Over the July 4th weekend, Rick has been keeping himself busy working on one of our 2010 renovation goals (which is surprising given his penchant for starting new projects, like staining our stairs).

He’s been braving the North Carolina heat and clearing out the brush at the back of our yard:

He’s been making fantastic progress, stopping every now and then to snap a few pics to send to me. At the very back of the brush, he’s made a good clearing…

And between the trees, he’s starting to make headway clearing out smaller trees and brush:

What’s taking the most time is clearing out the random menagerie of bricks and breeze blocks that have been long buried in the undergrowth…

These leftover bricks must be a gift from the previous owners (and builders of the house).  I guess burying them in the back yard was easier than getting rid of them the normal way. Rick says they must have been there for years because the trees have actually grown around some of the bricks…

So far he unearthed a truck load of bricks…

Oh yeah, and a copperhead snake.

That’s a new critter to add to our list! (read about the deer, moles, bats, spiders and bugs).

The house renovations have slowed down a bit lately.  Maybe all that new homeowner vim and vigor has finally run out. Or the money has run out. Or perhaps is just takes two to do the renovation tango.  Renovating can be fun, but it also can be a tough job for two people to do together, let alone on their own-some. My month long excursion to the UK didn’t help our progress. Plus, as soon as I got back to America, Rick had to go on a week-long work trip to Notre Dame university (I tried not take it personally). Yesterday, a good friend noted that I hadn’t posted on the blog for some time, to which I replied that we hadn’t recently finished many projects to blog about.  But it got me thinking about all we have done around the house.  Today marks six months being in our new house.  Six months! Where did the time go? Seeing as I tend to be a ‘glass half empty’ kind of girl, now seems like a good time to think about all the projects we have completed so far:

All carpet has been pulled up

Back yard fence was built

Front and back doors were replaced

Landscape lighting has been installed

Downstairs bathroom was gutted and new tile installed. Bathroom vanity made over with a granite top and vessel sink.

New exterior lights installed

Dining room window replaced

 French doors hung between kitchen and office

Foyer chandelier replaced

Two foyer walls removed and headers installed

Dining room floor painted

Master bedroom ceiling fan installed

Dining room chandelier replaced

Siding removed and rehung

Thermostats switched out

100,000,000 green bugs,  3,000 big-ass spiders, 2 bats, a mole, a lizard, a frog… and a partridge in a pear tree.

Pheww! We’ve been busy! But all this optimism is making me feel all Paula Abdul – I’m much more Simon Cowell-esque (must be a British thing).  If I wear my pessimist hat for a minute, I’d hate to compile a list of all the projects that we have left to do around the house. Wow, that list would be longer than a prize bull’s ba-donk-a-donk. We’ll get there in the end.  That’s what the bull said.

…with a swarm of critters. Another project we undertook this weekend was removing all the overgrown, weed-infested bushes around the perimeter of the house. A chainsaw, a rake and a lawnmower (plus two crazy people working in the heat) were all it took to take the bushes down…

What was more interesting was the sheer amount of creepy crawlies (and other small animals) that emerged as we tore down their home. I cannot count how many large spiders we encountered….

I’m not even sure what these two bugs were. Any ideas?

 The first bug was relatively small, but the second bug was huge – about the width of Rick’s hand. At first we thought it was some kind of spider – we counted 8 legs.  But after closer inspection, it appeared as though the two longer “legs” were feelers, making it an insect of some sort.

We disturbed about a trillion of these green leaf-like bugs (can you tell I’m no entomologist?). Once we had removed their bushy abode, they took up residence all over the fascia of the house.  I am starting to understand exactly how many bugs exist out there in the world.  Did you know that there are approximately 10 quintillion insects on the planet – about 200 million insects for every human. I think about half of those insects were in our bushes…

In addition to the creepy crawlies, we found a few other surprise visitors.  Like this tiny, cobalt blue lizard:

and this adorable little frog:

Who knew that our house was a cornucopia of critters?

Don’t let this innocent face fool you. Puppy + small chihuahua teeth + insane amount of energy = chewed house. Reebs doesn’t chew the usual dog fare – shoes, bones, toys and so on.  Reebs is a true renovation dog – she likes to chew walls, wallpaper, insulation and siding. Yes, siding.

Now admittedly, the siding on the back of house by the deck wasn’t in the best of condition when we bought the house. It had already began to rot and tear away in some places.  So, in actuality, Reebs just sped the removal process along by chewing the siding off the house. And she made a good start on the underlying insulation too. Especially in the house.

When we replaced the old back door, we had to remove part of the walls, floor and subfloor to repair the rot and damage. We haven’t quite got around to covering the wall back up – so many projects, so little time yada, yada, yada. Since we moved the dog detention area from the dining room to the kitchen, Reebs has been going to town chewing on the walls.  She has completely chewed through the wall insulation from the inside, and with her siding project on the outside, she is well on her way to making her own little dog door.

So, this weekend, it was our priority to get the siding replaced. A couple of months ago, we bought some heavily discounted hardi-plank siding off Craigslist, in anticipation of this very project. So, we already had the materials and tools to hand.  The original siding came off with little problems. A few measurements, cuts and screws later, the replacement siding was up. 

