Opperation Staircase- Completed!

All throughout the month of May we had a deadline looming with the approaching Memorial Day holiday. That unofficial kick off of summer meant our beach condo rental season of the beach condo was gearing up to take off. Call me crazy, but I think our renters would be expecting stairs in a two floor condo. Which meant we had to find the time in the jam packed month to rock out the final steps to finishing up the stairs and hallway.

Desperate to not have a repeat of last years ridiculously stressful final project wrap up and pre-season cleaning, we made a realistic time line of what tasks were left. Being honest with ourselves and how much actual work was left made all the difference this year! Instead of stuffing everything into one workfest of a weekend we decided to stretch the time and break our project list into two weekends.

The To-Do list looked something like this:

- Install steps

- Poly and silica coat steps

-Install handrail

- Switch out Microwave cabinet

-Paint "new" media cabinet

- Hang wall art

- Uber deep clean

- Pack up all "our stuff" and put rental items out

- Get burned on beach

In case you don't remember, we decided to make our winter/spring project in the beach condo the staircase and hallway. The staircase was a beat up blue carpeted nightmare topped with a plastic tube as a handrail. Ever since we replaced the hallway/upstairs landing blue carpet with the same laminate wood flooring as downstairs it wasn't a huge project to freshen up the space, but one that was really needed!

Where did I leave off with the stairs...ah yes. I was pissing and moaning about staining the wood steps and how despite my best efforts I couldn't get the stain to absorb evenly. Sigh. Such is a nature of pine and light stains, you can apparently condition the wood all you want but it will still absorb the stain with varying degree. Either that or I just plain suck at one the easiest diy tasks one can do. The great news is that after applying three coats of brush on poly the steps looked 75% than they did when simply stained. Perfectly acceptable for something that is only going to get stepped on IMO.

A big thorn in our sides during this project was wtf to do for the handrail. We checked out every single availible option and debated at length about what to do. Finally, it got down to two weeks left before Memorial day and we needed to pull the trigger on something. As luck would have it, we drive right by the showroom and warehouse of one of the biggest suppliers of sprial staircases in the USA on our way to work. We stopped in on way home and talked to a super nice sales guy about our options. At first he showed us this gorgous custom oak banister that I was drooling over, but it was $900. So I kindly cut the sales chase and said "That's gorgeous, but we're looking for something much more economical and in the DIY range. What do you offer?"

Which is how we ended up with a $300 brushed stainless coil in the back of our car as we pulled away 20 minutes later. It was the cheapest option that looked the best and that we could DIY. A black factory powder coat was availible for an extra $150, which I would have loved to get but could not justify opening the wallet even further for. Even though the railing was way more than we wanted to spend it was justifiable in the fact that we could not find a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g else that work. And rather than continually spend money here and there for experimental items we bit the bullet and bought the item for full blown retail.

Then, by the end of the weekend we had this:

The stairs are complete and I LOVE THEM.

Want to see what we started with? Check out the first post of Opperation Staircase HERE.

Skeeto Update

To follow up on my plea for mosquito advice here are the updates:

- a bat house is no beauno. Pete has put the ix-nay on that considering we back to woods with "natural" bat houses. It is true, we see plenty of bats playing in the evening air around our properties so no real need to attract more.

- fabric softener sheets= may help a bit. Last night I went out to work on my garden at dusk after work, and besides wearing leggings and high boots, I coated myself in Off and stuck fabric softener sheet around my person. One at the top of each boot and another in my ponytail. All bites received last night were on my lower back and upper thighs. I witnessed the bugs wanting (I could just tell they wanted to) to bite my knees and shins but ultimately steering clear of that area. No telling in how many sheets of fabric softener are needed for full body protection.

