Chimney Flashing Replaced!

When we bought this house, we really didn't take into consideration the roof line.  Granted, we aren't on the roof all that much, but had we bought a ranch or cape, it would be a little easier for James to take care of some simple things.  A few weeks ago, I noticed a water spot in our attic.  Then walking, I noticed a shingle is missing from our roof.  A single shingle.  When we bought this place 3 years ago, the inspector told us that our chimney flashing needed to be replaced.  So today, James went up there and replaced it.  He also scoped out the missing shingle (by the way, they sell replacement shingles in sheets of 3).  

James stole a harness from work so he used it.  Safety first at our house!

 There is James shimmying down the roof.  

 I was nice and held the ladder as he was climbing down.

Ben thought it was cool that Daddy went on the roof.  

So James was able to fix the flashing, but he said the angle that the missing shingle is at is hard to replace because the hip roof and the lack of anything to hold onto.  He said he might try to go up the other side to get at it in a different angle.  Or we might call a roofer.  I don't even know if roofers come out for little, stupid jobs like "replace a shingle".  I guess we might find out.  

In other news, we are really trying to finish this porch up.  We were going to hire our plasterer to plaster it, but with James laid off, we're just trying to finish it off ourselves for now.  We figure, we have all the materials needed so it's not costing us anything but time and if it looks really bad, we'll call the plasterer next year when James is working again.  My goal is to have this done by Christmas so we'll see.  

Landscaping....

Well, I've "landscaped" half of the front yard.  I neglected to take a picture of the "full" aspect because the rest of the yard still looks like butt.  I'm dealing with the root of an old bush on the other side of the stairs - which is killing me.

This side took me probably about 5 hours in total, if not more.  I cut out about 40-50 roots with a sawsall.  I planted about 150 bulbs & 2 trees.  Then I threw some mulch down (I'm probably the only fool in New England who bought mulch in October).  

I'm hoping to get the rest of the place done before winter really hits - James doesn't understand my rush - but men just don't get Christmas decorations.  I love decorations and I NEED it to look decent for Christmas!  We have a door decorating contest in our town that I need to win!  Why does he not understand this??!

Updates...

In case you haven't noticed, we haven't done much on the house lately.  It's cold, James works odd hours, and excuse, excuse, excuse! 

We are getting excited though - we scrimped and saved and hired a contractor!  It's like a miracle!  Our front porch is really getting to a point where it needs to be rebuilt before it causes actual damage to the house - so we hired someone to come on in and rebuild it.  Since we live on a kind of busy road and never just "sit out there to think about life" - we decided to spend a little more to get it enclosed so we can have a mudroom of sorts.  I'm really freaked out by this because it might completely change the look of the house - and quite honestly, James and I both like the look of our house as is.  The only thing that we were really anal on was that the windows had to be regular windows - and even though the contractor told us that it would be more for the "real windows" - we didn't care.  I just wanted windows with the white panes in them to make the porch look more "part of the house" like. 

Construction is suppose to begin in 2-3 weeks.  Hopefully that doesn't fall through....That will be fun to take pictures of.

My "big" project I'm taking on this spring/summer is painting the shutters.  Currently, we have a light blue/grayish house with, I guess, Country Blue-ish shutters.  It's just too much blue.  I'm making James take down the shutters and I'm going to paint them a cranberry red.  I'm excited to get going on this - but I'm not going to do it until the porch is done. 

And that is all....

Our New Ghetto Fence and Sporty New Grill!

James finished our child entrapment device. Also known as our new ghetto fence made of 2 concrete blocks, some concrete, 2X4s and plastic net stuff. Pretty? No. Gets the job done? Yes. Not bad for under $100! We also got a new grill. Ooooooh! Ahhhhhh!

Building A Fence!

James has a new mission he's trying to complete - building a fence to keep the rugrats in the backyard. A certain little red head likes to run down the driveway - a lot. So to save us energy and aggrevation of chasing him all the time, we realized it would just be easier to build some sort of mini-jail for him. Here's what it looks like so far. It should be finished this week.

Recent Updates!

Even though I have been bad at posting, we've still be hard at work. Here are a few things we've accomplished over the past few weeks!

James finished the patio! He had to cut bricks for the side and back. He did that then filled the cracks with sand. It is done. Also! This is our bargain patio! James "acquired" all the bricks and cobblestones from a job site last fall. And really - it looks better in real life. BARGAINTASTIC!

I did paint the faces of the stairs. I still have to figure out how I'm going to refinish the tops, paint the things that hold the banister up and a few other things. It just seems so hard and I'm not motivated these days.

This is the back, spare room. I painted it Sunbeam (same color as the downstairs bathroom). I did the mouldings too and the bed and computer are back in place. I'll take a picture of the finished product here soon.

I also painted the upstairs hallway. It's the same color as the downstairs hallway and staircase. You can't really tell in this picture. I did half the mouldings and have to knock out the rest of the mouldings here soon.

We're still waiting on getting our electrical system upgraded. Now that the nice weather is here, it should happen soon (hopefully!). James has finished up some other outlets and wiring for things like the garbage disposal and outside outlets. If all goes well, almost everything will be good to go once the master is updated. I think he still has to wire up the microwave that's above the stove.

We got a quote to remove the tree in the front yard. It's not too bad. Unfortunately, the same day I got the tree quote, I was informed by our gutter cleaning people that our gutters are just too rough for them to clean - they want us to replace them. So we'll be getting quotes on that here in the next few weeks and see what that brings. Hopefully we can still swing the tree removal with the gutters. I know James really hates that tree in front of our house.

Our Home without the Lattice!

I finally got out and took a picture of our place without the lattice!