…And Another Month Passes By

I know, I know.  I’m starting to sound like a broken record.  Speaking of which, is there a more modern expression we use these days in lieu of ‘broken record’?  Do the kids even know what that means??

Anyway.  I don’t even know where to start!  Life has been absolutely crazy busy and while I tend to like that, I’m a little burnt out.  Work has been exhausting and after coming off of almost 3 straight weeks on the road (including weekends – which were fun and by choice, but exhausting), I’m finding all I want to do is zone out in front of the old boob tube (again – is this expression outdated?) and my frustratingly slow computer at the end of the night.  Or just escape to here.

Beyond that, I am so overwhelmed by all the things I need to blog about.  I realize my use of the word “need” here is a little overdramatic…I don’t *need* to do anything when it comes to updating the internet on our life…then again, my sensitivity around the word may be due to John’s frequent ramblings on the subject.  But really, I just want to write about it all!  The baby and bridal showers I’ve been throwing, the landscaping that is a constant challenge but is totally rewarding, all the wonderful family time we’ve had over the past couple of months both here and elsewhere, the new roof, drywall in the basement, and oh yeah…the (almost) finished garage I mentioned awhile back but never really finished discussing (speaking of which, it would help if I could find those ‘final’ pictures…).  Yikes.  Maybe I should teach Jackson how to blog?  ‘Bout time he earned his keep around here, right?

Despite my occasional freakouts and fairly high stress levels these days, I realize I have so much to be thankful for and every day I try not to forget it.  I’m constantly telling people that “2012 is a big year” in my family/friends circle.  My beautiful sister is marrying the love of her life in August, my amazing parents are celebrating 60 years of life and 40!!!!! years of marriage.  That alone is incredible.

On top of that, one of my oldest and dearest friends is pregnant and due any second with her first little peanut and I cannot wait to meet her/him.  John’s brother recently got engaged and is also getting married this year, in fact, in the same month as my sister!  Crazy, eh?  But so exciting.  And then our goddaughter, who is the ultimate blessing to our family, just got baptized and then turned 1!

We traveled to Spain and have some other fun adventures in the works this year, which is something we definitely prioritize and work hard to be able to do but recognize how fortunate we are to be able to do so.

(excuse the crappy iPhone pic…)

Oh yeah, and somewhere in there, my favorite guy turns 30.  Say whaaaaaa?

It’s easy to get overshadowed this year…but we got plans to celebrate appropriately.

So it’s a crazy year, but a good one.  And despite the inconsistent blog updates on my life, I’m happy to say that I’m living it.  And that, I know, is a good thing.

Life, Lately

An update is overdue, this I know.  Probably one on things like the garage.  Or that trip to Spain we took almost 2 months ago.

But, I/we’ve been a little busy with things like planning this…

And crafting things like these…

For this beautiful lady-friend of mine…

And I can’t forget to mention there’s been a lot of activity surrounding the much anticipated August wedding of my dear sister…

…who also managed to squeeze in a little trip out West with the rest of the fam.

Why yes, we have beaches in Denver.  You hadn’t heard?

There was even time for a quick getaway where I managed to stare at these all weekend…

With these lovely ladies…

Of course, after the mountain fun was said and done, a (heavy) drywall hanging session ensued with this guy…

But somewhere, between all of that, plus a lot of long hours at work (I’ll spare you any photos…as if any even existed), we’ve even found time for a little of this:

It’s been a crazy, hectic, but fun past month or so.  However, the warm weather is (about) here to stay, the days have definitely gotten longer, and I’m ready for more backyard campfires.  Even if I have to earn it through some extra work hours, drywalling, and my arch nemesis…landscaping.

Happy Spring, All!

(and, I’ll try to get some more detailed updates posted soon…)

Raising The Roof

Ahhh, the garage roof.

I believe I left off with something like this, yes?  With framing finished, we were ready for roofing.

Guess who was lucky enough to be in town visiting when the tar paper (aka, the waterproofing component of the roof) arrived?

That would be my poor unlucky Pops.  He acted excited to help, but really…is this what you would want to do on a sunny, warm Colorado day like this (keep in mind, this all occurred last August…I’ll catch up someday)?