I'm wary of eating the raw garlic clove at day trick. Supposedly it makes you smell bad to mosquitoes, but I've tried it before for other health reasons and consuming raw garlic daily makes you smell bad in general. Garlic smell wafting outta your pores on the regular does not make you any friends. Unless you don't want friends. Then I highly recommend you swallow crushed raw garlic cloves with honey everyday before breakfast. Everyone will steer very clear, humans and bugs alike.

tiny little nest...

Isn't this just the funniest little thing? Any ideas as to what it could be?

If you guessed a wee hornet nest you'd be right. This 1" mini city in the clouds was inside my (quite rusty) wheelbarrow. Sucks for the hornets, but I had to destroy the tiny nest being as how I a) hate hornets b) I had to use the wheelbarrow for an actual purpose and c) am not in the business of hornet farming.

Quite a difference in size when you compare this to the bee hive I found inside the Wee house while tearing out walls...

Dead Snake. Live Tree Planting.

Problem: You have a mondo sized pile of dirt in your yard.

Issue: That dirt needs to level out a lot of yard square footage.

Final pickle: The task would break your back and cause a certain wife named me to stop talking to her husband after about hour 10 if done by hand with shovels and wheelbarrows. Potential for quite from jabber mouth wife- almost worth the sore muscles.

Solution: Ask brother in law if he would mind lending you his tractor for the job.

pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease

This all how we ended up with a kick ass tractor for a week to help us with getting the fill dirt spread to grade the land around the garage. All in all, the tractor was heavenly! It was such a workhorse and I think I'm in love. Not even kidding, I broached the topic of starting our search for one about two hours into using the borrow tractor. The thing just rocks. Buying one is not in the cards now, but maybe in the future, once we actually live in the Wee house, we'll be parking a tractor in our ginormous garage.

We also took advantage of the tractor by using to help us plant our long talked about willow tree. One of our long term landscaping goals was also to grow a weeping willow tree in the back of the back yard by the stream. The area is the perfect spot for planting a willow, they love being near a water source, lots of sun and should be kept father from structures with foundations since the root system can be extensive.

So why did we decide to go for the willow tree now? Time! Simply put, time is on our side with the house. When we do move into the house, in about a decade..., the tree will have had the necessary time to get established a little bit. In our personal experience with planting trees it takes about two years for the tree to get over the shock of transplanting and start to flourish. We did splurge for one older bigger tree at a nursery, and then trimmed the budget a bit by grabbing the glorified twig version from a big box store for much cheaper.

The older tree weighed a damn ton! Never under estimate how much a balled tree weighs people! It may look manageable, but I can assure they are quite the load. We learned that the hard way with our first married Christmas tree, a balled blue spruce that now is thriving in the Wee house yard. It just about killed our arm muscles to make that happen for a not quite four foot tree.

Using the tractor we were about to get the two willow trees and all of the necessary tree planting equipment- plus my super pale self - into the back yard with ease. Other tree planting equipment is a rake, shovel and brick of peat moss.

Funny thing about pictures is that while I look calm and smiley, the inside of me was gagging and trying not to look at the dead snake that Pete just beheaded which is just outside the frame of the shot.

As we rode the tractor to the backyard I had to hop off to grab my camera, right after I dismounted I saw the snake slithering away from the old shed. holymolyomg. I don't do slithery things. Screaming, and you better believe this former teeny bopper from jersey has a set of lungs on her, I ran back to the tractor and stood on top of it while freaking out. I grabbed the shovel, thrust it towards Pete screaming KILL IT. Poor guy didn't really have much choice in the matter what with his wife acting like a lunatic and all, he went ahead with beheading the snake.

