Home Improvements

The house has been a work in progress for so long that I don't realize how much it's changed. We now have hardwood floors in the bedroom, living/dining room, kitchen and hall. Only the two other bedrooms have carpet. We've also painted the living room and hall walls. Most are a muted green but one wall is a golden yellow which helps brighten everything up. Larry has fixed a gap in our kitchen cabinets plus built a new section of base cabinets (drawers to come later) and we have countertops ready to install and then a new tile backsplash to put up.

But... first, while the weather is still nice, Larry has been covering the house with vinyl siding. We bought the vinyl in early Spring (or was it last Winter?) and it's been waiting in the garage for nice weather. While I wanted a sage green or a mocha color we ended up with this beige because we had an opportunity to buy at a really super price. We took what we could get and it's turning out okay.

Larry has made much progress in the last few

weeks; about 99% single-handedly. He has painted the soffitts white because we'll have

white trim when it's all done.

Silly me - I only took photos of this one wall - probably because I was nervous about him being so high up on these ladders that I worked outside and stayed within shouting distance in case he needed me.

We have new burgandy shutters, which are also made of vinyl, and have painted our front door to match. One of these days I'll photograph that too. He has three sides now covered and is working on the back where the deck is. That takes a bit more prep. I'm proud of his for all his hard work. He has saved us a bunch of money and has done a great job (as usual). What you can't really tell from these photos is, this part of the house is over the garage so he's about 25' up on that ladder. I still don't know how he managed to reach the peak (I didn't look for that part).

And, just so you know... I haven't been totally lazy. I continue to work on the yard.

Last May, it was looking fairly tidy. After avoiding the heat of summer for several months, I'm now back in the yard trying to tame it again.

Bermuda grass has taken over a few spots and weeds are rampant. But, things did grow up some while I looked the other way.

Oh! The raspberries have been wonderful. I sure didn't expect to get raspberries this year when I planted them in spring but they've been steadily producing for months now. The blackberries, on the other hand, are making long runners but will wait until next year to make fruit. If you click on the Oct photo and look behind the cottage you'll see the blackberry vines.

I just harvested the Sweet Potatoes that took over the garden this summer. They made a wheel barrow full! Now, each day I'm cooking them so they can be made into Sweet Potato casserole and a dozen other things. I'm even thinking about trying my hand at canning.

The other thing I'm doing is transforming the grassy area North of the cottage (AKA rental) into a woodland. I killed the grass in Spring and covered the area with leaves from last fall and compost. Then, the huge rains we had in September washed everything away leaving me with raw dirt. I was fortunate to be the recipient of wood chips from a tree service. They dropped off 2 dump truck loads full. It's not the best stuff because it's fresh (as opposed to aged) but it does cover the dirt and that's great.