Now you see 'em, now you don't! The dirt piles are gone, and the yards are filled in. This one is so flat, it's going to be hard to remember there was a building here.
The west side. This is where the small garage used to be. The blank slate is a little overwhelming. I think we need some trees.
The front yard has been leveled out quite a bit, but you can still see how much higher the house is than it was before. I'm expecting gravel tomorrow, and that will raise the driveway a little.
The irises are blooming! Clearly, Kibay appreciates flowers. No peony flowers yet -- I was hoping they'd bloom together.
Dirt! Our church is building a new sactuary, and needs to move a LOT of dirt before they can pave the parking lot -- so much that the contractor can't keep up and they're begging people to take it away. We got 13 dump-truckloads of dirt to grade around the house, fill in by the barn where the silo fell down, and level off where the granary used to be. Hooray! The boys have been "bone-digging" and climbing all over it all week. Seriously, why do I buy them toys? Our guy with the bobcat is planning to spread it out tomorrow. Then I can finally plant grass!
After almost 2 months off, it's time to tackle the messy project: taking out the unused chimney. It has to go before the missing wall can go in in the basement, and with it gone, we might actually be able to fit a new mattress up the stairs. Kitty is giving the ol' chimney one last look. (Actually, she's stalking the other cat, but anyway...)
Here are Dad and Mike starting to knock the first row of chimney brick out of the ceiling. Those are Mike's feet; for some reason he's always the one who ends up in the attic.
Here's our Valentine's Day present! Two new doors -- this one went on the boiler room to cut down on noise and keep little ones out. The other one is between the kitchen and the porch. So nice! They just need finishing, but we'll do that in the shop once the weather warms up.
Mike's new toy. One of the first pictures I took with the new camera from Super-Cool Aunt Sue. Thanks, Auntie!! Jacob is already better at pool than I am. Hopefully he won't start fritterin' away his noon-time supper-time chore-time too. I'm watching for the tell-tale signs of corruption. If he starts using words like "swell", that's Trouble with a Capital "T" that rhymes with "P" an' that stands for....
A handrail!
Cat #2 (Meow-Meow) admiring the new floor in the "entry", although I'll probably call it the back porch forever. Much better than subfloor for muddy, snowy boots.
Snow! It's pretty in a kind of "man-it's-gonna-be-a-long-winter" kind of way. Jeffy's comment was, "Mom, Christmas is coming before Halloween!"
It's not sticking to the roads (yet), so it may all melt tomorrow. Note the pile of gravel in front of the garage. That guy had better get out here to fill in the driveway; I want to park in the garage so I don't have to scrape windows!
The walls in the entry are done! I've gone through 3 gallons of primer, and still haven't covered everything. It soaks it up like a sponge. Sure is purrty, though.
This is what you see when you come in the door (and look up). The drywall guy left us his scaffold so we can paint over the stairs, which are straight ahead. I tried to get a picture of it, but it just looks like a lot of white. It's actually very nice. Trust me! :)
The electrician has been busy, busy, busy. He took down the dead wires from the light pole in the yard. We decided to keep the yard light on the pole, 'cuz it's dark out here at night!
He got power to the garage and shop. Hooray! Now Dad and Mike can start on that list of projects I gave them. ;)
We have lights in the new entry, lights down the stairs, and a light over the back porch. Mike will no longer bruise his shins trying to get out the door in the morning.
We have a thermostat for the radiant-floor heat. So nice! Note that the light switches both actually work now, and the outlet is no longer in the dead center of the wall.
Mike loves the blog!