Could we have let the snake live, yes. It wasn't going to do much to me besides give me a few (more) gray hairs if I ran into it again but I was freaked out and I don't respond well in situations like that andplusalso I flipping hate snakes. Afterwards I kept calling Pete Neville, which he didn't get at all because Deathly Hallows Pt.2 hasn't gotten released yet and he's never read the books. (Anyone else super excited for that scene? It's one of my favorites)

After the snake was dead we went on to the back yard to plant the trees. Planting trees in our yard is super easy since we don't have any bedrock laying just under our top soil. First you dig a big ass hole. We always aim for a hole twice the size of the root ball, and for the bigger tree the tractor did most of the digging. Then, you back fill the hole with a bit of the dirt and add some peat moss. Eyeball the amount to be even and enough that when you put the tree in the hole, it won't be completely buried. Trees are not tomatoes and should not be deeply buried when planting. We aim to get the root ball even or just above the ground.

Once the tree is in at the right level, put the rest of the leftover soil back. Water the crap out of the tree for a long time and don't be surprised if you don't see any growth or improvement right away. Trees take time to get established and over the shock of transplanting. At this point you stand back and admire the tree.

Plea for skeeter advice!

This weekend I told Pete that I'm pretty sure mosquitoes subscribe to a newsletter that clues them in on my location, if there is one lonely bug in a zip code then it will find me. Or if there are 50 million, they will all find me for feasting on. Just me. I can be right next a group of people and no one else will walk away with bites. Something about my A+ blood makes their tiny little insect hearts sing with happiness.



The bites cause a major reaction on me as well, they get all puffy and itch like hell for days. Especially compared to Pete, who usually gets a bump that is gone in two days. I also don't usually stop scratching until I start bleeding and a teeny bit beyond that point. Which all makes for some (not very)attractive legs in the summer...

Part of me really wants to include a picture of my legs just so you can all see I'm not being a drama queen. My legs get tore up in the summer because of bugs. the other part of me doesn't want to gross out my readers with legs that look like they've laid down in an ants nest covered in honey.

I digress.

The point of all this is to ask for help. I would like to spend my 28th summer not looking like I bug bitten mess. For once I don't want to have to wear pants in august because the bites look like my lower legs have been attacked by some ravenous beast, and I don't want to have to go through a box of band-aids a week trying to make the bites heal without scars.




Please, give me any tricks you know of to get the skeeters away. I'll do and try them all. Anything from skin so soft to pure deet to eat three cloves of garlic a day is welcome advice. Has anyone had luck with lawn treatments? I currently coat myself in Off before leaving the house and multiple times a day when working outside. But I still get bites. Lots of bites. Including one under my eye that makes me look like I've been rumbling in alleys with dancing gang members that carry switch-blades.


Thank you.

Clearing the yard...

Here is where I could go on and on and on about cleaning up the rest of the yard. But endless talking about yard work is really boring when I get down into the writing out the details. There isn't much of a method to clearing a yard either, so don't let anyone fool you into thinking there is. Pick a starting point and just work until it looks better. That method works for both big and small efforts.

Side yard waiting for clean -up.

We tackled the side yard, which was a mess of overgrown trees, creeping vines, cinder block and tree parts like roots and limbs. Since I'm a little bit more than scared of snakes I had this genius idea to beat the piss out of the piles/ground with a branch before going in to grab stuff. Smart eh? Scare any potential slithery things away! I'm pretty sure it worked since I didn't see any...on Saturday..

As the sun beat down on us, we worked on clearning everything up and piling it on the patio holding area. Cement in one pile, organic in another and random construction lumber in the final pile. There wasn't enough time to get to the dump, so everything sits waiting for this weekend when we're going to be taking at least one trip over to the county dump.

Our patio looks like it belongs with a crack house. I can't wait to tear that slab up and the lean-to down.

Cleaning up Concrete

Right after the dirt got delivered, we hit the Wawa for breakfast and my coffee. The call for the dirt delivery came much earlier than we anticipated, so getting out of the door fast was in order for us to get over to the Wee house with a certain amount of quickness. That speedy exit meant that I didn't get a chance to brew my needed morning coffee at home.

