And just like that...

Summer is creeping up on us. And I'm ready. Yesterday, I came home to another great summer surprise:


Yep. Our porch swing that we got a year ago is finally up... Normally, I think swings should face the rest of the porch, but in our case, we use the side entrance to the porch a lot and didn't want to block it.

Now we have perfect push-off abilities with the porch ledge. It swings slightly off center, since we had to stagger the hooks up top (hanging it on an incline), but I don't really care. It's perfect.

Adam also wanted to try out the new compressor, so he fixed the front door. Since the DAY we closed on the house and we changed the locks, it has looked like this:

See there on the left? We had to pull that piece of trim off to change part of the lock. Well. As of yesterday? It looks like this:



I can't tell you how much it changes the entire room. Obviously still needs caulking and all the inside trim needs to be painted this spring when I can open the windows and confine the cats in the laundry room for a while. We want to wait until the base shoe is there so I can blend it in a bit more seamlessly. If you recall, we had to buy baseshoe quite a bit larger than regular quarter round because of the way the house has settled combined with that assy job the POs did sheetrocking AROUND the trim, rather than removing the trim, sheetrocking, and THEN reinstalling the trim. Grrrr.... Anyway. All in the past. No need to get worked up over it again.

As for the pup, he tried to dig the floor last night again-- 2nd time now that he's tried to dig when there's no thunderstorm, both times have been since taking the meds. I'm going to try the melatonin this week. Though, honestly, he may just want out-- the weather's been perfect and he's barely wanted to come inside at all...

So yeah. Things are chugging along at the ol' bungalow.

Summertime, Southern style

As in, on the front porch. We got our patio furniture put together and arranged on the screen porch in time to have coffee and the Sunday paper out there this morning. Granted, no screen or ceiling fan, yet, but soon enough.



And yes, these were taken with the new wide-angle Nikon. I love it. This is basically on auto, with minor brightness/contrast adjustments. It's picking up some pretty bad hotspots at this setting, but I'm just glad the shots are in focus-- it's a major improvement. It does soooo many things, and I need to learn how to find and use them all. I'm having a great time playing with my new toy.

The first pic shows our new fancy furniture-- from Wal-Mart, of all places. It went down so much in price that I couldn't say no. The second shot shows our tragic little pea green couch that was "destroyed" in the storm; it had previously been "destroyed" by the cats, and "destroyed" by a lot of flopping down on it. But cover it with some old sheets, and it's perfect for this space.

Porch swing also came in--



Once we get it hung up, it's going to be great. Ugh. Note to self. Save down the pictures from 8 Mp before loading into Blogger-- they take forever! The old camera maxed out at 4 Mp, so I'll have to remember to do some adjusting.

We've done some more unpacking and cleaning this weekend, and finally reinstalled the French doors between office and living room. They look great, but I'm not going to post anymore about them right now; I'm actually on the front porch, where it is, no lie, 105º, and any more time on this computer will heat up my lap too far beyond the boiling point.

So more tomorrow. Time now to lay back and enjoy this fragment of a breeze.

Little Festivus Miracles

It looks like fate has had some pity on us in the end, and there have been a few minor miracles keeping my glass half full these last few weeks.

Aside from all the progress that we've been making, especially considering the fact that we can only work a few days a week on the house, we've had a couple of financial breaks. The electrical rewire ended up costing well under what we'd expected, as in, several thousand dollars less. Then the CH/A guys called to discuss repairing the cracks in the ceilings that they caused. I realized that they just wanted us to pay, so they offered to knock $200 off the bill if we'd let it go. After drywalling the entire kitchen for about that much, I think it's safe to say that we were well overcompensated for that little annoyance.

We also discovered a really great equipment rental tip-- this is probably something you all already know, but I was pleased to discover that renting things on Saturday morning at our local place gets us a one-day special-- they're closed on Sundays, so they don't charge for that day. 2 for 1!!! I have already reserved the edger and square buffer to be picked up Friday afternoon. I requested online that we have the edger from Friday to Monday; but when they called to confirm, they told me it wouldn't be "due back" until Wednesday since they're closed for Christmas and Christmas Eve. I'm not sure whether we'll be charged for those days or not, and he didn't say one way or the other. I have my fingers and toes crossed that they treat the holidays like Sundays. Either way, it needs to get done this weekend, so now we can take our time.

When we're finished with the floors, I'll be sure to post a breakdown of the cost. We had a floor refinisher give us an estimate-- to do the whole house, except laundry and bathroom (so around 1100-1200 ft2), was going to cost ~$3800. Whatever happens, we just hope we come in under the cost of a professional.

Another little bit of pleasure comes courtesy of my mother and PorchSwings.com. My mother is giving us a porch swing for Christmas and this is the one we've picked out:
The porch swing at my mother's house was built in about the 1880s by her grandfather or great grandfather-- I lose track!-- it's a little creaky, but in excellent condition even when you don't take into account the fact that it gets daily use all year long. Sigh. If I can't have that one, this one will have to do!

And finally, my sister and I leave for England on December 31 to scatter our father's ashes. My dad built houses and renovated most of the major historic homes in town at one point or other, and so it's really a shame that he's not been around to help us with this, since he passed away in February. But we'll get to end the holiday season with him in his and my favorite city in the world.

It truly is a Festivus miracle!