House work, yard work.

I’ve been plugging away at the house. I think I’m just about done with plaster in the living room and dining room. All that wall damage…I’ve put nearly 10 gallons of drywall joint compound in. I have just a bit more sanding left, and then I’ll finish the foyer, and then paint! should be soon. I’m excited. You can see the reds on the wall in the living room. We’re going to do stripes. Wendy took a few of me working up on the scaffolding (wow, thanks Troy, that makes life so much easier). Wendy also took a picture while I was sanding – good thing I wear a respirator, don’t you think? Just a bit of dust in the air. (from wb: I took the third picture because I thought the table looked like I imagined Miss Havisham’s.  Any Dickens fans out there?)

And now, from Wendy in the war on weeds and vines.

Alas that I did not take any photos of the”before” scene around the outside of the house. Suffice to say that we have metres and metres, hectares it feels like, of english ivy, that pernicious, evil, horrible, wicked weed!! I hate it!! So here we have what looks like a lovely little woodland path through the trees and underbrush (ie, the ivy). May I just say that it took me 2.5 hours to make that lovely little path? There had been about a 10 inch wide path before, but that isn’t even wide enough to walk through. So after mowing it over, I hacked and yanked and pulled and chopped to get all the ivy and roots out of the path. And you can see how much ivy is left. Sigh. Although I will say that the neighbours’ house has even more ivy – it’s their entire back yard, no grass at all. So this is sort of what it looks like in our yard altogether.

Here is a close up of the path. Please take a moment to ooh and aah.

This next photo is the front flowerbed, minus all the ivy. It took about two and half days to get all the ivy out of there. Imagine, if you will, the previous picture with a flowerbed beneath. I think I found a rosebush. All those stepping stones are “new,” meaning that I didn’t know they were there.  Oh and that’s plaster dust coming out the front window.

Here is what the house looks like from the road. I tried to get an idea of what it would look like to the neighbours because now that we live in the “chichi” (not) subdivision, they send little newsletters around saying “let’s all take the time to beautify our lawns and gardens, shall we?” Oh indeed, tralala. So I’m making an effort, although I daresay I have to make more of an effort than most of them due to the neglect the place has suffered. And the side yard that is full of rocks doesn’t even bear thinking about!! Any recommendations of grass that can stand total shade, rocky soil, and semi-damp conditions? In fact, I wouldn’t even go so far as to call it rocky soil; it’s more like slightly soily rocks.

So, while David wages war with plaster and sanding, I am bringing the wrath of God to the ivy (because I told it I was God to it. It quailed in its roots, I saw it quiver.) Stay tuned for future fun in the sun, same bat time, same bat channel…