Sodbusters

Hey, Internet.

This entire weekend was devoted to grueling yard work. And grueling yard work f***ing sucks.

With the Cannonball turning 16 in a few weeks, we'd been needing to create some serious parking space for the additional car that's gonna be clogging up our driveway. At one point in time, months ago, Kris and I had entertained the idea of going in with our neighbors when they announced they were repaving their driveway, because God knows it'd be way cheaper to do it all in one, fell swoop. Then we had to go and buy a third car (which is loads of fun, by the way), and I started thinking about losing all that side yard grass permanently.

Ultimately, we decided to just take our neighbors river rock when they repave their driveway (they offered to have the cement company guys just shovel it over to our side of the property line when they moved it out of the way.) Ideally, we'll keep this parking space with rock until both girls are out of the house for good, then move that rock into the various beds around the house and yard, plant new grass seed, and go back to having a legit side yard again.

That's the plan at this point, anyway.

So early this morning Kris and I ran down to this local, heavy equipment place that rents out various machines on a two or six-hour basis and rented a sod-remover for the morning. In order to get the driveway prepped for all that rock, we had to first remove the grass by cutting up the sod; I wanted to keep the pieces of sod intact so that I could transport them around the yard and plug up holes and fill in not-as-awesome spots here and there with good, legit grass. To do all this by hand would take forever, and it would be mindless, excruciating work, so we looked into renting a machine to do it.

As you can see in the video above, this machine made short work of the actual cutting process (once we got the hang of it - there was a definite learning curve to operating this 500 lb monstrosity.) The worst part of this whole project, by far, was the moving of the sod pieces - it's far heavier than you'd think, and difficult to carry (it flops around and crumble, so you have to be extra careful transporting it.) Kris and I were able to, miraculously, get the machine back up the ramp into her van and return it to the rental place in little over an hour after checking it out, then spent the remainder of the day (seriously) moving sod.

The girls helped a little, too. . . but there was a difference in Abby's contributions to the project versus Alayna's.

Anyway, here you go folks - a not-at-all fun, but productive, weekend project.  Enjoy. . .

With the sod all cut up in neat, little columns, we set to work chopping it up into rows with shovels in order to get them to sizes we could actually carry out.

We had no idea that this part of the process - the cutting up and removing of the sod in smaller pieces, carrying it all into the backyard, would be the most grueling part of the process. . .

Definitely didn't help that I had set the sod-cutter to its lowest setting in order to make sure I had cut up all the grass. Mission accomplished as far as that goes, but it added inches of dirt underneath the layer of grass, and that was not fun at all to move.

Abby created a pile of sod in the backyard, kinda by our back patio, as a staging area that I could grab pieces from as I re-planted them in various spots around the backyard (that whole endeavor took up eight hours of the following day.)

We'd rotate jobs so that no one got burnt out with doing the same thing for too long. I'd cut sod for a bit, with Kris and Abby moving the pieces into the backyard, then we'd switch it out.

Alayna kinda putzed around the edge of the yard and cut out the grass from the sides of the driveway and sidewalk (I didn't want to get too closet to the concrete when running the sod-cutter, so gave it about 6-8" on all sides.

The sod weighed so much in transport that Abby at one point broke our gardening wheelbarrow. So now we get to buy a new one, which is totally awesome.

Still chugging away at the side yard, in the early afternoon. As people broke for a lunch break, I cracked a beer and sat in the sun for twenty minutes or so, giving my worn-out, old man body a bit of a breather.  Best. Tasting. Miller Lite. Ever.

I tried getting Alayna to help us move the random pieces of sod lying about to various parts in the front yard (like what I was doing on a much bigger scale in the backyard) to plug in holes and help out crappy spots, but she wasn't really feeling it I guess. She went inside and showered shortly after this.

Around dinner time, we had successfully removed all of the sod from the side yard (though the pile you see here still has to be relocated.) I sprayed an entire jug of Round-Up weed killer on the dirt, just to play it safe, before rolling out a mid-grade weed cover to prevent plants from growing up amidst the soon-to-be distributed river rock. 

To say I was sore after this project would be an understatement. Holy Christ. . .

So there you go, folks - in a few days all that rock you see to the left there will be moved over to the weed covering, and - once the sprinkler heads (flagged) are capped off by our sprinkler company - Alayna will have her very own space in the driveway.

- Brian

Housin'

The Living Room

What's up, Cyberspace.

