A New Bed for Soo

After receiving a well-intentioned jab from my husband about the size of Soozie's old bed (something about a saccharin tablet - a bit of an exaggeration), I went to Petco to see what was on sale. I came home with a big pink cordoroy bed for Soozie, less than 1/2 price! She has hardly gotten off the thing since I brought it home and she bares her teeth at Colson if he gets too close. (We're going to work on that). :)
In other news, I'm still fighting this cold (end of week three now!), but doing much better. Geoff is a little sick with it too, so what a fun pair we make for the moment. And once again, I'm working on decorating projects at the house - new curtains, new paint, new wallpaper - you never know what will be different each time you visit! It's just like going to my grandmother's house, the decor is constantly changing...

The Post You've All Been Waiting For

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Outdoor Projects

I changed my mind and decided to post pics of the outside project. As you can see, the columns won the vote. Actually, this was a budget decision. They were just much less expensive. They have not yet been painted.

What remains to be done on this project:

• Pour the concrete walkway
• Pour the concrete side stoop
• Pour the section of driveway that has been torn up
• Put up the iron railing on the side stoop
• Replace the fence/gate
• Clean up!

The contractor says he has at most, four days of work left. The weather is going to delay those four days indefinitely though. I'm thinking no work will be done next week looking at this weather!

What we will do to "finish" the work:

• Paint the columns white
• Stain the porch swing
• Dress the front flower bed

The contractor is going to take Geoff to get a rock the size of our swing for the front flower bed, as a center piece. We're pretty pumped about getting the area landscaped. Well, that's all for now, folks!

Indoor Projects

So I decided to start an indoor project of my own. While Geoff's been working in the attic, I've been working in the study. The walls in here are atrocious. They have been an eyesore since we moved in. And the rest of the house has been looking so nice that I really wanted to get this room in shape. Plus, we recently decided to take the door off of this room to allow some light in, and that means it's very accessible/right out there in front.

Geoff picked out the wallpaper with me. Up close it looks like a grass mat. It's a good fit for our house, and it's somewhat textured which works well to cover up the crazy drywalls in this room.

I was gung ho for this project when I first started it yesterday morning, thinking I would also wallpaper the hallway. Not anymore! Wallpapering by yourself is really difficult and time consuming and messy. We're both thrilled with the end product, but I'm not likely to start another wallpaper job anytime soon.

I'll add another picture of this room when it stops raining and we can move the furniture in and all of that...

Not my project...

So last night I offered to help Geoff with the attic because his hired help (Dad) had been detained elsewhere. I didn't really want to help because I was really tired. And as helpful as an attic is, and as happy as I am about him doing this project, I did not feel like this was the appropriate timing for such a venture, so have made it clear that this is not my project.
Geoff thought this was a cute picture of me last night - yes, we vaccuumed the attic! I think it makes my face look fat, but oh well. None of us is ever really all that satisfied with pictures of ourselves are we?
Anyway, at some point, there was an attic fan in this house which sucked a bunch of dust up into the attic. I cleaned all the dust I could get off the rafters last night. Also, in all those trash bags from cleaning up here, are what appeared to be two bales of pinestraw - well, one of pinestraw and one of hay. We have no idea what they were doing up here. In one of them last night we found four very old bird eggs. I think they're robin eggs, Geoff's going to check.
Tonight I have praise team rehearsal, so no attic duties for me, and my head is so stuffy that that is a very good thing! This weekend Geoff's Dad will be back to help him out, and I will be turning my attention to putting Geoff's man room together. More on that project later... Right now I'd better finish getting ready for work!

My Christmas Present

This is not the greatest picture, because I took it at a weird hour and the lighting was difficult. But I wanted to use this one so that you could not only get a picture of my porch swing, but you could also take a look at some of the craftsmanship of the work that's been done on this porch. I wish I had taken some more detail pictures of what was there before, because you wouldn't believe the difference in quality!

Needless to say, I'm thrilled to have the swing up. And the porch supports will be in on Thursday, which means by the end of the week, I'll have a completely functional porch. I'm not going to tell you which type of supports won out between the columns and the cast iron. You'll know when I post a picture on Friday, so be on the lookout.

Also, take a look at the brickmasonry on this porch. Isn't it beautiful?? The color of the concrete looks splotchy still. They say it takes about 10 days in the winter to dry and even out in tone. Also, we will be staining the swing in the not too distant future.

As you have seen from my other posts, we have taken on some big home projects lately indoors, so who knows when we'll be done (and I've updated the attic slideshow, so take another look for more photos). All I can say about having a "starter" home is that they're right - you definitely start the home, it's the stopping that's a problem. It seems we're always working on one thing or another.

