The renovations have slowed down a bit lately as regular work has taken over.  I start teaching this week (where has the summer gone?) and so have been prepping for that, whilst Rick has been working overtime doing computer-related stuff.  One thing that has not been working overtime is our lawnmower (did you like that segue? )

Although the lawn mower almost brand-spanking new -  we only bought it back in March and it has less than 10 riding hours on it – we’ve had to return it to the manufacturer to have it worked on.  Rick started using the mower and after a bit it stopped cutting.  When he inspected underneath, he noticed that the transaxle has a bunch of stress fractures.  Not good.  So while our lovely new mower is having plastic surgery, the dog run in our back yard currently look this:

and this

Don’t judge.  Luckily, it’s just the dog part of the yard that looks like this – we managed to get most of the lawn (the main bits that the neighbors can see) done before it conked out. We’re working on getting a loaner mower whilst ours is being repaired, so hopefully soon we’ll have a less “junglified” yard for the dogs.  In the meantime, I guess Rick is just going to have to get his wacker out.  Weed wacker, peeps.  Keep it clean

When the hubs and I went out for a rare trip to the cinema to see Avatar, we caught the trailer for Despicable me:

It wasn’t til just recently that I noticed we have a despicable dawg under our own roof.  Can you see the similarities?

The likeness extends beyond the silhouette.  Our puppy Reebs has taken to leaving us “presents” around the house.  Understandable perhaps when we are gone from the house and the dogs are kept inside.  Not so much when we are both here and she has free access to the yard.

Solution?  Install a doggy door.  With the exception of the property we rented when we first moved to NC, we’ve had dog doors in all our houses, and so all the dogs have experience using them.  Everyone except Arriba.

This time round, Rick wanted to install the dog door in the exterior wall, rather than the back door. In the past, we’ve had issues with the dog door being fully waterproof because it tends to sit unevenly in the door paneling. 

The dog door was surprisingly easy to install.  Cut out hole in interior and exterior wall using the template provided.  Laugh at dogs pondering the new hole:

Try to stop chihuahua from using dog door without steps:

Next, screw the exterior side of the dog door into the studs. 

Although it was not in the instructions provided with the dog door, we went ahead and installed an additional wooden threshold under the door frame – this was to provide extra support for the dawgs as they come through the door.  The last step was to screw in the door from the inside and caulk around the frame outside.

 And voila!, one dog door installed…

It was quite gratifying to see the dogs use the door for the first time.  It’s amazing that they didn’t forget how to use it after three years without a dog door.  Ok, it’s not rocket science, but the little things get us excited round here.

We’re planning on eventually replacing those old deck steps, but for now they do their job well enough.  Reebs has taken a little time to get used to the door.  But with sufficient coaxing (i.e. treats) she has started using it really well!  No more despicable Reebs.

There’s all sorts of regular candy floating around at this time of the year.  So how about some eye candy – at least its fat- and sugar- free!

I took this picture of Arriba when she was sitting in the sun on our couch in the front room.   I was trying out my new  F1.8 50mm lens (which is a Christmas present from my family – ssshhh, don’ t tell them I’ve opened it already). Isn’t she adorable? The innocence in her eyes totally belies her devilish nature!

Today, I am returning to the US of A, back to Rick and the doggies. 

The trip to the UK has been fun – as always, it is great to see family and catch up with friends.  A LOT of work was achieved, unfortunately at the expense of spending more time with family and getting to visit some great sights.  But we do what we must.  I can’t wait to get back and get some sorely missed cuddles and kisses.  Yes, I mean from the dogs.  Oh, go on then – from Rick too.

I have been working like a crazy mad woman since being in the UK.  During the past week, I have worked six 14-18 hour days – but at least I gave myself Saturday off.  Wuh hoo. With all this work going on, I haven’t been able to get out and about much, which means no nice, interesting posts of my sightseeing exploits for my blog readers. Boo.

So, I thought I’d throw you a bone and post a little eye candy to tide you over.  No, it’s not George Clooney nekked.  I did have a rather interesting dream about Brad Pitt last night… but that’s another story.  Move aside RPattz, there’s a new boy in town.

Meet Indy. He’s my new squeeze here in ol’ blighty. Well, technically he’s not mine at all – he belongs to my brother’s family.  But who can resist his cute puppy face?  This dog is so goofy that you can’t help but smile when you see him. His tongue lolls to the side of his mouth as he bounces up to greet you. And he has limitless amounts of energy.  He runs all over my brother’s farm (attracting dirt and grime as he goes), catches all the rabbits and brings them back home as presents for his owners.

Indy is not the only cutie-pie in the family.  Meet Buckley.

