Wallpaper Free is the Way to Be

I've been a busy bee around the house. as my last post and blurry picture alluded to, I rented a steamer and de-wallpapered both bathrooms. The guest bathroom is going to be interesting since there are maroon stripes of paint under the wallpaper -- presumably to match the wallpaper in case the seams didn't quite match. Plus the bathtub is goldenrod. We are currently accepting suggestions for the color palette in here. My bathroom was a lot easier. There were actually TWO layers of wallpaper to deal with, however the original floral wallpaper, circa 1979, was so loose that once the edges came up the entire sheet would pull off without much, if any, damage to the wall. There were only a few spots i really had to work the paper off.

721 is essentially wallpaperless now! This excites me to no end! Now I'm in the repair walls and re-paint phase. To quote Robert Earl Keen, the road goes on forever and the party never ends. That is about how I feel about home ownership. I may complain about it, I am forever mid project, and I know there are 50 more projects on the horizon -- but i love every moment of it, especially the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of my labors.

In other home improvement news, I was able to get the bushes at the end of the driveway removed yesterday. One of the guys I work with has been scouring warren county for brush for a work project. He came by and picked up the last limb from the snowstorm. I let him peruse the yard for anything else he might want. I mentioned that I was willing to part with those bushes. One truck, one chain, and three shovels later, we had success! The taproot on one of those things was giant! There is no way I ever could have removed it by myself.

All in all, a successful Saturday. Who knows what Sunday will bring?

Time for me to go do some wall repair prior to priming/painting. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll squeeze in a bike ride. Thank you daylight savings time :)

It's Electric!

Power, don't try to live without it. Seiously, we are in a very power dependent society. I discovered how dependent I am today. It has been quite a ride.

This morning I woke up and there was a funnyish smell. Half of the house didn't have power, and half did. When I got out of the shower they were back on. I was worried, so I cut power to the house and put the dogs in the yard. I needed to go into work and obviuosly, I needed to find an electrician reccomendation.

So the electricians came out. They looked at the exterior and said the problem was that one of m 110 wires wasn't feeding the house and I needed to get the Power company to look at it. Then, the power company came out. They took a look, opened up the meter box, and told me it was a problem on my property and I needed to call the electrician. WHen I looked, the wire comming into the meter box was totally fried. I feel completely blessed that a fire hadn't stated. They had to cut the power comming into the house because of the fried wire. SO the electrician came out and replaced the box bringing power into the house. At that point the power company was able to come back out to the house and re-hook up power. By that time, I just called it a day and didn't go back into work.

I learned a lot today. The power company is responsible up to the weather cover, even thought there are 12 ft of wire between there and the meter box. The meter itself is property of the power company. The electrician can't remove it, the pwoer company has to. However, the electrician is the one who has to do something with the box itself.

It made for a long day in the house - there isn't much you can do without power. I couldn't even get music to entertain me while cleaning. Plus, the cell phone was dying and I couldn't charge it up. Ah the joys of home ownership.