by Derek Winters
It’s been two years since my last post, and again, quite a bit has changed. I found a lot of projects to keep myself busy during COVID, both with the lab and around the house.
This post will be off topic from the usual IT content I post. Lab updates will come in the next post.
With so many unknowns around what the year was going to be like, we made the decision early on to switch our focus to our family and our house. That started outside with the landscaping.
In the middle of 2020 was the 5 year anniversary of moving into our house. We had made the decision to take the first 5 years to get comfortable in our house but keep the changes limited to basically paint and decorations. After 5 years we’d take a look at the house and what our lives looked like, and decide if we wanted to move or start to make the house our own. Although there are some things we think we still want in the future that we can’t get with this house, we’re going to do another 5 years, but this time do what we can to make the most of everything we do have in this house. After another 5 years, we’ll be getting to the age where we’d like to get the kids in a house they will be in until they leave, whether it’s this house or a different house. The plan is to make this house as close as we can to our ideal house.
The first thing we needed to do was get to work outside. Whether we stay or move, the landscaping was in need of a redo. The rock landscaping was beyond saving, so the first thing to do was remove every rock that circles the house, and all the plants that had been getting the bare minimum of maintenance. There were also 3 overgrown evergreens and a tree stump from a tree we lost in a storm the year before to remove. The stump grinding was hired out locally and well worth the cost.
This was a LOT of work. Anyone who’s stuck a shovel into a pile of rock will agree. Top that off with probably 20 years of dirt settling into the rock, and I think I spent around 2 months shoveling rock one wheelbarrow at a time. With the gyms closed down I used it as my daily workout.
I’m never shoveling rock again. I’ll need to refresh it occasionally, but I replaced it all with black mulch. I also reshaped it to better suit the house and lawn.
Next up, a playset for the kids. I dug out a square approximately 20’ x 20’ and used 2 rows of 4”x4” timbers to hold in 7 yards of playground mulch. Both of these were again done by hand.
Another project I won’t be doing again, but boredom and a need to do some physical work kept me going.
After all the damage I did to the lawn with the first project, I was finally able to convince myself it was worth it to try a lawn renovation, something I’ve always wanted to attempt.
I killed approximately 2500 square feet of grass. The whole front yard.
I got 10 yards of dirt delivered, and I spread it around one wheelbarrow at a time (again). I used a neighbor’s riding lawn mower and lawn roller to smooth it all out. There were a lot of places that needed some leveling.
After that, I spread around 100 pounds of seed and 10 bags of peat moss to hold it in place and keep it moist.
Then it rained. A lot. A LOT. I think we got 4 inches of rain in a few hours 4 days after I put the seed down. A lot more seed and peat moss was needed to fill in the washed out areas.
Two months later, it was time for the first mow. The lawn looks awesome. I used a really high quality bluegrass/ryegrass mix from a local supply store and it shows. There is a defined line between the neighbor and my backyard. It’s a beautiful, thick, dark green/blue grass. I’m looking forward to seeing how it looks after it’s had a full year to establish.
After enjoying the last month of summer and the first month of fall, it was time to get to work inside. First up, my home office. I love working from home full time now, but the office was in need of a facelift. The original color choice (dull green) was terrible for 8-9 hours a day.
We’ve talked about redoing the trim in the house to update it to white, so the office was the trial room. I also wanted to change the closet door. The location of my desk and the bi-fold doors was really awkward and I wanted sliding doors.
The office was emptied out, and the walls were repainted with Sherwin-Williams Agreeable Grey. It’s a great color. All the trim was removed and wow, painting is so much easier when you don’t worry about trim.
Next up was getting the new trim in, and ripping out the old bi-fold doors and sheetrock door jamb. I build a new jamb out of pine and hung sliding doors. I also painted the office door and the new bypass doors.
The room is SO much better. It’s amazing how big of a difference it made in my mood during and after work. The dreary green color and the clutter that had built up really had taken a toll on me, and 6 months later I’m still surprised at the difference it makes.
The final result of the one-room remodel was the stamp of approval to do the rest of the house.
After having cleaned up the room so much, I really wanted to get the lab out of my office too. The noise from the computers was distracting during the day, and it left me with no closet for storage.
That migration coming up in the next post.
Next up was the bathroom. It was old. It was dated. It had no storage space. Now that I work from home, my bedroom and my office are both downstairs, and I used the upstairs bathroom to get ready in the morning. I’m downstairs 20 hours a day and all my stuff was upstairs.
We decided to postpone a full remodel and go with the utility/cosmetic upgrades, and leave the shower for another day. I took out the old pedastal sink and put in a small vanity so that I can have the storage below, and some space on the vanity to set things when getting ready. I replaced the mirror with a medicine cabinet, and painted the walls and replaced the trim with white trim.
I still need to move the plumbing behind the wall so I can recess the medicine cabinet into the wall. The bathroom is pretty small and although the cabinet is better than the old shelf that was in the bathroom, it still makes the bathroom feel too small.
The final project was replacing the rest of the trim in the basement and painting the doors. I will replace the doors eventually with nice 6 panel doors and properly paint them with a spray gun. I just patched up the existing flat doors and painted them with a small, smooth roller. They look good but the doors weren’t in great shape so this was just a cheap patch on doors that will eventually need to be replaced.
I also replaced the broken sliding door in the basement now that we actually use the back yard with the playset and our new black lab.
It’s been a crazy year, but I’m amazed at how much I was able to accomplish this year with so much extra time. I’m looking forward to using all the new skills I’ve learned around the house into our upstairs, and am excited to have people over to see all the improvements I’ve made. It’s a great feeling to look at all these changes and know that I did it.
Now it’s time to get back to writing about the other big hobby of mine: technology. I’ve made a lot of changes to my lab and my home automation system, and I’ve taken a lot of lessons learned from my job into both of those areas.
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