Getting started on landscaping

I finally got a couple things to put in the yard. I have a Dwarf North Star cherry tree that will go in the front yard, and some hydrangeas to put out along the side of the garage.

Other plans include putting river rock around the perimeter of the house and figuring out exactly what to do with the little area right in front of the house. I had petunias there last year but I didn't like how they get all gangly as the summer goes on. So if anyone has any suggestions, please post a comment!

Now for pictures.

This is my tree and the hydrangeas waiting to be planted:



This is where the cherry tree will go. The blue outlined area is where the rock will be. Enjoy the bonus artwork!



And this is the part I'm not quite sure what to do. I'm considering Shasta daisies or moss roses.

Be good...

snow deer is watching.

Storm takes out my fence.

To be honest I knew it was only a matter of time before this thing fell over, and once they took out the big evergreen tree in preparation for the EPA project in the front of the house all we needed was one good storm. We got it last night.

I guess I know what my next project will be!

A new pet!

Hey I got a new pet a few days ago. He's got his own little cage. He's not very cute but he's pretty low maintenance.



Hee hee. He's been there a few days now. Actually I'm pretty grossed out about it.

Seriously though, I did get a couple of kittens at the Humane Society a few weeks ago. They were little mates and they are just the cutest little things.



This is the first day I got them. Mixie is on top and Trixie is on the bottom. They were 8 weeks old in that picture. They have already grown so much! Here they are now:


Trixie is on the left, Mixie on the right.

Cherries cherries cherries

The theme of my kitchen is cherries. Here are close ups of some of my cherry items. You can click on them for a larger picture. These are all pictures from the last month or two. I am too lazy to reset the camera after I charge the battery.

Cherry potholders:



A cherry container:



Cherry hand towels:



I have some other ones, as well as a 50's style apron in the same cherry print as the potholder underneath the other in that picture up there.

Once in a while I get crafty... I embroidered this. Yay!



My mom made me these cool cherry curtains. And I have a little cherry thing that hangs on the window.



My mom also made me a toaster cozy. My toaster is pretty cool though, so it's a toss up whether I should keep it covered or not.

Kitchen Before and After

First of all, I want to thank everyone so much for the support here in the comments and in email. Right now things are well. I am still on oxygen. My employer dropped my medical insurance, but I have already got that figured out. I am going to get a second opinion on the advice of my home care nurse. I've never done that before, but I guess this is the time if any.

Alright, back to he house. I am starting a new "series" where I am going to post the pictures from the original internet listing and try and take the same picture with what it looks like now. I'm starting off with the kitchen. I will have more specific kitchen pictures shortly, so you can see some of the details.



Basically, I took down the wallpaper and painted, took down the drop ceiling, replaced the light fixture, added curtains and removed the can opener under the counter. This was actually the room that probably needed the least amount of work.

More health problems...

I know I am the queen of empty promises on this here blog, and I really plan on having those before/after kitchen pics up soon. Unfortunately this hasn't been a great health (right after I buy a house... I've always had great timing) or personal year for me.

So here's the good and the bad news. The bad news is I had lung cancer. The good news is that it was caught very very early, the malignancy was self contained in the tumor, which means it was all removed by surgery. The possibly bad additional news is that I have "innumeral" other nodules which are what these things start as. As of right now, only one was malignant and the rest are all too small to do anything about. They will be monitored and dealt with as needed. As for now I have a little oxygen thing I get to use, I guess it's a given after having a lung surgery, and will be doing some physical therapy to get me back in working order.

I've been out from work for over 3 months because of this. My disability leave is in danger of not being approved and as you can imagine I have been under a lot of stress!! I could even lose the house over this. So know that I am not promising these things and just being a lazy ass (that's only part of the problem), and I really am trying to keep things updated here. Thanks for reading!

Is this how a gutter is supposed to work?

Hmmm... I don't think so.


(yes I still have my Christmas lights up, come on, it's only April)

Perhaps it was sabotage (but you have to say it like Shatner).

Kitchen Done

I finally have everything done in the kitchen that is going to be done for now. Eventually, when I get some other stuff paid off I want to redo the cupboards and stuff in here, but I like how it is. I am still working on before and after pictures, but here is a preview. I posted this picture of the retro clock that hangs above my kitchen sink:



And here is what that area looked like before. Basically it was a nightmare. The first layer of wallpaper came off easily, but then there was another layer under that. I have had no luck removing the first layer of wallpaper in this house. So I went ahead and sanded it down as much as I could, sealed it and skim coated it, primed it, and painted it. You'd never know that there was paper still under there.


more to come... soon (i promise!)

Permits Department surprise

Argh!! I am so disorganized! I have no idea what I did with the papers I printed out when I went down to the city office. They were only $.25 a piece, so I will just have to go reprint them at some point.

When I got to the office the lady working there showed me where the computer I wanted was. I went and put in my address. The oldest permit I could find was from 1951.. all my paperwork says that my house was built in 1930. I thought maybe the records only went back to 1950 or something, so I decided to look up the other houses on my street. Some of them had permits going back to 1924!

