Art and Clusters

OK, so most of The Serpico House is looking pretty good these days. We've got the humidity thing in the basement under control. The rooms are, for the most part, painted the way we want them. The kitchen is... the kitchen, and I guess that's not going to change anytime soon, so we're just going to live with it for a while longer. We have the yard sort of figured out with our lawn-cutter guy, and we've actually gotten the gutters cleaned--by the way, it hasn't rained since we had the gutters cleaned about two weeks ago. Figures, right?

Eventually, we plan to have the big tree in our yard trimmed back so that it's not hanging over the house, and we do eventually want to handle the ivy on our back wall, but those things will also have to wait a while.

All of these things are great, but we haven't really dealt with art or hanging stuff on the walls. It's not like we don't have any art to hang, either. For example, one of our dear friends made us a lovely painting, and we really like it... but we haven't hung it yet. We also have a bunch of neat prints, posters and carved masks, too. Now, in my younger days, I probably would have just bashed a bunch of nails into the wall, popped the masks and paintings onto the nails and called it a day. As for my myriad posters, prints and other items... well, let's just say that I used to be a big fan of scotch tape and staples. I know, I know... tacky, right?

So, acting as an adult here, I'm thinking about frames and arranging artwork around the house. Dig on this photo for a minute or two.....


Granted, we don't have a white couch (and I'm pretty sure we'll never get one!), and we don't have any funky wallpaper, but that cluster of framed artwork on the wall speaks to me. In fact, Avy and I visited some friends recently, and I really wish I had a picture of one of their walls to show off here--they have a really wonderful amalgamation of neat, framed stuff on their walls, from music-related posters to personal photos and works from local artists. It's visually arresting and compelling. The lady of the house says she snagged most of the frames at thrift stores. I think the key here is that all of the art is framed. Most anything looks more important when it is framed. For example, this poster is just kind of a band poster for a show that has already passed...


But I bet if I had it in a nice black frame, it'd be a cool thing to have on the wall. A conversation piece, even.

I want to get on this as a project and hang up our art. Soon.

It's Not a Dry Heat

The actual onset of warmer weather is really here. For the folks who don't live in the Mid-Atlantic region, let me explain--we don't get much "springtime" weather here. Nope. We go from "Crap, it's COLD!" to the proverbial "It's like a sauna out there" in what seems like two weeks. Sure, we get some nice flowers for a while, but the reality of living in an area primarily built on reclaimed swampland eventually strikes home every year in the form of pretty serious humidity. Just lately, we've been experiencing damn-near rain forest weather--temperatures in the mid-70s/lower-80s and rain, drizzle, sun, torrential downpour, sun, rain... at least it hasn't been necessary to water the new plants. But it's been humid. Really humid. And humidity is unpleasant inside the house. It fosters mold and mildew, it makes things smell funky, it creates an environment for all kinds of gross bugs... it's just unpleasant. Additionally, a humid basement affects the floors directly above, which means the basement won't be the only stinky, buggy part of the house--the first floor will get icky, too.

If you remember this post, I mentioned the need for a dehumidifier in our basement. We made it quite a while without one, but after about three weeks of mixed rain and sun, it became obvious we really needed to do something. All of the tell-tale signs were present (funky smells, extra moisture in the air, etc), and the basement really had a damp atmosphere. Now, I know most fully underground basements smell a little "off," but ours was actually getting a little... err... reeky.

Let me back-track a little here. We haven't really done much with The Serpico House's basement yet. Every other week, Avy and some friends hang out and do some belly-dancing down there, and I have a little amplifier and some guitars in there, too, but it's basically just an empty, carpeted room. It's nice... or, rather, it was nice... until the humidity started kicking in. Starting after Avy's dance rehearsal the other day, when the ladies emerged from the basement, there was a distinct aroma of something other than that of natural human exertion. It was a sort of moldy, vegetational smell.

And that's when I knew we really needed to get a dehumidifier.

So, I started looking around online... the average price for a consumer-level, standard-sized dehumidifier sits somewhere between $160-$350. Most dehumidifiers work by drawing moist air over a refrigerated coil with a small fan. Since the saturation vapor pressure of water decreases with decreasing temperature, the water in the air condenses and drips into a collecting bucket. Dehumidifiers are rated in pints (25-pints, 45 pints, etc), and this refers to the amount of water it can remove from the air in a 24-hour period. The higher the pint-rating, the more powerful the dehumidifier.

