Renocation?

Ah, glorious hiatus. So very relaxing…

In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of something resembling a brief break from the renovations. After finishing the bathroom, we reached a logical place to pause for a while. Logical in that there wasn’t anything we felt we needed to get finished before Christmas, and nothing that was so offensive as to upset any potential house guests (i.e., the Top Brass and my mom over the holidays and – just last week – le Grand Pere).

Once the holidays are over, of course, we’ll be tackling the upstairs bedrooms, but for now we’re enjoying the efforts of our labour so far, and dealing with some minor things around the house.

Like, for instance, this bloody thing:





I think I’ve posted about that tree before, but to recap, it’s a rather annoying palm tree that a) scratches across the stucco and windows whenever it gets the slightest bit windy, b) is growing up into the roof (seriously – who the hell would plant a damn palm tree RIGHT under the eaves? Where do you think it’s going to grow? Down, maybe?), and c) is probably disturbingly expensive to buy as a sapling in the first place, let alone to replace as a mature tree. Worse yet, the tree had a resident little green frog that the War Department thought was just too cute for words. She insisted we figure out a way to deal with the tree that wouldn’t disturb the little frog.

We had a couple of suggestions of what to do with it, most notably to get it out of there somehow and sell it to someone (with no taste, presumably – Frank?), but that would probably have necessitated getting some kind of bobcat or other machinery into the back yard. The War Department also wasn’t so fired up about digging that close to the house, either.

So we just cut the damn thing down.

ACTION SHOT!


If the wanton destruction of vegetable matter disturbs you, by the way, this may not be the blog for you. Hee hee!

Anyway, we no longer have to worry about the palm tree pushing up our brand-new shingles, but now we’re faced with a new problem: how do we get rid of the carcass? We left it lying there for a week or two so the frog could get the hint and make its way to a new home, but now it’s just sort of this massive heap of damp crap with some fronds sticking out the end. Oh, and the stump is still there as well – haven’t tried to get the roots out yet.

So really, we’re only about halfway done on this project. I probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it.

Carry on, nothing to see here.