Buckley is Indy’s “brother from another mother”. He is the complete opposite of Indy.  Cool. Calm.  Collected.  CLEAN. He is the perfect snuggle-up-and-cuddle type dog. And will give you as many kisses as you desire.  Even ones you don’t.

Meet Freddy, my grandparents’ dual-personality canine. This Jack Russell is the most loving dog INSIDE the house.  But when my Gramps takes him out on walkies, he’ll try to bite anything that moves.  Seriously.  Not just stray legs or hands – I’m talking moving vehicles.

So this poor little fella has to wear a muzzle when he’s out and about on the town. He couldn’t be any more different in his home environment – even when strangers come in the house, he is happy to to cuddle, have the prerequisite sniff and then hunker back down in his bed. He even has his own blanket that he covers himself with.

It’s not all boys around here.  Meet Mollie, my mum’s partially-deaf (and totally daft) dog.

Mollie is the grandmother of our UK canine family.  She is getting on in years, so it is not surprising that she is partially deaf, sleeps like a rock and snores like a freight train. Kinda like me – except the getting old part.

At least I have these bow wows to keep me company while I’m away from my own canine family.  Oh, and Rick. He’s my dawg.

This weekend, we decided to tackle one of the outstanding projects left on our downstairs bathroom renovation. Above the vanity, we are planning on hanging a large silver mirror, topped off by a satin nickel vanity light.  When finished, (probably in the year 2012 at the rate we’re going!), it should look something like this artistic rendition.

In order to install the new light, we need to run electric wires to it,  either creating a separate switch, or splicing the vanity light into the existing wiring for the ceiling light.  We needed to figure out a way to run the wires without making gaping holes in the walls and ceiling.  We needed to think outside of the bathroom box. Literally.

The floor of the library upstairs runs directly over the bathroom. If we pull up the subfloor in the library, we will be able to access the ceiling light wiring and splice the new fixture. From our previous demos in the library, you may remember that the sheetrock walls and flooring have been removed, leaving only studs and subflooring – here’s a reminder pic of what we’ve been living with these past few months.  So it is really not much more of an eyesore/inconvenience/mess maker to temporarily remove the subfloor too. 

Now, in order to get to the subfloor, we first needed to remove the stud framing and the old door way. The wall that runs down the hallway is not a supporting wall, so could be removed with no worries. 

The wall that is adjacent to the foyer is a load-bearing wall, and so cannot be completely removed until a header is put in its place (much like we did with the two foyer walls downstairs here and here). To keep the subfloor sheet in tact, we did need to remove just a couple of the studs on the supporting wall.

Once the walls were out of the way, Rick was able to pry up one of the subfloor sheets. We did find an electrical box for a ceiling fixture, but unfortunately, it was for the wrong light! The hallway ceiling light sits just outside of the bathroom, so at least we knew we were close.  Another subfloor section coming up! 

By the time we sussed out where the bathroom ceiling lighting is, we were quickly losing light (generally not the best idea to be splicing electrics in the waning day light).  Just in case we hadn’t had enough fun for the day, before we laid the flooring back down, we got the fright of our lives. Earlier, I had been cautioning Rick be careful walking on the floor joists – one slip and he would fall right through the ceiling sheetrock into the hard tile floor below. No, Rick didn’t fall through, but one of the dogs almost did! As we had been working upstairs most of the day, the dogs would, from time to time, come and visit us and see what all the noise was about.  They would run up the stairs to the library, inevitably see that there was no flooring, and stop midstep at the top of the stairs.  But not our little T-Rex (who is either really brave, or really stupid…). He ran up the stairs oblivious to the missing floor and plopped straight into the cavity. My heart froze as I hoped the sheetrock would hold … which it did.  Luckily, Rex quickly realized the situation he was in (as judged by his ultra-wide eye balls) and jump out toute-suite. No harm done, just a few skipped heartbeats! So, with dogs rescued from impending doom, we layed the subfloor back down. We’ll deal with the electrics another day.  Stay tuned…

What is it with critters around our house just lately? Last week, we had two bats in the house (one dead, one alive) and now this week we seem to have a mole problem in our backyard.  Well, when I say ‘problem’, I mean it in the broadest sense. First of all, it’s not like we have acres of lush, manicured lawn that these critters are blemishing with their dirt mounds (plus, given the height of our grass lately – due to a broken down lawn-mower – it is not likely that we can see any mounds in the first place!).  Secondly, finding one mole hardly constitutes a mole ‘problem’ (can you say drama-queen, Amy?!).  Lastly, even if we do have a mole melee going on in our backyard, we seem to have at least two very adept mole killers on our hands.  Shrimp  and Reebs have been digging along the side of the house lately – little did we realize that they were after this furry quarry. After letting the dogs back in from the yard yesterday afternoon, I found a dead baby mole on the deck. Although I cannot know for sure who the mole killer was, both Shrimp and Reebs seemed very protective over their beastly bounty.  At one point, Rex tried to take a quick whiff of the mole but was taken down street-style by the two girls for getting too close. Maybe we should think about renaming Shrimp and Arriba to Killer and Fang…

