Dead bushes and phones.

Well my Nexus-S smartphone bricked (when attempting to write a DIYKai last week) and took its pictures with it. We have had a lot of progress go down in the last couple weeks. Here are some highlights (no pics for obvious reasons):

Tree trimmers came through, and while they did a lot of work on the trees and yard they were a bit indiscriminate about their destruction. The other side gate was knocked off its hinges and probably needs to be replaced (hey I know exactly how to do that). The avocado tree and pepper plant mentioned in the previous post were killed mere days after by reckless trimmers. :(. We also just discovered a massive palm tree stump where hideous bush version 2 lived. Suck, that thing will be a PITA to remove.

Some walls have been patched! I suck at mixing plaster, too thick and it solidified in 5 minutes first time, too thin and took forever to fire second try. Wallpaper in the bedroom is being scraped.

I did some stripping in the office, and then stained one of the window frames to match the built in bookcase. Stripping/sanding off the 7 layer dip of (probably] lead paint is not an easy task nor a clean one. Apologies to the lining of my lungs and stomach. We are sampling some paints in the office, and thinking about colors for the bedroom too! If the office window is an indication the redwood will look fantastic once restored.

The homeowners insurance company has already threatened to drop us if we do not make repairs. Shockingly the issue they have is with the roof??? The roof that has been replaced within the last 5 years and that, I, PaGyver, our awesome home inspector and everyone who has looked at the place said is fine. Ok so Belle calls them up and it turns out the issue is just that there are leaves on the roof and one flashing is bent up, not that the entire roof needs to be replaced as their documents indicate. /whew, much easier task. 20 Gallons of water down the roof (told you it was fine) cleared the leaves, and I will figure out how to get a hammer to the flashing asap. Is it a bad idea to tie off to the chimney and rappel down to the edge of the roof? It must be at least 30-40' high so my ladders are out of the question unless I can convince PaGyver to bring down his 40' extension ladder.

Other things:
*Bathtub removed from downstairs bath to prep wetroom install. A clawfoot from 1923 is sitting in our backyard.
*Belle built some cool cactus planters for the front.
*Installed a wireless doorbell with ringers at both gates.
*Belle started cleaning the bomb shelter rations from 1973.
*Mounted a hose rack and added spray nozzles.
*Found the rest of the seller's realtor's lock.
*Took a load of yard waste to the dump
*Brewed a hazelnut porter -- first homebrew on ye' olde' stovee
*Adventures at the garbage dump.
*Filled a bagster. Actually these suck, if you are considering them think again. The cost compared to hauling stuff to the dump yourself just sucks 140 bucks vs 48. Also it is smaller than expected (same size as my truckbed...), you cant fill it higher than the bag (4', but feels more like 3) and you dont get the bag back after they dump it (bag costs 39 bucks then 100 to dump). I almost feel like emptying the contents into my truck driving to the dump then returning the bag to homedepot and saying it was too small for our job.