ta-da! we're done! of course, not really and truly done, but we hammered smashed jackhammered in the last of the rebar on our wall and lay the last piece of wood.

some quick specifications acc. to curt: 1/2", 7ft rebar, 3ft. below the ground, spaced every 4 ft and double reinforced at intersections of 25 ft long wall (4 ft tall); 2, 4x8 deadmans in the middle and at each end we put nice drainage in (look papa! gravel...)and caulked (think the wall might be held together with caulk)...it still needs to be painted, we need to move the dirt behind it and then there's the stairs. oh boy. the projects just keep coming...or we keep bringing them, i guess.
we're rebuilding the first two steps that lead up past the perfect new wall. curt started it last evening as the sun was setting and he was determined to get it framed before we called it quits for the day. i called it quits when we couldn't see any longer, but he kept going. that blur below is him and the light of his handy new flashlight.
check out what a few days of rain has done for the backyard. it's pretty wonderful.

and finally, some photos of the living room:

the fabled ebay couch arrived and after much frustration, clamping and wood glue, it made it to the living room. the cushions are pretty hideous so you'll have to do your best to imagine them covered with a deep forest green velvet. until then maybe just squint your eyes.we just brought our little wood-burning stove back in from it's outdoor summer storage place. we still need to get him all fixed up and get a chimney for him but here's where he'll live.
craigslist vintage cabinet turned in to our makeshift tv storage (originally from bullocks!)and the gorgeous hand-me-down vinyl wingback chair....my favorite knitting corner. we've yet to find the perfect coffee table (curt tells me it might live in germany, at his mother's home), there's no molding or baseboards and the curtains haven't been hemmed but it's coming along. we haven't decorated or put any art up, that'll come soon, but we did bring home a new bookcase today. photos of that will be next.

we thought that all that stood between us and our clean clothes was a simple hook-up. foiled again my friends! the cabinhouse has yet to disappoint us in the "great challenges" department. Apparently the people who lived here before us were content to just shoot the water out of a hole they ripped in the side of the basement wall with no regard for the actual drainpipe...as evidenced below:
we, of course, wanted to do it right...sort of. we actually took these photos to show our new favorite hardware store friend, jose. he's the plumbing expert at our local hardware store and after our second time back in 30 minutes we decided we needed some visuals.
everything is now fine and dandy in the pipe-to-sewer department (forgot the "after" photos...later) thanks to jose and the doctor, we just have to figure out why our lovely machine won't spin the water away! again, true to form...nothing is simple with our beloved little home.

oh, on that note: check out the 2nd half of our couch that finally found it's way to our local greyhound depot:yes, that would be broken leg #2. i think curt has fixed it up as well as possible, now we'll just have to test it out. bummer...but at least it came.

in other news of the weekend, while i tried to organize the small area behind the kitchen that will be an office/craft/art studio (until the real one is renovated), curt wreaked havoc on our backyard. it's amazing. he cleared up the whole "nature loop" area and prepped our soon-to-be succulent garden for planting. the cleared hillside makes the yard look even bigger than before.(what you can't really see up above is the lovely chainsaw that's made this all possible)

with all of our clearing and cutting we've been about 4 years behind with the waste department's green bucket pick-up. seemed like we'd never get all of our greenery cleared. problem solved. curt spent hours by the fire last sunday (little bit of pyro in him...) and we're ready for the next onslaught.

oops. i lied. i have more photos. but they're kind of boring.

we bought a really cool couch on ebay for a good deal (ugly ugly cushions=no bids=we can sort of afford it). it shipped greyhound (weird, non?), we've only received one half (vintage sectional), the box was all beat up and one of the legs was broken!!!! annoying, fixable, but really annoying.

so now we're just waiting for the second half (please don't be broken!) and then the recovering project can begin. anyone know of a great, cheap-but-decent quality place, online or in the east bay, to buy upholstery velvet?