Let the sun shine in.

Our living room is no longer a cave! Yay. When we were considering buying this house the one big drawback was the total lack of natural light. Aaron came up with the idea of a big window on the south side of the living room and we're super happy with the results so far. We had the crew save the old windows when they replaced the windows in the rest of the house and then create a stationary window made up of 6 panes to make a picture window in the living room. It's not finished yet but it's making a huge difference in the feel of the house already.

The porch, roof and siding are almost done too. Our plan was to make the porch into a sunroom but we're not sure if we'll even get to that, it's pretty nice as a regular porch. We're having to readjust a little on what we're going to be able to do since Aaron was diagnosed with carpal tunnel last week. His hand has been bothering him for a while now and I think all the work he's been doing lately has aggravated it, like maybe tearing off the side of a house? Anyway, they're going to run tests to see how bad it is. We're just hoping he doesn't need surgery.

We're not sure what to do with the deck that used to be attached to that side of the house. Any ideas? Anyone need a deck?

I spent the weekend out in the garden weeding and edging the beds with the siding we took down from the addition. It worked really well, I think it'll keep the weeds down a little. Plants are going to go in this week.

The studio is set up... finally. I really like the set up so far. I think it needs a little more light though, but that's easy enough to deal with. I'm going to build myself a better wedging table but other than that it's done.

Here a couple of random shots, tulip poplar and happy dog.

New Door, Oh-ee-oh

Last week we had a new back door put in and Aaron built some steps for it on Sunday. It is really making a big difference to be able to go in and out away from the road. We still need to paint but it's amazing how it has affected the flow of the house and yard. Here's a before and after taken from different angles, you can see the old stone under the steps, Aaron had to break it up a little with a sledgehammer to get the steps to work.

The windows also were finished yesterday, the guys did a great job saving the old moldings and keeping the feel of the old windows. I've taken a couple of shots of the views from the windows. We've had beautiful clear weather here. These are both from upstairs, the first one is looking west.. you can't really see it but there is a pond over there. The second one is looking east from the hallway window.

The garden's shaping up too. Aaron put a deer fence in and I planted some blueberry bushes & strawberries that I bought last year and dug up at the old house and brought with us. I also planted some lettuce that I bought at this great little garden store that's not too far from here. I was happy to find out they had seed potatoes and will have a big selection of tomato plants soon. I think this year we'll try some different varieties.