I was very discouraged, thinking that for some reason my permits were just missing. There is a drop down menu on the computer lookup, so I changed it to blank (rather than on building permits) hoping more things might come up, and clicked on something called an index card. That was basically a compilation of all permits issued for my address. The first line on there was an entry about moving the house from 2715 Longfellow Ave!! My house was moved about 10 blocks to my lot in 1951!! I then looked up that address on the computer and was able to find the original permit from when the house was built. Very cool!!

This discovery definitely answers some questions. When I was looking at homes, I noticed how many homes that were older like this one (pre-50s) had crappy basements. The floors were very uneven, they were dark and dreary. Every person (inspectors, plumbers, contractors, etc...) who has seen my basement has commented on how nice it is. The city inspector asked what year it was built and told me that the concrete floor must have been re-poured because it was so flat and even. When my friend was over he was looking and noticed that the walls in the stairway to the basement were sheetrock, and all the walls on the main level are plaster. We thought it was odd, but now we know why.

It's just so weird that someone moved this house! I would love to have seen that! I went to drive by the original location and found that the whole east side of Longfellow is now part of the Warehouse Depot property. It cost $900 to move my house. I'm glad they did, because even though it's only about 10 blocks away, I like the house's current location much better.

Next up, I'm going to go over my abstract, which dates back to 1850 or so, and try and find out about some of the previous land owners.

If you own a home in the city of Minneapolis...

you have to check this out. I read on another blog that you could get copies of old permits from the city of Minneapolis. I did a little research and found out that to do that you go to the Minneapolis Development Review department. They are located downtown and they do have free parking, as long as you go in the correct lot. I didn't, I ended up in a lot across the street, and ended up paying like $3. No big deal. So, you go up to their office, and they have some computers set up in the middle, where you can search by address. I will post more details about what I found with my property as soon as I get some of the papers I printed out together. It was very interesting. I hope to post this in the next couple of days!

Merry Christmas!

Front Entry complete!

My new retro kitchen clock

I'm trying to do a red and white retro / cherries theme in the kitchen. I had this space up above the sink with an electrical outlet for an old electric clock. I finally found one that I liked on Ebay, and it's arrived!

Random Act of Violence (against my bike)

Well, it happened. Someone broke into my garage by busting in the side door. They stole my bike and my friend's snow blower. I am so sad about this. My bike was awesome. It was the first bike I'd had since I was a kid. I loved riding it around my neighborhood, singing the first lines of LDN by Lily Allen in my head. And now someone stole that from me. They've also stolen my peace of mind. Now I just worry that they will come back for the things they didn't steal. Maybe next time it'll be the house, instead of the garage. I'm going through a lot of emotions over this. I know it's not personal, but all I can think is why did someone do this to me?

I've got mail.

This house came with an old mail slot built right into the house.

The mail came into the entry way. The problem is that it was basically a 3"x5" or so hole directly into my house, covered by a little door.



Needless to say this wasn't very efficient for the winter months. So, I decided that I'd get a new mailbox to mount on the house. I put it right over the old door, which was caulked over and will be filled with insulation. The new box has a lock so my mail is secure.

Hardwood floors refinished

Here are a couple pics of the floor, how it looked before and how it looks now. I have to say I love it! I didn't know how much of a difference I could expect, and I would have been happy with anything better than they were, but they turned out great!

Random old stuff

Here's a few things from the past I've found around the house. I love the hair dye.

My beautiful bathroom tile

OMG I love this tile job so much! I am so glad that I went back to doing it this way. If you don't remember what it looked like before, take a look at this post. Here's how it's looking now. Yippee!



I was a little surprised at how few places just carry plain white porcelain tile. Apparently that is not "in" right now. I am trying to do something a little retro looking in there, so the stuff that is popular right now (very stone looking) wouldn't work. Anyway, Tile Shop had nothing that would work for me and the guy there was an asshole anyway, so I ended up just getting this at Home Depot. It was cheaper anyway and it looks just like I want it to.

More done in the living room...

I think the last major trace of pink is gone from the living room and I couldn't be happier! Yippee! The good news is that the living room is very close to being done and I'm loving how it looks. The bad news is that James and I both wasted a lot of time painting these shutters and then I didn't even end up using them.

The living room had these built in cabinets that ran along the wall with the fireplace. The top 3 shelves were closed up with shutters, and the bottom shelf had a wood door with a big ugly knob on it, which is unfortunately not visible in this picture.



So... I took off all the shutters and James spray painted them. I then took them and did a couple coats of regular paint, and in the end they looked presentable. I went to take off the bottom doors and realized that I'd never get them back on again. I asked James what he thought about leaving the bottom part open. He thought it was a good idea, and I started to think of things I could put down there so I didn't just have a big empty space near the floor.

As we started to attempt to put the shutter doors back on, and realized this wasn't going to be a fun task either, James suggested I just leave ALL the doors off, and have built in bookcases. Great idea! Sometimes it takes 2 brains to figure out the best way to do something. So, here's how it looks now, all painted and finshed and ready to go. I was going to buy a bookshelf anyway, so this saves me space and money!



I'm also just so glad that the sheetrock is all finished. I was so sick of looking at all this insulation, as seen below. I can't even believe that it's been 5 freakin' months since I had that done. Gawd I'm slow!!



On another note, my shower is almost done!! It's all tiled and waiting to be grouted. I can't wait to post some pics!