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.

The Yard

After making yesterday's post, I realized it makes no sense to just say the yard needs work without actually showing what I mean....

So this is one of the flower beds towards the back of the yard. I've swept out enough of the leaves to show the nice shape. It's cool, right? If we pull out all of the weeds and truly clear out the leaves, it'll look really lovely. But we've got to do battle with stuff like this first...

First, you can see the massive amount of ivy and overgrowth. There's actually a raised bed with a short retaining wall around it, but it's covered with ivy, which is also covering the entire back stone wall. And, as a testament to Mrs. Serpico's failure to maintain the yard diligently, perhaps you can see the "mystery lawnmower" under that bush... alongside a plastic trash bag of... something. These items became visible only after the leaves fell off of the trees. I'm guessing we'll need to get them out of there eventually.


This is the corner of our yard next to our neighbor's yard. They obviously don't mind the ivy, but the amount of ivy in our yard is ridiculous. It's out of hand. Too much. I don't think we can pull all of that ivy out of there without some serious help. Hell, I don't want to pull that ivy out of there.
Yes, somewhere back behind that ivy is a nice stone wall.

OK, I've convinced myself. I'm calling a landscaping company.

Warming Up to the Land

Well, it's almost April, and winter is begrudgingly loosening its icy grasp on the Mid-Atlantic area... Having said this, the weather person said something about snow in the forecast this morning. Lovely.

Above, you can see a picture of my grill. I love my grill. I love grilling. Some folks only like to grill when the weather is warm. I am not one of those people--I grilled in the snow, sub-zero weather, rain, whatever. And now that the weather is looking up, you'd better believe I'm gonna be a grilling machine.

We had some friends and family over for a semi-impromptu gathering last Friday (no pics, sorry), and I grilled everything I could find--burgers, chicken, tuna, sausages. Twas most enjoyable.

By the way, my grill was looking a little gunky when I got home yesterday, so I cleaned it with (what else?) Goo Gone. Took about five minutes and a little elbow grease. Holy shit, that stuff just eats through anything. In the above picture, the grill looks like it's glowing. That's not just a light trick... that grill is super clean now.

The actual grilling surface itself is also in great shape--I keep that scraped and neat with a wire grill brush and olive oil. I'd say it's "seasoned" by now.

But the warmer weather also means it's time for an outdoor reality check. Our yard is huge. We're going to have to deal with it. By "it," I mean the grass, the overgrowth of ivy in the backyard, the bushes, the trees, the excess leaves from this past fall, etc.

And I am not too proud to say that I'm looking for a way to avoid handling these things. In fact, I'm really, really considering hiring a landscaping company to deal with our yard. Mrs. Serpico clearly loved this yard (as evidenced by the multitude of flower plantings greenly presenting themselves in the past few weeks), but she was also a lady who had no job, so she had the time (and inclination) to fool around in her yard a lot.

We do not share Mrs. Serpico's passion for such things, but we do like the yard, and, upon investigation, it has become obvious that the back yard has some truly attractive flower beds. In fact, in the course of minor raking adventures, I was able to discern a gracefully curved bad near the back of the yard. It's got a really nice reverse s-shape. But... it's full of invasive ivy and other such annoyances. In fact, the entire perimeter of the yard has been somewhat overtaken by the aforementioned ivy.

A younger, more adventurous version of myself would have embraced the idea of attacking this ivy with a machete (actually, that still sounds kind of cool in some ways), but I'm pretty sure I don't feel like fooling around in that ivy too much.



Too bad they don't make Goo Gone for ivy and weeds. Actually, I guess they sort of do, but the idea of using a heavy-duty herbicide in our back yard makes me feel like the worst kind of ecological terrorist. Long ago, in another life, I did some landscaping, and I am fairly certain that a small crew of folks could walk into our yard and clear the ivy and weeds in about six hours (probably less if they're motivated.)

I think I need to call someone.

Steps and Small Bear's Room

First things first... I think we've landed on a nice set-up for Xavier's room. His room is incredibly sunny and bright. I actually had to pull down his shades most of the way in order to take a picture that wasn't totally white.

He's got a great-looking foam floor mat thing, courtesy of his Bubby and Zaidy, and he loves it. He calls it "Zayy-bee-yur's Affabet," and he really enjoys yelling out the letters and numbers. He's also got an igloo tent and a mini play kitchen. And yep, a big-ass crib. The crib is supposed to convert into a daybed and a regular bed, but by the time I managed to rebuild it (after struggling to get it apart), the only type of sleeping surface I could approximate was the crib. I'll make it into a bed before he starts high school, I promise. We need to get some artwork on his walls (Yo Gabba Gabba stuff, I think), but, for the most part, I think his room is looking good.

