Quick and Easy Afternoon House Project

So today, Jay undertook a quick house project. He rebuilt the attic stairs. Seriously, it was one of the easier house projects to date. Later in the evening, he helped Mark and Meredith by removing some shrubs from the front of their house. No photos of that. Sorry.

Jay removing the old cracked stairs.

Doing a few modifications.

I can see Russia from here!

Finished stairs!

Finished stairs- view of the back of the stairs.

THE BEES ARE HERE!!!!!

The bees arrived today at 10:03am to Todd Canterino's. We left work and I went home to prepare my hive and get all my tools together. Todd came and brought our bees and then helped me install them. It it technically too cold, but it wasn't going to get any warmer any time soon, so we decided we better go for it. I put some honey in a plastic container with some sticks so that my hungry bees would have some food in their new home. Todd arrived, and we had to separate the boxes of bees. Luckily, Todd brought his axe. After some trial and error, we figured it out and took the bees up to their new hive. The queen didn't have a metal hook like we were expecting, but we were able to hang her between the top bars. The box fit into the hive, but it seemed too cold to let the queen be by herself until her entourage decided to mosey out of the box, so I began banging them out. They didn't really like this, as was to be expected, but due to the cold, I think, I only got stung once. I did get 2 bees up my pants- note to self- no wide bottom pants. They didn't sting me though, so all is well. Enjoy the photos! (oh and I forgot to put my veil on first!

Bee gear and honey, awaiting bees.

Gear and hive ready and waiting.

2 boxes of bees = 2 queen bees and 20,000 workers and drones.

Todd and his very sharp axe, splitting the screen to separate the packages of bees.

Ready to remove the queen (the yellow plug)

Plugs removed- here come the bees! (not at all....they just hung out there)

Queen hanging with her attendants.

Drone bee (male- for keeping the queen happy only). Honey in the background.

box sitting on top, waiting for all the bees to go into the hive and keep the queen warm

BEES!

House Project Things I Hate

Top 3 things I despise when doing house projects:  1) repointing foundations 2) removing blown-in insulation 3) removing plaster  4) plumbing

Looking up our stairs at the ceiling where we removed plaster and nasty blown-in insulation. Don't use the stuff! It's terrible! An asthma attack waiting to happen. I still itch from it being dropped on my head.

What you say? We have been doing 2 of the 4 things I hate most about house projects??? Imagine how much fun it was around here this weekend then.

House Cleaning!

Today, after going to the Heiburg Forest annual Pancake Breakfast, Jay and I did some light house cleaning. We decided the dining room ceiling was probably hiding a lot of dust, so we decided to take it down and vacuum out all the dust above it. It's much cleaner now.

Dining Room Ceiling Before

Nice Clean Dining Room Ceiling after.

It's not just the walls...

So Jay was unhappy with the results of sanding, so he decided to take the ceilings down too. I can't make this stuff up, folks.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US???

The mess in the garage.

We removed more walls.

What is wrong with us??

View from the dining room.

We were supposed to have started mudding today. Instead, we opted to remove more walls.

Big Wally's

So we fixed some plaster cracks in the wall using Big Wally's Plaster Magic. We saw it on This Old House.

The Box O'Stuff

Drilling the holes on each side of the various plaster cracks

Wyatt, unbeknownst to us, photographing the process. After drilling the holes, you fill them with at conditioner, then the plaster magic adhesive. Then you screw these special clamps in, and WALA, plaster fixed.