Sprucing up

Dana and I did some sprucing up around the house. A big part of that was getting the old couch into the garage (as it was too big to fit through the doorway in the basement). We also started getting the newly carpeted room in the basement put together. One end of the room now contains the start of our workout center and the other end has a desk and shelving containing our tools (nicely organized in bins). Check out the photos.

Ground cover

Dana come home midday and went plant shopping with Annie, our neighbor from across the street, at Paulino Gardens, Inc. They came home with a variety of fun looking plants and planted them in the circle around the silver maple in the front of the house. They look dwarfed by the tree but they should grow to fill the area and even drape over the edging stones. Dana also picked up paving stones and more ground cover stones at Home Depot to edge the north edge of the front yard and began laying those out.

Carpeting and other such projects

Alright… not a yard issue but since we did the work all together I thought I’d report. First, Dana spruced up the back porch with a nice tablescape. Check out the photos. Then we went down in the basement and attempted to finish our carpeting project. Earlier in the day Dana called Home Depot to talk to their carpet guy. She asked if we could get away with just using the power stretcher or if we needed to use a knee kicker as well. He explained that the carpet that the saleseman at home depot sold us the night before, is not stretchable. He said the carpet, which we were told was stretchable by the moron who sold it to us, was actually limited to gluing. Because we have tack strips bonded to the floor, we needed something to go over the pad and the strips. He suggested that we hand stretch it. We gave it a shot and we were pleased with our success. It looks like a pro install (if I do say so myself). Check out the photos. As a result we now have a home gym and office space! This should also double the finished square footage in the basement (which is never a bad thing).