Unfortunately, it was game over once John started hauling said tar paper up to the roof.

They got into a rhythm pretty quickly though.

Notice this guy (in the pic below) from anywhere?  That would be the cupola from the old gazebo that used to live on our property.  We thought it would be fun to save it and affix it to the top of the garage…and we loved it very much so, until a severe windstorm recently knocked it off its perch.   Luckily it seems repairable…but of course we just need to find the time to said repairs.

Anyway…back to roofing.  John and my dad continued to nail down the initial layer of the roof while the girls were, I’m sure, doing something equally important.

You know you wish you had a camo hat.

Confession: I have one too.  Thanks, sister.

Another confession…I kind of love them.

Ahem…where were we?  Tar paper, on the roof.

Soon enough it was all covered.  Unfortunately, the garage sat for some time and thanks to a few more crazy windstorms, John had to perform some minor roof surgery, but eventually he got to haul the shingles up that same ladder and got busy making a proper roof.

Exhausting, eh?  It appears John would say so.

Next up…shingles.  I promise, we’ll be done rambling about the garage soon enough.  And in care you’re wondering…you’re not the only one hoping for a conversation change.

(Not that I don’t find garages fascinating, John.)

Framing Round 2

Umm…what was I saying?  A couple weeks ago?  Oh yes, I was talking about framing the garage.

And then John and I skipped the country, and between prepping for it and then actually doing it, I forgot to finish talking about the 2x4s that made our garage vision an actual structure.  Whoops.

And to make matters worse… this all occurred during a time when green leaves were still on the trees.

Forgive me?

Framing always makes me smile.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  I think framing is fantastic because it’s the realization of what was previously just a concept, a plan.

And the garage was no different.  I’m a highly visual person, so this culmination of many pounds of wood was all I needed to fully grasp what exactly we were doing to the backyard.

Good thing I liked it, eh?

Once the structure was up, you know what the immediate next step was, right?

Cue the kid with a truck that has been waiting for 13 years to park his own truck in his own garage.

A monumental moment, I tell ya!

It’s like us kids finally grew up and became adults.

And it’s like we now have a little house that sits behind our real house.

And uh, the occupants are a couple of Dodges, a lot of tools, and an unnecessary amount of camping stuff.  Cozy ,eh?

Next steps: roofing and siding.  Not necessarily in that order.  Or maybe in a back-and-forth kind of order.  If that even makes sense.

And if it doesn’t make sense…then I guess just check back soon.  I don’t think we’ll be skipping the country within the next week, so perhaps finishing this long-winded garage progress ‘series’ will start to draw to an end.

(I think this is where I’m supposed to say: “don’t hold your breath”)

Frame it Out

It was a warm summer’s day.  The birds were chirping, the leaves were green, and the Cheneys were running around in shorts and T-Shirts.

When is this magical time I speak of?  Sometime at the end of last summer, when a cute little Lumber Pack filled with studs, plywood, and other miscellaneous wood things used to build a garage arrived at our back doorstep.  Seems like a lifetime ago now, what with the 20 inches of snow that currently sit on that same back doorstep…

I guess if there’s anything positive to come from my delayed blogging updates, it would have to be seeing pictures of that non-snowy time.  It gives me hope that the absurdly massive ice chunks that line our streets and alleyways will, in fact, melt.  Someday.

But hey, back to the Lumber Pack.  Pretty studly, eh?

You may remember that long, long ago, we devised a plan to rid our backyard of the quaint little 1890s garage (emphasis on little) that sat in the back corner of our property.  Hence the need to build a new garage.  So after the foundation was properly set, a crew of trustworthy men got to work with all things lumber related.

As always, everything is best shown through a montage, yes?

And in case you’re keeping track, yes, that’s the second time I’ve referenced the Team America montage video on this blog.  And yes, it still makes me laugh just as hard.  Always.

Anyway, there really isn’t much to say beyond: these guys did their thang and and before we knew it, the elusive garage dream became a reality with real live walls.