After digging around for while, we decided on this one...

It's an LG 45-pint unit. We bought a refurbished model because it came in at a pretty reasonable price when compared to a new one, and the reviews were all at least four-star our of five. It showed up last night, and I set it up right away. My first impressions were that it is somewhat larger than I expected, and it's pretty weighty, too. It didn't take much to get it going--set it down, plug it in and that's it. A fan noise starts up (it's not too loud to me), and you don't notice anything special happening right away.

I guess I started it up around 6:30pm. We went about our usual evening routine, and around 10pm, I went into the basement to check it out. I may be somewhat overly ambitious, but I am pretty sure I noticed that the basement had less of a mildewy odor. When I checked the collection bucket under the unit, it was about 1/2 full of water. I dumped the water and turned it on again. We went to bed about an hour later.

This morning when I woke up, I checked the dehumidifier, and it was still running. I checked the bucket, and it wasn't completely full (the unit is supposed to turn off when it's full), but there was a lot of water in there. I dumped it and started it up again. I could imagine this getting a little old... luckily, this thing is supposedly equipped with a hose-draining option (that sounds naughty!), which allows you to attach a length of garden hose to the unit and lay the other end in a sink or drain. This allows you to set the humidity level for whatever you like and let the unit run when needed without dumping the bucket. I think we'll eventually do this.

For now, the bucket works, and I foresee that the basement (and the rest of the house) will be more pleasant.

Like, Wow, Welcome...

When we first looked at The Serpico House, one of the the bits of furniture left behind was this vanity. It used to sit in what is now our guest/turtle/computer room.




Avy really liked that little vanity, and she wanted to put it in our bedroom as a, you know... vanity... a place to sit and put on make-up, etc.

But she made the error of putting it at the foot of our bed when the cable TV guy came to hook up service. As a result, one the TV was hooked up, the vanity became a TV stand by default. See?



That kind of sucked for Avy, because, with the TV on top, this thing is not very useful as a vanity in the traditional sense.

So, when we had the opportunity, we decided to wall-mount the TV and put that vanity into its intended place and make things better.

We ordered a wall-mount. We even ordered a little shelf for the cable box. It was going to be so sweet. Except for one thing... our bedroom LCD can't be wall-mounted. Yeah. Lame, right? It happens to be a little older, and LCDs from 2006 apparently weren't all made according to VESA standards for LCD mounting screws. Long story short--that TV ain't going up on the wall without a lot of extra work... so, not wanting to be defeated, we ran out to Wal-Mart and bought a little cheapo desk to use as a TV stand. It's an ugly desk, really, so we covered it with a tapestry. Here's the result...


It gets the job done, I guess, but it kinda makes the bedroom look something like one of those new-age bookstores. We'll figure out something better in the future. This works for now, and Avy gets her vanity back...

We're going to hang a mirror on the wall in front of the vanity, and I plan to build Avy a picture-frame jewelry holder. More on that later...

Surprise... Landscaping!

Well, in my last post I mentioned that I had a landscaping pro coming to work on our yard soon.

I guess I misunderstood when we spoke--I thought he was coming a week from this past Friday. I was wrong. He came this past Friday. It was so cool.

When Avy, Xavier and I arrived at home, we obviously noticed there was a strange truck in the driveway. Everything became clear to me right about then...

And we were happy.

Here's the newly cleaned-out back yard.

I don't know if this picture does the work he did in the yard proper justice.... there were a lot of branches and left-over leaves laying around, making the yard look smaller and messier. He also cut the grass.This is the top of our driveway. I don't have a "before" shot right now, but take my word for it--that area was full of debris. Now it's clean and neat. It's so much nicer.


These are the bushes in front of the house. I was frankly kind of embarrassed at the amount of leaves that were underneath these. Landscaper dude got 'em out of there. Nice.


This is the tree in the front yard. Landscaper dude didn't do anything to the tree, but it's pretty, and I actually was incorrect in identifying it in previous posts. I thought it was a Japanese Maple. It is not. This is a Dogwood. And it's pretty sweet.

