Oh Smack, a Fence: Fence Stage Four

Remember way back when? Back when we wanted to build a fence but couldn't because the sheriff (who's also a zoning board member) dropped off a zoning application on our doorstep? Well, Jessie drew up some very detailed plans, which I biked down to the Town Hall (yes, that's the main Town hall entrance) and paid $40 to get a zoning certificate, finally allowing us to build a freaking fence. Only took three months for us to get this far.

Then, Jessie told me her dad and grandparents were coming down. I got home from work one day, and found this.
Hmm. That wasn't there before. Apparently they drove down in the morning and Doug and Larry started throwing up some boards...until they ran out of boards. It's so close, it's palpable.

Well, what else could we work on? Let's start with the holes in the roof. Yeah, that's probably a good thing to do before winter sets in. The eves on this house were "constructed" after the original house was put up. At least, I hope so. Typically, decking boards (4x8 sheets of OSB (oriented strand board (cheaper, pressed form of plywood))) are extended across the exterior walls to the outside edge of the eves. Instead, the geniuses who did this took some 6" wide tongue-and-groove boards and nailed them onto the exterior wall, cantilevered out...with no other support. In case not all the people reading this are engineers, let me just say that this is beyond stupid. Thus, our eves sag like crazy. It looks, and is, in every sense of the word, {awesome}>[span style="font:sarcasm;"].

For now though, the main issue is that there are four patches of shingles suspiciously missing from different sections of the eves that allowed a lot of water and other crap in. This kind of repair is something that I lovingly refer to as a "band-aid on a broken leg." It works for now to keep our house dry and seal up the attic, but doesn't address any of our structural issues, which will ultimately lead the roof falling off, more or less. For the record, tar paper does not equal shingles.

That phrase doesn't really convey our appreciation for the assistance in getting this done, because this will stave off heat-loss and water damage for a few years for the cost of a bundle of shingles until we can just redo the whole roof properly. This is a good thing, for our sanity and our wallets. Check out how awesome it looks all patched up, as demonstrated by these before and after pictures.












I would like to say that I actually came home and helped, or built the fence in any capacity, but not this time...Doug and Larry knocked this out and quickly at that. For that night though, everyone went to sleep, Doug on the couch, Larry and Dorothy in half of one room (post on that room is in the works)...then Larry and Doug woke up at some ridiculous hour, drove 20 minutes back into town, picked up the rest of the boards and hinge hardware we needed, then got to work making the gates to close up the perimeter. If you too would like to spend your vacations like this, leave a comment and we'll send you directions to our house. We'll provide the tools.

Before we knew it, we had a complete fence, including two gates to allow us easier entry and exit from the car parking area and the front garden, which has already come in very handy. Yeah pup, this fence is for you...to be trapped in forever! I wish we could trust him to just hang out in the yard and not bolt every time he sees a squirrel...but I'll settle for him having zero vertical, thus rendering him physically incapable of clearing a 30-36" fence. And it's completely 100% done forever! I mean, almost...


Now, I've talked in detail about the most cost-efficient design for our particular fence needs, which does indeed have its good and bad points. Ultimately, all that you need to ask is: Does the fence design work? In a word: Hilariously. Observe, in stunning 720p HD:

Tom

Currently listening to "Gunman" by Them Crooked Vultures

Blogging Accoutrement

Our blog, brought to you by Jessie and Tom, with this sweet gear:

Jessie's Laptop - a 3+ (almost 4) year old MacBook.  After 4 years of trying with various Windows laptops and desktops, I dished out the money for a Mac (since I still had my 10% student discount - woohoo!).  By the way, if you are a college student or have one in the house, check out their Apple deals.  Typically, most universities offer a 10-15% discount on Apple products (well, at least I know they do that for computers).  Lo and behold, it's still running after almost 4 years.  Plus, I have this pretty sweet guy in my life that decided to upgrade my hard drive to something pseudo-big so I could actually have more than one tv show and several pictures on it at once.  Yes, I know they have online storage for pictures and I do use Picasa, but I haven't been able to figure out how to link the web address from the online albums to the blog....and I thought I was fairly good at internet-type things.  Argh for always setting my privacy settings to make myself invisible!

