Trudging along

We've been slowly working on the laundry room. I've managed to get the place primed, and mostly caulked last weekend; since it was sort of cobbled together with that paneling, I had a lot of seams to hit. This weekend, we wrapped up the caulking and painted it our fabulous five dollar mis-tint. The sample on the paint lid looked sort slate blue/grey...but once we got it up, it turns out it's more robin's egg blue. Adam looked up at one paint and said, "Someone's going to hate this color when we go to sell." But we actually like it. And it's a far cry from what was previously there. Now we just have to paint the trim.

So. Before:


As it stands now:


It's nothing to write home about, really, but for $5, I couldn't be happier. Granted, it looks a little pukey with the floor; at some point, we'll tear it out nad install the bargain slate we bought almost 2 years ago!

Meanwhile, our most recent set back has occurred in the yard. I received a notice last week from the city that I needed to clean up my yard in a week. This cleanup included mowing (granted, we'd gone a little longer this time, but it had rained a bunch and grass was exploding; I mowed it that night, and it needs to be mowed again badly); they noted the dead limbs at the side of our yard that we had trimmed a few days before and hadn't moved to the back of the house yet; the boxes in the carport and tucked to the side of things that we were preparing to take to the salvation army; weeds IN THE ALLEY; and a few branches that hung over the street, only in the way of MY car when I park curbside in front of MY OWN house.

Fine. We'll get it done.

The next day, I get a certified letter in the mail. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Those things are never good. When I went to the post office to pick it up, it was, I kid you not, the top copy of the notice that was plastered to my door. Then I found out that basically the whole neighborhood had received these notices.

The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program is hosting an historic walk through the neighborhood in a few weeks, and I think the city is trying to whip us into shape.

At any rate, while we were at it, Adam decimated some of the bamboo and trimmed everything. Our mosquito problem is out of hand, and I think it's because they are breeding in the bamboo. So at least some of it has to go.

And that's about the long and short of it for the moment. Hopefully we can get the trim finished, soon, and get working on the exterior.