I’m Still Here….Barely
I am so burned out on the house, blogging, work, and just about everything else right now. So, since I can’t ignore the house, work, or most of everything else, the blog takes a back seat waaaaaaaay to the back of the bus. 
I did get one project complete this year. Some might call it a pergola, while others may call it an arbor, but I’m calling it a neighbor hiding apparatus. There are potato vines growing up either side, and there are also the 2 mayten trees in the shot, which I planted last fall. All of this is for curb appeal when I go to sell the place in a year or two.
I also have six to seven hundred salvaged bricks from the old Daly’s department store that I will use to make a brick patio. The original plan was to use the bricks to rebuild the chimneys, but I don’t see that happening now.
The other project I have planned for the summer is to reside one short side (25 feet wide?) of the garage building, and then paint that building. This is the 2 story, 1926 building with 2 apartments upstairs and 6 garages downstairs. The second story shingles on this one short side need to be ripped off and replaced, and then 3 rows of horizontal siding needs replacing on the first floor. I had planned to hire someone to do the siding, but after getting 2 bids, with the low one being $9,800, I’ve decided to do it myself.
Oh, joy!
I may farm out the painting, but I won't know until I start getting bids. Something tells me I'll be doing that myself, as well.
15 comments:
Well, hurray! You and the blog are back!
It looks very nice! Lots of hard work went into building that, Im sure. I know what you mean though about blogging. It is fun to blog, but WE are the ones we usually have to do all the work on the house making it difficult to do both. I'll get blogging for a month straight then spend more time on the house and back and forth.
Cant wait to see whats next :)
(1916home.net)
SELL?? (insert stunned silence here) Sniff........
Please don't sell before you've finished the parlors and the upstairs.....
Welcome back! Was just wondering you and some other house bloggers who have fallen off the radar screen. Glad it's just that LIFE thing getting in the way. ;-)
Lovely project!
I am so glad you are OK I missed you. I love reading your blog I to am shocked to hear the work SELL but you must buy another old house and start all over with a new blog. ha ha best of luck to you in all that you do. you are so very talented please don't be overwhelmed.
Sell? Thinking about embarking on a one man mission to restore the neighborhood perhaps?
Very nice! I actually like the feeling of vertigo it gives me. (Just kidding.)
Very nice pergola/screening type thing! I missed reading your blog during your break, but you certainly deserved one. I can relate to the burnout that comes with all this work on the house. We spent 5 years building a carriage house behind our little old house, doing most of the work ourselves and when we were done we took about 5 years off! Now it is time to tackle the little house. I really hope you don't sell! Perhaps you just need a nice long break. But that's just me being selfish because I really enjoy reading about your adventures with restoration :-)
Wahoo! You're back! I totally understand the burnout thing. I think we've all been there at one time or another. SELL?! Say it isn't so!
Hello, Greg. I know how you feel. I live in Cambridgeshire, England, and my 17th century cottage suffered a house fire last year. The marathon to get it rebuilt since is wearing me out. One thing, are you still pleased with your marble worktops? You've inspired me to give them a try, but every single kitchen sales person/designer in the whole of the UK thinks I'm mad and predicts terrible events if I do. Sigh.
Lou,
Yea, it is tough to keep going at times. The fire must have been rough. I guess it could be worse for me.
As for the marble, no regrets. I don't baby mine in the least and they still look great.
Hi Greg! I love the lower level lattice pattern. Have never seen it before, but it is just so Petch. The finials are great too; I think you got the size and angles just right.
Was stripping paint off my porch door this morning, thinking, "Greg would do this 5x faster." Then I thought, at least I pulled an eastlake door out of the trash and am restoring it, however slowly, and getting faster at it as I go :-) There are those who would have just gotten an aluminum storm door and called it done. Not me, I'm touched! By your blog, several others, and my own eccentricity.
Slate,
Great comment. Thank you.
About that lower lattice...
I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do for the bottom part, I just knew I wanted something different from the diamond lattice. I was at the local home center buying the vines when I saw someone walking through the parking lot with a section of the wavy lattice. I asked her where she bought and she said at the back of the garden shop, near the statuary. So I want back in to look for it and get measurements. It comes in 2X6 foot sections, which turned out to be perfect.
After I went home and measured to make sure it would fit the openings, I went back to the home center to pick up 3 sections. As I was walking back to the truck with them someone stopped me in the parking lot to ask where I found it. I told them in the back of the garden center near the statuary and then thought that they should move this stuff out front. It pretty much sells itself.
Its really nice to see you again.
Nice pergola.
You are missed.
I blogged because you did. I got this sorry place in part because you got yours. OK, so it was built during the Rolling Stones Era, but still.
I'm still on the fence about accepting advertising. Being that Google Ads have been a path (rarely but once is enough) for malware from other sites, been avoiding until Google decides that I have to or else. Then I might.
It's the day after Armistice Day as I like to call it, November 12th, 2011. I hope you are still there. The Petch House has been fascinating and been following it for a few years.
I hope you come back to your blog. Doesn't matter if you still have the house, so much. The travel blogs were great in their own right.
Hoping for the best, one adventurer from the land of the elvish sword and a battered brass lantern.
Post a Comment