Project

My friend offered us a large porch swing that had been sitting in her mother's barn for an unknown amount of time.  Despite its age, it appeared to be in fairly good shape, and was big enough to fit all 4 of us.

I MEANT to work on it last Fall, so we could sit in it and enjoy the Autumn colors last year.  Didn't happen.

I finally had JP pull it out of our barn a couple of weeks ago and I set to work.

First I power washed it, then removed 6 broken slats, and tightened up some loose ones.

My dad got in on the action, and replaced a piece that was rotted on the side, and cut new slats for me.  He also glued and clamped the back to the base in several places where it was wiggly.  Finally, JP bolted the front to the back using 24" threaded rods to stabilize everything further.

Here is how it looked after all of the repairs and cleaning.

I then covered every square inch of it with 2 coats of Forest Green porch and floor paint.  See...it matches the barn!

  This morning, JP and I finally hung the swing below our deck, and we all tried it out.

Hooray!  Now we have a comfy place to sit and swing when the weather cools off in a few weeks.

OOPS!

We are hosting one of JP's cousins and her husband for a few days this week. I had a great meal planned for yesterday: grilled chicken, Messy Antipasto Pasta Salad, and a fresh dill-cucumber salad. I was all prepared...by 3:30 I had the Pasta salad made, and the chicken cut up and marinating. I dropped J off at a friend's house for a sleep over ON TIME. I had an hour in which to continue weeding in the garden (a never ending job) and tie up the corn, which blew down in a storm over the weekend. The weeding didn't get finished, the corn didn't get finished, but I reluctantly walked up to the house to prep the grill for the chicken only a few minutes later than I had hoped.

Besides spilling the oil to grease the grill with on the way out, things were still going smoothly. I put the chicken on, checked the time, and headed back in the house to make the cucumber salad. 15 minutes later, just as planned, I headed out to turn the chicken. Smoke was rolling out of the grill, and tongues of flames peeked out here and there. Not a good sign.

This is what it looked like:



Not too bad, right? We'll just have JP pick up some KFC for supper instead. Don't look up!



Oops...it appears the ceiling soffit got a bit too hot as well.

Today, my Dad helped me start up the power washer, and I went over everything. I even scraped all of the nasty grunge out of the inside of the grill. Things look much better, except for the soffit...that will have to be replaced. The good news is that both the porch lights and the grill still work!

In the process today, both the dog and I got into a ground nest of yellow jackets. She got wet and muddy, so now it's dog bath time.

The fun never ends!

Independence Day Cook-Out (Fun in the Sun and Shade)

JP and I tried to design our outside space on Poplar Ridge with the concept of entertaining in mind. This was simply foreword looking...seeing as we never managed to "entertain" more than one family at a time in the past.

We decided, however, when we had a change of plans for the Holiday weekend, to host a bunch of our friends for a cook-out on Poplar Ridge. It ended up being one of the hottest days of the year, but the temps on our big back porch were a bit more reasonable. We had a lot of outdoor activities planned, but it was too steamy to do more than lounge.



The kids played in the Kid Wash, while the adults sat in the shade with our cooler of cold drinks.



They had a watermelon seed spitting contest, while the adults ate theirs in the shade on our big porch.



They spent a lot of time in groups on the hammock, while the adults lounged in the shade. (Sorry about the blurry action shot.)



There was plenty to eat, and plenty of lazy conversation and camaraderie.



JP manned the grill, and we feasted well.



We finished out the night with glow sticks and firefly hunting for the kiddos and a Wal Mart fireworks show on the driveway.

Happy 4th of July!

Girls' Rooms

We finally got mattresses for the daybed in the girls' playroom yesterday evening at the Friends & Family 20% off sale at Big Lots, so we could finally finish the girls' rooms. They are very "girly"...decorated with flowers, butterflies and fairies.




I showed a picture earlier of the double pocket doors between their rooms. For now, these are open most of the time, but when they are older and want their own rooms, they can keep them closed. One of the rooms is basically a sleeping room, with bunk beds and dressers for the girls.

The other room is the playroom/overflow guest room. L calls the area under the canopy the "rain place", but J thinks it is a "sleep-over/fairy bed". JP also managed to unearth the hopscotch rug that has been in storage for over a year.

I will post more pictures later of the girls hidey-hole under the stairs when it is finished.

This morning I woke up to this out front:

...and this in the back:

Now it looks like this:

They will pour another section of concrete later this week to make it into a giant rectangle. Then JP will at last be able to set up his Basketball hoop. They had to pour it in 2 steps in order to have a way to brace the roof over the door.

This weekend we did some more clearing in the garage. JP pulled out all the deck chairs and I scrubbed them. I also cleaned some more mouse dirtied things: sleeping bags, and the extra parts for the pack'n'play. JP was looking for bug spray, and found the bin it was in had something leak during the winter, so we had to clean all that up too. SIGH...I am really looking forward to the time when "moving" means hanging pictures, and NOT cleaning up mouse poo and pecan shells!

We put the deck chairs and the picnic table (that we used for a dining room table in the apartment) out on the porch. The girls had lunch there today.

Ducks in a Row

I'm having abandonment issues. As much as I've been dreaming of living in this place, and even though I've actually been living here for 2 weeks, it still doesn't seem like mine. I still have this urge to ask the builders if I'm doing everything right. The problem is, they aren't here any more. They have left me here to figure it out my own!

