Last year was such a mixed bag of personal challenges, slow shifts, and hard decisions that it’s difficult to encapsulate! House progress was slow, and largely consisted or triaging things that were broken or making smart swaps to improve our lives. Though I can finally say the library is in the home-stretch! …And I still need to tackle the attic.

Personally, it’s hard to quantify the struggles we had this year in our household, but I will say that a lot of my close relationships grew in ways I never could have imagined: it’s enough to thank the past year for that time. Our household after five long, hard years is back to being a two-dog family. We adopted Henry just before his first birthday! He’s black lab, doberman mix: all legs. Perfect for getting me back into running and mixing us all up a little.

I needed a shed. That's how my thought process started: not a massive shed, just a dry place to stash the weed whacker, pool supplies, and fire pit tools. I was first planning to do a lean-to shed in the back corner near our parking spot, but every option that really fit our needs and matched our old house and garage were very expensive.  I considered building one, and even designed a build, but ultimately knew I didn’t want a shed.  I have a garage and should be able to use that for a lot of these things, despite some inconvenience.

Then we removed a few trees at the back of our lot (two were dead ash trees in the alley) and the space we had available was a lot more usable than it had been before.  Now with far less shade than we ever had, it made a lot of sense to use that space somehow.  With a large spot and a lot of gardeners, there was a great opportunity to make a greenhouse work!

I know in my last post I wrote I’d be working on the attic for the One Room Challenge… well, I do intend to get that buttoned up before the snow gets too deep.  Consider the next few posts a pair of side-quests along the way!  There are a few things I need to wrap before the snow flies, and I started with the items that don’t live under the roof.

When we initially set up our backyard entertaining areas, we set our fire pit on gravel, thinking this would be an easy place for maintenance and setting a fire pit…
We were wrong! While we did everything right with a deep base and stone in our circle, there are just too many voracious weeds that enjoy that here. So, we've upgraded it to a 15' circle paver patio. Luckily, the base we used under our stone was also a good choice for our pavers.

Unfortunately, we set out to re-level the situation way back in May… and finally got back to laying the pavers in… October.  It’s been an interesting year, with adventurous five-year-olds and at least one major broken bone.  So, we slowed down for some fun this summer, taking near-daily advantage of the stock tank pool.  Then at the end of August, my husband broke his leg, and our major projects turned into second-priorities.  While he’ll be on crutches for around another weeks, I’ve employed our pair of eleven-year-olds to help with some of the lifting.  We’re all grateful for their young backs.

Two autumns ago, I set out to -in just two months- finish out my attic space.  It was a huge, complex project that involved building a new attic door, refinishing stairs, reinstalling an original window, and building walls.

Well, with two three year olds at the time, that was an ambitious project to think I could finish!  While I got far, I’m also far from finished.  Where I stopped when I pivoted to wrapping up the dining room is mostly where it has stayed: partially insulated, with a very nice access door at the bottom of the stairs.  It’s about time I get our little storage space and lounge closer to complete.

I'm joining in quite late to the One Room Challenge this round, but I'm glad to have the encouragement from my friend Shalonne who is also returning to a project from the same challenge cycle.  Check her out at @thebackuphouse on Instagram!  She's great. There are so many projects to check out in the One Room Challenge: they are all working on week 3 already!

​After three mini-floods in six months, we decided it was time to set up a flood detection system. We had the big drain problem in the beginning of the year, and -serendipitously- the supply to the same toilet spring a leak this summer during the two days I was working on the window below it! We caught it right away. When our condensate pump stopped pumping though, we were not so lucky. With our HVAC air handler far from the floor drain, the pump removes the water from the indoor unit so it doesn't leak onto the floor. Without the pump... the air handler dripped condensate everywhere probably for a few days. 

Not so ironically, the condensate pump was the first major problem we had with this house, since the one that came with the house failed nearly 8 years to the day before this one. This pump is only a few years old as it was installed with our HVAC 3 years ago. It's working now, and along with adding vinegar to the pump when I change the filter we finally installed a system to warn us if it ever quits again.