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journal archive 10.06
october 2006 archive
This page is the archive
of the "journal" posts from the two RSS feeds (one for the main site,
one
for the "This Old (Hall) House" portion only). They will frequently mimic
each other, but not always; those posts that appear on the TOHH portion of
the site will be noted with the Hall House icon.
return to main journal ·
return to this old (hall) house |
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Now that we finally had some outdoor space in which to
entertain, is there a better way to break it in than with a party? Or more
specifically, converting it into a Turkish Bazaar? You would be right to
ask yourself these questions and the answer is NO THERE IS NO BETTER WAY
TO CELEBRATE AND WE BELIEVE THAT WHEN YOU SEE THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE
FOR YOURSELVES, YOU WILL AGREE THAT WE MAY IN FACT HAVE THE MARKET
CORNERED ON PARTIES THAT ARE THE AWESOMEST AWESOME THAT EVER AWESOMED OMG
SRSLY.
Or, you know, not. But anyway, check out the final the
stage of the patio project and then the two parties we threw to break it
in. Or, you know, just skip ahead to the Turkish Bazaar to find out the
answer to the question: what exactly is a Turkish Bazaar?
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yard, part 6: decorating
the patio -- pretty soon, we won't
need to go someplace else for vacation... we'll just turn off the phone and stay
right here
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roman holiday -- save yourself
the plane ticket and join us on our secluded and oh-so-special patio for an
evening and a meal reminiscent of a magical night in Italy
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turkish bazaar -- and just when
you thought we couldn't possibly top Paris and Rome, we pulled out all the stops
and threw a party they'll be talking about for years
(link this post)
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10.27.06 there's a good reason you haven't heard from us
Well several, actually. I know, what else is new, right?
Well actually, quite a bit. We've been working our little hearts out on
the house all summer and well into the fall, and when we weren't working
on the house, we were enjoying the heck out of it. House? PAINTED! Yard?
LANDSCAPED! Garden? PLANTED! I know, right? Like seriously.
And we have photographic evidence of our innate amazingness.
(What? It's a word. Shut up.) Of course we do. The whole purpose of
this website is to document the atrocities amazingness,
after all. So we've got pictures, people! Lots and lots of pictures. Come,
see the transformation of our house -- the painting we alluded to way back
in June, the yard work we were doing then, the addition of our front and
back porches as actual functional parts of the house...it's all here.
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porch & exterior, part 6: scraping, sanding, priming -- It's like liposuction:
very messy and a big pain in the ass, but the results speak for themselves.
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porch & exterior, part 7: painting the house! -- Making the outside as
pretty as the inside...it's the Ugly Duckling story of home improvement!
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porch & exterior, part 8: building the screens -- Finishing up our
screens juuuuust in time for the hot weather to end. Irony: it's what's for
breakfast.
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porch & exterior, part 9: finishing details -- We're pleased to announce
that our front and back porches are no longer A Million Dollar Liability Lawsuit
Waiting To Happen.
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yard, part 4: landscaping -- In which we make like
Sisyphus and continually move piles of dirt again and again and again....
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yard, part 5: making a garden -- Now this is what we
call fast food.
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yard, part 6: decorating
the patio -- Pretty soon, we won't need
to go someplace else for vacation... we'll just turn off the phone
and stay right here.
And somewhat related to working on the house, a new Peeve,
although you are hereby warned that I break my rule of keeping profanity
to a minimum on this site for this particular rant. Sure, you'll find an
occasional profane utterance, but never the
f-bomb. Not because I don't use it in real life, but because my
Grandmother reads this site.
But I'm making an exception because seriously, you guys? Seriously. This
particular rant...well, it required the f-bomb. A lot. Consider yourselves
warned and don't click it if you're easily offended or if you're my Grandmother.
However, working on the house and writing hate mail to
Target.com isn't all we've been doing.
Now that we finally had some outdoor space in which to entertain, what
better way to start using it than to throw some raging kick-ass parties?
And after you see the pictures for yourselves, we think you'll agree that
we have the market cornered on raging kick-ass parties. You may, in fact,
feel a twinge of envy and wish you could be here, which is of course how
we expect you to feel. After all, we are pretty awesome and you should
want to be within our sphere of awesomeness -- you're only human, after
all. But you know, you're always welcome to join us...our Sphere O'Awesome
(our new tagline, btw)
is open to anyone. Even Republicans.
-
roman holiday -- save yourself
the plane ticket and join us on our secluded and oh-so-special patio for an
evening and a meal reminiscent of a magical night in Italy
-
turkish bazaar -- and just when
you thought we couldn't possibly top Paris and Rome, we pulled out all the stops
and threw a party they'll be talking about for years
In addition to parties, we also found some time to play
this summer, including a trip to a new place in Oregon we hadn't visited
yet and a celebration of our tenth(!) anniversary. Good times, good times.
Finally, welcome to the readers from the
Sentinal blog and
thanks to NoPoJo, who posted a very nice message from a reader who recommended
us (thanks, whoever you are!) and linked us on the main page. Have a look
around, hope you like the site and will continue to visit. You can add our RSS
feed by clicking the feed link up in the right sidebar for notification when the
site's updated.
So that's all for now. But aren't you glad to have some new stuff
to read and look at and to keep you busy for awhile? Because we know you don't
have anything else to do but wait breathlessly for the latest update at
The Hallway.
(link this post)
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(You've got that song stuck in your head now, don't you?
You're welcome.) Since we were working so hard on getting
the outside of the house itself whipped
into shape, it was time to do the same for our poor, neglected back yard.
It'd been three years since we dug out the
hillside for our patio, two and half years since
the last of the retaining walls went up,
and a year since we put down the gravel.
It was long past time to finish up what we started and instill some
civilization into the Amazonian growth.
We had our work cut out for us. Aside from the rampant
weeds that required a machete to hack into submission, there were massive
quantities of dirt to move yet again, and garden beds to build, and
surfaces to contour and barkdust to be blown hither and yon. But there
were also Big Parties of Mindblowing Awesome to be thrown and, we think
you'll agree, so worth all the hard work and marriage counseling.
Pictures from the last stage of patio work and the Big
Parties of Mindblowing Awesome will be posted tomorrow. Prepare
yourselves.
(link this post)
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That's what we've been hearing for the last six months as
friends and family visit and see the house for the first time since it's
been painted. The reaction is always the same -- "I can't believe
this is even the same place!"
I admit it's nice to have vindication after four years of
everyone thinking we'd lost our minds, that this poor, decrepit house
wasn't worth saving. (Although after seeing what some people are salvaging
on houseblogs, I have to say that
our house was in infinitely better shape starting out that some of
those and I stand in awe of what many of those housebloggers have
accomplished.) While everyone tried to talk us out of it -- especially in
those first months -- Sal and I just kept this picture in our mind and now
everyone else can see what we did. It's a nice feeling.
Also, if you missed the
big site update way back in June, here's a reminder of some of the changes
I've made to this here site. As you can see below,
there's now a, if I may say, spiffy new clickable map of the house. Clicking on the various
rooms will take you to their respective sections
of the site. Each project section main page also has a punch list and a
completed items list, so you can see everything we've done so far and what's left
to be done.
If you haven't yet read the ongoing serial story about the
fictional first owner of our house, I've given that section a facelift and
this is a great time to check it out:
Cathedral Park Chronicles.
Finally, if you're coming in via the houseblogs.net RSS
feed, welcome to our humble online abode about our humble actual abode.
There's lots to see and click, and if you want to see more than the stuff
about our house, you can go to the main page of our
site, click any of the buttons on the left, or check out the
site map for a complete overview.
(link this post)
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