When Rick and I are out of the house for longer periods of time, we confine the dogs in one area of the house (in order to minimize “puppy presents” scattered throughout the house).  Of course, when I say confine, I don’t mean squeezing all 5 dogs into a 3×3 cell.  In fact, as far as dogs go, they have a pretty cushy life, spending time in our 300+ sq. ft dining room, replete with bedding, toys, food and water.  Since getting our new dining room set, we’ve been meaning to relocate the dogs to a new area and actually use our dining room as, well, a dining room.  Novel idea, huh? )

The problem is that after many-a-day of 5 dogs staying in the dining room while we are both at work, the room has become a little … let’s say, dingy.  Dirty. Smelly. Gross.  All are acceptable adjectives here. 

So before moving in our lovely brand-spanking-new dining table and chairs, we needed to clean things up a little bit.  Ok, a lot.  We knew the cleaning would need to go beyond simple sweeping/mopping of the floor.  So, in anticipation for this weekend’s project, during the week we bought a gallon of Kilz  to treat the floor. We got the oil-based version, as it is more adept at blocking strong odors and stains than the water-based version.

After Rick had cleared the room of the dog accessories and swept up, I got my first experience of painting a floor. The Kilz went on quickly and easily, covering all of the dubious stains and smells (some made by our dogs, some a left-over from the previous owners.

About an hour later, the paint was dry to the touch and we moved the dining room set in.  And voila! In addition to sealing any residual doggie odor, the white paint has the added bonus of making the room seem so much more airy and light. The painted floor will serve in the interim until we are able to put hardwood flooring in there.  Until then, the dining room is strictly a no-doggie area!

In addition to painting the walls and installing new floor, we’re getting ready to change out that dated chandelier with a modern light fixture.  Stay tuned for the big light switcheroo coming soon….

With the extra long Memorial Day weekend upon us, we have a number of projects planned to complete:

1. Convert dingy dog room into delightful dining room

2. Paint and install French doors between kitchen and office

3. Finish trench for outside landscape lights (and then mow grass!)

4. Grout the downstairs bathroom tile

5. Develop and upload secret photography project to blog

Not sure exactly how many of these projects will get done, but that’s the plan anyway.  Check back to see how we’re progressing and in the meantime, have a great Memorial Day weekend!

We love our dogs.  On the whole, they bring us much joy and happiness.  Occassionally, we consider how much easier life would be in a world sans-canine. Not having to clean up “presents” left by the puppy. Not having to clean dust bunnies from the floor every few days.  Not having to replace the front door.  Huh?

Our dogs hate being left in a room when they can see we are somewhere else.  On this particular occasion, Rick and I were working outside, just beyond the front door.  The dogs could see us through the windows in the two formal living rooms, either side of the front door. We were quite tickled at the sight of our dogs pining away for us – after all, we were just 5 feet way (can you say separation anxiety?).  Shrimp even started shaking and shrieking like she was being skinned alive. Whilst all this was going on, our newest addition to the family, Arriba, decided to start scratching on the door. About 10 minutes later when we came back inside, we were greeted with this sight – a piece of the bottom of the front door was missing!

Now, we knew that the front door would need to be replaced sooner or later.  We were kinda hoping on the later.  Like most of the exterior on our house, there has been some water damage and rot, and the front door was no exception. However, we did not fully realize just how bad the door must have been at the bottom for a small 5lb chihuahua to make so much damage in just a short span of time. Apart from the esthetics, we were concerned about the security of the door.  After all, if a 5lb chewie can eat through the door in 5 minutes, who knows what a well-placed foot by an intruder could do? So, off to Home Depot we went (for the 365th time this month).  Luckily, they were having a sale on exterior front doors (yay!), and so we snapped one up tout de suite. 

Rick installed the new front door as soon as we got home. The existing wood transom windows will need to be replaced soon, but they can wait for a little bit.  The new steel door is primed, ready for paint.  We will probably end up painting the door and transom in the same color to seamlessly blend the old and new. Yet another thing to add to the renovation to-do list.

Buy new door. Check.
Replace door. Check.
Replace chihuahua …