86'n It

We are actually going to begin the kitchen!!
Taxes are paid (mostly at least) and the weather is warm enough to have exposed areas of the house! I spent the afternoon 1/2 of my last day at work moving the kitchen to the "junk room" check it out:
Sad thing is, as Marc said: "I like it better in here! It is cleaner." Yes. Take a look at that picture. Looks cluttered and sort of scary right? Like there could be a dead cat in that mix somewhere. Thing is, it is still an improvement over the real kitchen, which had moth issues, ant issues, spider issues, permanent grime issues and of course actual dead cats.

Especially fun will be destroying this hideous faux historic landscape wallpaper. A friend of ours has been on a campaign to get us to save it. Yeah right. If we can get any part of it off in a reasonable chunk, it is going in his front yard. Watch out Stephen, your yard is about to be "landscaped".

I finally made our compost bin. i've been meaning to do this for a while actually. We hav ebeen just throwing banana peels, etc into the garden for the squirrels, but hopefully this bin will generate some good compost for the future vegetable garden!

The bin is just wire mesh in a circle. I got the idea from here. From things that I have read, and talking to composters in Asheville, these simple bins work better than the plastic ones you can buy. (They are cheaper too, $10 for the mesh.)
I started it with a base of leaves and have a container inside the house to collect our food waste, coffee grounds, etc. We'll be dumping it all in and covering it with leaves from our other giant "compost pile" in the old sandbox (aka giant cat litter box). We'll have to turn it once a month by just lifting up the mesh, moving it 3' and shoveling the stuff all back in.

I have realized that a part of my motivation for some of the renovation tasks is the pressure of having nothing to blog about. I never want to disappoint!
I've decided to use this to my advantage to jump-start my running. I am on a team for the blue ridge relay in 20 weeks. I will have to run 12 miles in the relay, so I really should start training right?
To the right -----> you will find a goal tracker. I want to have trained by running at least 240 miles.


So of course, I had to get new shoes. My old ones have seen plenty of miles and are my go-to renovation footwear, (meaning they have several holes in the bottom where I stepped on nails and various other pointy objects.) Aren't these new shoes just the cutest? I had to get the pink and silver. On sale of course!

Which me luck!

I finally got around to painting the radiator and radiator cover. (The cover was generously donated Brent & Maggie.) The cover was painting orange and had some rust (see here), but the other part is currently only rust in some parts. I tried sanding, CLR and wire brushing to get *most* (read: some) of the rust off.

Here are the before & after shots:
Before:


after:

I think it looks pretty dang good.
The metal on both is pretty bumpy close-up, but honestly, if you are on the ground staring that close at my bathroom radiator, go throw up in your own toilet. Thanks.

This was supposed to be an easy one, then why did I think it was so hard? Ugh. I really had to earn that lobster, didn't I?
Honestly though, going thru my notes ½ of the stuff wasn’t on the test, which is irritating but exactly what I expect from these tests. Good thing your building stability is in such good hands right?
Now, I have to google the Sidewinder drink again because I forgot what was in it....
Oh, yum!

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 ounces fresh lime juice
1 1/2 ounces fresh orange juice
1 1/2 ounces passion fruit syrup
1 ounce dark Jamaican rum (such as Myers's)
1 ounce 80-proof Demerara rum (such as Lemon Hart)
2 ounces seltzer water
1 spiral orange peel
1 sprig fresh mint

Oh, this is so fancy, I don't even know if I can order this in a bar in Asheville. I might have to make it at home tonight. Weird thing is, we have all those ingredients except the passion fruit syrup. Wow, quite the high rollers Marc and I must be. (Except the mint is from the backyard; I'll try to get it from the areas where the cat doesn't pee.)

Then I'll kick up my feet and pollute my brain with pure nonsense as I catch up on The Bachelor! (My money is on Meeps.)

...the mouse will do all the little renovating things that would annoy the cat.

like hanging the funky light in a weird spot (just because I'm dying to see what it would look like).

and getting the porch swing delivered at 9am and standing on the front porch in its pajamas putting it together.

sorry these are crappy cellphone pictures, i will take better ones at lunch.

...because I ordered a porch swing. Oh, how the neighbors will talk. I decided that instead of shoes, I wanted to move some of my passing prizes around and get the swing now so that we can enjoy it all spring/summer long.
So I will celebrate passing structures by testing out the stability of our front porch framing. Wish me luck! I think that this style will fit well with our house, and it is cedar (yummy smell) and the color is supposedly darker and more uniform in real life.