A little landscaping...and bugs

My friend Sonia and I went out to the house yesterday with one task: landscape around the address rock.  I had a couple of agaves that I bought using a Groupon last summer that were still in pots.  They were starting to look a little ragged so I wanted to get them into the ground.  Also Sonia, who knows everything there is to know about native landscaping, offered to help with something at the house.  A small landscaping project was the perfect half day task.

The agave (agaves?) that I have can get quite large (and pointed) so they needed to be away from the front door.   We installed the address rock a while back but it was just sitting all alone in the rocks.  Also recently, the neighbors all pitched in for a concrete road along the sloped areas of the road leading to all of our houses.  That concrete comes right up to the address rock so we needed something to soften the area a little.

Sonia and I stopped by Lowes on our way out to the house to buy some soil and plants.  We bought things that do well with little care and were deer resistant: lantana, rosemary, yucca, fountain grass and small spiny succulents.  After deciding on placement of the plants we started to dig.  The "soil" out there is really mostly rocks and sandy material so digging was mostly done using a pick axe.  We added the soil we bought into the holes and mounded a little around the plants.  Here is a before picture taken over the winter.

 

And after:

 

You can see how much the area is greening up from the spring rains.  These plants are not as small as they look in the picture; the address rock is pretty big.  Once the plants fill in a little I think it will be great.  I might add a few small succulents around the front over time.

Thanks Sonia for all the help!

On a side note, look what we found (already dead) in the house when we got there:

It seems like things like to come into our house to die.  We rarely find any insects alive.  Hmmmm. It's our first spring with this house and I suspect we will be seeing incrementally more insects than we did over the last eight months.  Last weekend we found what looked like a dead baby tarantula.  My youngest son scooped it up on a piece of cardboard and put it outside.  To his surprise the spider unrolled itself and ran away.  We also found a baby scorpion just sitting in the middle of the tile hallway.  Makes me wonder what else we have hidden in the house.  Maybe better if I don't wonder...

Finally, some progress...

I know it has been a while since I posted.  We have been spending time out at the house but haven't done much that was worth posting.  With the rains recently our burn ban was lifted and we got to burn some cedar that had been waiting in a burn pile since we bought the house.  That was pretty cool. 

We had some friends come spend the night at the house and they helped us finish staining the deck railing which was a huge help.  However, we haven't gotten to finish staining the deck because the oaks overhanging the deck are in the process of dropping their tassles.  Once they are done we will power wash and stain.


And no progress on starting the bath remodels either, except that I have gotten one plumber to give us a bid and have another coming this week.

So....what did we get done?  My husband decided that this was the weekend to remove the wall between the back bedroom and the old master closet.  This will create one big room that will become the master bedroom.  We have been mulling over the issue of whether the wall we want to remove is load bearing.  After much discussion, we decided that the wall was not supporting the roof weight, but alas, the ceiling joists ended above the wall and therefore, a header was needed.  Here is a picture of the stripped down wall.

 

I removed the electrical running through the wall and temporarily ran it through the closet area. My husband went into the attic and moved some of the braces so they would not be in the way of the new header.  We also removed the popcorn ceiling that was in the closet only.  We discovered that there was a reflective barrier underneath the sheetrock which is why this ceiling hung slightly lower than the other.  We left that up for now.

 

Then we built temporary supporting walls on either side of the wall we were removing.  These temporary walls would hold up the ceiling while we removed the wall and installed the header.  We did not build standard walls with sole plates and studs every 16 inches.  Instead we just propped up studs underneath a top plate that was nailed to the ceiling joists.  Not pretty, but effective.

 

Not sure why I can't rotate the next pictures.  You will have to tilt your head to the left to view.

 

We removed some of the reflective barrier so we would have some room to work.  We took down the old wall and marked the ceiling joists where the new header would be.  We screwed two 2x10 boards together to be the header.  My husband cut all the joists to make a space for the header to slide in. 

The header was slightly longer than the old wall so it could sit on top of the adjoining walls.  Finally, we maneuvered the header into place (it took three of us) and tied in all of the ceiling joists with Simpson ties.  Once we cover this with sheetrock it should be invisible.  Mission accomplished!




This is not the type of home improvement work that I enjoy. There is a lot of brute force, cutting large framing members and dust galore.  There is also plenty to fret over: will the ceiling/roof collapse when we remove the wall? can these temporary walls hold a 200 lb man working in the attic?  is there asbestos in this popcorn ceiling?   The possibilities are endless for me. But the best part is that it is done.  This room can actually move forward now.

Now we are considering ceiling treatments that can be installed over sheetrock.  That way we don't have to tape and float the patches, we can leave the reflective barrier in place, and we don't have to worry about cracks from movement of the joists.  So far I have looked at tongue and groove planks, ceiling tiles, and plywood.  Since the room is over 12 feet each way, there is no way to avoid seams, so I am trying to work in patterns that will cover the seams.  I'll post more once we make a decision and start installing.