Some of the guys have been here to load up stuff and take it to the next place. J remarked yesterday that "all the diggers are in a row!" Today, only the "Lull" is left, since they need to put another coat of paint on the rafters under the prow next week.

I'm trying to get my ducks in a row too. We have our first guests coming tomorrow, and I still need to hang drapes in the guest room. I've cleaned the bathrooms and tried to organize the chaos as much as possible. We're still not able to claim the storage room, so stuff is piling up in the Family Room downstairs.

Yesterday, J and I swept off the deck, porch and patio. Then we found the pool and filled it up. Here are my two little ducks out for a swim.

Polishing the Silver

I felt quite hoity-toity today putting away the china. This was JP's mother's set, and is very pretty and delicate appearing. It has been in storage for a long time: some of the pieces were wrapped in newspaper from Oregon in 1976! In any case, the china is seeing the light of day again, and has a new home in the built-ins in our great room. I am determined to use it too...if it's here, it has to be functional...that's my new rule.

But I diverge...I opened 5 boxes of china and other fragile doo-dads today, and put most of them away. This means we are to that point of dealing with the not-so-necessary things, the finishing touches: we're polishing up the silver. Hooray!

The building crew is finishing up too. Over the past several days, they finished up the trim on the beams in the front of the house...

...and the porch. They also cleared a truck load of stuff from off the porch and out of the garage.

The trim is finished up on the garage too, and a new light was installed by the door. Today they worked on leveling out the area in front to ready it for the concrete pad that should be poured the beginning of next week.

I finally got around to transplanting my tomato and pepper plants in 5 gallon buckets, which have been in abundant supply around here lately. They are finally blooming, so perhaps we'll even get fresh tomatoes and jalapenos this summer to make salsa.

The central vacuum was installed today. I used it downstairs, but haven't had a chance to use the hard floor attachment up stairs, or to try out my "vac pan" in the kitchen to suck up the stuff I broom up. This is the unit in the garage. The clearish bit underneath is what we will empty every couple of months. There is even a hook-up here, along with another hose and attachments to use on the vehicles in the garage!

Tonight, we watched fireworks from our deck...a late celebration! And now I plan to go to bed before midnight for once, and finally use my beautiful new shower in the morning.

Whew!

We have been very busy shuttling back and forth from Poplar Ridge lately. I have been out every day since last Wednesday when the appliances arrived. Unfortunately I have forgotten the camera on most of the trips! Our electrical inspection went well, so we should be able to hook up to power very soon!

Monday evening, we went up to meet with the builder to discuss the kitchen case work, and choose our cabinet style. It ends up that by purchasing the separate cooktop and wall ovens, we are needing more cabinets...over $3000 more! I've always heard that the kitchens and baths suck up the money, but I never expected the extreme! By a gracious coincidence, the builder realized that he had priced the kitchen with solid surface counter-tops, and we have decided to go with high quality laminate, so that will save us a bit. We are getting oak cabinets, in a stain to match the flooring. This is similar to the style and color we chose.

The builder stopped by today with carpet and tile samples. He brought more tile samples with him than in all of the Lowe's store we visited on Saturday! We drove out after lunch to put some winter clothes in storage and check the new placement of the vacuum kick plate in the kitchen. (We asked them to move it from next to the kitchen sink, to the end of the breakfast bar to make it accessible to both kitchen and dining room.)

I have been looking on line for light fixtures, but it is a bit overwhelming...there are literally thousands of choices! I have tried to narrow it down by choosing Energy Saver models, but still haven't found just the right thing!

In the meantime, the roofers are due out yet this week. In order to be completely ready for the shingles, the porch roof is on, and the chimney is up.

In addition, the porch roof over the front door is on...looks really nice! It mimics the prow out front.

Today, they are putting in the insulation in the ceilings and the walls. The drywallers are scheduled for Monday.

Retaining Wall Revision

Friday must be concrete day. The truck came and went again without our knowledge. The girls and I drove up in the afternoon after spending and hour and a half at the Auto Repair shop. We discovered last weekend that on one of our forays up the hill, we drove over a stick 2" in diameter, which broke off to about 18" long in the right front wheel well. We apparently drove around with it for awhile before we found it and pulled it out. In the meantime, it gouged the inside of the rim, and scraped off all the wheel weights. Consequently driving to Pittsburgh and Morgantown this week was a jolting experience! It's all better now, and hopefully we'll be able to remain on the driveway, and not venture through the fields to get to the house. Super Handy-Man worked on the road this week, and it looks much better, even after the concrete truck came and went!

We found on Friday that the remainder of the basement floor was poured...

Here are J and Daddy trying it out on Saturday.

Several pallets of concrete block and a pile of sand were delivered on Friday as well.

Imagine our surprise on Saturday AM when we drove up to Poplar Ridge for our semi-weekly visit and hike, to see the masons hard at work on the base of our porch that will span the west side of the house and the garage! There will be 10 foot overhangs covering the porch, making it a nice outdoor entertaining area.

Initially, we thought we would have to build a huge retaining wall in order to have the porch on the west to be at ground level.

With some creative excavating, however, it appears that this will be the extent of the wall we will need.

This is the view from between the house and the garage.

The area inside the wall will be filled and the porch will be concrete (what else?). The remainder of the bank of dirt will be gently graded to ground level on each side of the house. What do you think Brother F?