Room for More: Plodding along on the house

After getting Matt's mom moved in just over a year ago, and getting the living room livable by last Christmas, all work on finishing the addition has really slowed to a crawl. But now that we're back in the school routine, and some of Matt's deadlines have eased up a bit, we're moving again (slowly) over the last few weeks.

We now have a (nearly - missing some face nails on the two end boards) finished exterior deck entrance at the door in and out of the addition near Matt's office.

This photo's from back in July. I tell you, there's nothing that warms the heart like looking out the door and seeing your husband hard at work digging a DEEP hole for the footing for the deck that's been waiting for a long time to be built!

Then, after living with just a big hold outside of that door for months, and then weeks with just the deck frame, we finally had a day in September to put on the deck boards. Love how Reuben is helping. iPad at the ready and thumb in mouth. Sometimes we just do what we have to do to keep him safely occupied while we get the work done!

Getting closer - the metal grate provides a place for people to scrape their shoes off before getting to the door.

There! Done! And doesn't it look nice, too, to have the underside of the flat roof and the few battens around the door painted? (Thanks to my mom who did that in the days before Matt and I went away for our anniversary trip.)

It's kind of funny what a destination that little bit of deck has become. Play food gets cooked out there, home school work gets done out there - it's the place to be!

Matt and I have also gotten back into our wall-building routine from the spring - when both of the little boys are at school is a good time for him and me to get some time to work together without constant interruptions. With that, we now have the limestone walls all the way done. (Ha - as I was skimming over past posts I realized I've done a very poor job of keeping updated photos of that on the blog! I'll have to find a few to share here...)

May 2015: we decided the wall was going to be higher than we wanted, especially on the east end, so are making it two-tiered, so it's safer for kids who fall over it, as well as allowing more light to make it down into the lower level play room.

July 2015: a beautiful day to be outside - Krassi's in the wagon, Barb's out pulling weeds out of the grass, the girls are playing house, and Reuben's been in and out with matchbox cars. (Owen's most likely putting miles on his bike or soccer ball at this moment!)

That particular day ended up being the day we got all of the wall on the south side of the house completed. It wraps around to the west, but until we were able to get the entry deck in, we couldn't fully finish the wall.

We also just this week were able to go out behind the addition and finish the small bit of limestone wall we put in behind the berm created by the excavation for the addition and our vegetable garden. We had started this WAY back in the spring to get a feel for how the wall-building worked before starting on the real ones in front of the house, and now that those are done, it was time to get back to that one and get it finished up.