Snowtober

We were lucky with this early Nor'easter. Only about 4-5 inches of snow.

We didn't lose power and had very few branches down.

The Beechnuts were hoping for sledding, but settled for hanging the Halloween decorations instead.

We added a guillitone this year,

I think the decorations look extra creepy against the snow.

Tree concerns

The Beech tree hasn't been looking very good this year.  Our friends and neighbors have commented on its sparse appearance. We've noticed lots of dead branches. So we called an arborist. He confirmed its not doing so well.
It turns out Beech trees do not do well in a drought. And we've had a dry summer. So we started watering and they came out to prune it.

Keep your fingers crossed. It would be a shame if we killed a 200 year old beech tree in just 7 short years of owning it.

Porch progress

 The floor is on.

The columns are up. The landing feels huge without a railing. We're contemplating keeping it this way, it feels more welcoming and less cramped.
We still need to finish the concrete pad in front of the stairs and put the pavers back in place. We also need to add some trim to the columns to make them pretty. But its getting there!

Irene Wake-up

Luckily, we were fine after Hurricane Irene. But we did decide to add a little more water protection to the porch while we had the stairs pulled up.

Jeff pulled up the old pavers, dug a trench, and he added a concrete pad to funnel some more water away from the house.

Kitchen Porch

Before:

It looks fine right? But get a little closer...

Fall 2010

The decking has been coming apart on the kitchen porch for a while. The stairs were nailed in, so we're constantly pushing the nails back into the boards with our shoes. The steps are loose and the posts are showing signs of rot. Then someone pointed out that the posts weren't actually holding up the roof, the ceiling was just resting on it.

Here's the porch mid-demo.

We found the old concrete slab steps under the porch.

The plan is for new square columns to match the formal front entrance, mahagony floor and stairs, and to widen the stairs.

I also want to replace the railings with a more victorian-styled balustrades, but we'll do those at a later time. The porch is only a few inches off the ground, so the railings aren't a code requirement.  The goal is to finish this before the "First Day of School" photo.

Number 14

 

One of the things on the list was to hang the house numbers on our front porch. We went to LA in Feb and I found these numbers at Liz's Antique Hardware, which is a really fun store.

I thought it would be cool to have them on the stairs, but they were too tall, so it went above. And Jeff power-washed the moss off the front walk. 2 items checked off!

The Summer List

June seemed quiet, but it was a month of planning, door shopping, family, end-of-school, and making a list. Above is a photo of the current list of things to do this summer. It has big projects and little jobs and we're trying to knock it out between trips to the beach and vacations.

I'll post pictures soon of some of the improvements, but I didn't want you to think we were doing nothing over here!