Big Weekend Project!

This weekend we will be pressure washing our house. Luckily my brother inlaw has a machine he is going to let us borrow. On Monday we are going to have a contractor begin stucco patching and repair. The stucco has come off near all of our down spouts on the gutters. They also took out 2 windows at some point, one of in the bathroom shower (thank god) the other in the kitchen above the stove. There isn't much wall space in the kitchen so I see the need for the window to be gone- however there isn't much light. It's really a toss up. They are going to come over and put the texture back up to make our house look good again. Then we will paint this fall. Here are the problem areas:




As you can tell we need new gutters too. I doubt gutters will be a huge expense but I guess you never know. We are painting the house a medium taupe and all the trim will be white. I am so excited. Our curb appeal will sky rocket once this is complete.

As promised, here is a close up of our required 40% open fence:


And finally, we are going to have a BBQ on Saturday July 11th, friends, neighbors and fellow bloggers in Minneapolis are welcome. If you would like directions and time please email me at ssetzer@athomeapartments.com We'd love to meet you!

The Fence Is Halfway There!

I Finished sanding, staining and polying all of the woodwork on the fireplace, archway, window and DR baseboard. It looks amazing! Since I got all of this complete, I decided to paint the firsplace a charcoal/ flynt color. It looks really good. The couches don't really flow with it but we plan on replacing those this winter. Check out how nicely everything cam out:


Since we were putting up the fence I decided to complete the landscape along the front side of it. It's so cute! I planted some red gnome dogwoods and echinaceas. The dogwoods should get pretty big. I bought the smallest ones available since everything else has taken off so much. I can't wait for them to grow- exciting. What do you think about the pattern of the fence?

What was I thinking?

Minneapolis has been rainy and cold the past few days. However, it really screwed up my staining last weekend. Let me rephrase that- I screwed up the staining last weekend. So I don't know if I posted about this yet, but I decided to sand the last unrefinished baseboard in the dining room, the archway leading into it, the fireplace and the window next to it. Yeah- quite a bit of work but I am definitely a pro at this point, not to toot my own horn or anything (toot).

I stained all of the woodwork and it typically needs to dry about 6-8 hours in good drying condition and 24 hours in cold or damp weather. I had a few drinks with some friends last night, came home at 10:00pm and decided to put the first coat of poly on before bed. It's not horrible but in some places alot of the stain came off and it's streaky. Shit. Now I have to resand those areas. I am so bummed. No more working after drinking! Here are some before pictures of the sanded area.


I'll put up some after pictures once my mistake and the poly is complete.

Check out how great our landscape is looking:



Since the weather was so bad this weekend Quentin installed a garbage disposal rather than working on the fence. However the majority of the fence is framed. We're getting there! We also have a new foster dog. His name is Simon and he is so cute. He follows me everywhere and always wants to sleep on me. He's sooo cute. Here is a photo of him with Tito and Roscoe when we we're having nice weather last week.

The posts are complete!

Hopefully this weekend we will begin building the fence panels. It looks so good. I can't wait to have a fenced yard to enjoy. Other than that we are still plugging away at patching up a few unfinished small items. The house is really coming together. I love it. I couldn't have found a better hobbie to put my time and energy into.

One Crazy Neighbor

How depressing- It's already May 20th and I've only had one other post. This weekend we are going to finish installing the posts in the yard as well as begin constructing our panels.

This is very interesting... Last Spring was our first in our house. I had met this woman who lives on a different block that was thrilled that we purchased the house/ was happy to see us planting trees and doing work etc. I spoke with this woman about possibly volunteering for random things around NE Minneapolis just to give back to the community. She seemed pretty nice.

A few weeks after meeting her we began getting sited for different things around the exterior of our house from the city. They were dumb things like repairing or tearing down our dumpy old fence, clearing brush out of the back of our garage. We were repairing and doing all of this landscaping work to a house that hadn't been touched in how long, and here they are threatening to fine us for piddly stuff that is going to get taken care of any how. We were under the impression that the city has just been driving around and fining people. Well, I had my suspicions.

Once the fence was removed the woman walked her dog past the house again and was so happy that the fence had been removed. Later that day Quentin began putting the posts in. We are putting 6 foot posts in and cutting them down to 4 feet but need to make sure everything is level. Being a corner lot gives you a lot of restrictions. Around 8:30pm me and some friends are having dinner- literally eating dinner. I have a full plate of food in my hand. Someone starts banging on the back door. I open it- dogs are going nuts- friends are a little freaked out. There she is with her dog in the darkness at my back door. "can I help you". She said she just wanted to make sure that we knew the fence was way too high and we better take care of it before the city comes around. I kindly but firmly told her that we were well aware of the laws and thank you for your concern. I shut the door in her face while she began muttering something else. RUDE! She could see us having dinner through the windows and felt the need to interrupt as well as knock on my back door. WOW!

A few days later I receive a note on my garbage can that is telling me to water the trees in the front boulevard. Somebody (this neighbor) took the time to walk all the way home, write a note and tape it to my garbage can. How malicious. I have put in so much time to my yard and am very knowledgable when it comes to plants, especially on regular watering schedules and keeping them alive. This woman doesn't even live on my friggen block. The best part is that the 2000, and the 2100 block is full of shit hole dumps and this woman is out for me. She better pray that I don't find out where she is living. I will be outside of her home with a clipboard doing preliminary work for the city.

Our progress

Sorry for my lack of posts, yet again. We have been finishing up some projects and I've been a bad blogger. Here are my weekend updates:

I am still working on the front patio. I've been stripping all of the cracked paint off of the windows with a heat gun, sanding, priming and painting with a white gloss. I am almost done. It looks very nice and clean.


I have also added 14 new plants over the weekend to my landscape design. It looks really great! I spent about $200 which is not so great, but it really pays off. I went to Gerten's. The reason I love Gertens is that all of their plants and shrubs are guaranteed for a year. I returned 5 blanket flower and didn't have an issue. Tangle Town only offers a year on their shrubs. It's worth the drive. Here is the right side of my front steps. Just 13 more plants to go before it's complete!


And last but not least- an update on Quentin's project. We've got about half of the posts in the ground. The rest will be in soon we are hoping. At lease you get a good idea of where the fence is going to be.

Let There Be Light!

Quentin re-ran the wires for Laine's room so she has a lovely new ceiling fan and working electrical outlets. Now we just have the office fan to rewire. Or should I say Quentin has it to rewire. I apologize for my lack of posts recently. We have been finishing up alot of unfinished projects. It feels REALLY good! Everyone is so impressed when they come over now. It's so funny how much work goes into every detail- yet noboody knows just how many hours went into the smallest thing that you pass by every day.

This weekend we are going to begin digging all of the holes for the posts by ourselves. Can't wait! (sigh). It will be nice to get the fence up.