Home Improvements

Since the majority of you haven't had the opportunity to see our place, we'll be putting up a big post in the next couple of weeks with lots of pictures of our new neighborhood & house, before and after we worked hard to make it our own.

But for today I thought I'd post a couple pics from our current project: de-carpeting, stripping, & staining our back deck. We made a trip to Lowe's tonight and got all the supplies, as well as an awesome iron & stone tile patio tables and chairs. Gearry is in staining progress as I write:


It will dry much lighter, obviously, but it should be just about the shade we were looking for. We love our porch and can't wait to have it all done so that we can spend more time out there. It will also help when all of this awful humidity passes!

Yesterday Gearry's project-of-the-day was to hang our kayaks so that we could store them on the porch but have them out of the way. They ended up fitting perfectly just above the doorway (mine, of course, is the pretty blue & white one)...


The porch is pretty much our last big project, other than finishing out the office/guest bedroom (which is currently the disastrous holding area for all things unpacked and all things from the porch while we work on it!). Working on things to improve the house is usually fun, but we are very, very glad that we decided to buy a home that was in really good condition, rather than a fixer-upper. There are so many little things to tackle! It will nice to be able to just sit back and enjoy it all once it's done... although, as most homeowners seem to agree, it's never really done. When one project is complete, you always find something else you want to make better or just different.

One last picture for the road: a product of Gearry's green thumb. This year we grew lettuce, green beans, dill, and strawberries. A few days ago the strawberries finally showed up!