A little side-tracked

Well, that big weekend I promised everyone...it, um, well, you see...

Needless to say, it didn't happen as I had originally planned, but then again most things typically don't for me these days. Instead, I decided it was time to go ahead and get gutters installed on the house because I was worried that the new doors that we had installed this past Spring would start to rot like the old ones if I didn't get gutters installed soon. The purpose of the gutters being that they would divert the runoff from the roof instead of dumping it onto the ground in front of the doors, and then splashing back up onto the threshold and frame of the door and eventually causing it to rot. However, before the gutters could go up, I needed a way to handle the additional drainage from the downspouts. To make a long story short, I ended up renting one of these

yep, ain't she a beauty!? You're looking at 1015 lbs. (yes, a HALF-TON) of solid, honest-to-goodness, earth crunching, root tearing, mud slinging power! That's right, I rented a 24" trencher to dig a 110' long, 4" wide, 12" deep trench from the house, across the backyard, and down the slope towards a small stream. What would have probably taken me a good 2 days to dig by hand, ended up taking me only an hour and a half with this baby. If you have any need to dig a trench anytime in the near future, I highly recommend renting one of these!

So with the drainage and gutter work done (oh yeah, they installed them today...I would recommend these guys for anyone looking for gutters), my focus is back to the kitchen and downstairs. This weekend, I plan on removing all of the popcorn ceiling in the kitchen and sun room, tearing out the base mouldings, and hopefully reconfiguring the walk-in-closet in the kitchen so that the frig will fit in there. I'll post pictures as they become available :)