatever, but in the summer, 6:30 is early with 2 more hours of light to go! What the hell?

So I knew who had called the police and went over and talked to this woman to try to explain my situation that I had a borrowed van, rented equipment and about 20-30 minutes of work left at most and managed to convince her to let me finish. The real funny thing is this woman couldn't stop talking after telling me the noise was bothering her because she had a headache! WOW! Was feeling good enough to talk to me for 20 minutes! I think she's just lonely or bored, but if she's the kind of neighbor that just likes to be a thorn in your side for no reason, it could be a real adventure here, as many of you know I'm not one to take things like that or that kind of inappropriate behavior lying down...

There are some funny pics of us chipping the brush on my Flickr site, so have a look (click on the picture to take you there):

The party is over!

The "Bathroom is finished" party went off well yesterday with many friends and family stopping by. We had a great time hosting and feeding everyone (with Ribs, kabobs, steak quesadillas, chicken wings, stuffed portobellos, guacamole, etc) and getting a chance to have many see the house "before" most of the renovations occur. With all kinds of work set to start on the house over the next month or so, we were eager to have everyone over and the weather cooperated nicely, with a cool but comfy 55 degree day.

The bathroom turned out really nice, although it is still lacking of a toilet paper holder, mirror, towel ring and baseboards. But hey, it works! We can't wait to have the rest of the house finished and to have our "After Renovations" party some time next summer.

Nobody was bold enough to bring their swim suits and try the hot tub, but we did have a nice bonfire in out fire pit.

Check out the picture of the finished bathroom alongside the previous bathroom picture:

So what's next? We have to finish the laundry room and with only so many good outdoor working days remaining this year, we've still got to finish power washing all the concrete and after they come to level out concrete slab patio this week, we can stain/seal everything! Can't wait to be done with that! We also are very eager to finish the garage so we can have a warm insulated garage to work in all winter while we tackle our many projects.

Stay TUNED!

Getting there...

Busy week ahead. We are still trying to get the bathroom finished for the party on Sunday, so I won't post any pictures before the then to spoil the fun! But, we have the floor finished, the wall painted, and we are sealing the floor tonight and installing the fixtures on Thursday.

I stayed home from work on Monday to accept the delivery of a few of our appliances for our future kitchen and meet a chimney contractor to repair some damage to our chimney. I was able to use my uncle's pressure washer to wash much of the concrete around the house. The carpet adhesive on the front stoop was particularly pesky (required the use of an attachment that concentrates the stream to the point of being able to penetrate wood) and the mold and mildew in the exterior basement stairwell was beyond gross. It was like peeling back a layer of black paint from the stairs and walls! 30 years of mold gone in minutes. I don't think I'll ever look at a regular garden hose the same way again. While all that was kind of fun, I did get soaking wet in the process and as the day wore on it got cold and windy. October in Chicago is maybe not the best time to be soaking wet working outside.

While the bathroom should be finished, we're still a bit behind schedule. We wanted to have the laundry room finished, but we have to wait for the windows and siding guys to re-hang the laundry room door before we can safely do the stone floors. Also, the washing machine seems to be permanently out of balance, so we're going to take this opportunity to upgrade to front-loading high-efficiency washer and dryer and put a working countertop over the top of it (along with the new cabinets for the room.

Yesterday was a very frustrating day at work with lots of IT issues keeping me from delivering some work all day and making life very frustrating, so it was a good release to come home and tear some stuff up. Mostly just cleaning some hanging wires up, but also finishing the removal of what was left of the wall between the kitchen and family room with my reciprocating saw. FUN FUN FUN and a good stress relief.

Hope to see lots of friends and family (my sister is in town from California) this Sunday at our party!

Sleep deprivation and the smell of thin-set in the morning

We have finally gotten around to tiling the floor in the bathroom. After a lot of shenanigans with respect to other projects distracting us and having a hard time deciding how to lay the tile out, we finally bit the bullet and started setting tiles at about 9:45 last night. The tile has a LOT of color variation and we like the darker tiles more than the lighter ones, but of course we ended up with more light ones than dark ones, making laying the course out very difficult. The grains in the stone and the patterns were so varied that it was very time consuming determining the best lay-out and creating a color gradient.

Here are some pictures of the practice lay-outs:


Unfortunately, I took a lot of time to make some very detailed cuts around the vent and toilet flange (and there's a long story to that as well entailing 3 tries, lots of PVC glue, quite a bit of cursing, and 3 trips to Home Depot). At about 2:25 am we ran out of mortar and we were left finishing where we were after vowing to not go to bed until it was done. It was a valiant effort but we came up short on mortar and energy. We'll have to finish it tonight, then grout in 2 days and seal it after that! WORK WORK WORK!

Here is the picture of the floor as it stands now next to how it was just before we started.


We've also had "fun with water" the past week or so. After finally fixing the "waterfall" in the basement that was causing water to collect around the base of the water heater and furnace (as shown in the pictures below) the water decided to come down harder than ever earlier this week and revealed 2 other sources of water flow to us, this time a crack in the foundation and the water continues to POUR out from underneath the basement entry door. We're going to have to do something about that as soon as the bathroom and laundry are done. Adding a second sump pump should help and re-grading the concrete in the landing at the bottom of the stairs won't hurt!


But wait, there's more! The other night during a particularly windy and violent storm we had water come through our living room ceiling! ARGH! When will it stop? This looks to be the result of some failed flashing along the edge of the siding and roof, but we're not 100% sure yet. I'll have to get a closer look at it this week when the weather is better, but it looks like this has happened before, so I have no idea what I may find underneath when I go looking...


We did take some time off to watch the Bears destroy Seattle Sunday night, though. Dusty looks pretty content with the game already in the bag by the end of the first half.