follow up

Just to swing back around to an unfinished project before moving on.

This weekend we installed new screen/window things on the screen porch.

 

Each unit arrived packaged up nicely. There are 10 in all, each custom sized for the opening.

 Starting on the back wall.
(my new ladder - my overly cautious wife made me buy a new one after I fell off and bent my old one)

 Here are the first two installed. The first unit has all the windows closed. the second has the windows all tucked down to the bottom - leaving open screen at the top.
The 'windows' are a thin, lightweight vinyl.

 Whala! It took about 5 or 6 hours to do the entire install. I was a little slowed down by choosing to work at noon in full sun. Duh.

Free Dog has acquiesced. I think she preferred the room with no walls at all.

For her we have all the windows stacked at the top. Allows a nice breeze.

The windows also come out if we wanted to store them over the summer season.
But we'll leave them -- its nice to sit out in the rain and keep all the furniture dry.

OLFs

The OLF*s are here.

They are calling our house home base for the week while their parents jet across the country to a destination wedding.

Today as I sit at my desk shivering because the corporate air conditioning seems to be set to the lowest common denominator... they are at the beach with "auntie".

I believe they are at "aunties BIG beach". This is the beach we drive to (we can walk..but NOT with four year olds...whew). It boasts a concession stand with DORA ICE CREAM, a playground, places to play basketball, tennis or skateboard and a finely groomed beach with lifeguards. The girls LOVE this beach.

Sometimes we go to aunties 'little' beach. We walk there.

Our favorite activity there is to throw rocks into the water. It's a natural beach with no stands or bathrooms and NO grooming. This is the beach we frequent when we are alone. Its also the same stretch of beach where we launch our kayaks.

Near this beach...well technically on this beach is where we get 'breakfast on the patio'. Another favorite thing to do at weese and aunties house.










Then of course there is the playground at the elementary school around the corner. The routine is for the girls to get their purses (in which we have placed a dollar or two) and we walk over to the deli. There they get to pick a treat there - perhaps a cookie or an ice cream, maybe some candy. Then we walk up the street to the school playground (unless like today, its actually a school day).

Then we go back to auntie and weese's house where the fun will continue.


and so it will go until mommie and daddie come home.
I trust there is much swilling going on with mommie and daddie right now.














*Our Little Friends - our neices

finishing touches

When we last left our kitchen renovation - hmm, I believe we were here:

she loves the plywood counters i made her

A functioning kitchen with plywood counters and no trim.

This kitchen... oh this kitchen.
When we first moved in - this was the room we started to demo first. I blogged about that here.
Its been a delightful challenge ever since.

We lived with those plywood counters for a very LONG time. We knew we wanted butcher block - but evidently there was suddenly a huge RUN on butcher block. huh. Go figure.

Sometime during the time we were hunting down butcher block - the giant back window started to leak. As a stop gap measure - duct tape and plastic sufficed.

notice Ferris and the FREE dog do not seem to mind

Plywood and plastic...classy.
Can you see the plastic over the window? We then lived like this for another LONG time. It felt suffocating.

After much research and calling and begging(ok we really didn't beg - we just wrote a check) - we finally acquired some butcher block.
To save some money we spent hours in the garage (later to be the studio) sanding and treating them ourselves.

she is such a perfectionist

They came out pretty nice.

 

 

 

Since that time - we've had (all) the windows replaced.  I trimmed around this giant window myself- and my rather flexible wife installed delicious backsplash tile.

 

And then the finishing touch..

 

We had purchased a counter depth fridge and had our cabinets designed to fit that fridge size - but these are stock cabinets, not custom, and so there was a gap over the fridge of just a few inches (you can actually see it in the first picture above.). So when we had the under cabinet lighting installed we asked the electrician to put a light tucked up under the cabinet that sat over the fridge with a separate switch.

 

Well - in getting good use of her new studio - my clever wife finally found time to pull this all together.

 A close up - because I can't seem to capture the amazing colors and textures of this piece with my crappy camera.

 

 ...more stained glass pieces to come.



the season begins

 

Here we are first day of our kayak season.

Today's activity will be to make seaglass.

First we carefully prepare each new recepticle.

 Once its ready (empty) we launch it.

and thats all there is to it... well other than the retrieval proces - which we do on land.