I love that about South Jersey, you're never far from a Wawa :)

After chowing down and caffeinating in the back yard we got down to the second order of business for the morning, cleaning up all our random concrete piles around the yard. Some from the removal of the old "garage" foundation, others from the construction of our new garage and then the odd ball piles of cement that where littered about the yard. We had a little less than two hours to get the trailer loaded and hustle our butts over to the recycle center. In theory 120 minutes sounds like a decent amount of time, but when it is reference to unearthing and moving concrete- it is not nearly enough time.

We worked out a pretty great method of attack of the topsoil and concrete pile. I took one side with a bevy of buckets and one of my crowbars for poking into the dirt and pulling out the big slabs. Pete hit up the other side with a metal rake and the tractor cart to help us move the larger bits and full buckets up to the front yard.

The pile afterward the massive pick through, see the post from yesterday for the before shot.

Being mindful of the clock and how much weight our poor SUV can handle towing, we had to call it quits on loading the concrete around 11 and hightail it outta there to get the recycle center before they close the gates for the day. We got there 5 minutes prior to last call and 35 minutes before closing time.

Once again, and certainly not for the last time, we found ourselves under the high tension wires unceremoniously chucking cement and cinder blocks into a giant pile of rubble. To avoid hitting the other with an errant throw to the pile we work on different sides of the trailer.

It took us 13 minutes to clear the trailer. Boom. Done.

The best part, all the disposal is freeeeeeeee and gets recycled. At the county dump we would have had to pay and everything would have ended up in the landfills. I love this place, I just wish they would take my wallpapered plaster walls.

Fun fact: Dirt is not cheap

I have sunburn on my back, bug bites on my neck, blisters on my palms, several broken fingernails and a bruised forearm. All that adds up to one really long weekend working outside on the Wee house. It really felt good to get back to business on the house, and busting out these long weekends of hard work. There is much to talk about, including the story of how Pete killed snake with a shovel. But that and other stories will come at a later time.

Despite the fact that the house is half gutted and the garage isn't completed, we decided to spend this weekend focusing on improving the yard a bit. No massive landscape effort to turn it into paradise, but we really needed to clean up the yard like woah. There were pockets of really overgrown jungle vines, random bits of the old garage's cement foundation piled up and cinder blocks scattered about. It just wasn't pretty and if we let everything to continue to grow with wild abandon over the summer it would be much harder to handle in the fall.

A major part of the weekend for us was going to be getting some fill dirt delivered and then working on grading the land around the garage/our driveway and side yard areas. The "natural" flow that our yard had before was disturbed by the new garage, and we really needed to boost the dirt up around the building. At first we started getting quotes on how much a load of topsoil would be, thinking that it better to just use that because of it's ability to grow grass and fill in low spots of land. However, the prices we were getting just put top soil out of our budget- it was about $22- 27$ per yard, we needed 18 yards and every single place was charging extra high delivery fees thanks to the current hefty price of diesel fuel. Then we found the price sheet for Winzingers, our trusty free concrete recycling center, and topsoil there was only $15 a yard, BUT fill dirt was only $5 a yard. Plus the insanely high cost to get it delivered, which was more than the actual dirt.

Our poor neighbors had to deal with this as their wake-up call on Saturday morning. I felt like a jerk for disturbing the neighbor calm with a dump load of dirt at that early hour.

The total still ended up being freakishly high for just dirt, but the final bill was a lot easier on our wallets with the fill option. Although, these prices really help to change the old adage of "cheaper than dirt", cause dirt is not cheap anymore.

We'll get a small load of topsoil in the fall and use that as a thin frosting layer for the grass seed something to grab onto. So what if we had to pick part of a curb and asphalt out of the pile, the fill dirt was going to serve it's purpose of filling in the low spots...

The dirt delivery was just the kick off of our hard working weekend! Anyone else accomplish a ton during this past weekend? Or did you get to enjoy fabulous weather without having cheap dirt stuck to the sweat that was all over your body?

no go on plaster disposal plans

When we took our leftover cement and cinder block to the recycle center we also brought along a bucket of plaster with us. The point was to ask the center if they would accept the plaster for recycling for free. If they did take it, that would save us bundle of cash on the county dump fees where you are charged by weight. Plaster is heavy y'all.



