With Christmas over and New Years on the way its safe to say its OK to start thinking about the stuff I want to finish up and the stuff I’d like to do in the spring. I have had alot of people joke to me “oh that’ll sit for another 10 years” in reference to some of the loose ends left at the house when I moved in, however now I can attest, I see where they were coming from.
After such a long and tedious process renovating the place, its often hard to have any motivation to get any work done when you know that you can just sit on the couch without any detriment to your being able to “live” in the house. Many of the items that are still open ended might not even be noticed by the casual observer or guest to my house, but I really do want to get them done.
As of now there are still a few pieces of baseboard missing as I ran out. I ran out because two pieces got wet and coincidentally moldy while being stored on the floor of the garage prior to my buying 30+ feet of drain pipe to extend the downspout all the way from the back of the house, through the garage, and into the street.
My Dad has the window sills for my bedroom and the kitchen still at his house to be cut. There is also a trim piece for above the fridge that needs to be cut that I haven’t exactly missed not being there. The upstairs bathroom door still isn’t painted. This is kind of laughable because I probably could knock it out in 2 evenings after work.
Half of the basement is cleaned up as of now. I would like to build some more shelves down there and generally get the place to not feel so filthy…not that I spend any time down there, but I think that when we were doing demo, several tons of black soot made their way down there.
Two of the biggest goal’s for the spring are the back patio and the garage. Neither have much direction at this point, but a little “As seen on TV” product known as the Potty Patch has given me some inspiration…for the patio atleast.
I bought a Potty Patch for Huey shortly after bringing him home. While some people use this thing inside their house, I decided to put mine just outside the back door. I mean really, isn’t it counter intuitive to have your dog peeing inside your house but at the same time wanting him to be ‘potty trained’? Once I got him to go to the bathroom on it for the first time, it has been pretty easy. This piece of turf is really only like 2′ x 3′ (if that) but saves you many trips to the park if you are a city dweller like myself. With a limited back patio that really won’t ever be a truly enjoyable outdoor space, I got to thinking…
I’m sure this stuff has been out for along time, but until now I never really considered it to be an option for fixing up the back patio while at the same time serving a purpose. After some reading, it seems that there are countless companies who produce artifical turf for a number of applications. I had remembered seeing the stuff when I was much younger and wanted a backyard putting green, but now it appears there are hundreds of styles for pets, sports, and just general low maintenence landscaping.
I emailed a company regarding pricing and it seems as though the stuff costs roughly $2 a s.f. The guy I talked to said that their product comes in 15′ wide rolls….how convenient…my backyard is only 11′ x 13′. I was told that when I am ready it is likely there will even be a scrap piece leftover from a previous project which may be able to cover my entire patio.
Here are some examples of completed installations:
I think the stuff looks really good. It would be especially amazing if I only had to take Huey to the Park to play. Most of the information I read said that it keeps its color for 20 or so years and cleans up with a hose and common household bleach if you believe it is getting gross. Even if it inevitably looks really stupid, no one can see the patio from the alley any ways because of my garage.
Ah the garage…that probably justifies another whole post in itself. Time and money permitting, I hope to update on some other things in the near future.
