Water!

   While we were walking out of the door to go to church yesterday morning we found that water had come in downstairs and that saw that there was a puddle in the bathroom floor.   The problem had become worse when we got back home that afternoon and water had moved to a couple of other rooms.

  We didn’t know where the water was coming from.  At first we thought that there was a leak behind the shower..drywall is dry…maybe the drain overflowed….water originated from a different place in the basement..toilet leaking…toilet is completely dry.  It’s been raining at our house for a few days and the ground is completely saturated, so we figured that the rain had something to do with the problem.

  We almost never have a problem with water coming into our basement, but like 85% of other homeowners it does happen at some point.

  We hadn’t cleaned out the gutters yet this year, so Mom and I got on the roof and found that the guttering was very clogged up and probably played a role in the mischief.  Being up on the roof in work clothes in the rain wasn’t in our plans for Easter, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.

   Benjamin worked for hours and hours yesterday and today running the Shop Vac to suck up the water.   He’s already emptied  100 gallons of water, but the water would just re-appear up to a certain level.  Mom did some research this morning and found that probably what we have going on is a water table below our foundation that has filled up and can’t be absorbed into the very over-saturated ground.  Benjamin found that the water was seeping up through a crack in the basement floor.

A sump pump should ensure that this never happens again, so in the near future we will be using a jackhammer to bust up the concrete to make way for the new pump.

Mulching the Yard

Yay! It’s mulching day!

I’ve always enjoyed mulching our yard because of the huge difference it can make in such a short period of time.

Thankfully we’ve already gotten both riding lawn mowers running, although the mower won’t engage on one of them.

 

We had to make a couple of berms last year to help manage the enormous amounts of water that are eroding our yard.  We’ll also add some ornamental plants to the berm.

 

We’ve also ordered some grass plugs that should hopefully transform this yard into a lawn.

The Handyman Can

 

 

Renovations: New Doorway & Microwave

To prep for the new doorway Mr. LaMotte had to cut the frame for the ceiling tile.

Doorway studded out

Staining the new door

We also wanted to install our over-the-stove microwave that's been in storage for a couple years. We ripped off the 80's hood range and Noah had to cut off the pipe for the vent.

We're going to put a decorative board that matches the cabinets over the frame.

Oct. 12-New Carpet!

During the past two weeks we've been working on renovating our house in preparation for some new carpet in the bedrooms and new stone floors in the kitchen and living room.
Here were the plans:
All of our bedrooms are going to be moved into different rooms, so to do this we would need to build a new doorway in the basement. We would also have to pack up all of our belongings and move ALL of our furniture from ALL 5 bedrooms and try to stack it in the living room. We would be staying at a friend's house nearby since our beds were piled away. Then, we would need to paint 4 of the bedrooms and also buy and paint trim for the rooms and closets. After that, the carpet could be ripped out and installed by the professionals.
The carpet was finally installed yesterday! It has been quite a job, but we've had a whole lot of help from the LaMottes and our relatives.

July 23, 2009

I began by cleaning off the roof with the leaf blower. Meanwhile Mom started painting the first gable.
We have a small pond with rock around it that we want to get rid of (I’ve wanted to get rid of it for years-so I’m really excited.) So my brother’s and I set up a little system to filter through all of the dirt and keep the landscaping rocks. It goes something like this:
I use the pick axe, shovel and rake to beat up the dirt and scoop it into a little bin. Next, Noah shakes the bin to get rid of all the loose dirt. The loose dirt lands in a box so we can use it to fill in the pond later. Noah hands the bin to Benjamin who dumps it into a big Rubbermaid box full of water. He shakes the bin around and skims off any leaves that come to the surface. Then he dumps the clean rocks into a box.
Anyway, we almost got the whole pond area done, but it’s pretty back-breaking work.
We had to cut this day a little short because Lydia had to go to the groomer and Mom and Kate went to go see a movie. So my brothers and I stayed at the house and tried to surviveJ. We played a good game of soccer that evening, but it had rained and we were constantly falling and tripping-a good game like I said.
Lydia also got groomed tonight. As you can see from the before/after pictures she almost looks like a new dog. The entire family would rather that she had long hair, but when her hair’s long it get knotted up.
Paint gables I of III
Rake out around pond
Blow off roof

July 20, 2009

We got up early and after breakfast we wrote a list of projects to work on during the next six weeks before we put our house on the market. However, I’m sure that the list will be twice as long before we’re done because we continually add projects to the list.
Benjamin washed down the garage door and painted it very white-a little too white!
We washed down one of the three gables and hope to be painting it tomorrow.
Noah took apart the down spout of the guttering system and cleaned it out. It had gotten clogged up and the water wasn’t flowing away from the house last time it rained.
I recently cleared some area of our yard that had “grown up” in the past couple years. WE have a few grape vines so I had to be careful when I was cutting all of the underbrush down. There were also a whole lot of thorns so I was pretty thankful for my leather work gloves! Anyway, I dragged all of the branches and thorn-um-plants to a burn pile.
I also stripped some old caulking from a window with a screw driver and utility knife.
“Replace Porch Carpet” is on the list so I pulled off the old carpet and scraped some of the adhesive away. Benjamin & Mom washed the old carpet and put it on the deck.
We have three riding lawn mowers. Zero work. We haven’t mowed in a month (the day before we left for Boston) and although the grass isn’t too tall for tennis shoes it’s still pretty dangerous for sandals.,.
This spring we had gotten two of the tractors fixed, but a mower blade was bent on one and another one won’t even start up. We took off the mower deck and tried to bend the broken blade back in place (try saying that five times fast!!) However, we couldn’t pry it in place plus it wasn’t pliable enough to position it (alright enough with the tongue twisters.)
Tonight we went to Sears & K-Mart to pick up a new mower blade and some paint that wasn’t so white. However, the paint area had been removed and the paint areas at the other stores had already closed down.

Today we marked off:
Replace light bulb in white lamp post
Gather aluminum cans to recycle
Haul away branches
Remove caulking from Noah’s window
Wash down garage door
Paint garage door
Wash down front porch area
Wash gables I II & III
Clean gutter extensions
Clean porch carpet