Now that my classes are over, and I'm not teaching this summer, I have more time to attend to a backlog of home maintenance projects. However, the backlog is rather daunting, and there are several high-priority items that have been there for years. I've been pretty productive over the past couple weeks, but at some point I'm going to be distracted from my tasks (like now, for instance) and let things slide once again.
See me below the fold for more details.
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Under normal circumstances, just keeping up with the weekly chores involved in running a household can be sufficiently time-consuming that nothing more than that gets done. But there are always those other things that need to be attended to, say, when something needs to be repaired or replaced, or when the clean-up involved is an annual job rather than a weekly one.
This weekend is being devoted to work in the yard and garden for the most part. My partner is working on a portion of the front yard he had fashioned into a terrence not long after we bought the house. He tried planting various things there (roses, strawberries, vegetables), but most things failed or did poorly because the soil quality was poor and the drainage was even worse. After ignoring the problem for years in despair, last year, he put down black plastic over about half the terrace to kill all the weeds that had taken it over, and now this year, the work begins.
Today he rented a trench digger in order to dig the trenches necessary for installing drainage lines. (The soil is clay and holds water better than a sponge. In the spring, if you dig a hole, it will spontaneously fill with water.) Once the drainage lines are installed, mulch will cover the surface, and raised beds will be placed above the drainage lines. Then actual gardening will begin.
Myself, I dealt with a problem related to water accumulation in the basement, which also required digging a trench. One of the downspouts in the gutters was blocked, which meant that the gutters on that corner of the house overflowed during heavy rains, and that overflow got into the basement. The blockage was easy to deal with, but it still took me 6 months to get on a ladder and see what was the problem. Now not long after we moved into the house, we had installed drainage lines off the downspouts to take that water away from the house, but one of them had a tendency to get blocked by dirt at the far end. I wanted to extend the line slightly and try to make the output about flush with the ground. So, my partner dug the trench, and I went to work to install the line extension.
These are jobs that have been pending or incomplete for years, but what else needs to be done around here? The storm doors on both the front and back need replacement. The latches on both of them broke. I would like to replace our current back door with a sliding glass one.
We need to sand down the deck and refinish it with the stuff that says it lasts for 3 years. Of course, it only ever lasts 1 year, but other finishes don't even last that long.
The large bathroom was renovated more than two years ago and we still haven't painted it. For that matter, we probably ought to repaint most of the interior of the house.
The windows need washing. In addition, they also need recaulking, and have for a few years now.
My desk at home is a choked mess. I need to sort through it, organize what I need to keep, and throw out massive amounts of crap.
My war against the multiflora roses continues, as I have cleared three more briar patches, but there is still much more to do.
I don't even want to bring up cleaning the spare room, much less the basement.
I suppose if any of this stuff gets done this summer, I ought to be reasonably satisfied.
So, is anybody out there working on home projects this weekend?
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May 25, 2012
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