Other People's Kids

In the Doghouse Now

Okay, so the deck plan didn't pan out. As I was preparing for work, I sat back and thought to myself: "Self, do we really need that deck redone right now? Why, no. No, we don't. What we really need done right now is a better dog-containment facility."

And so now we have a brand spanking new 6'x12' dog kennel in our back yard, with Bo's old house bumped up flush with it and a neat little hole cut so the mutt can go from the kennel into the house in bad weather, or if he just feels like it. And get this: it's carpeted.

Yep. We still had the strips of carpet we tore up when we tiled the kitchen and I didn't want to use garbage volume to get rid of them if I didn't have to, so presto, dogs live in style. Oh, it won't last forever, but it'll make for a nice, soft place to lay anywhere in the kennel. You gotta like that.

My Dad, my former foster brother and I had a pretty nice day, and while we didn't follow the original plan, we got a critical piece in place for long-term sanity around here. The deck will come soon, but with the mud pit that the driveway has become in front of the garage I'm wondering if a load of crushed granite might take precedence next.

Give us a year or two, and we'll have the new place licked. You always need a full year or two in a new house to find all the seasonal problems and figure solutions, and we've been sort of remodeling as we go.

A future question: do we go to the time, trouble and expense of putting in an egress window in the basement so we can add one more foster-enabled room? Probably, but probably not this year. Still, if I get bored one Saturday afternoon this summer, I may dig the egress anyway, in anticipation of a future window. It never hurts to be prepared, ya know?

Two years ago, if you had told me I'd be doing this kind of work on my own, I would have laughed in your face. Now I sort of like hanging around at Menards looking at power tools and PVC pipe. Life is weird.

posted by Dan @ 4:30 PM