Springtime!

At the house there is a scary wood mask, covered in some kind of peeling leather, that has been outside on the deck for ages.. probably because of its creepy factor. Two weeks ago, a pair a robins decided to nest in it.

at two weeks ago
at three days old..
at nine days..


you have to watch the video..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyPz7U24eg0

CaCa Brown..

I wish I had more pictures of what this bathroom looked like before renovation. It was all brown.. brown bathtub, brown toilet, brown bidet, brown carpeting.. yes wall-to-wall brown carpeting in the bathroom. I call this color Caca Brown, my father calls it Chocolate Brown. Either way, who really wants a brown toilet?


We had to shift all the plumbing under this raised platform 6" to accomodate a new sink in the place of the brown bidet, everything but the tub was changed out. Electrical outlets added, shower added to tub, tiled wall & floor, replaced boards & refinished wood floor.

moving & refinishing the tub, tiling the floor...

tiling the wall..

This is what it looks like now.

Jackhammer

Jack-hammering the basement floor of what will be a new bathroom, to lay the piping. We had to pour a concrete slab in the basement, 1100 sq.ft. because the floor was originally just dirt under the floorboards. But this is the only place where there was already concrete.. and it was too high to lay pipe.

The Most Wonderful Thing

This is one of the best I have ever found in a house. Hands down.

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The Dump

I go to the Dump about once a week these days. In the beginning I used to go everyday, twice a day sometimes. In the last 365 days I have gone to dump well over 80 times. El Caballo Blanco, my trusty steed, has hauled over 50 tons of construction debris and refuse to The Dump. We also haul bags and bags of books for donation - please don't tell the powers that be. Here are some hauls I photographed:

Whiteout in DC

So we have had an enormous amount of snow these past few days. Sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning our 50 foot pine tree fell over into the street under the weight of the 20+ inches of snow. RJG’s first reaction: "Uh oh.. all the animals are buried under there" - the dog, the cat and numerous hamsters whose names we have forgotten.


Pater has been mourning the death of the pine tree ad nausea and has grand plans to hoist it back into position with ropes and pulleys. I am glad that the pine went down, it was growing perilously close to the house at an alarming 60-degree angle. This morning, in the midst of an even worse storm, some amazing neon suited men lopped off the top of the pine and other hazardous broken tree limbs. Thank you neon men!

Trees are falling down all over the neighborhood, this one on New Hampshire avenue a few blocks away crushed two cars.

outlets

outlets