It Was Wonderful While It Lasted

Last Friday and Saturday was a beautiful day in the Ozarks.  The sun was out, a light breeze, the temperatures hit the mid-60's.  It was much too nice of a day to spend inside.  So out I went and ended up working my tail off.

What a difference a week makes.  This was before THE WORST STORM OF THE CENTURY that didn't hit Mountain Home (Arkansas, not Idaho) as it was predicted.  We are not, however, being left out of this wintery weather in getting cold, snow, freezing rain, cold, sleet and more cold.

That is not a speck of dirt on my camera lens.  That is a buzzard.

Anyway ~

Why is it that us homeowners, when we move into a house new to us, we scratch our heads in amazement and confusion over things that the previous owner has done?  And while this head scratching is going on, never once does it cross our minds that the new owners of houses we have left behind are doing the exact same thing.

Because we are normal y'all.  It's everybody else that's crazy.

I can hardly imagine what the person who bought the house that we built in the Puyallup valley thought when he discovered that the house was never completely repainted on the outside.  I won't even mention the color combination that we picked to paint the house.  It's no wonder that Randy and I never finished the job.

Or the person who bought the Edgewood house thought when they saw all the different types of flooring and carpeting through out the house.  I think every kind of flooring short of hardwood was represented in that house.  Not to mention that we didn't recarpet the spare bedrooms.  That looked real nice when one walked down the hallway on nice new carpet and saw old worn carpet in the bedrooms.

Or the Sumner house where we built the fire pit.  We built it over a stump that we wanted to get rid of, with the intention of moving the fire pit to another stump when the first stump was gone.  We never got that far before we packed up and moved to Texas.

Or the interior paint colors in the Plano house.  In all actuality, the only room we could lay claim to was the bright pink that was used in the pool bathroom.  It's now Will's bathroom and fortunately, it has since been painted over by the renters before Cristy and Shaun moved in.  Certainly not suited for a young man.

Or the McKinney house with the teeny tiny patch of grass next to the pool.  The patch of grass that is so annoying to mow.  What were we thinking to be talked into that by the landscaper?

There is plenty of head scratching here at the Mountain Home house.  We have a feeling that while the people who had this house built had great intentions, they also had limited knowledge and skill on how to accomplish these intentions.

What I lack in carpentry skills, I make up for in basic common knowledge.  For instance, I know that when one wants to use wood to build a compost bin or build a border around flower beds it is beneficial to use treated wood.  The person that tackled this project here either did not know that or did not care.  They also didn't know or didn't care about how to make this border so it looked nice.  They used scrap pieces of timbers and nailed scrap pieces of log siding to the top of them.  Not all the scrap pieces that were nailed to each other were the same length.

Not only was the border unsightly, but it doesn't fit into my Grand Plan.  My Grand Plan - and by default, Randy's Grand Plan - is to extend the deck around the corner a bit to this side of the house.  I think it will make a nice little sitting area.

I think, therefore it becomes, hopefully this spring.

Last Friday was spent on step one of the plan, tearing out the very ugly and rotting makeshift wood borders around the makeshift flower beds and carrying them around to the other side of the house to the fire pit.  At some point, I got smart and just tossed them over the side of the deck.  Safety first - I made sure I knew where Randy and Roxy were before I lobbed them over.

There was not much for salvageable plants, but I did move and replant a holly bush as well as a Golden Euonymus that was planted in an seemingly random spot behind the garage.  I then made the executive decision not to dig anymore in the clay and rock, unless I can train Roxy to do it.  

There were some pieces that were too heavy for me to move by myself.  Even with those being left to move, it sure looks a lot better out there.  

I did the best I could on Saturday to make a dent in burning the old and nasty and decaying wood.  Now I will just have to wait until the snow melts to get back at it.

Have the BEST day ever!
~ Dorothy