Wrapping it up

The best thing about the late fall/early winter has been finishing all the house projects that we started this year. From July to November we ran a moving into our house, getting married, repainting the house, getting new windows, new patio doors, and new eavestrough gauntlet. And then there was the little war with the neighbors part one and part two. The last piece of the puzzle has been the back yard.

Mostly because this is what the back yard looked like:

Which is to say that it looked like a shanty town-come-meth lab.

When we painted the house, the neighbors shouted and threatened to sue us. When we got new evestroughs they claimed to be taking pictures of our house when we weren’t there. And when we started work on the fence, they installed a web cam in their front and back windows so they would have records of when our workers were on their property. All the while our yard has had shared access, and all the while they’ve mentioned that our dogs are going to be “a problem”, which means that shared access to our yard is not at all acceptable.

Building the fence was nothing short of terrifying. We started the demolition ourselves, only to have them start circling the garage taking pictures right after we’d started while pretending not to see us there. After about 10 mins. of this I decided it was appropriate to play the “screw this” card and just pay someone to deal with their aggression.

When the demolition crew came on site the neighbours charged out of their house screaming and swearing, they claimed to have a special agreement with the gas company that would prevent us from building. They stood in the shared part of our yard, and yelled at the crew – daring them to build. Daring them to move this curmudgeon of a man.

They railed and called the gas company and threatened to call the police. They claimed the tin shed was covered in lead paint, and we were going to contaminate their yard. For the most part, we stayed on the phone with lawyers who were family friends and stayed indoors for the week that the fence was being put up. But because they’d threatened our puppies, this wasn’t an optional building project. We needed to make sure they were out.

And internet, it was so worth the fuss!!

The new yard!

We have literally doubled the size of the back yard. The puppies have a dog run for the summer, and I have a whole yard that I can fill with whatever veggies and herbs and flowers that I can think of in the spring!

The new back yard means that we have completed all the major projects I had planned for the house in the first year during our first four months here. It has been such a whirlwind. In the new year the house turns 100 years old and the projects move inside.

I’m planning on:

• Refinishing our hardwood floors
• Repainting the kitchen cupboards
• Restyling the kitchen into a white and green mod space
• Stripping the white paint (!) off the beautiful oak staircase
• Making my craft room thoroughly whimsical

And then there’s the DIY decorating to think of…

Winter can do its worst with -50 C and all the rest. I have sweaters and summer schemes to keep me busy.

And in what I take to be a sign of the Christmas spirit, when the neighbours put up their Christmas decorations they took down the web cam. Maybe there’s hope for us after all.