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Archive for category Home Ownership

Joys of Homeownership: The Attic (pt. 1)

Dec 29

Posted by Aaron in Home Ownership | 2 Comments

Attic, 26 July 2006

Attic, 26 July 2006

When we bought this house, it was originally advertised as having “3 Bedrooms.” Any of you familiar with reading real estate listings probably know that this really means “2 bedrooms and a large closet” or “1 bedroom with a large basement.”

In our case, it was 2 bedrooms with a large, partially finished, attic. 

The attic is mostly floored (3/4″ floor boards), mostly drywalled (it still needs finished), and mostly wired (three outlets, two light sockets).

But it’s not a bedroom. Read the rest of this entry »

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A Tree Grows in Richmond

Apr 29

Posted by Aaron in Home Ownership | No Comments


Yesterday, the City of Richmond held an Earth Day celebration down at the old Piano Factory on 1st st. There were a bunch of booths about varying conservation-related topics. It really could have been called “Liberal Day.” There was lots of great information, some neat demonstrations (such as the one by Safari Steve from Silly Safari Station, who was both silly and entertaining) and giveaways.

We received a flying-disc (“F***bee”) made entirely from recycled plastic, two fluorescent bulbs (60W equivalent and 75W equivalent), an assortment of reading material about sustainable living, hiking in Richmond, and my personal favorite: a free flowering Dogwood from the Arbor Day Foundation.



Dogwoods happen to be my favorite tree. They look absolutely beautiful in the springtime. The one we got, I have no idea how old it is, but it’s about 2.5 feet (almost 1m) tall. It seems pretty healthy. The arbor day people gave us a little brochure on tree-planting, which was very useful considering I’ve never done it before. If you’re interested, here’s the digest version on how to do it:

  1. Remove any packaging from your sapling and let it soak in a bucket of water for 3 to 6 hours. This helps to loosen up the root structure. No need to agitate it or anything, just let it soak.
  2. When ready to plant, find a location that has both good soil and room for the tree to grow. The particular location I picked was 10 feet from the property-line fence and 10 feet from our garage. Dogwoods aren’t particularly big trees so I thought this would be ample room.
  3. When you’ve sited your plant location, mark a radius of 1.5′ out from that point, and turn all the soil. The tree needs to be able to not compete with grass and other weeds. I completely removed the sod and threw it in our compost heap.
  4. Determine how deep the sapling was planted previously – If you look at the trunk, there’s probably a visible line of discoloration. That was my guess as to the depth. It looked reasonable.
  5. Dig the hole deep enough in the center so that the tree can be COMFORTABLY (i.e. “not crammed”) into that hole. Mine was about 1.5 feet down, and 1 foot in diameter. The roots should have ample room in both width AND depth. (Note: You don’t need to dig out the whole area where you turned the soil — just enough for the tree can fit comfortably)
  6. Hold the sapling in mid-air so that the bottom of the root structure touches the bottom of the hole, and use your other hand to gently pull some of the excavated soil back into that hole. You want the sapling to stand up as straight as possible. You also may want to use work gloves, unless you really like getting dirt under your fingernails. Once you get enough soil in the hole that the tree can stand up on its own (a few inches deep should be enough), you can let go of the tree.
  7. Fill in the rest of the hole as best as you can with whatever soil you have available, then water it immediately. I used the remaining water in the buket where I soaked the sapling.
  8. OPTIONAL: apply mulch to the area where you turned the soil. Don’t let the mulch actually touch the tree (I’m not sure why, but that’s what the brochure said), but apply it generously. This will both prevent competing plants, help the tree retain moisture, and a number of other things. I used some compost from our compost heap.
  9. If you have a dry weather period, you should water the tree regularly. This is only necessary during its first year. After that it should do well on its own.

The Arbor Day Foundation is currently giving away 10 trees of your choice if you join the ADF. There’s a $10 donation to join, but considering that you’re getting 10 tree saplings out of it, I’d say that’s a good idea! We would do it if we had somewhere to plant them all, but sadly our yard isn’t big enough. :(

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Frank ventures outdoors while I attack the hedgemonster.

Sep 19

Posted by Aaron in Home Ownership | 2 Comments

I had been promising Melissa I would trim the hedges all weekend long. “Ok, TODAY I’m going to trim the hedges *mumble*inalittlebit*mumble*,” I said on Friday, Saturday and then again on Sunday. Something always conveniently seemed more pertinent at time.

But on Sunday, I finally decided it just needed to be done.

As I changed into work clothes and acquired the hedge-shears from the backporch, I had an idea: Why not bring Frank outside with us? He has been getting progressively more belligerent about dashing outside if we aren’t careful to blockade the lower two feet of the doorway when we come in or go out. His acrobatic antics have gotten humourously complex as well — the other day when I had the kitchen-guy (Steve) over, he came in the house toting a large toolbox. Frank dashed around me, jumped up on the couch, over the toolbox, and then ran between Steve’s legs!

I’m not really sure WHY Frank wants to get outside so much, but it kind of makes me think its an instinctual thing. He’s been getting a vicious case of cabin fever lately. I can appreciate that, having worked in a windowless office for 2 years. Usually when he runs outside he either prowls around the front porch, or crawls around to hide underneath the overgrown hedges that sit just beyond the porch.

The hedgetrimming went well. In fact, I found it quite fun. I think it appeals to my meticulous Virgo nature. I had NEVER trimmed hedges before, but I kind of had a rough idea of how it works. Shears aren’t exactly high-tech electronics after all. By the time I was satisfied with the first hedge’s appearance, my technique was pretty solid. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to wear workgloves; A fact which became quite evident as I took a drink of water from the oversized Taco Bell cup. Blisters seem to have a slightly different sensitivity to…well..pretty much anything.