This is the front of the house. The grass is nice and neat, but, if you look off to the right, you can see a big pile of leaves right near our neighbor's house. Those were all in our backyard. I wish I had taken a picture of the landscaper's truck--the back was almost overflowing with leaves. He said he'd been there since mid-day. He finally left around 8pm. That's a lot of work for one guy.

So, what have I learned? Well, I really need to pay better attention--I need to listen when someone tells me a specific day they'll be showing up. That way I won't be surprised by stuff like this. I have learned that gas-powered lawn implements beat the crap out of electric implements. Big time. The drawback is that nasty gas smell. And I have learned that sometimes it is pretty satisfying to pay someone to do a job that you want done well. I walked around all weekend saying, "I love this yard."

Odd side note: It seems like every one of our neighbors took a cue from our yard work--for the rest of the weekend, all you could hear were lawn-mowers, weed-whackers and leaf-blowers on our block. I must say, it's pretty nice to live in an area where the folks really take pride in their homes.

So... Minor update.



I called a landscaper to get a price for lawn work.
It breaks down like this:
They're gonna come and clean out all of our old leaves and whatnot, trim the bushes, edge the lawns, straighten out our flower beds and cut the grass. This first appointment will cost us $220, which seems kind of expensive... but that's because there is a lot of work to do.

After this, they'll cut our lawn once a week for $30 per cut. This includes edging, hedge trimming and waste removal.

The ivy removal will have to be a separate project for later in the summer.
Can't wait to come home and see the yard looking all spiffy!

Paying for Green?

I park my car next to this loveliness every evening. Honestly, things could be worse. As the weather continues to warm up, we're seeing more and more color popping up around The Serpico House. Some of it is almost startling--I need to take a picture of the enormous number of green stalks popping up next to our front steps. Mrs. Serpico, my hat is off to you... so many plantings!

Something I've been considering lately... it may make sense for us to hire out for our first lawn-cutting and Spring clean-out... mainly because we don't have a lawnmower yet, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper to hire someone to handle that than it is to buy a lawnmower. It already sort of looks like our front lawn is getting a little crazy... we can't let it go for too much longer. Ugh.

Another thought... a "Green Lawn" guy stopped by our place yesterday, trying to sell us his service. Dude doesn't cut grass or work on flower beds. Nope. All he does is come around about six times per year to fertilize the lawn, put down weed-killer and spray some kind of insect repellent. OK, I guess that flies with some of the other folks in the suburbs, but no. Not me. First of all, I don't care if my lawn is perfectly green and insect free. I don't mind crab grass. That shit is in nature, and I'm fine with it showing up in my yard. It's really no big deal. I was polite to him, and I told him we felt our money was probably more wisely invested in a landscaping company. I can throw down fertilizer and grass seed on my own. I wonder how many of my neighbors are going for this? I think it's like $50 per treatment. Screw that. I'll pay that to some kid every other week to cut my grass.

Spring Sprung

See them thar things above? Yep. Flowers. In our yard. Pretty, huh? As the weather gets nicer, it's becoming evident that Mrs. Serpico really liked to plant things, because we're seeing little sprouts and full-on flowers popping up everywhere in out yard. I'm bad with flower/plant names, but I know we have tulips and forsythias. So that's cool.

And remember the ivy-removal project? I got a quote from a landscaper on that--the dude says he needs $350 to get it all out of there, mainly because it's all wrapped around the fence, and it'll be a lot of work. I think I'm going to get another estimate on the job, but I think $350 isn't too bad... it really does look like a lot of work. Having said this much, I can't help thinking I might haggle with this guy a little and see if his crew will add a leaf clean-out for that price. I also think I'll want to get a second estimate from another landscaper. Someone else might come in a little cheaper, and there's pretty much next to no way that they can mess this up.

Another thought, though... I really need to discuss this whole thing with our next-door neighbor before moving forward with the full ivy-removal plan. The ivy is growing heavily on the fence that separates our yards, and he may want it there for some reason. It definitely gives his yard more privacy, that's for sure--I actually can't see into his yard at all from ours. I really hope he's OK with getting rid of it. Obviously, if he doesn't agree to this, the ivy on his side of the fence will just creep back over into our yard in time, making our efforts and expenditure in vain.

So... we shall see.