As you may recall, a couple weeks ago we went out looking at houses with our real estate agent, Steve.  Of all the houses we've seen since that first outing, one stood out from the rest - if you'll recall, from an earlier post, it was House #2.

This house, while lacking the fourth bedroom we wanted, is just about perfect.  It has a large, fenced-in yard with an automated sprinkler system already in place and a hurricane-proof shed FULL of tools and lawn supplies being left behind.  There's ten fruit trees in the back yard as well, with a side yard large enough to accommodate our swimming pool, and a spacious back patio with adjustable vinyl windows and retractable blinds.

Check it:

The Backyard

I guess I'm going to have to learn how to take care of all these damn fruit trees. . .

Patio (terrible picture, I know - I'll replace it as soon as possible)

In fact, this house had been so well-taken care of, and had so many upgrades done to it recently, that there were nearly a dozen cash offers on it from investors, banks, and other rich folk looking to turn it into a cash-cow rental unit.  The asking price for the house was $128,000, and most of the cash offers on it were in excess of $130,000.  Unfortunately, despite our excellent credit and spotless records (believe it or not, mine is actually better than Kris', and we're both around the 800 mark), we poor Houghs could only muster a loan offer for $126,500 once the comp appraisals came back.

Chances of us getting the house were indeed slim.

. . . but that's when our kids came in.

Thanks, Cannonball.

While seeing the house for the first time, the sellers - a lovely elderly couple who were all-around, genuine nice people - took a shine to our offspring (don't ask me why, they were behaving like total basket-cases that day), and later expressed interest in selling their home to the "nice couple with the cute kids."

That's right.  The Houghs.  Screw you, rich people:  behold the almighty power of the fruit of my loins.

Despite the big banks and investors trying to out-bid on the property, we prevailed and secured the seller's interest.  All this regardless of the fact that,

Living Room (Formal Dining Room in the back)

In your face, banks - we're closing on May 31st!

We hadn't expected the sellers to sell us the house, seeing how we were offering them much less than the other interested buyers, so when we received the good news we were floored.  Steve scheduled a time when the inspectors could come by and check the place out, which only gave us more good news - everything was in great - if not eerily perfect - shape, and the sellers were very happy to be handing it over to us.

As we took a second look at the place, we were even more excited about getting the house.  Like I said in an earlier post, the roof has just been done, a new hurricane-proof garage door (which runs silent as the grave, might I add) has been recently installed, and there are gothic-looking bars over all the windows (the sellers used to vacation in New York for months on end, and secured the house like Fort Knox whenever they left - a huge plus for me, personally).

The Kitchen

The nook itself might be a bit on the squished side, though (the patio is in the back beyond the sliding doors)

This room shall become the Study

I wasn't about to start complaining about the wall-to-wall closet space in my Study - I'm a hoarder, so it'll definitely help.

This will be the girls' bedroom. . .

Same size as the room they have now, but we're thinking about getting them bunk beds to conserve space. . .

The Master Bedroom - large enough to fit all of our bedroom furniture, plus Kris' Mega Desk (that window in the back opens up to the screened-in patio out back)

Living Room and Dining Room (Kitchen in the back through the doorway)

As the Houghs have no use for such a thing as a Formal Dining Room, we're going to convert it into a Playroom for the girls. . . 'cause we're classy.

More of the Living Room (Master Bedroom there to the right, the lit-up room is the girls' bathroom, with the Hallway also leading to the girls' bedroom, the Study, a few closets, and the Garage)

So, as we start the mountain of paperwork that is involved with transferring over the title, scheduling hordes of inspections, filing insurance and comp claims/estimaets/what-have-you, etc. etc., we'll also be packing like crazy.

The Germ Factory

Rest assured, this will probably be the craziest month we've had in years.  My students are bouncing off the walls, seeing how the dreaded FCAT has come and gone, and they're all gunning for June 8th (when we get out for the summer).  This means that while lesson planning has gotten a lot easier (seeing how kids are requiring more hands-on work to keep them focused), I'm more burnt-out at the end of the day.  To make matters worse, Kris has had to take the last week and half off of work in order to stay home with two sick kids (who, of course, are sick on alternating days).


Good times.

Let the epic countdown towards the end of the school year and the new house begin.  We're up to the hilt in peril and stress, but couldn't be more excited about all our good fortune.

Stay tuned, folks!

- Brian