Good news: They'll take it.


Bad news: They won't take it if it has wallpaper attached.


Dream Killing News: Every inch of our house has wallpaper on top of the plaster.



For about five minutes I debated how practical it would be to scrape off a century's worth of wallpaper from all remaining plaster surfaces of our house before demoing the plaster for recycling. Then I remembered- our old wallpaper seemed to be put up with a permanent sticking charm. No amount of warm vinegar/fabric softener water will loosen the wallpaper's death grip on our walls and this delusional plan of mine shouldn't even be attempted.


So we're back to square one when it comes time demo the rest of our walls. Buckets and paying for the county dump. Fun times.

Saving money to lose it

This year Pete and I have been focusing on lowering our financial output. Which is a fancy pants way of saying we've busy been searching out ways to save our dollars. You always read advice in how to save that has you watching the nickles and dimes, but we decided to attack with the big guns and go after a few ginormous bills that where making our checkbooks weep.

Besides, I already brew my morning cup of coffee at home and forgo the fancy afternoon lattes.


First up was the home insurance on the Wee house. Do you have any idea how much coverage on a vacant property that is in the midst renovation costs? It is mind-blowingly expensive. When when we got the coverage it was hard to find someone who would even write the policy for us.

What? You don't want to insure this hot mess of a house that is sitting empty and gutted? I can't even imagine why...





A few months ago, Pete's parents found themselves with an empty house that they needed to insure. They got refered to a company that writes vacant property policies and the quote came in way less than what we were paying. Call us flabbergasted. We raced to the phone and inquired about a policy for ourselves. Turns out, we could get the same coverage we have now ( we have a few riders on our policy for injury because of the reno's ) through them for about $1,500 less than our current payment. Yeah...That is comma in our savings amount.


Needless to say, we switched insurance and are super happy to put that money into the garage and renovations instead.

Next up was our Wtown taxes. New Jersey has notoriously high property taxes. It is a fact of life for living in the Garden State and the price we all pay for being with a 30 minute drive to mall or Target at any location in the state. Way back in 2007, when the market was still *hot*, our entire town got reassessed on the home values and after that reassessment our property taxes doubled. Which was not so awesome.


Last year we failed to sell our house for something very close to the assessed value. (Also not awesome). Which led us to believe something along the lines of " Hey. The town is wrong. We can't sell our house for this much, so it can't be worth X amount." So this tax year, we filed for the lowering of our property assessment, which would lower our property taxes.

The whole petitioning process cost us $5 and about an hours worth of time in filling out forms. We asked for an insanely low amount, but it was also the price that we honestly think that our house could possibly sell for if we needed to unload it asap. So there was some justification in our minds for the price point we choose. The adjuster called us, and basically was like " um, how are you asking for this price? There is no way you're house could be worth this little when compared to the comps."

Ahhh we beg to differ...

None of those other comps have a train running next to their house. And despite all the appraisers, property assessors, real estate agents and mortgage lenders we've had out to the house- not one person can give us a nailed down price on how much the train hurts the value of our home.

We met with the lovely lady who came by to inspect the digs, there was home tour conducted of casa and property. She sat down with us and agreed with our appeal. Not quite for the rock bottom price we proposed, but that was a long shot anyway. We reached a happy middle number and signed off on the OK. The new taxable assessment is about 12.5k lower than the previous amount and brings our taxes down a sweet couple hundred a year.

Despite the fact that it means our house has lost value (uh-duh) I'm still filing this whole tax appeal process as #winning.

Did I mention that we got notice that our college rental property taxes are going up? Oh, I haven't? Well that is long story for another time, but in the shortest summary: Taxes are going up the exact amount we just saved between the insurance and appeal.