Having said this, there are still some projects to do in there. The ceiling fan, for example, is basically worthless--there's no light fixture on it, and the fan doesn't work. That's lame. I guess we just need to replace it with a functional one. We have a lamp in his room now, but it's not ideal. At night (or even at dusk) his room is shadowy and almost spooky. Of course, Xavier doesn't care--he's not afraid of the dark... or anything else, it seems.

And now for something that's not even close to being done...
The front steps.

No, that's not the entrance to some ancient, crumbling edifice... those are the front steps to The Serpico House. In all fairness, they were never in good shape, and a harsh winter with many snows and thaws was not kind to these truly dismal and disintegrating concrete steps. I had a feeling they'd get bad, but wow... this is pretty sad.

I know there are ways to fix these up, and I'm sure I am capable... I'm not even scared to do it. In fact, now that the weather has improved, this has to happen pretty soon. I can just picture the mail-carrier falling on our steps and suing us... Yeah, I better get on this.

Mini Paintypants.

The pink bathroom. It's just... erm... pink.


We've grown to accept the pink tile. It's fine, really. I mean, yeah, OK, it's pink, and that's not our first choice for bathroom colors, but it's fine. The carpet was bad, and that's gone.

What really sucked the most was the ratty, dirty, pinkish paint... complete with bad settlement cracks.



You can see the pinkish hue, and, yeah, those lines are cracks in the plaster. I filled the cracks with spackle, and that made things a little better, but the walls looked crappy and dirty.

So, this weekend, I tried to make it better.

I finally ditched the pink curtains, which made the room look a little bleak, I think, but the clean white paint brightened the place up quite a bit. And we don't have to look at cracks in the walls anymore.

However (there's always a "however," isn't there?), I managed to snap a hunk out of the plexiglass cover that sits in front of the light above the mirror when I was cleaning it. I was so irritated with myself that I didn't take a picture. Having said this, I hate that damn fixture and mirrored medicine cabinet. The whole thing is ancient and ugly, and I want it gone. Avy thinks I broke it on purpose, but I didn't... I didn't mean to break it before we could replace it, though. Now we have to look at a broken hunk of plastic every morning until we can replace it. Ugh.

Painty Pants Rides Again

You may remember our bedroom in The Serpico House.

Yeah. Rose-colored carpet. Chair rail.

And you might remember that we ripped up the carpet. That left us with some pretty nice floors, and it reminded us that we had a HUGE bedroom.


We also removed the chair rail. I still don't know why it was up there in the first place. Isn't chair rail something you mainly want in the dining room?

This is how the bedroom looked when we finally moved our things in...




We both thought it was a nice improvement--hardwoods, no chair rail. Pleasant.

But wow, that's some dismal while paint.

And when I say dismal, I mean it was scratched to hell and full of nail holes. Look at that picture over the bed in the first picture... I think they moved it about seven times to get it to the right height, so this is what it looked like underneath.




All of the lighter areas are places where we had to fill holes with spackle. This was pretty much the case for the entire room.

Xavier was visiting his grandma, so obviously it was time for Ol' Painty Pants to return...

The color?

Glidden Aztec Gold. Satin finish.


Our methodology was simple--Avy would "cut in" (use a paint brush to get the areas of the walls closest to the trim and ceiling) , and I would do the major parts of the walls with a roller.

After one coat, it looked patchy and kind of uninspiring.

You can't see the patchiness too well in this cell phone shot, but it looked kind of... eh. However, the second coat made all the difference. Here's what we had after the second coat went on the walls and we got the furniture back in place.

We're really happy with the way the room looks and feels now... it's very warm, very cozy, very comfortable. The new paint makes the room seem new and clean. Now, the next step will be to mount the TV on the wall and moving that little vanity to the other wall for its intended purpose. We'll also be adding a mirror to the wall above it. That way, Avy will have a spot to sit and apply make-up, etc. It's gonna be cool. Someday.

All Hail the Mighty Goo-Gone

You may remember that our upstairs bathroom was in a state of carpetedness (yes, I invented that word--you can feel free to use it if you wish) when we moved into The Serpico House.

When we removed the carpet, we found nice pink tile. It was in fine shape, except for the adhesive the installers used to make it stick to the floor near the door. Interestingly, that was the only area where they used adhesive or anything other than gravity to hold the carpet down to the floor. I don't know if this represents shoddy workmanship or what, but at least we only had to deal with one cruddy-looking area of the floor.

And, believe it or not, that stuff didn't want to come up with the use of a mere scraper.

It looked like this...



Kinda gross, right? I know. Worse, we left it that way all this time... mainly because it didn't want to come off. This past Sunday morning, I walked past the bathroom and said to myself, "Maybe I'll try something else..." (cue "I Control, I Fly" by Monster Magnet--good song!)

Goo-Gone. That's what I tried. Yes. It worked. Took about 15 minutes total to get this....


There's one more annoyance off the list.