New Door & Window- back of house

An exciting, tough weekend. We decided to put the new french door from the dining room onto the deck. We took out the storm & picture window that was there. It went fairly smoothly, the condition of the studs were okay, and there was a substantial amount of insulation in the wall cavities. It didn't go so well, when Erik and I were carrying the picture window from the wall into the dumpster- which is located in the garage. I went to step down and my ankle rolled and it hurt something nasty. Later on that day, I was bringing a bucket of waste to put into the dumpster and the same thing happened. My foot just gave out and I found myself on the floor. I was sure I broke my ankle, but it turned out to be just a bad sprain. Unfortunately, I couldn't help Erik the rest of the day. Which was stressful with an opening in the wall and no way to get the door in.

Where the window was. Now open.
Wall open to the floor, ready to start to frame in for the rough opening of the door.
Opening and trusty wheelhorse, for bringing demo material around to the dumpster.
The New French Door. Erik found this at a tent sale this spring, it matches our sliders almost exactly.
This is Erik lifting the brick patterned linoleum up to reveal the Douglas Fir flooring underneath. Pulling up the subfloor seems to be fairly easy here. Let's cross our fingers it continues to be that way.
Bartlett using the new entry out to the deck. She loves it!
Erik recruited Kevin to help get the door in place, after I was on the injured list. Again Kevin saves the day. Erik later cuts himself making shims for the door. Luckily it stopped bleeding. And also in this photo is the new opening for the mulled doublehungs.
There is no record, but I helped put that window in place. Erik is putting the finishing touches on the window, actually I think he is pulling the stickers off.
The ladder configuration Erik and I concocted in order to get the window up and into the opening.
Doors and windows in place. We can already see the difference in the air coming into the door and also the windows into the Living Room. The light coming in is also very nice. I am falling asleep as I type this so, I'll fill in the rest on the next post. nite, nite

Garage Side- semi complete

Before

(this was the day we first looked at the house, what were we thinking?)

July- We decide the Perkin's should look at the new color scheme and tie into the changes we've made on the front. This is the Before of the garage side, clearly I wasn't impressed enough when we looked at the house, since I didn't record it back in December.

That is the greenhouse off the back with the big concrete foundation that makes a sightly shelf.

After, I painted the window trim on the greenhouse, and already it looks lighter. Erik shingled the back with the Maibec shingles.

Erik built an adorable little shed window sill/ roof on the ugly foundation shelf and added trim on the bottom. Also, he took out the window on top of the four openings. I painted the door and threshold and we got new hardware for the door and of course- re- shingled the entire wall of the garage. Check out the little detail up by the trim with the shingles tucked under the trim. This is my favorite part. We have plans to add some shutters and the fake window with the oil tank exhaust will have the shutters- but they will be closed and hide the exhaust pipe. That's the plan.
The semi finished side of the garage. We are waiting the finish the trim to the left in the photo when we re-do the roof on that side, which it severely needs, but we are thinking we might try and do it when we do the addition- not sure we can wait that long, since we have a little leak over the stairs.

The NeverEnding Wood Pile Ends

Before

March 25th, Erik begins cutting up the wood from the 4 trees removed. The pile was enormous.

August 9th, I move the last of the wood with the wheelhorse and stack it out back. Quickly running out of space, I moved some stacks and re-stack some of the stack in the shed.

After- where the wood pile was!

After

This stack is 2 deep on each side of the shed, and just as tall. Too bad we have to find some seasoned wood for this winter! If anyone would like to trade, please let me know.

it's Log, it's log, it's big, it's heavy it's wood. part deux

We have this last pile of wood to finally take care of. Erik's dad came up one day a few weeks ago to help out. Having hand split about 6-7 cords ourselves, our neighbor mentioned we could borrow his 25 ton wood splitter. We jumped at the chance. Considering most of the remaining wood was the crooks and corners that were so hard, it was impossible to get through them. So we had it for two weeks and every night we pecked away at the

never ending pile.

This is the day we decide to finish the pile off and finally return the splitter to our neighbor. Erik is driving the splitter to the pile in the front yard.

Splitter in position. With split wood in the background.

Erik getting ready to split some wood.

The LAST big stump!

The last piece. Erik puts it in the splitter.

This is all mine to haul and stack out back. At this point I want to trade it for something- so if anyone is interested in a cord (or 2) of red oak- I would like an undermount farmer's sink in white, or a LP tank, or 4 yards of river stone OR a massage, because my back hurts from looking at all this wood I have to lug!

My handy work. Stacks of wood behind the shed. Erik's dad started at the far corner and I have continued it toward the woods. (In the photo to the right.) Erik asked me what my talents were this week, and I think stacking wood is one of my better talents. Its like playing tetris.

Wildlife

It was strangely quiet outside at about 6am. I looked outside and saw about 15 turkeys walking up the driveway- there were 3 little babies too. They headed out back into the Perkin's backyard and gobbled away.

Our Youngest Recruit

Ben Silva, rockin the wheelhorse! By the expression on his face, he isn't so sure about it. He really didn't like it when Erik started the tractor up. For now he just likes to look at em.