#taxesareforsuckers

Apparently winter can't last forever

The weather is warming up finally down here in South Jersey, which means that with each rise of the mercury my mood is correspondingly rising as well. The rise in mood helps me to remain positive even while working outside on the garage and renovations, funny how something like spring can help you recapture your motivation to work hard. I still have to double layer my pants when I work over at the Wee house, leggings under jeans, but no longer do I need to wear a fuzzy hat and gloves!

Last weekend we got a ton of stuff done for the house- including taking an entire load of cement to a recycling center and DIY disposing it for free! Sure you have to drive back into an extra creepy looking desolate back woods South Jersey area, complete with humming high tension wires, to get to the deposit pile. However anywhere we can save money during this renovation is so helpful, especially when you factor in how much the cement chunks would have cost to throw out at the dump, so I'll take the atmosphere of a slasher flick to save money. I'm guessing we're saving about $400 to DIY ourselves like this, which is a sweet chunk of change that we could use on other things instead.

In other related news, we got our first failed inspection for the garage barn. The demo permit could not be closed out yet, due to all that nasty piles of concrete and cinder we have laying around. The bright "fail" sticker is so sad looking on our table. We're working on rectifying that failed situation and out of sympathy for our neighbors who've been staring at all this leftover shit for over a year.

Warmer weather means a lot more work to get done around here. After such a long blah winter though, I'm ready to step it up in the home department.

I heart distractions

If diversionary and self-distraction tactics was a class, I'd get an A+.

Currently I'm using up all my old banked yoga classes to breath deep and cope with the fact we just got told about the current state of our townhouse rental, and it isn't pretty. I'm fuming mad that adults would treat a decent property like it was some crack house in Camden. Then I remember that shitheads are all around and in the course of renting to college students I'd be sure to get some doozeys. Like the time our old tenants didn't want to tell us the toilet was broken and we got a water bill that was the equivalent of filling two Olympic swimming pools. Part of me wants to send pictures of the place with all the damage to their parents...

This all leads to me to two things.

The first is a favorite mantra of mine, I repeat it myself when I'm having a rough go of it and feel a little down. "time marches on". In a day, week, month, year...I'll be somewhere new. Feeling something else. Knowing that despite what it going on in my life, time will go on and my life will change with it.

The second is my current obsession with hunting down the *perfect* Chesterfield sofa. I have an obsessive personality, so expect to hear about this couch about 9,775 more times in the coming days. Also expect for me to never actually purchase a Chesterfield, but only to feverishly stalk one down in my free time.

Remember: commitment issues + a cat whose radar is set on "destroy all furniture" + garage build budget + current couches in decent condition = not the greatest idea for me to buy a couch. However, this hunt is the perfect diversionary tactic from our townhouse issues of late. Something else for my scattered mind to focus on, rather than just being cranky about the rental.

My poor husband bears the brunt of my "omg I love this" craigslist find random emails. They usually go something like this...

In regards to this posting:

A LEATHER COUCH I BOUGHT NEW AND HAVE OWNED FOR TEN YEARS.

SLIGHT WEAR NO TEARS OR HOLES TOTALLY RE-SPRUNG

CAN BE SEEN IN KENNETT SQUARE PA. BY APPOINTMENT

3800.00 CASH ONLY !!!

From: Eva

To: Peter

Wizzing with happy over this gorgeous couch Boo on the price though. http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/fuo/2309015131.html

From: Peter

To: Eva

CRAP WOW that’s expensive for a 10 yr old couch that the leather looks bad worn, not nice worn! Color is kinda neat but not too sure about it. But still, the price? They have to be kidding. What are they $6k new?

From: Eva

To: Peter

They range in price, but you usually aren’t looking at much more than 6-7k for a new one. Even the ones from Restoration Hardware aren’t as much as this one! I thought the color was awesome! It’s “unexpected” :) But the price? Really? Someone is high.

