Tuesday, January 08, 2008

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. :)

Saturday, January 05, 2008

More Home Projects *Updated*

Click to play The+Attic
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Funny Feet


So at first I thought that socks with defined toes would be really uncomfortable and odd. They look strange enough! But then I realized how nice it is to be able to wear socks with my fuzzy slippers on a cold wood floor on these winter nights! Thought I'd share. Geoff is always amazed at my crazy socks, largely because I rarely bother to wear two of a kind...

Friday, January 04, 2008

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!

Thursday, January 03, 2008

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!

Our little Christmas

Click to play christmas+2007
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