O.M.G. That's A Tree. It's Growing To Be Like Five-Foot-Three.

(the title was my attempt at gangsta rap. think Jay-Z would approve? does he even sing gangsta rap?)


This weekend at RHN was insane. And gross. And unbelievable. And served up a healthy helping of OMG WTF ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING RIGHT NOW?!


Remember that ridiculous air conditioner that was protruding obnoxiously out of the side of the wall in the dining room and out of the side of the house?  Oh, right, and it didn't even work.  Well, we took that out this weekend and woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Houston we had a problem. Where do I begin?  (Your answer: 'at the beginning'. Thanks smart aleck.)

When the moulding around the AC came off it didn't look too bad. Then the AC unit removal came in and disastrous is an understatement. Ok, think I'm being a drama llama queen? I'll prove it. There was a birch tree growing in our wall. No, not a weed, a tree, with roots, in our wall. The wood frame built to sturdy it up was so rotted due to water damage and eaten away by who knows what. Then came the cringing what's behind door #2. My dad began to take down some of the interior holy sheet!rock because it had been so wet for so long that it was mushy and had turned the consistency of paste. Not too bad. Then came the outside. The water/rot damage was significant. As in Ed had to take out about double the amount of the wall around where the small AC hole was. Ed was a champ on that ladder - it was high up and he was a circular saw/sawzall/caulk gooper/drill user/screw putter-inner rock star.

After our gawking at the amount of grossness subsided, we (dad and Ed) built the stud back in, filled the gaping hole with insulation, put ply wood on the exterior and holy sheet!rock on the interior, caulked, and re-sided the exterior and mudded the interior.  It's like magic! Magic with power tools! The Harry Potter of RHN. (he uses magic, right? maybe I should stop referencing things I don't know much about. Nah, that takes all the fun out of it.)

While the boys were screwin' around (get it? screwin' around? because they were using screws to put the interior & exterior back together? bad joke? thought so) I was painting my little heart out. I painted the kitchen ceiling, the attic access point in the front  hallway, the trim all throughout the up and downstairs, Cman's bedroom trim and the front door threshold trim. Phew! That's a lot of painting! Oh and in our broken down festering rain filled pile of a 'pool' in the backyard, we have a new resident. 

We have chosen a definite paint color for the giant room and have found our kitchen floor tile at a steal!!! (like hows $3.99 sq ft for 12x12 tile on sale for $1.99 sq ft plus an extra 6% cash back and I'm on the hunt for an extra coupon.) We haven't yet bought the cabinets for the kitchen and have good reason to wait. Lowes has fantastic deals come holidays and Labor Day is less than 2 weeks away. Bye-bye, summer. Hello, cabinets.