Is that dumpster here to eat my car!?

Fine! I have been anxiously awaiting our new roof to be finished before my next post but it conveniently snowed all over it before I could get a picture. Dumb snow, I haven't seen the ground since November! I am also terribly embarrassed to post exterior house shots with the roof in its previous condition because it is pretty gross looking. But here it goes anyways!

The front is hard to notice unless you look on the side and then you see the shingles are all curly.

Check out the nifty exterior front porch. The freshly painted brown or deep red timbers of next summer will hopefully blend with the bricks better than the green is currently doing. A couple of cheerful gnomes on the stoops and we will be set!

Yes, the deck is pretty ugly too but right now we are supposed to be focusing on the roof.

The back was by far the ugliest. A close up shot of the curly shingles. Yikes! They were only a little over 10 yrs old (if the 90's Emerald green-ness of the house didn't give it away) but they were the defective Certainteed shingles. I tried to figure out how to get some money out of the deal but we closed a week after the deadline for ownership on the claim. It would have been a lot of work for not a lot of money anyways. That is, if the previous owners hadn't already filed a claim and then didn't fix the roof. Also a possibility.

Overview of the dumpster with the dead tree trunk in the way - another project for warmer weather.

Yay, fresh shingles!! They are dark brown which looks a bit ridiculous with the white, white stucco and green timbers but there is no hiding the fact the exterior needs fresh paint so hopefully passerbys realize the situation.

Also, is this the first view we have had of that infamous hot tub?? I believe it is!

I will be posting new roof pictures asap though hopefully not too asap because that would mean what little attic insulation we have really isn't doing its job.

Disclaimer: With these outside shots a random reader may be thinking "hey, I know where that house is. I think I shall break in and steal stuff." Well, remember that KitchenAid in my last post? That is about the only thing of value in here so you may as well leave after grabbing that! As Mark knows, my troll dolls can be quite vicious and they are not afraid to attack.

Circles and Squares

OK, no squares just circles and other odd angles. And by squares I mean square corners which one would expect to find in a cupboard but I guess my cupboards are just that special.

As you can see the cupboards are painted a glossy Harvest Gold. Not my colors, but also not disgusting cleanliness wise so I though I would scrub them down for the time being and they would be usable.

Wrong! They were completely covered with a sticky film from old shelf paper and on top of that another sticky mess from foamy shelf covers. No amount of Goo Gone was going to help us here. Not to mention missing paint, knots and nail holes.

The top shelf still had the original paper. Not bad, it matches the counters almost perfectly.

While trying to make my choice between the 4 papers Target had in stock I decided this would be adequate for my funky, retro kitchen. I do feel I have a natural talent for laying shelf paper so when I noticed the geometric pattern I thought nothing of it. Plus the other choices were vomit, diarrhea and clear? how does clear cover ugly boards!? Yes, I am aware there are thousands of patterns to choose from online but this isn't permanent (I hope) and it was at least $10 a roll cheaper.

I scrubbed and sanded and scrubbed some more trying to make the boards less bumpy from sticky deposits and knots. When I set out to measure I discovered each shelf was a little wider on the right than on the left and the back of the cupboard was always a little skinnier than the front. The shelves also are permanently glued and/or nailed in place so no removal for easy access. I fought with the paper, ruler and X-Acto knife for a while (i.e. all afternoon for 3 shelves) but I think it turned out decent.

The finished product. Fortunately I can only see the bottom shelf and the fronts of the others so those were all that really had to be aligned. Note my KitchenAid is dwarfed by these suckers - I need a chair to reach the second shelf and a ladder for anything beyond.

A side note: It's official! I do not have to share my washer and dryer with strangers (er, strange neighbors) anymore! I can do a load of laundry and not worry about someone throwing my undies all over the floor before they are done because they immediately need to wash something. I should add if I discover this has happened I can narrow it down to Mark or Frankie, maybe the dog.

Cat Pee is Smelly

So I am backtracking a bit but these pictures were on my mom's camera. Remember that green carpet in the master bedroom?

The cat pee smell was not going away so we had to do the extreme and rip it up.

Otters is helping Frankie, of course.

It's even worse smelling when it's up off the floor.

Yowza! What is brown and stuck all over the floor!? It looks like poo which someone carpeted over but we are hoping it was once something with a high level of fructose corn syrup which fell out of a can or Burger King cup.

Bye carpet! We will miss you though your essence still lingers because you are sitting on the front porch. Anyone need some Emerald green carpet?

A much needed and much fresher smelling improvement.

We also got the box spring upstairs so we have a real bed again. Hooray! We just had to take off a few boards on the back and it was bendy enough to fit around the corner. My dad is pleased to be in the process of putting it back together again.