The last two week's progress

Details take more time.

While it seemed like the boys made huge progress while they were doing the roof and the siding. 

Their latest detail work while not as dramatic to passerbys.

It's all important to me just the same.

My back deck railing.  Made completely by hand out of cedar cut from David's family's deer camp right here in Curtis.  It is a beautiful meaningful touch.  He's hoping to top the railing 'posts' with these little copper toppers I found in one of my many books I have been looking through since December.  If he pulls it off, he is a metal genius in my eyes  ;)

My porch is really looking clean and fantastic.

We are going with a Cedar colored darkish stain for the floor boards.

The pillars will be Bright White just like the originals.

I am secretly in love with my window trim.

Until today when I came home from work and saw these two pillars trimmed.

He only did two in case I didn't approve.

I told him it was perfect.  Just like the picture I showed him from my book.

I think it's officially grown on me, because I love this picture.

Trinity picked out the roof color combo.

David wanted the Copper roof.  Trinity chose the color that would look the best with the copper.

She is the 'eye' of the family.

In case you didn't know.  I adore him.

It's beautiful when this boy smiles.

Some before and afters.

It's kind of hard to see the progress when you see it everyday, until you do a little comparison.

The back of the house - before

My beautiful house.

Andrew's shed as we call it, will hopefully be painted this weekend.

The front before.  Overgrown bushes gone.  Broken down porch, gone.

Leaky roof, gone.  Neglected siding, gone.

Holy Moly.

My David wanted the porch roof to be copper.

I'm still on the fence.

But I think it's growning on me.



Siding a Go-Go

Despite my boys working on "other folks" jobs.

Siding is going up with vengeance.

All the windows have been installed.

David spent a week getting our window trim just right.

He tried three different window trim schemes, 'God Bless Him' as they say.

Finally I was satisfied.

No wonder I love him so much.

I love the trim on the windows.

He hand made it all out of steel.

Over our Memorial Day weekend trip to Gaylord, we picked two different paint samples to test.

Behr paint.....new khaki & jungle khaki. One more yellow, the other more green.

After two days of looking, we both agreed.

We hate them both!

We need a more grayish, more sandstone color, but dark enough for the white trim to really pop.

I didn't think a paint color would be this hard.

But there are lots of surprises in this adventure.

We did finally pick an exterior door design.

So, while we were away, we also bought two exterior doors for the front of the house.

While the door design has been chosen, we are still in discussion on the door color.

Color choices...... our varying tastes could cause problems.

Other news....the two bathrooms on the second floor now have plumbing 'main lines' run to them.

Our Master Bathroom has also lost it's current walls,

making room for a slightly bigger Master Bathroom.

While it's not ideal for a Master Bathroom, we should be able to step out of each other's way.

Which is huge improvement to only being able to have one person at a time in the Master Bath.

On the positive end of things......

Now that the big cedar tree is cut down, the view from my bedroom is alright.

I'm a pretty lucky girl to have such a boy.

A boy who does all he can to make me happy.



A lovely yard

So even in the midst of construction, our yard is lovely.

While it needs a little care, such as the pruning of apple trees that have run amok.



I have found new maple trees to adore.

I have a gigantic lilac bush.

And a pair of new neighbors.

Sunday we did a little porch sitting.

While we sat, we had a total of 4 visitors in two hours.

We wondered if it was a sign of things to come.

Visitors that is ~ we are both pretty social critters.

While you can't tell from the picture.  I can see portions of South Manistique Lake from my porch.

This will probably be my favorite spot.



Exterior facelift has begun

We have begun installation of the siding and windows.

David started this portion for me so I have have a visual of what it will look like.

The befores and after will be a huge change.

Especially this portion of the back porch.

On Saturday we installed 9 windows.

Today, the boys finished up the rest of them.

Our bedroom windows had to be raised due to the porch roof causing problems with the bottom of the current window framing.

It won't be long for our face lift to be complete.

It will soon be time to have our paint brushes ready.

Or perhaps invest in a paint sprayer.

a glimpse into the future

Our windows were delivered.

I found the tags on them interesting.

Counting down the days....someday it will be official.

Stripping 101

So I stripped my first door over the weekend.

I've pretty much become a huge fan of Franmar Soy-based Paint Stripper.

While my first side worked just like the youtube video showed, the opposite side......not so much.

It still beats the crap out of stinky throat burning strippers I've heard about.

The soy laden goop that is scrapped off is a tad on the gross side.

But, it could be worse.

The doors are a go.

Of course my green light involves, time I don't have, and $80 a gallon paint stripper per door.

It's worth it, cause I'll have some pretty gosh darn looking doors after a million weekends.

Something I won't have, glass cabinet doors that I stripped myself.

Below is my stripping FAIL.

Multiple coats.  I tried every stripper on the market, and the shtuff won't budge.

So I chucked this idea.

I'm learning to pick my battles.

Also, the first pieces of siding has been installed.

It's better than I couldn't have hoped for.

Today when I got to the old house after work.

I decided, yep, I think I can live there.