Area51- Mike's House & Backyard Repairs 2015 :

The winter of 2014-2015 was a darn good one!

Housework continued right away in the new year as I got to work on my basement man cave, our Rec. Room.

I created a wire chase in the wall to hide wires for a wall mounted TV. I also prewired for surround sound speakers which was a bit of a trick with mostly finished ceilings throughout the basement.

The TV wall was painted a seafoam green to accent the grey on the walls which is a little darker than the color we used upstairs. In the Rec. Room we set up our old Living Room couches from our old house.

Oscar trying to be a good office kitty by checking the mail.

In April Bassan and I got to work on a little project in the Dining Room. We definitely needed more storage space and this nook was pretty useless on its own.

We picked up a couple pre-made cabinets at Home Depot (which was far cheaper than making them) as they fit the opening perfectly. We used one double door cabinet flanked by two single door cabinets. Once they were fixed in place we made a couple filler strips then got the countertop ordered.

Out in the garage we set to work making drawers for the two single cabinets.

They were made from melamine press board and finished with iron on edging.

The countertop came from Provincial Wood products, it had to be cut out of square following the measurements we provided and it fit perfectly.

Filler strips and baseboards installed

The left side drawers will be used to hold napkins, placemats, candles and more, the right side will be a mini bar with bottles laid in the drawer and a shelf for glasses. The centre cabinet will be used to hold not frequently used kitchen items including our big roaster, blender, some cookie sheets and our Sunday dinner pot.

Next I headed to the attic to install a couple of pot lights over the space which on its own was too dark. Thankfully the room was prewired for a switched ceiling fan, I picked up this unused circuit and fed it over so we can switch the pot lights independently from the main dining room light.

The final piece of the puzzle was installing some cultured stone to create a beautiful accent wall in the space.

We are very happy with how this turned out, it turned a useless nook into a very useable serving station with lots of extra storage.

The night Oscar escaped, it was a chore to catch him, the little bugger ran like a rabbit amongst the alder bushes up the road. He licked is soft house kitty paws for a few days after that adventure.

Tuckered out!

By May our new couch developed a bunch of problems with the recliners, the store bought back our old set for full price and gave us an even better deal on this faux leather reclining set.

In June our neighbors Marcel & Tracey hired a contractor to replace the section of fence between our properties that had been wind damaged prior to our arrival to the neighborhood.

The contractor asked if I wanted any of the old fence materials to which I replied absolutely. The materials were not very old but the fence posts had been undersized and spaced too far apart.

In July I began making repairs to our fence which was quite damaged along the rear property line.

I hand dug holes for six brand new posts. Much sturdier 6x6x10' pressure treated posts were buried over 36" deep and cemented in place.

Even Mark French stopped by to aid in the mixing!

One single 4x4 post was left in the line as it was perfectly straight and not cracking off like the others. I think it will be OK especially now that it is flanked by heavy duty posts.

I re-used many old sections of fence, many of these were 10 & 12 feet wide which cut down perfectly to fit my 8 foot wide openings. Leftover pieces provided a great source of firewood for the firepit!

The previous homeowner added a 2x6 board along the top of the fence, probably to band-aid repair the old weak fence framing. Since the boards were already on hand I reinstalled them which does provide a nice finished feature and certainly adds strength.

On the right end of the repaired area I created a six foot wide gate for accessing the outside of the fence. This fence is a little way in from our property line, this opening will provide easy access for making repairs.

2015 was another productive year around the house, not as busy as last year thank goodness! I'm very happy to have the backyard fully fenced in again as it no longer looks neglected. We have more plans so stay tune in 2016 to see what we tackle next!

Cheers, MIKE