It's Called a Portico

 

This is our challenge during this new spring season...

What to do about the back of this house.

 

I really dislike how flat and plain it is,

 and I would like some awnings over some of the windows,

 especially the two top story ones...

 

Alas, the bricks need tuck pointing,

the aluminum siding is coming off,

the windows are leaking,

the roof is buckling,

and the portico over the door is falling apart.

 

Awnings seem like a silly idea amidst all of this...

 

So we start with the portico over the door.

We discuss replacing some boards and painting it,

you know...

"sprucing it up".

 

As Terry gets deep into it,

it is falling apart

 as he removes rotten board after rotten board.

 

Now the shingles are coming off.

 

Taking a break,

Here are the awesome,

just like new chairs,

 that Terry worked so hard on.

 

Here's my flower pot that lost some tiles,

so I redid the whole thing,

set it out on the patio,

where the dog promptly knocked it over and put a crack in it.

 

Argh.

 

Back to fixing up the porch roof...

 

and it's gone.

 

And another project at Project House...

Eww, Why That Color???

Terry has been working on the old hotel chairs for a while now.

 

He rigged up a pretty cool painting booth for them...

and here is one of them finished.

The other one still needs to be put together.

We chose this Kiwi Green color to complement our chaise lounges,

 and to complement nature (I guess).

 

We also left all of the hardware shiny silver,

and it looks awesome.

 

I'm so proud of him for taking such care with these old family heirlooms.

 

I will post a pic when they are sitting by the garden,

and all of the flowers are in bloom.

 

They will look so nice.

 



The Winter of Spring

 

This "squirrel thing" is getting out of hand.

 

We have all kinds of squirrels; black ones, and gray ones,

and ratty looking blackish-gray ones...

 

but only one big fat Fox Squirrel. 

Petey comes for breakfast every morning.

 

He likes nuts and cereal,

 but he isn't a big fan of fruit and veggies.

After he eats breakfast

 he comes to the big dining room window

 and taunts Roxy for a while.

 

He has kept us truly entertained this winter.

 

It is still so cold,

 but Terry has been building me some tables

 for my laundry room.

There's one all finished,

with casters so I can roll it around.

 

He is re-purposing an old countertop

for the tops of these moveable tables.

 

Now he is working on the second one.

 

*

 

In other news...

 

Our weekend estate sale shopping has proven profitable...

a 5 lb. crock

 

and a 6 lb. crock for twenty bucks.

 

Perfect condition,

these sell for $150 at antique shops.

 

Cha-ching.

 

Here comes Petey...

Things to Sit On

 

A couple weekends ago,

 we went to antique shops

 up in Fowlerville,

with Bob & Peg...

 

and we found this amazing cow milking stool.

 

It was heavily coated in shellac,

and white paint spatters.

 

Terry has been sanding it forever.

 

More on that later...

 

Hmm.... what's all this?

 

They are the parts to this chair...

 

There are two of them,

a rocker and a stationery chair.

 

They're called "hotel chairs" by collectors

of these heavy-duty, last-forever gems.

 

I acquired these chairs from my mom,

who acquired them from her mom and dad.

 

This is a picture of the chairs

sitting on their porch on Burt Road

in Detroit, in the fifties.

 

The chairs have been painted many times,

in many colors...

 

and Terry has taken on the loving mission of restoring them.

 

He's been out in the garage for days.

He goes out there after work and sands, and scrapes, and

I don't even want to know...

 

He tells me they are almost ready for primer.

 

Can't wait to pick out a paint color for them.

 

Meanwhile...

Back to the milking stool.

 

We picked out a stain that was close to the original,

and a couple of coats of poly...

 

 

and there it is.

 

Love it, love it, love it.

 

It sits in our upstairs 1/2 bathroom,

which is exactly where I pictured it

when I found it at the antique shop.

 

Petey came by today for some peanuts

and he let me get a couple feet away to get this pic.

 

He's sooo cute.

Petey

 

The end of March, almost April, and the weather is up & down.

 

One day it's 30 degrees and the next day it's sixty-five.

 

*

 

Over the winter we became enamored by the birds and squirrels in our backyard,

and we hung feeders for them.

 

Now we love them, and might be considered obsessed with them.

 

Filling the suet feeders and the birdseed feeders everyday.

 

We have regular customers; a woodpecker and his wife,

 finches, cardinals, and sparrows,

 and sometimes nasty crows that we shoo away...

 

but our favorite "pet" is a fox squirrel that we have named Petey.

 

He comes around when he feels like it,

 and we run outside, and throw him peanuts...

 

yes, we go to the store and buy peanuts, just for him.

 

We watch for him, we wait for him,

 and when he wanders into the backyard, we become childlike,

running to get peanuts for him.

 

Here's the funny part:

 

We thought that he started coming around just this year,

but Terry was looking through old pictures

 of when we first moved into this house (three years ago),

and he found this picture of Petey on our second story bedroom window ledge.

 

He was here the whole time.

 

 



We are Still Alive

 

Somewhere between the beginning of January

 and this day in March,

 I lost all track of time...

 

January was a blur.

I know we took a weekend trip to Soaring Eagle Casino,

which was super fun,

 and then we lost the whole month of February with the flu.

We both had a bad strain of the flu

 that led to bronchitis,

and it took the whole month to get back to feeling human again.

 

All of  sudden,

it's the middle of March and I realize that

I haven't taken a picture or written a word for two months....

 

The realization came tonight,

 while Terry and I sat on our new chaise lounge cushions... 

 

I had to order some new cushions for our patio chaise chairs.

 

They came today

 and since the chairs have been stored down in the basement

 for the winter...

we took out the cushions and the chairs

 and set them up in the basement.

 

We're still so tired from our illness

 that we sat in the chairs and didn't get up for an hour.

 

The cushions are A+

and we are now starting to talk about our spring projects...

 

Second story tuck pointing,

a new awning for the back door,

garden planning,

privacy fence staining,

maybe a pool...

 

the list is long...

 

For now, we'll just sit in the basement.

 



Happy 2016

Happy New Year.

 

It was a peaceful and quiet holiday season, and we feel blessed.

A new baby was born, (my nephew had a a son)...

and I got to see him on Christmas.

We visited with my brother and his wife, and my mom.

 

We made lots of cookies and got lots of presents.

 

We spent some time with Terry's kids;  Nick and Colleen and Luke.

 

We made popcorn, and watched movies, and puttered around the house working on little projects...

 

Terry is still working on the big ship model and I have been doing some painting.

 

The strange thing I did this holiday was to roast chestnuts.

 

I have heard about roasted chestnuts for a long time.

They always show them in movies, and talk about how people buy them from vendors in New York City around the holidays, and they are some great tradition.

 

So we were at the produce market and there was a huge crate of them, and so I bought a pound...

looked up how to roast them online...

and...

 ewwwwww.

 

They were gross.

 

Lesson learned.

 

*

 

This is Woody, our woodpecker that comes every day to our feeder.

Not the best picture, but he is camera shy.

 

So...

 Happy New Year,

 and hoping 2016 is as quiet and blessed as the holiday season that rang it in.