Back Porch Progress

The back porch is coming along nicely. 

The exterior door has been installed. 

The gable has been sheeted and house wrapped. 

And the Trex decking is just about finished. 

 

 

 

Here's a little snap of my hubby taking time

to teach my oldest how to use the battery drill.

He helped screw several boards to the joists.  

 

 

Table and chairs finally make it out of the yard and onto a porch!

 

 

 

 

For now, we just laid some boards across

the stringers to make a set of stairs.

Eventually the Trex will make it to these stairs

to be just like the front porch steps.

 

 

 

 

I enjoyed my first cup of coffee on the back porch this afternoon. 

It was such a beautiful, mild day.  The boys were playing in the back yard and I had a chance to call my mom!

Can't ask for anything better!

Front Steps

Hubby is making progress on the front porch.  We chose Trex Composite Decking for the floor and white PVC boards for the risers.  I'm not sure how the PVC boards are going to hold up against two muddy little boys.........but I like the look ... so Que Sera Sera.

I always enjoy starting with a before pic.

And now

 

 

We are going to make a porch roof with railing.  But we have some other things to attend to first.
Like finishing up the back porch! 

Here's a little peek of what's going on with the addition and back porch.

 

 

 

Hippie-Dippie

Not much to show you in the way of construction.  The hubs is working on shingling the back of the house.  We need to frame in the kitchen expansion.  And then work on the back porch. 

But in the meantime, as promised, I have new car window decals.
Gone is the stick figure family.  In it's place a little peace and love.

I found these decals by Dan Morris.  I am in love with them.  I love the colors and the message. 
With all the terrifying things going on in the world, I just wanted to show some love and peace.
So either people passing by will give me a peace sign or tell me I'm number one!  We'll have to see.

 

No matter what angle I shot at, I couldn't stop the glare on the left side of my car.

 

 

 

 

Peace and love to all of you! 

Truss(t) me

We are setting trusses on the kitchen expansion

and back porch today. 

You can see that we moved the door up from

ground level to floor level of the house.

This last picture has nothing to do with improvements to our house.

Just improvements to my car.

I bought some new stickers (not a stick figure family this time) for the back of my vehicle.

I like to have something that identifies my vehicle as mine

because there are a lot of cars with the exact year, make, model

and color driving around.

I peeled the old stickers off this evening. 

I will put the new ones on tomorrow!



(Gotta love my expression in the reflection...the sun was really bright and made it hard to see!)

 

 

A little progress on the back of the house

Hellooooo!

Just a quick post to show you the progress we are making on the back of the house. 
My hubby has been working very hard on the expansion of the kitchen and boy's room.
Our neighbors have been a tremendous help with man power and borrowed machinery!

A "before" pic. 

This shows the old concrete slab that, at one time, housed a little screened in porch.

 

 

Foundation dug.

 

 

 

Cement poured.

 

Block laid.

 

 

 

 

Post holes dug



 

A little help from a little old furry lady.  Her name is Sheila (affectionately called She She). 

Sheila  loves to be around construction because
that's what her owner does.

She is the sweetest, kindest, most patient dog.



Joists installed.

 

 
 

The door was moved up last night, but I didn't get a picture because it was dark outside.   More pictures to come.  Yippee!

 

 



A look at the list

I took a look at our to do list.  I was inspired from my dear friend and writer of The Adventures at the Cat Ranch Blog, Miss T.  She wrote out a list of things that she wanted to have accomplished this week.  It got me to thinking about my own list (lists... I keep multiple lists...why?)

So here is an updated look at our Remodel "To Do" List:

It's nice to see things being crossed off.  We have a long way to go.  Life gets in the way.  We find it hard to strike a balance between wanting to get the stuff done so we can live in a clean and organized space  AND  taking time to do things that make life enjoyable.  Because we all know "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

Today I am painting cement blocks with a waterproof coating.  The hubs worked hard to lay the block this weekend.  This is for the foundation to extend the kitchen.  The boy's room will get an extension as well.

LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!

The Old Oak Tree

I haven't had much to show y'all lately.  We've had several setbacks.  So progress around The Cottage slowed a bit over the summer.
It all started with the big oak tree in the back that was struck by lightning a few years ago and was slowly rotting from the inside.

We had trouble getting a tree service to commit.  Long story short....we had a tree service do an estimate in May.  They scheduled us for July.  July came and went.  No phone calls, no show.  Poor business.  The guy never returned my calls.  Scheduled a couple different tree services to do estimates.  No show, no phone call!  Luckily one of my neighbors spotted a bucket truck, with the name of a tree service on it's side, sitting in the Lowes parking lot.  He jotted down the number, I gave them a call.  Within two weeks, we had the tree down!  By now it was the end of July!
We needed to have the tree down before we could begin the work of extending the back of the house and adding a back porch.

 

 

To save some money, we did the cleanup ourselves  (with the help of others)! 

We know some guys that jump to action with the mention of "free firewood"!

So we had some help!

 

 



And it's nice to know people that have toys!

Once again our neighbor came to the recue and asked one of his friends if he would help us out!

His friend has a huge farm with space to store huge logs!

He also has a skid loader!

So we said you can have the logs if you come and get them!

Done Deal!