"I'm gonna catch it in the coat... And smack it with the hammer"

When we left you last time we were about to venture deep into the ceiling and walls of our bathroom to try to discover the source of the burning/smoldering smell.  Andy used his amazing sense of smell to locate the source to a particular area of the ceiling and that's where he began to cut.  It didn't take long to figure out what Andy was smelling.  As soon as he cut a hole he discovered an old, decaying squirrel!  Poor Andy, not only did he discover the squirrel but it was completely up to him to discard the squirrel as well, I was NOT going to be involved at all.

How or why a decaying squirrel produced an odor that was similar to a burning smell is a mystery, but the smell seems to be gone now that our (not so) furry friend is gone.

Finding a dead squirrel in your ceiling is certainly distressing, but you know what's worse?

Finding one staring at you when you come out of the bathroom!

Friday night around 3:30 in the morning Andy went up to our third floor bathroom (since our second floor bathroom still has a hole in the ceiling) and when he came out he saw an adolescent squirrel staring back at him!  He yelled down the stairs to wake me up and groggy and blurry eyed I went upstairs to see what was causing the commotion.  Andy tells me there's a squirrel in the house.  I don't think I comprehended what he was saying until I actually saw it running underneath our baseboard heating.

We thought how are we EVER going to catch a squirrel?  We didn't have a large dog to chase it around our house, or a Santa coat and hammer to catch it with, but some how Andy did manage to corner it and lure it into a box.  We released it out in our driveway after which I'm sure he ran right back into our eaves!

The most troubling part of this experience is knowing that if there was one adolescent in our house, there must be more!!  We went out got a Havahart trap, baited it with sunflower seeds and now we're just waiting...

Oh the joys of home ownership!

This Week, on the DIY Disaster Zone...

I have fun with a stud finder, Andy goes in the closet, we wonder what that smell in the bathroom is and more!

We've been in our new house for about two and half months, and while I still have not been able to unpack our bedroom and clothes, I thought it was about time to start hanging things on our walls!  Our living room actually looks put together now, and the wall paper is even starting to really grow on me!

We also put up the custom coat rack my dad made for us, no more laying coats on the kitchen table and chairs!

We were able to make some progress in our bedroom this week as well and Andy learned something new at the same time!  Now that our room is painted we decided we needed new outlets and light switches, so my dad taught Andy how to remove and replace an outlet.  Perhaps my dad didn't think Andy was ready for light switches yet because he did those himself.

Andy also continued to work in our closets, patching and sanding the walls, trying to get them ready to paint, it's the one thing that's really keeping us from being able to move in to our room.







We also got some things done recently that we've been meaning to do for a while.

We had the roof over our second floor porch replaced.  It was very old and in rough shape so we knew we needed to get it done before the winter.  Golini Roofing of Wakefield did the roof and they did a great job.  Hopefully the rest of our roof can wait a few years.

We also finally put down a floor in our second floor bathroom.  When we had our hardwood floors redone the only room we didn't do was the second floor bathroom because the previous owners had replaced the sewer pipe and there was a large piece of floor missing with some plywood in its place.  We knew it would a while before we completely renovate the bathroom but we needed a quick fix in the mean time so Andy and his brother Jon (thanks Jon!) put down vinyl tile.  It actually looks really good!










There have also been somethings about the house that we haven't been able to figure out.  First, we've found a bizarre mark on the ceiling in a bunch of rooms, including our (future) bedroom, dining room, and the downstairs and upstairs porches.

We can't figure out what they mean, we threw out the idea that the previous owners were thinking of installing central air, but it doesn't make sense to put in the porches as well.  Any one have a clue?





And lastly, for a little while we have been noticing a burning smell in our second floor bathroom.  We had our electrician look at the fixtures and outlets and they all looked fine, but the smell continues and now it's time to delve deeper...

Next week on the DIY Disaster Zone...

Will we be able to figure out what's going on in our bathroom?  And will the bathroom survive Andy's investigation?  Tune in next week to find out!