I'm really happy about all of the choices that we've made, though. Our home is not only a great investment of our time and money, it's a real home for both of us, full of all the things that make having a home worth all the blood, sweat and tears that go into working on a house. :)

More Home Projects *Updated*

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Warm and Dry and Time to Pour

Well, I wouldn't really call 45 degrees warm, but apparently above freezing will work for pouring concrete. So the temps are right and the weather is right (no rain for the weekend) and lo and behold around 2:30 PM I heard the unmistakeable sound of a concrete truck (beep beep beep) backing up into my front yard.

I really wanted to go out and video this process. It took less than an hour. The most amazing part was watching the cement truck back right up to the window. I thought he was going to come right on into the house! But, yes, folks, we have a front porch. Now I just have to find out how long concrete takes to dry, so we can hang my new porch swing out there!

More work being done

After a nice long Christmas break, the contractor got back to work on the house, getting the porch all ready to pour concrete. Unfortunately, the weather turned too cold to pour the concrete yet, so we're still waiting. One thing you wouldn't have seen from the Christmas video in my last post is that Geoff got me a PORCH SWING for Christmas!!! I'll definitely post pics of that when the porch is up and running!

While the cat's away...

Okay, I'm alive. Most of you know that I've been out sick for quite some time, which means you have missed out on a whole lot of the work going on. I was too sick to even notice the work was being done, let alone to get pictures of it and put them up here. I wish I had had the energy, but oh well.
Geoff took this photo today. So you can see that the porch roof is done and that the porch pad area has been dug out for concrete. They're going to start laying bricks across the outside of the pad area tomorrow, and the shingles are here and ready to be put on tomorrow as well. Once the bricks are done, they will pour the concrete pad and fill in the concrete area at the back walkway.
You can see that some of our fence is now missing as well. Also, we're trying to come to a decision about whether we'll be putting up white columns or black cast iron railing to support the roof over the porch. I'm going to put up a poll, so be sure to vote!

Day Four Made a Difference

Here's a photo that's probably a bit more dramatic than those I've posted so far. They knocked off the roof covering the porch!! We had kind of figured that they would do this, but weren't 100% certain.
We've got the second payment coming up this week - they've done a lot of the work already, so it's time to give them a little more $$ for materials. We've been really pleased so far - especially considering they were initially planning on starting our project this week and they've already finished the roof rebuild, which was a big part.
We're going to sit down this week and discuss where we are in the budgeting and try to break down the remaining costs so that we can make the final decision on the roofing materials. I know it's probably too much to hope for, but I am really really really wanting that red metal roof (I know, there's an echo in here, I've already said that!).

House Project - Day Three

In some of these pictures, it's really hard to tell what's been done. The entire roof has now been rebuilt - meaning new beams, new wood panels and tar paper (except for the portion over the porch). There will be no water coming in this house under this roof! Now all we have to do is make the big decision between shingles and metal. Of course, metal is about 3 times the cost of shingles, and as we're now faced with having to buy Geoff a car, we'll probably have to go with shingles, but we'll do it up nicely... I really really really want that red metal roof!!!

House Project Day Two

Between a rainy forecast (of which we had only sprinkles) and it's being the day before a holiday, the crew did not come to work today. They cleaned up pretty well yesterday and wrapped everything in tar paper, so I was not surprised to not see them. Their next major project sure doesn't need to be done just before rain, because next they will be digging out the foundation for the porch extension.

I didn't post pics of the work from Day two. I hope these pictures will give you a better idea of what they've done to the roof. The first pics I posted of the house were really to give an idea of all the mess everywhere, more than to show the roof itself. It's not a drastic looking change on the back of the house in pictures, but it looks amazingly different when you're up close to it...

Where the siding looks black is how much the roof was raised. That's new boards covered in tar paper. The second picture is standing a little further back. If I had to guess, I'd say there's about a foot difference between the slope of the new boards as opposed to the old roof. It was very nearly flat and dipped in places. Now there's a nice clean line straight from the peak down the back.

It's exceptionally difficult to take pictures of the roof, actually. Hard to get enough distance to see what's been done and hard to get close enough to show a little detail. But I can tell you when you're standing next to it, it looks fantastic!

The picture of the stoop/steps does not come close to doing it justice. The steps really look great, and dress up the entire patio area. Our outdoor living spaces - this side porch and the new covered front porch - are really going to add value to the house!

And finally, my post would not be complete without a picture of the "Auburn Throne" sitting just outside our fence in the front yard. What Alabama home would be complete without the old outhouse?


On a side note, we had a bit of bad luck hit today (just pre-holidays of course). Geoff's dad's van, which we've been borrowing temporarily to replace Geoff's van, is officially dead. Not only do we not have enough to put the metal roof on the house like we wanted, we also don't really have what we need to take care of his transportation situation.


