Sunday, June 26, 2011

New fascia and soffit ... on one side ...

Well, my bro Eddie came over to help me rip down what was left of the soffit and fascia on this side of the garage...and let me tell you how brittle it was...quite brittle. For the most part the area closest to the camera in this picture was like paper...which I inhaled quite a bit of...oops. I was hacking up something fierce after we bashed out a few of the soffit boards. Yet, too lazy to go inside and get a mask...as Eddie and I joked, the disintegrating soffit wasn't going to give us cancer any more than our Mom's smoking for our entire lives would. We just kept at it.

The other end was a little more solid, but we got it down, no problem. Then, Eddie went around the corner in this picture and pulled the fascia and soffit off the east side of the garage...so now we have a gaping hole on that side of the garage.

A couple things of note...we had a blast tying two 4x8 plywood boards to the top of the Equinox with pathetic twine, since Menards, apparently, will not cut a plywood board in half for you. That's because they can charge twice as much for the 4x4 plywood boards -- assholes. Had I not wanted to get this job done sooner than later, I would have taken my business elsewhere. So we had to strap the 4x8 boards to the top of the Equinox and drive about 25 mph home through Edgebrook, Jeff Park, Forest Glen, Portage Park, etc. It was so much fun, we stopped at Dairy Queen on the way back to grab lunch.

Secondly, thankfully, the dozen or so yellowjacket nests we found were abandoned, except for one, which was only in its infancy, so there was only one yellowjacket hanging around by it. Fortunately Eddie was not stung when he ripped the fascia off it.

So now I have to put up the new boards on the east side and then rip and replace the south (alley) side and west side, which has a gutter on it (protecting my garden). Should be tons o' fun.

But at least this looks nicer (though not spectacular) and gets us one step closer to erasing any signs that there was a broken hot tub and piss-poorly built "carport" over it. Step by step.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Not in Kansas anymore ...

Well, I did go to Kansas for a few days for work, and I'm back, so that works on two levels here, I guess. While I was gone, apparently, Mother Nature decided to torment Downers Grove and Mt. Prospect residents with a tornado (not near us, thankfully), and some serious straight-line winds and strong gusts.

Our house (and neighborhood, for that matter), fared OK, and so did my garden. One of the tomato plants had been completely blown over, cage and all, and all my corn stalks were leveled. I'm hoping that I can straighten them up again, and I may have to stake them, but we'll see.

Otherwise, things have been so-so here at the bungalow. We have ants, so I tried to get rid of them tonight and will continue to spray outside tomorrow. Beyond that, however, there isn't too much on the docket, other than getting the upstairs carpeting deep-cleaned, which a friend of the family's is scheduling soon. We haven't had that done in the four years we lived here, so really, with the boys crawling and running all over up there, we should get it taken care of.

Then it's on to garage repair and concrete search for the backyard. If anyone reading this in Chicagoland can recommend a concrete (sidewalks) guy, please post in the comments field. I'm looking for quotes to start with, and then we'll go from there.