Got to be birds flying higher

Now that the roofing saga is complete and we've gone a few rains without anymore leaks, we're going with a different company to do the siding.

They provided a quote for new windows and Hardie board fibre cement siding for us in 2022. The cost of the upgrade was half of what we paid for our house, so the insurance claim definitely helped us out this year. In hindsight, I wish we had just done the garage back then and lived with mismatching colours, but the cost was just a total turn-off!

Last year's hailstorm provided a great opportunity for change though--we're going from light grey vinyl to Mountain Sage, a very natury yellow-green. Neighbouring houses are going with dark navy, dark grey, and dark brown for siding--so green will be a sweet standout colour. You can get Hardie board in custom colours, but the paint isn't as weather-resistant as the factory colours.

Huzzah! One thing crossed off the to-do list...the roofer was in touch, and we picked out new shingles. The brand is Malarkey Vista Class 4 impact resistant asphalt shingles. I believe Malarkey is the same brand we went with when damage from the November 2011 wind storm qualified us for a new roof. We picked Silverwood. Fingers crossed these outlast a few more hailstorms.

Sometimes you just need a little space for posting your wins!

So, as most of you know, IKEA furniture isn't meant to last or be moved around too much, and it is certainly not meant to be disassembled and reassembled more than once.

Years ago we used a KALLAX 1x4 unit to use as a homebrew TV stand. The new TV is wall-mounted, so the unit was banished to the basement until we could find a place for it. The problem was the unit is too tall and just a little too wide for the spaces I wanted to use it. Part of our basement is unfinished, so it had to be regular shelving. We had the shelves but not the hardware baggie anymore and we didn't hate ourselves enough to visit IKEA :-D We didn't even have spare pegs or other IKEA hardware in the junk drawer!

So, I went to the hardware store and bought a wooden dowel which was just slightly too small for the holes. No problem! After I measured and discovered the pegs needed to be 2" long, I cut up the dowel and used electrical tape to boost the width of the pegs. I disassembled one side. I didn't ask hubs for help since it would have taken longer to fix ;-D However, I did borrow his rubber mallet and told him to not ask me any questions :-D It's truly amazing because my husband is excellent at asking every little question about something. You never can just borrow something--you have to provide a detailed synopsis of what you will be using it for, LOL.

So despite all the banging, falling, cursing, and occasional "Ouch!", two hours later I had the KALLAX shelf as it was meant to be. Is it perfect? No! Will it hold stuff? Yes! Is it good enough? Darn TOOTIN'! Am I absolutely done for the day? HECK YES!

The junk truck made it's annual pick-up of household hazardous waste, e-cycling and donations. I wish I could get hubs to budge on some of the e-cycling. We have at least three Rubbermaid totes of cables, dongles and doo-dads taking up space. I have my own stash of cables for e-cycling hubs doesn't know about :-D

It's also unlikely we'll be going camping ever again, and again, can't get him to budge on air mattresses, sleeping bags and a tent. People tend to hold onto things because they are unsure of the value of. I can see the lack of value quite clearly, LOL!

We had a surprise faucet installed on Wednesday. Since we had a few leaky points, we hired a plumber to come out and fix the outdoor valves and the kitchen faucet. The kitchen faucet was drippy and despite attempts to demineralize it, it kept leaking. I guess plumbers just drive around with fully stocked vans because he had one available right away. It has a detachable hose, which should be quite handy.

Alas, the plumber was not cheap and it was one of those days where I thought, "Dang, shoulda been a plumber" :-D

The visit was $1800 including the cost of hardware. Pay now or pay later--and maybe we'll see some savings on the water bill now, at least.

Mostly just a note to myself to log we had the ducts cleaned and it was $278. It's been a while since we had it done--I want to say at least five years. I'm sure the truck had a rainbow of feathers in it :D

We feel a bit stuck as far as home renos go and the project we wanted to do last year didn't happen. While cleaning out the cupboards, I realized there was one thing we could make happen really quickly--more ShelfGenie pull out drawers!

I paid the deposit on three pull-out drawers--one for the left-hand sink cupboard where the slow cooker lives and two for the left-hand stove cupboard where the rice cooker and other stuff lives.

It's a small thing that's going to make a big difference!

I feel like we have to consult a whole-home professional if we want to do more renos. We've done the things we can do piecemeal. It's just mostly cosmetic stuff at this point. We don't need a whole home refresh--but a renovated bathroom and man cave for hubs would be nice!

I cleaned my office today and I'm still not done. I had all holiday break to do it, but there were so many other fun things to do, of course. I wasn't sure how I wanted to use the space either. My office, which was originally a girl's small bedroom, has seen so many changes over the years. When we first moved in, I had a card table and old desk and some shelving units for my model horses.

Then I splurged on Billy bookcases from IKEA for my books and model horses, a new desk, some over the desk shelving, an ALEX drawer unit, and another IKEA computer cart. The computer cart makes a great printer stand and there's room for file folders underneath where the computer would go. Last year or the year before I added another ALEX drawer unit for my Pazzles die cutter. Well, I'm e-cycling the Pazzles because the company is no longer functional and the machine won't talk to my computer anymore. I bought a Cricut (something I swore I'd never do!) because most of my customers use Cricuts. In hindsight, I did well with the furniture I chose and thinking modular. Our house is the three bedroom model; the two bedroom model has a bigger master bedroom and bigger second bedroom. I know this because my neighbour with that model used to be my co-worker ;-D

If you recall, I graduated from art college and have been tossing, recycling or rehoming a lot of things since April and I just put off the heavy duty chores of pulling almost everything out of the room to vacuum. Once again, I can't believe the amount of recycling I'm doing. Tomorrow I'm going to sort my paper scraps into colour families.

In case you're wondering, what's on my shelves if not books and model horses? Well, there's still three shelves of model horses and one Benno unit full of books. I have my "good" crafting paper organized for die cutting and my rubber stamp collection as well.

Since the passing of my dear, sweet Muffin, I'm no longer beholden to crafting where he is. I can close my closet door and actually use my office without having stuff fall on me! Aw! Poor Muffin. He was just not one to sit nicely while I worked ;-D

I keep on keepin' on!

Peaches
Dog portrait
Call the junk trunk
Recycle (so, so much recycling)
Website updates
Facebook updates
Thunder as an MLP

I don't know when the recycling is going to let up around here ;-D I have a big cardboard box with handles to make dumps to the blue cart and it fills up too quickly. The annoying, small boxes I mentioned earlier are supremely annoying.

Do we need the box?

Do we still have the thing for the box?

Hmm, this could be a really useful box for something someday

Arrrgh!

I wasn't joking when I kept moaning so, so, so much recycling. Here's me holding the giant-ass bag of shredding. The bottom quarter is my shredding and paper scraps, while the rest of it belongs to hubs. The bag just barely fit in our blue cart!

Hubs has more shredding to do--at least three cubic feet. Does one need pay stubs from the 90s? Nay, I say! :-D