Chainsaw Massacre

This Saturday and Sunday were back to back back-breakers. My day was occupied with building up pile of yard waste at the curb. Here it is before:


And here it is after:


I got my chainsaw running after a trip to O'Riley's auto for some bar and chain oil. Apparently they only sell it by the gallon, so if anyone needs some bar and chain oil talk to me. Here I am at the end of the day. That is not a smile on my face, that is a grimace. Standing upright was difficult after a full day of bending over and sawing off bushes at their base and dragging them to the curb.


I kind of like that picture, it looks like I have a chainsaw arm. If I was one of the X-Men, I would take chain saw arms as my mutation. If that means nothing to you, I apologize, I am kind of a nerd.

I attacked the large overgrown bushes at the front of the house first. A few of the bushes had been removed by Craig and Jim to get their dumpster in place as they remove the damaged plaster from the second floor bedroom at the front of the house, aka the mold room. I just continued clearing bushes down the line until they were gone.

Here they are before I started:


And here is the front of the house after:


I also trimmed a few trees and took out a line of bushes by the side of the house, here I am cutting them down:


I forgot to got before and after pics, sorry.

We also had more visits today. First, some of the S. ladies stopped by: namely, Mrs. S. and daughters Emily and Maggie. Mrs. S displayed an uncanny and encyclopedic knowledge of plants as we walked around the garden, and I received some help differentiating the weeds from the actual plants. I was tempted to run into the house and get some post it notes so I could label all the real plants out there that are worth keeping. You would think it would be easy to identify weeds, but some of the weeds are the size of small trees. The ladies were real troopers and I am sure tonight they are realizing just how many mosquito bites they got. Sorry.

Next, Casey and Missy stopped by and gave us some encouragement and a chance to take a little break. Thanks guys.

Just as they were leaving, Nick and Diane rolled up in their cool ride. This was a really fortunate visit because Nick showed me how to get the radiators unhooked:


There we are. After I got it disconnected we got it moved away from the wall, man was it heavy. I was impressed with Nick's lifting fortitude. I found a really great old monkey wrench at Sullivan's Antiques on Vermont and 4th in Quincy. If you haven't been there you should check it out; in addition to the normal antiques, one of the booths has a great collection of classic tools. I got my wrench for a fraction of the cost of a new one and it is built solid. As you can tell I love tools (and antique stores). Heck, the whole reason I wanted to do buy a fixer-upper in the first place was that I thought it would be a great excuse to expand my tool collection.

We got the other radiator disconnected and moved as well, it wasn't quite as heavy as the big one in the foyer.


Well, I was going to give a longer end of the month recap, but I can't keep my arms elevated to the level of the keyboard, so I will be brief. I am happy with the progress. We have the new roof over our heads. JDS did a great job and I checked for leaks after the recent downpour and didn't find any. The mold has been cut out thanks to Jim and Craig. They are continuing to gut out those rooms so we can refinish them. We continue to work on the walls downstairs. Charla was over again today working on prepping the walls for the mud. Jessie and Bob came over in the afternoon and joined her.

If you look back to the posts in the beginning of this blog you can compare those to the following shots which are kind of a status of how things stand:

Here are some shots of the foyer. Most of those walls are prepped for patching and mud.



Here is the window where the giant window unit was removed, and which now needs to be cleaned out and sized and framed for the stained glass window.




Here is the room to your right when you walk in the front.


here is the other side of that first room:


the pieces of the built-in are leaning in the dining room waiting for a dumpster to rest in:


on the opposite wall are the two newly uncovered windows, you cannot see it but they have that wavy old glass in them, and so I am thinking of scratching putting stained glass in them right now:



All in all things are looking good and moving in the right direction. It has been a rewarding first month. I have spent a lot of time watching things like this happen on HGTV and I have always wanted to take something like this on. I really feel blessed to have this opportunity.

-alok