Christmas Lights & Crows

D and I spent last Sunday afternoon putting up Christmas lights at 9808. He wanted me to document the task as it was our inaugural house lighting Xmas event.

We had quite a discussion about what type of lights we were going to use. I am pro all white lights (I think they look very classy) and D is pro multi coloured lights (he says they are the true Christmas light). I was initially going to try and stand my ground on the white lights but I am also very anti-LED bulbs. Even though they are the better option energy wise and the way of the future, I really don't like the look of them and they kind of hurt my eyes. So after much debate we decided to come to a compromise and go with the old school (energy guzzling) multi coloured Santa-Lites (yes they still sell them).  I didn't get stuck having to stare at LED's and D got his coloured bulbs.

D did most of the work whilst I did a lot of standing at the bottom of the ladder handing up plastic clips.

We bought 5 strings of 25 bulbs each which ended up covering 3 sides of the bungalow. It's a modest start but we plan on adding a few more strings each year. I would love to wrap the front porch, dormer window and possibly even Mr. Roboto, our Japanese Maple next year.

I also suggested that maybe we could switch out the lights to the all white option every other year. One year D gets what he wants and the next year I do ;) An added expense I know, but a gal can dream.

The front of the house is slowly improving but we still have a long way to go. Looking at this photo reminds me that we really must get on taking down the satellite dish and the air conditioning platform from the side of the house. Also the pile of asphalt from the driveway hanging out on the lawn isn't aesthetically pleasing either.

We were almost at the end of hanging the last strand when literally dozens of crows decided to have a crow convention above our house. I would estimate there was at least 100 of them. The experience was quite spectacular. The dark rain clouds made it quite ominous and the sound of 100 crows cawing at the same time was incredibly loud and pretty intense.

After a few minutes they calmed down and a bunch of them hung out in our tree for a while.

Diggin' A Hole

Last weekend D and I dug a hole in our front yard. Why you might ask? Cause we were preparing to welcome a new addition to the family :)

A while back I had mentioned that we would like to plant a Japanese Maple in the yard. Our previous townhouse had one in the back patio area and it was gorgeous. I loved watching it grow over the time we were there and am hoping our new tree will provide us me with the same enjoyment.

We dug our hole at the tail end of a two month dry spell. It was quite a process as we wanted to transfer the dirt to another area in the yard. D shoveled the dirt onto a tarp and then I separated the dirt from the turf, removing the weeds as I went. As you can imagine the ground possessed rock like qualities so the digging part was hard work. We also don't own a wheelbarrow yet so we had to transfer the dirt one shovel load at a time. We didn't have far to go, but I'm sure we looked pretty funny walking back and forth across the yard a million times. A wheelbarrow is definitely on our wish list for spring!

We filled the hole half way with water a few times to try to presoak the ground before we planted the Maple. If you don't do this then once the tree is in the hole the surrounding ground can steal the water away from the tree roots. Luckily for us the rain started a few days later and hasn't stopped since. So the ground was nice and moist come planting time. It's funny that now we are home owners with a yard we are trying to beautify, we welcomed the rain with open arms. We were actually quite excited about it :)

Yesterday was the day we had planned our trip to the nursery to pick out our Japanese Maple. I had practice and a game to attend in the morning to mid afternoon so by the time I got home D was itching to go. It was still raining, quite hard I might add, so I had my doubts about being outside. I also thought the folks at the garden center would think we were crazy for planting in the rain but turns out that it was the perfect weather conditions to plant a tree :)

So we chose a 3 gallon tree, grabbed some soil and bark mulch and drove the block home with our new Maple sticking out the back of our hatchback.

We decided to name our tree because we are dorks like that. So let us introduce you to Mr. Roboto, our new Japanese Maple!

And we have been personifying him ever since. Last night we had a discussion regarding if he was missing his friends at the garden center and that now he can watch the traffic go by ;)

We think he's going to be a great addition to our yard and can't wait to see how he transforms over the next few years. 

Mr. Roboto is currently the same height as D. Let's see what the height difference is a year from now. I should also state that the Maple tree is my birthday present (which is today) so we will always know what date to take another comparison photo :)

The final step was to give Mr. Roboto some root booster. Yes, we need an outside watering can as well ;)

Kicked To The Curb

Then taken out back and shot to the dump!

Here's a quick run down of what we ripped out and evicted from 9808 last week.

Day One

• The carpet leading to the basement. I didn't even want to walk on this thing in shoes it was so gross and smelt like a big wet dog.

As D and I were walking up the stairs to call it a night after sweeping the basement, I wondered out loud how hard it would be to pull up the carpet. "Let's see" said D and within 15 minutes the gross stair covering made of dog hair was history.

• The weed garden along the front of the house and attempted to tackle the weeds on the right side of the front door. The ground is as hard as cement which makes for back breaking work.
• The mailbox on the front screen door.

Day Two

• The front screen door.
• The ceiling fan on the deck.
• The leaky kitchen faucet.
• The leaking pipes under the kitchen sink.
• The carpet in the basement.
• The random fence panel in the front yard.
• Attempted to fix the leaking bathtub faucet (we need to order a new part).
• The gross discoloured Plexiglas panel above the bathroom counter.