For the last year or so, his van has been in our back yard in need of a transmission/motor/something or other that costs a lot. Also for the past year, a friend has been tinkering on his motorcycle (still not done). So he's been driving the old VW van that finally is kaputz. I hate to take out ANOTHER loan, since we're already paying on something for all of this construction, but it would figure that while we're working on this, we'd end up with another major expense. Such is life!

Weight Loss - Then and Now Pics

I'm posting embarrassing pictures of myself because people who haven't seen me in awhile might not be able to appreciate how much weight I gained and then THANKFULLY lost!

The first one was taken in June, when I was wearing a 14 to a 12. I barely look like I can fit in the picture! No, I didn't widen the angle or alter the picture in any way. That's just how much of a weight problem I allowed myself to get into... I got to where I could not wear that shirt. Now it's a staple of my daily wear.

The second one was taken in September. Down to a 10 there, and I know not the best pictures, but I honestly don't have that many to choose from. I guess I got a bit camera shy after gaining all of that weight. I know my hair is longer in the second picture, and that might be all that you can notice from it, but if I had better close ups of the face, you could definitely tell the difference.

Side by side below I've put pictures of my face - the first in June - just before the Hallquist family fourth of July reunion. I took it on my cell phone myself, so it's not the best image ever, but hopefully you can tell a big difference between that one and the one next to it (besides that I had curled my hair for the second picture). The difference is actually about 20 lbs! The second picture was taken in October, and you'll recognize it as my sidebar pic from my blog.

I wish I could show more of the final picture that's down there, because you can really tell in that pic just how much I've lost, but Geoff managed to take a picture that shows entirely too much uncovered chest with the angle, so I've had to crop it.

Anyway, enough embarrassing photos for one day. I didn't get a chance to do an update of the work completed on day two yesterday because I went and got my hair and nails done and got home too late to take pictures (no daylight left). I'll try to slip outside this morning and snap a few before the guys get started again.

Geoff's got the day off for Turkey weekend, so he might take some of the work in progress. As long as it doesn't rain...

End of Day One

Before & after of the back of the house. I took the first picture last week, and the second picture today after the contractors finished up day one on the roof. No more saggy roof, yeah! The contractor said that there were actually already two roofs on the house. Not two layers of roofing shingles, but a roof with a layer of shingles, and then a second roof with two more layers of shingles. You probably can't see this but there is a massive pile of shingles behind the house. We're having to walk the dogs out front.

The dogs are not thrilled about all of these strange noises and strange people. They were pretty scared this morning. But I'm hoping that maybe this will desensitize them to every little noise they hear. Colson barks a lot, so it will be good for him to chill a bit. The other reason we have to walk them out front is below.

The steps were definitely far from "code." They have a date etched in them of 4-21-1975 and had been broken up at the top to make room for a deck that we tore off when we bought the house. As you can see, we're getting a new stoop out back - a brick one. Stairs will come down either side and we will have a handrail! The contractor says the stairs will be done tomorrow (but will need to set before use), as will the back of the roof. Man, these guys work fast!

And Away We Go!

We checked some references and contractor # 3 passed with flying colors - FINALLY. He's preparing the contract and we will be signing up on Monday or Tuesday to get started on our home improvements. Now all we have to do is pray that he doesn't run into any problems on the roof repairs so that we can (maybe) actually afford that metal roof we've been wanting. Take one last look. This place will sure look different with an entire roof rebuild and new looooong front porch!

I'll post some before and after pictures when we get this project started...

Weekend Projects

A new gateway to the garden...

Keeping the dogs at bay...

And a moat fit for a castle.

Well, the last few weekends for me have been BUSY! No doubt about it, summer is here, and all those projects we should have done in the cool of spring have caught up with us. Last weekend it was the front yard - trying to fix the problem of what happens with the water when you build a house with a downward sloping front yard. The yard is so shady, it's hard to get a good picture, but there is now a stream bed with river pebbles leading under the fence. We did a lot of digging and filled some gaps in the foundation with concrete and dug up the flower bed and built the stream bed. With any luck we'll keep any after-the-rain rivers from going under the house from now on.

This weekend we've been working on the back yard. A few weeks ago we built the fence to keep the dogs out of the garden area. Then I pulled out this beautiful arbor which we have been storing and gave it a fresh paint job and a new place to call home. It was a gift from Geoff's mom when we bought our house three years ago.

Anyway, I haven't posted in a pretty good while, but this is what I have to show for all of my time off...

Meri Meri

Quite contrary - how does your garden grow??

With cannas and strawberries and lilies galore! Oh and don't forget the sunflowers!

As you can see, we've been growing quite a garden. More pics to follow.