From: Peter

To: Eva

That’s just ridiculous. If you pay $6k for anything new, you have to expect to lose 1/3 of the value as soon as you walk out of the showroom. Even most cars are close to that. That comes to $3900 and that was in 2001 – and that’s if the 10 yrs is true which I have my doubts.

From: Eva

To: Peter

Sometimes I wonder about these CL people. What logic goes through their head as they looked at the couch and said “ Self. That couch is worth more than a 10 year old Toyota. There are going to be buyers lining up to my purchase my circa-1994 blue sofa for sure”

If it was 90% off that price I’d buy it. Or at least think about buying it.

The End.

Faux Shopping

Happy April Fools!

No jokes here, mainly because I'm terrible at playing jokes on people. My face can't stay still and before three words of the prank are out of my mouth I'm doubled over in a giggling fit. Can we say, sure give away? This is why I can't play poker, despite being part of the same body my mouth has a mind of its own and I'm always apt to blurt out things that need to stay inside!

Since I'm still a wee bit of a grump over the house renovation and situation stuff I've now turned my attention to my favorite form of house therapy- Pretty pictures and imaginary shopping. That usually helps me refuel with inspiration and ideas for the future. So here is a smattering of the random shopping that I've been obsessively looking at lately: Ralph Lauren Talmadge Hill Bedding:

Specifically the large plaid duvet cover of the collection. I got my hands on the duvet at the outlet and it was very much still out of my price range, but I did marvel over what a quality item it seemed to be. The fabric was luscious, warm and inviting for long winters naps. I think the Americana Preppy plaid look fit into our houses colonial cottage styling well. Our old duvet cover is getting a little worn after three seasons, so I'm going to make it my personal challenge to procure this RL duvet for our bed by next winter at a great price.

Chesterfield Sofas: Specifically a well broken-in used Chesterfield. Something about their stately tufted lines makes me weak in the knees. Even if a good 50% of my friends say they scream "lawyers office". Each week I comb through Craigslist to see if any are available within a four hour drive and if they could be 'the one' for me. Certainly we don't need a new couch right now, especially because I think I would crumple to the floor in hysterical tears the first time my cat used the couch as a scratching post. Even though there isn't likely to be a new sofa that crossed my door in a long long time I still love to hunt for one.

I think I'm one of those extra weird people who enjoys the search for an item way way way more than actually owning it. Which would explain why I'm terrible with commitment to things. Except Pete. He's awesome and I'm very committed to him. But I don't really think of him as a "thing".

Next up on my obsessive search is a rug that is as perfect as the Dash and Albert Cat's Paw rug for our dining room but one that fits our budget better. I did a little measuring and we need a 7x9 or 8x8 rug on the dining room floor so it doesn't look like someone wearing a tiny coat. The Cat's Paw jumps from 5x8 (too small) for $400-ish right on up to 8x10 for $800. Way out of my pocketbook's comfort zone right now for a rug. No matter how awesome and perfect it may be....And despite my constant searching I just can't find anything that makes me jump up and down with excitement yet.

Here is what I'm looking for in a vauge, short descriptions:

- Would like it to have yellow in it

-Vintage looking a plus

- No comtempory designs

- Doesn't look cheap ( hard to tell over the internet)

- Light and colorful

- Under $300

Lately I've been checking up on PB twitter account, to see if they are going to run any special promotions on rugs for the outlets. I've been there before when they ran a "take an additional 50%" promo, so my fingers are crossed that is coming again this spring. I'll for sure drive my rear end out to Lancaster to see what kind of potential deal could await there.

Anything anyone else is obsessively fake shopping for lately?

Crank Pot is Me

New Jersey missed the memo that it is currently spring. We're dealing with January temperatures here where the mercury dips down into the freezing zone at night and barely gets enough sunshine out during the day to do a damn warmth wise. It is so cold for March that we had to turn out heater back on, after we though we shut it down for the season two weeks ago.