• And lastly the carpet from the main staircase.....

Those of you who have been paying attention may remember that I posted about our Stairway To Heaven a few weeks ago. The main floor staircase in the house acts as a focal point. It's steep, original and worn from years of use. The risers are high and 80% of the stairs creak underfoot. It  definitely needs to be sanded and re stained in the future but for now I love it just the way it WAS!

For reasons we can't begin to imagine, the previous owner decided to carpet the staircase before we moved in. Please note that this was done AFTER we closed on the house. So the last time we saw the staircase it was happily carpet free.

The weird thing is they went to the trouble and time to do the installation properly. Well as "properly" as everything else in the house has been done. By doing this they have now shortened the timeline in needing to refinish the staircase. They took the time to nail in tacking strips and glue down underlay. They didn't take the time to remove any debris from the stairs before fixing the carpet down though. D found used Xacto blades and strips of staples sitting on top of the underlay under the carpet. Oh Jeez! In all fairness, they may have wanted to carpet the stairs in order to protect them when moving the furniture down but I would imagine using a piece of capeting or blanket would have worked just as well.

So my once beautiful (to me) stairs are now marred with nail holes and glue residue (and the odd missed staple here and there). But at least they are back to being carpet free.

House Tour ~ Before Part 1

OK folks here is what you've all been waiting for........some (or lots of) photos of our new humble abode!!

These were all taken about half an hour after we were given the keys and I'd a chance to do some exploring. What you see here is how we first laid our eyes on our new home. There wasn't as much garbage left behind as we thought there would be, but the house definitely hadn't been cleaned. Everything was covered in years of grime. Because of this, I refrained from hugging the floors right away ;)

OUTSIDE & DECK



KITCHEN

LIVING ROOM & HALLWAY

DINING ROOM

MAIN FLOOR BEDROOM & STAIRS

BATHROOM

Some of these photos aren't the greatess but I was excited and wanted to start getting my hands dirty (literally).

I will share Part 2 of the bungalow tour including photos of the upstairs and the basement in the next few days! As well as what we ripped the first day of being at the new house.

Does anyone have any guesses??

Green with Envy

The weather was fabulous this past weekend. D and I were outdoors for most of  it, camping in Fort Langley, relaxing at Cultas Lake and walking around our current neighbourhood in the evenings. Since we bought the bungalow we are finding ourselves taking note and becoming more and more envious of other people's yards.  We now seem pay attention to different types of flower beds, fence styles and house colour schemes. Gah, that last sentence makes me feel really old! We can't wait to start getting our hands dirty (pun intended) on the outside of 9808.

In it's current state the outside space at the bungalow is definitely green....but grossly overgrown, neglected, and just plain miserable looking. 

The worst of the mess is luckily hidden behind the house. The junk pile below, we believe used to be some type of carport. I'm assuming the owners tore it down with plans to possibly build something new and just didn't get around to doing any more work. Right now it's kind of a guessing game as to whether all of the garbage and junk will be cleared out before possession day. Our realtor thinks we shouldn't hold our breaths and to plan on renting a dumpster along with our moving truck. We will have to wait and see... 

That random appliance in the photo below is a weird sink/fridge/hotplate unit. Never seen one before and don't plan on keeping it. Maybe it will go on Craigslist if it's still there when we move in.

Saying that though....the current owners did offer to remove the six still standing steel posts for us. We are assuming  they only want to do this supposed kind act so they can sell them for extra cash. The last time we drove by they were still there, so again we will have to wait on see what is left behind and what's not. The less we have to haul away the better.

One of the first things we need to do on arrival to our new abode is build a garage. If you squint your eyes and use your imagination you can picture a fancy new double garage in this spot.

I was debating posting these outdoor before pics because the place is such a mess but having really bad before photos will make ANYTHING we do a ginormous improvement!

We plan to tackle the yard and outside space in phases:

1. General yard clean up and garbage removal. Basically clean out all of the left behind junk and de-weed around the house.
2. Remove chain link fence. As I mentioned here, we don't have any animals that need to be contained within our yard so the horrid fence needs to go.
3. Build garage. In order to do this we need to move the shed over and re-cement the current slab to make it bigger. As we will already be paying for the cement load fee we are also hoping to pour a small patio next to the garage on the left side of the house.
4. Transplant hydrangea bush.  Thinking of putting it somewhere along the left side of the property. I need to find out when the best time of the year is to disturb it from it's current resting place first.
5. Spruce up flowers beds along front of  house. 
6. Freshen up front porch. 
7. Plant a Japanese Maple. Again hopefully along the left side of the yard.
8. Fence or hedge along  front. We eventually need to dig out or bury the stumps that are left over from the old hedging, but right now they don't really bother me. 
9. Repaint house. Planning for summer of 2013.
10. Redo deck. Definitely in the long term plans.

There is a ton of  more work that needs to be done eventually to the outside, but right now a list of ten projects, some big some not as big, seems plenty enough to get started!