The second hedge didn’t go quite as well. Mostly because the hedge itself looked like crap. It was definitely the “ugly one” of the twin hedges. I was able to get it trimmed down, but I’ll have to go back and work it over some more once it heals up a bit.

Frank really enjoyed his time outside. Everytime a loud car or bike would drive by, he’d immediately run back indoors. He prowled all over the front and side yard. He chased little white butterflies and moths, which was really funny to watch. He would dash at them and then make a flying leap to attack them with his front paws. At one point he actually had a moth pinned to the ground by its wings! Since then, we’ve become a little more relaxed about letting him run around outside. I guess he’s old enough that he knows where his house is and is aware that “it’s bad to move in front of things that are big, loud or move fast.” During this whole experience, I was very aware of the obvious parallel that I will re-visit once again in about 10 or 12 years: The process of starting to relax the death-grip on your child, and allowing them to slowly gain independence. I think I did pretty well with this. I know Frank appreciates it. I’m not too sure about the Moths though.

On an unrelated note, I was the featured blogger for this past issue of the Richmond News Review! If you act quickly, you could be the next winner of the iPod Nano!

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Day 21: Kitchen nearly done!

Sep 13

Posted by Aaron in Home Ownership | 1 Comment

The kitchen is nearly done.

After about 2 weeks of using dirty dishes, eating off of paper plates, and washing cups in the bathroom sink, we now have a functioning sink, dishwasher, and garbage disposal — and LOTS of counterspace! yay!These pics of the stove and refrigerator are both digitally altered. The stove and fridge won’t be moved into place until after we paint, which I think we may do tomorrow.

Tonight was a minor victory because I was able to load up our DISHWASHER (!!) with all the dirty dishes in the house and let IT do the washing. I can hear it humming 2 rooms over right now. We ran into a couple small SNAFU’s: The countertops came in yesterday, and they were installing them in the morning, while I was at work. Melissa was here and was sitting on the couch reading a book. Apparently “the guy” that cut the countertops made a slight mistake on the measurement for part of the L, and forgot to put the laminate on one of the standalone base cabinets! When Hank (the countertop installer) came out to tell Melissa, the exchange went something like this:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Almost There!

Sep 12

Posted by Aaron in Home Ownership | No Comments

Apologies in advance to anyone who’s been trying to get a hold of me the past few days.

The kitchen is nearly done. Steve and Hank should be coming in today to install the countertops. With countertops done, they can put the sink, dishwasher, and stove back. We just got our flooring put in, so the Fridge can be moved into place now. Between today and tomorrow the kitchen should be completely done. What a relief that will be.

I have been so ridiculously exhausted lately. I feel the weight of various obligations slowly wearing me down. I wake up every morning still tired, I go to bed every night exhausted, if I lay down too long during the day my eyelids get heavy and occasionally close. On one hand, there’s the school obligation — reading In Cold Blood (by Truman Capote) by Wednesday (A really cool book, if you’ve never read it). I *should* have had more time to read this if my seller from Half.com had sent it on time like she was supposed to (I ordered it the first night of class, thinking I would have a week to read it). I found out on Thursday of last week that she had missed the email and had only just then sent it out. So Saturday I went to Waldenbooks and bought a store-copy. So I now own two copies of a book that I only need to read for the first 3 weeks of class, and I have roughly 3 days to read 377 pages.

Then there’s the house issues. It’s still a mess. There’s furniture, boxes, tools, and odds & ends EVERYWHERE. Appliances regularly decide to migrate, seemingly of their own volition, into the living room, dining room, and basement. I think they might be chasing Frank around. I leave for work in the morning and the Stove is under the hood-vent, and I come home for lunch and it’s in the living room! Maybe it wanted to watch The Food Network on television or something, I don’t know. Melissa has been getting upset lately because of the state of chaos the house is in right now, and while I understand why she’s upset, I feel like there isn’t a whole lot I can do.

And then work. This is probably the biggest headache. For those of you who don’t know yet, and I apologize for not having told you in person, I got the job at IU East. I start on the 25th. Full benefits, Full Time, double my current salary, and a better working environment (part of a TEAM). I put my notice in here at the city, and my last day is the 22nd. I have promised that I would have the overhaul of the city-website revisions complete. ORIGINALLY, I had planned on having this overhaul done by the end of the year, and now I’m trying to get all the work done in two weeks. They have offered to pay me extra to work a few hours here and there after the 22nd, just to get the website finished. I feel a lot of pressure about this, partly from my employer, but also from myself — I don’t want to leave this position without having this project completed, because it’s kind of a summation of everything I’ve learned in the past 2 years. (For nerds: It’s a CSS/DIV based layout, with a MySQL backend using PHP to dynamically render all of the pages. It’s going to be SWEET. I’m also writing a Content-management system so that city employees can add new content via the website itself)

All I want to do is take a nap. Or a shower (we only have a bathtub right now). Or a day off. Something. I feel like there are so many things that need to be done, I’m having a difficult time feeling like they are accomplishable at all! (It’s the circular logic: “I can do A and B but not C… but I need to do C! Ok, I can do B and C but not A, but I need to do A!” ad nauseum) I haven’t been eating very well lately, only sleeping 6 or 7 hours a night (instead of the 8 or 9 my body needs), and I really haven’t had any time to just let my brain recharge (although I *AM* going down to the gaming store at lunch today to play some games with Ryan). I feel like I have no impetus left to start anything.

I’ll get some pictures of everything up here really soon.

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