After several years of having this great Apple Protection Plan for my computer, which lasts for 3 years, I could not get any chips or cracks replaced for free.  Therefore (yes, I know it is late), I actually got a silicone cover to protect my keyboard, especially since Optimus sheds a bit and his hair gets all up in my keyboard.  Gross, I know.  Anyway, I am in love with this cover.  It took forever to find since my laptop is moderately elderly compared to the current technology of the day, but after some sleuthy detective moves, I found one that wasn't clear or white.  If you just so happen to have an older 13.3" MacBook like mine and you LOVE pink silicone keyboard covers, you can find them here on Amazon.  While Amazon lists theirs for $9.99, you can get them new from the "Used" list for $2.75 plus shipping, which is about half of what it costs to buy directly.

Tom's MacBook Pro, which he got about 3 years ago.  At that point in time, we were in a VERY long distance relationship between North Carolina and Michigan.  Video chatting was weird to me (think Skype), but we needed a better way than talking on the phone every now and then to quell the 2 month breaks between seeing each other.  Enter the iChat feature.  With built in cameras, we used mac's version of AIM (iChat) to be able to see each other face to face even when we weren't together.  3+ years later and his computer is still holding up like a champ. 

 

iPhone.  *Deep breath and pause*  Yes, we are those yuppies...but only in that way...I hope.  Nearly ALL of the pictures we use in our blog are taken with the cameras on our phones.  They even take video, which you may have seen in the post showing our buzzing bees.  In the next few days, I am going to be including a tutorial on how to make a coat rack which will include that exact video feature. 

Of course I am one of those people who has a puppy picture of my dog on my screen.  Optimus was a cute little one.  He looked so fierce and majestic.

So this is the equipment we use.  Well, the aforementioned and these: 

Yes, my incredibly dirty, grody, gross fingers that I use to type out the blog posts.  Also, I may have mentioned in the "Manic Monday" post that I busted through the platinum prongs on my wedding ring and lost the diamond.  Well, we found it next to Optimus' food bowl (the weirdest thing, I swear) and got it all fixed up.  Plus, you can see my pretty thrift store ginormous costume jewelry. 

Before you judge about the Apple products, let me just say it has been the right decision for me.  All of my products have lasted SO much longer than any non-Mac item.  Plus, I like to use the photo editing, video editing and music composing software that comes built in with the computer.  Every now and then, I bust out my guitar and open up "GarageBand" to rock out and record a few songs.  My thesis was composed in my video editing program and all of our wedding photos were edited through iPhoto (as well as every other event in the last 3-4 years).   In the last few years, I've convinced my brother, sister and dad to go Apple.  I'm still working on my mom though.  

Jessie

Currently Listening to "Tennessee Flat Top Box" by Johnny Cash

Breaking the Seal

Behold. My first blog post. I really don't know how I am supposed to feel about this.

Regardless, here it comes. Since Jessie's first post gave a very (very) brief overview of the house, I figured I'd share some of the more useless "Tom and Jessie's New House Trivia." For example, can you guess what gifts the previous owners left behind for us?

If you guessed a Mickey Mouse light switch plate, a bathroom drawer full of used Gillette razors, and a note from a mother to her child about behavioral care, you are correct. In the interest of patient confidentiality, I'll just post a picture of the light-switch plate, which happened to be in the deepest, darkest corner of the unfinished basement, mounted to a 3/8" OSB wall.

If I was to draw the line from Disney decorations to assume this was the kids' room, they must have hated their kids. I mean, they did get a window peering out to the backside of a large bush. Well, it's just a screen, the glass is missing. But hey, they got their own plumbing. Plus, they could lock the doors for privacy (the "they" in that sentence is the parents, as the locks are on the outside of the doors and are padlocks). You know, the more I talk about this, the more I feel like this was a murder house. Awesome to the max.

This house has got it coming. And IT is a long list of stuff. You'll see it as it comes up, as that is the purpose of this blog, but we've already started stripping paint, repainting, replacing appliances, taking off doors, and building furniture. Next on the list is: patching some missing singles on the roof, replumbing, rewiring, finishing the floors, knocking out walls.... ...actually, I think we're going to wait on that last one, at least for a week or two. In a couple weeks we'll have some assistance painting the outside of the house as well, possibly. Plus, we have to plant our garden with the quickness and make a sweet fence for a small part of the yard so we can just let Optimus run around outside a little.

Anyways, stay tuned, because now we're both posting...so get ready, or something. Obviously, Optimus is not ready, but he is keeping my left hip warm while I write this.

Tom

Currently listening to "Unraveling" by Sevendust