In this weather it tends to be the wind that does you in comfort wise. Turning an otherwise enjoyable sunny cold weather day, into some sort of horrible blustery experience where you curse the sky for taunting you with cold sunshine and whatever the reason is that makes you be outside. It's been in that cold sunshine where we've been spending some quality weekend time at the garage lately.

However, once there I've been maxing out after two hours of work because the weather and house situation makes me incredibly grumpy. Pete witnesses his normally way perky wife morph into some sort of snappy bitch from hell in about 90 minutes. The last half hour has got to be torture for him as I stomp around the place ready to snap necks, complete with eye rolling and glares. Until I finally give up work in a fit and go to the warmest place in the house to stew in silence alone. Sitting on the plastic wrapped screen porch on top of an empty dresser. Staring at the rusty screens and astro turfed cement, wondering what the hell I was thinking with this house, with all our houses, until it is time to leave.

The worst part about my fits is that I can't stop it from happening and nothing short of leaving the work site gets me back to normal. My natural disposition is to be an optimist that has a perma smile plastered on my face. That crummy attitude isn't who I am at all. But the houses are just draining me right now. I feel like they're four giant leeches that I can't shake off even though I so desperately want to be rid of them and move on with my life.

Anyone whose ever done any home renovations who didn't tell you that they hit low points along the journey is full of lies. Lying to safe face about their decision. Lying to themselves. Or so pumped full of something that makes all work blend into a happy fuzzy haze.

Overall, I'm frustrated at our shitty homes and a little burnt out. Those feelings are just my reality right now. Will I turn around again? Yes. I know I will. Being cyclical with my emotions is a standard MO for me. Sometime along the line I'll get my optimism back, my drive and the ability to pound out 12 hour shifts of hard work for our future on our craptastic houses. But currently, I want to stew in the cold non-spring weather being a miserable bitch about everything house related.

There you go.

True confessionals of a DIY'er.

Pretty new air nail gun!

Our air nailer is dead.

Died. Gone. Bought the farm. Bit the spoon. Finished.

You might remember this is the same air nailer that pooped out some time back in September. When it up and left Pete up on the roof high and dr, where he had to start swinging a hammer in order to finish the purlins. At that time we debated buying a new nailer, but being in the midst of shelling out big bucks for the garage construction we really didn't want to part with the $200 it would cost for a spanky new air nailer. Thankfully Pete was able to apply his ridiculously mechanical brain towards the nailer, opened it up and spiffed it back up to life.

And then a few months later, Pete fell from the second story of the garage. During that fall, he dropped the air nailer onto the cement floor and then landed a sheet of plywood combined with his entire body weight on top of the nailer. Apparently all those things are a deadly combo for an already on the brink nailer, because shortly after all that happened, the nailer ceased to work indefinitely.

In case it is not abundantly clear from my posts- WE NEED A FRAMING AIR NAILER.

Since we try not to look at dropping two Benjamin's lightly, a ton of research went into finding a new nailer. Almost immediately we discounted getting the same air nailer, a Porter Cable, again. Overall we weren't thrilled with the longevity performance. It wasn't that old, only about 6 years, and did break once before dropping it onto cement. We don't count the falling incident against the performance, since it was human error. Frankly I would expect something to last longer given the amount of use the nailer got combined with how well we (mostly) treat our tools.

Shopping for a new nailer at ye' olde orange warehouse store.

There was much debate about using clipped head vs. round heads, as well as which brand we should go for between Bostitch, Dewalt and Hitachi. Why those brands? Bostitch is the brand of our siding nailer and we've been pleased with that so far. Dewalt because I'm a total whore for their brands and believe they make a quality product. Hitachi is another brand we've heard good things about and is aimed at Pros, so we thought it could handle the amount of work that we'll be throwing toward it during this renovation.

Ultimately, it was the clipped head Hitachi that won out.

Which I find, strangely enough, really pretty. That just excites the girly girl inside of me to use it more!