as a teacher, summer is known as the time for getting stuff done that you can’t do during the year. like work on this house. so i’ve been double-timing it recently to get these projects completed. if you’re interested in home improvement, you might continue to pay attention. if not, feel free to come back and read about music reviews or how my life doesn’t always work out the way i think it should or whatever else it is i ramble on about in these things.

ahem.

at the start of the summer, there were four major projects that i needed to complete.

1. natural gas installation (furnace, stove, water heater, dryer and more)
2. re-do the roof or pay someone to re-do the roof
3. build a deck to replace the old one
4. build a fence to replace the old one

i also have a bunch of little things to do, like build a door for my new room and maybe a bathroom, but those are non-critical. well, i suppose nothing is critical, but i want to be done working on this beast as soon as possible. i’m tired of working by myself. at any rate… i now have only three projects to complete and two of them are half-way done! the crazy neighbor is apparently going to build a fence, so i don’t have to worry about that (or the cost!) anymore.

the gas piping is in and holds about 40psi of compressed air. an inspector came by this morning and frowned at our water piping (well, mostly the previous owner’s piping, of course) but gave us the seal of approval to get hooked up to the natural gas system in the street. all i have to do is call the folks at the gas company and they’ll set it up for a measly cost of $400 which can be included in our gas bill for several months. yes! a gas stove finally!

the old deck has succumbed to my furious smashing. there are some pictures of the event, even. and since i had the camera out, why not take some video of the final moments of this heinous example of terrible construction techniques? yes, why not? (it’s kind of large: 128 MB. i’m too lazy to shrink it or optimize it for web streaming) the deck is now a pile of rubble that my dad and i will load into a truck early next week and transport to the wood recyclers that he knows of. what good green remodelers we are! (not really).

on top of all this, i’ve also pulled about 150 pounds of weeds from the various planting areas and planted an iris plant in the garden that’s been sitting around for two years. i also fixed a bunch of sprinklers and turned those on for the first time this year (see? saving water!). i might try to rehabilitate the back lawn a bit for the upcoming house re-heating party that we’ve been discussing. perhaps we can show a movie on the back of the garage or something. that’d be fun.

we’ll see.