Destructo Summary and Photos

The porch is now essentially completely gone, thanks a little help from our good friends crowbar, sledgehammer and normal hammer. All that remains are the concrete stairs, just chilling out where they've always been, and massive piles of junk. Dad has built new stairs leading up to the front door so we don't have to jump really high to get into our house. The back door is an option, though it's a little less accessible now that dad has also gone to work on the shed in the back. Not much of that thing remains either, except of course the obligatory piles of junk. My personal contributions were all in the area of the porch, I ripped off a lot of stucco (at one point I pretty much ripped off an entire wall with my bare hands. . . that's a good feeling), and removed a few floorboards.

Now, on to the visual evidence of progress.

These are just a few pictures of the process of tearing down the porch. They are not quite up-to-date in terms of how the Shack is looking now, a few new context photos will be added soon. These are just to give an idea of how much fun we've been having!Actually, this is the only picture for now. Blogger doesn't feel like uploading my photos today, apparently. More to come soon, hopefully.

A Fond Farewell to the Porch

When I left the house this morning at 7:30, the porch was still more or less standing. The windows and door were gone, yes, but most of the structure was intact. When I came home today around 2:10, the situation was entirely different. At the moment I do not have time to upload photos, but will soon post a few to highlight this key time in Shack life.

Dryer Update

I've been informed by Dad that we have indeed made a purchase of a dryer, we just do not have it yet. It is a fairly small model that may be suitable for the suite or possibly even go in the main house. Mom wants you to know that this purchase was a very long and complicated process.

It's A Laundry Crisis!

Life has been fairly quiet at the Shack recently. Except our laundry is still wet. Why? I'll tell you why! Our dryer is broken. Why's that? I couldn't tell you. Dad suspects it may be something to do with the motor. However, it's not really worth the money to fix it. We may at some point purchase a new appliance that would be suitable for the rental suite once the Shack-time is over. But until then, it's air-drying all the way! Joy!

Destructo and Photography!

This week has brought a couple fun changes to the Shack. For one thing, "Operation Destructo" was in full swing on Saturday, with pretty much all the stucco coming off the north and south sides of the porch. The Shack is going slowly from "Shack" to "war zone" judging by the way it looks. Dad asked me at one point if I felt bad destroying someone else's work. I said I didn't. As I thought about it more, I still didn't feel bad about that, but I felt kind of odd slowly destroying the house I'm currently living in. It seems almost counter-productive, but I know it isn't, of course, in the long run.

The other fun I've been having (since acquiring a new camera) is turning the fussball room in the basement into a fussball room/photo studio. It's perfect in terms of ability to control the light, etc. The only problem is it's in the dank. Oh well. As winter has apparently been approaching (groan...) it's been getting drier down there. I may spend more time down there than I thought when we first moved in.

Update on Shrubbery

In my previous post I said I may hack off a few branches with a saw. This basically turned into obliterating the entire bloody thing. There is now a gigantic pile of branches and leaves in the front yard and what is essentially a stump where the shrubbery used to be. I didn't know half an hour with a bucksaw could be so productive.

Pictures? What's this?

As you can see if you look to the right, I have finally added a few photos outlining what the Shack looks like (exterior). Credit goes to Mom for taking these shots today. I hadn't gotten around to doing any photography.

I would love to write more, but I was just about to [finally] go begin the grand process of "operation destructo". I'm going to go evaluate the enemy - the shrubbery in front of the porch - and possibly even hack off a few branches with a saw!

Update: The pictures have since been taken down since they no longer represent the Shack at all.

Room Redecorating

As I was rooting around in various cardboard boxes looking for some stuff (that turned out to be in my dresser, so I needn't have opened the boxes at all), I came across a mirrorball that either me or my mother purchased at Dollarama a few years ago. Needless to say, I was struck by inspiration. After much careful planning I hung the mirrorball from my ceiling, slightly obscuring a hilarious Don Cherry quote written on my wall. I managed to place it at the spot where, I think, the most light is reflected off it in a certain situation.

Of course, mirrorballs go very well with music, so I ended up slightly re-positioning the speakers of my stereo system. I think the sound is projected to all parts of the room as well as it's ever going to be. Now I could hold sweet dance parties in my room, except that not too many people would fit in there... darn.

In other news, the ill-fated porch has mostly been cleaned out. If I ever have free time, I may start operation Destructo. I have also heard of requests for some "context photos" on this blog. I still have intentions of doing such things. Motivation and free time are rather rare these days. Someday they will come!