Home Improvements 2015

I know what you're thinking. Andy, what have you been doing all summer, you slacker? Well I'm glad you asked. Since I've changed jobs, I've had more weekend time to get things done around here. Finally. Here's the recap:

It's been more than a year now since we cut the cord with Dish Network. Well, not really, I kept the cords. BUT I TRASHED THE DISH! When we first canceled our service, we cycled through several different digital antennas, trying to find the best one to pick up free broadcast channels. We settled on a small shark fin-shaped antenna that we attached to a 4-foot section of old shower rod and stuck in the ground behind the bushes in front of the house (so it REALLY looked like a shark fin). It was the best cheap one that picked up channels, but it didn't pick them up reliably. So this summer we decided bigger was better. I bought this multi-directional antenna on Amazon so I could point one side toward Chicago and one side toward South Bend. We now pick up anywhere from 30-45 channels (depending on the day), including several CBSs, Foxs, ABCs and NBCs. The farthest away channel I tuned in one night was WBAY out of Green Bay (190 miles away). Perhaps the most satisfying part of the whole thing is this: I used the mounting rod Dish installed on my roof (after I extended it some so the antenna wouldn't hit the roof) and reused the coaxial cables that once supported the dish.

When I was done dangling off the side of the roof, I climbed to the apex to install a chimney cap. Our house didn't have one when we bought it, and it has needed one. The clay liner that comes up through the center of the chimney and sticks out the top has been slowly crumbling away. I figured that's probably a bad thing, so I gave it a hat to try and prolong its life. It's actually installed a little off-center because the liner had broken away too much where I needed to attach it, which I figured would happen, that's why I bought the adjustable model.

Back on terra firma, the deck was in need of its biennial staining/sealing. Unfortunately, it was actually in need of its biennial staining/sealing last year, so I had to powerwash it before I could reseal it. I'm hoping next summer I have time to get rid of that ugly plastic fencing.

The deck is small, leaving me with more than half a can of stain/sealant, so I got around to doing the swing for the swing set, too.

When we got our free swing set in 2013, it looked like this. I powerwashed it then, and intended to seal it, but never got around to it. I had to powerwash it again before I could seal it. Now it should be good for a little while.

Nearby the swing set is our not-so-little tree (gnome for scale). I had boxed it in at one point, but since it's doing so well, I gave it a little bigger home.

As you might remember, it looked pretty sad when we planted it in 2012. Two-and-a-half-year-old Augie was actually TALLER than it. Now it's about 15-feet tall. It was a low-risk, high-reward planting. I was cleaning the weeds out of the bushes in the front yard and literally ripped this thing out of the ground by the roots, took it to the back yard, threw it on the ground, forgot about it for a couple of hours, remembered I had the tree, cut a small slit in the ground with my shovel and jammed the tree in the dirt. I didn't even dig a hole. By all accounts, it probably should have died, but alas I has lived, and thrived. I actually had to trim some of the lower limbs off this summer to clean it up.

Out in the front yard, we added a purple maple tree to go with our red maple tree. We planted it at about the worst possible time (as summer was heating up and the regular rain had stopped), so it lost all of the leaves you see here. However, with some regular watering, it has sprouted a few new leaves. It looks pretty ugly right now, but I'm confident it will live and look fine next summer. Since this picture, I've edged it in with the same crescent pavers I used on red maple tree next to it. Before we planted this, I had tried planting a free tulip tree I got in Michigan City, but my Michigan soil wouldn't support its Hoosier roots.

Two-and-a-half-year-old Augie returns to show you what the entryway to our home has looked like since we bought the house in 2011.

That was until I got around to sprucing it up. I took off that old metal railing. It was the same style that used to line our back patio. I powerwashed the stoop, and I used a couple cans of that new Rustoleum Restore paint that's supposed to fill in holes and cracks and prolong life. It went on easier than I was expecting. I used a few of the few thick pavers I acquired this spring to line the front skirt. Some of the other pavers have gone to expand the size of the flower box around the mailbox and create a few "stepping stones" in the flower bed on the back side of the house (a couple of projects I forgot to photograph).

If you had your eagle-eye glasses on, you noticed there was some blue paint in the corner of the stoop. It's a little tough to read in this light, but it says "welcome home."

You also might have noticed the bushes next to the stoop have a fancy, new home, too. There was a time when I hated these giant bushes, but over time they've grown on me. I've been able to trim them into respectable shape, and honestly, they provide added security for the front of the house. If you want to break in through our windows, you've got to scale these bad boys first.

Once before, about three years ago, I had tried mulching them without boxing them in, but that proved foolish because the mower just showered mulch everywhere. Now they are boxed in, lined with landscaping fabric in the areas where weeds grew most often, and covered with about 3 inches of mulch. That should make their maintenance much easier ... at least until they fill up with autumn leaves.