Yes, John was salivating the whole time.  Dream come true,  I tell you.

These pictures certainly make it look like the garage ate our yard.  And…well, it certainly gobbled up a good portion of it.  But I’m happy to report that once the walls were up, our size decisions were reaffirmed.

And well, spoiler alert: now that we’ve been parking and storing things in there for the past couple of months, I can honestly say any smaller size would not have worked.

As I like to say, we own our own mini-Home Depot here at 515.  And that, my friends, require storage.  Plus, we drive big vehicles.  My apologies to all the Greenpeace kids on the 16th Street Mall.

And as I also like to say, the framing stage makes such a difference.  For a visual person like me, it’s all the difference, because I can finally start picturing what things will look like.

More to come on the ‘ol garage progress soon.  It’s come such a long way since that warm, summer day.  And it has certainly come in handy during this extra snowy winter we seem to be enjoying in Denver this year…in fact, not having to scrape my windshield = best gift John’s ever given me.

Welcome to 2012

Apparently it is a new year. And apparently it has been awhile since I last wrote. Whoopsie.

Something to do with the holidays and subsequent craziness at work is to blame, I’m sure.

Rest assured, there has been (some) time in there for work around this crazy house.  In fact, recent projects have introduced a whole new way of relaxing…

Turns out the roof of the garage is actually a fantastic way to get in a little reading…

Happy New Year all!

Roofin’ It

Those of you that are Denverites may remember the crazy thunderstorm-filled summer we had this year.  Thunderstorms that produced hail such as this.

You may not specifically remember July 13th, but it was a memorable hail storm filled with 1 inch+ sized hail that caused our trees to ‘rain leaves’.  Unusual for July, and probably one of the worst hail storms we’d seen in Denver in our 10+ years here.

That craziness led to the craziness I alluded to earlier today…

After a summer of hail and a little back and forth with our insurance company, we confirmed a new roof was in fact in store for the Cheneys.  Which was convenient, since we were never a huge fan of our worn, semi-pink roof.

I realize it doesn’t look pink here.  So this is when you just have to trust me…our roof is not attractive.  The whole house is a nice shade of dusty rose, in fact.  Still don’t believe me?  Well, we recently received a holiday party invite from our neighbor that’s addressed to “The neighbors in the dusty rose house”.  Yeah…not only do we still not know all of our neighbors by name, but we’re also those people that live in a pink house.

Fortunately that’s all about to change thanks to the guys at Premier Roofing showing up today and getting us started on our major exterior renovations.

They arrived this morning, and I unknowingly greeted them in my robe when I popped outside to retrieve our eggs from the local dairy in our cooler on the porch.

Despite that awkwardness, they quickly got to work tearing off the top layer of (pink) shingles, which was covering the original, 120-year old cedar shakes.  So they had a second layer to remove before they got down to the bare bones.

I guess that’s just how things were done on this house…leave the old and cover it up in one way or another.

At least there was no rotting to be found – thank you Denver and your dry climate.

John stopped by at some point to check on their progress, and naturally had to check out the views from the top of the house.

In my opinion, this was a dumb idea.  Not because of the danger involved in scaling our house/roof, but because I now would like to implement some sort of rooftop patio so I can take in these views on a daily basis.

I mean, the historical close ups of the neighboring church are fantastic alone, not to mention the surrounding views of Denver and the mountains to the West…

For now I suppose I should just be content with receiving a nice, new, non-pink roof.  But John…that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped dreaming about said rooftop porch…

Check out that steep roof line.  Now you see why this is a multi-day project, eh?  And thank goodness for safety ropes.  Always OSHA-compliant around here, we are!

John estimates they are about a third of the way done, which I suppose means I like the exterior of our house 33% more than I did yesterday.  But most of all, I am liking…scratch that, loving…this charming original shake John saved from the demolition remnants.

You know I’ll be finding the perfect (pun not intended – that’s what we call a coincidence) place for it somewhere on our interior walls.  It’s like something I would have sought out at a local antique store, but it’s actually a part of the house and its history…I couldn’t have found a more appropriate rustic relic if I tried.