It is not an exact match to the original siding, but it is a whole lot better looking than the half-chewed, half-rotting debacle that was there before. And hopefully, seeing as the new siding is hardi-plank, Reebs will not be able to chew through this stuff so easily! When in the yard, she’ll just have to amuse herself by chewing on some more bats, bugs and moles…

First task today was to finish the trench for the landscape lighting cable.  I was relaxing, I mean, supervising Rick from the comforts of our porch on our new rocking chair (another great bargain found on sale at Big Lots), when I spied two visitors just across from our front lawn.

In the first picture, you can just about see two deer on our neighbor’s drive.  Luckily, I had my camera to hand and snapped a couple of photos. Seeing that I needed the telescopic lens, I ran inside, changed the zoom and took the second close-up.  I guess this is one of the joys of country living – having such fab wildlife in your front yard!

Anyhoodles, after that little bit of excitement, Rick and I got on with finishing the landscape lighting. Following the steps we outlined here, we now have fully functional and maintainably tuft-free lights.  Now all we have to do is figure out how to get Number Five out of our yard!

Our exterior landscape lights have been out of commission for the past few weeks. We intentionally disconnected the lights in order to come up with a solution for dealing with our tufty grass.

The wires connecting the three pairs of lights run above ground, so Rick has not been able to get too close using the ride-on lawn mower.  The result being that we have about a 30 foot strip of grass where the lights are placed, plus another 30 foot of wire that runs to the house, where the grass remains much longer than the rest of the lawn.  Whilst we can weed-wack the majority of the grass around the wires, it’s not the best idea to get too close to the lights themselves.  That’s left us with these huge tufts of grass obscuring the lights.  We could, of course, manually pull up the grass around the lights every week, but that sounds like way too much work! )  Much easier to come up with a more permanent solution to our tuft problem.  

So, that’s why we decided we needed to disconnect the lights and bury the cable.  Once the wires are out of the way, Rick will be able to mow the majority of the grass with the lawn mower.  Much easier. No more 60 foot strip of overgrown grass. Nice.

In order to protect the cable in its new earthly resting place, we bought about 60 feet of 3/4″ pvc pipe to thread the cable through before burying.  The pipe came in 6 x 10 ft. sections, which worked out really well as the lights are spaced approximately 10 feet apart. So the break in the pvc pipe comes at just the right spot where the next set of lights start. 

We used pvc connectors at the end of the pipes, plus an elbow connector to steer the cable towards the electrical supply on the house. We decided against using any pvc glue to join the pipe/connectors.  This gives us some flexibility to change the pipe configuration at a later date, should we decide to add to our little landscape light family.

Next up? Digging. We tried using a shovel to dig a small 2-3″ trench for the pipe to lay in. Tried, being the operative word here. Our clay soil is one hard …. (insert appropriate expletive here), and even after a few days of rain when you think the soil would soften up some, we were still unable to make much progress. Seeing as renting an appropriate tool costs anywhere between $60-$80 bucks for the day, it was definitely the more cost effective solution to spend 50 bucks on an edger/trencher attachment for the weed-wacker. So with power tools in hand, Rick was able to make the 60ft long, 3 inch deep trench in a matter of seconds.  Ok, not seconds.  But, you get the idea. 

With the cable buried and the majority of the lawn “mowable” again, we then needed to find a solution for the tufts of grass around the lights that are not “weed-wackable” (wow, I’m creating a slew of new adjectives here). Our original idea was to dig (ugh!) around the lights and bury some landscape edging. Doing this on four sides would create a little box for the lights to sit in and be protected from the ravages of Rick’s weed-wacker. We could then stop (or at least temporarily inhibit) the weeds and grass coming through by placing down weed cloth with landscaping rocks on top.

When we got to the DIY store, list in hand, we actually came across a better solution. These rubber mulch rings, typically used for around trees, were perfect for slipping around the lights and inhibiting the weed growth.  Yey, no more digging! Plus, they are totally safe for being mown over should Rick get a little lawn-mower crazy.

So, there you have it – our solution for dealing with tufty grass around landscape lights. Minus the 50 bucks for equipment, this project was very cost effective (around $30) and will save Rick a lot of hassle over the coming summer months. Cheap and effective.  What more can a girl ask for? Well, now that you ask… Shoes. Clothes. Make-up…

As the afternoon progressed, the clouds rolled in and the wind picked up, so much that parts of our fence started swaying ominously.  We prepared for the thunderstorm by propping up sections of the fence with 2×4 posts (the extended gate needed extra support in the high winds, as did the temporary, non-cemented sections of the back fence).  But before we called it a day on the outside work, we decided to quickly finish off the fence by removing the tops of 4×4 posts and placing decorative wooden knobs on top.  Tres chic!

It was not long after we finished with the knobs that it started to rain.  The wind really picked up, ripping the new screen door open and crashing it closed. Rick solved the problem by tightening up the hinges and the latch on the door.  It appeared that we were going to be in for one heck of a storm. But, the thunderstorm never really amounted to much all evening.  There were a few flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder, but not even enough to make our doggies scared.

The weather has been very changeable here in Bahama, North Carolina.  You know spring has arrived when one day it is glorious sunshine, and the next it is raining cats and dogs (an interesting phrase that one – apparently its origins can be traced back to the filthy streets of 17th/18th century London, in which heavy rain would occasionally carry dead animals and other debris along the gutters).

The flux of sunshine and rain has caused an eruption of greenery and flowers.  I couldn’t resist photographing the rain droplets glittering on the grass in our front yard. Well, I think the clover pictured here is actually considered a weed, but it is a beautiful weed nonetheless.