Sunday, August 10, 2008

Windows and siding and gardens, oh my!

Good morning, Blog World. Are we all enjoying the Olympics? I am, for the most part. Can’t abide water polo and fail to understand why every channel would want to show us that rather than, say, equestrian events, which I’ve seen nothing of in (our) daylight hours. Wouldn’t you think more of us would want to see that than water polo? We’ve had a lot of beach volleyball, which I enjoy except for being distracted by my own annoyance at the outfits the women players feel obliged to wear. The men wear board shorts and T-shirts, but the women, oh, they must wear itsy bitsy bikinis. It irks me.

So I don’t really have anything witty or clever to say today but feel like keeping in touch. We’ve been in our new home for a month now and continue to settle in. There are still more unpacked boxes tucked away here and there than there should be, but we’re whittling away at them. We’re as busy with tradespeople here as we were in the last few weeks at our old house. But these improvements we get to stay and enjoy!

We’re focusing on the outside, initially, given the time of year and also given that it’s difficult to do too much inside until we finally finish unpacking! After chopping down the incredible house-eating pine tree, we have had people clean out our gutters, which were of course overflowing with pine detritus. We have had a landscaper draw up plans to rejuvenate and spiff up our garden. While the wild, untended look does provide for a sort of camping in the woods effect, it needs some taming. So he has planned a lovely garden that will require no more than two or three visits from him a year to keep in shape. At this place and time, we’re all about no effort on our part!

Two windows on the east side of our house are being replaced, and after that’s done, a fellow is coming to replace all the cedar siding on that side, which is rotting disproportionately to the rest of the house (which is not at all rotten). We are told this is common on the east side because most weather hereabouts comes from that side. Winds driving rain and all that. I don’t know, but it’s important to SRH that this be done.

So once we have new windows and siding and a lovely new garden this fall, we will turn our attention to the inside -- where I hope there will be no more boxes left to impede our improvement efforts there! Our friend KCL, wearing her decorator hat, has many ideas for us and we are excited about implementing them.

So that’s what’s up Chez Grammar: the buzzing of tradespeople. Oh, Grammar does love having serfs about.

EDIT TO POST: It was pointed out to me by eagle-eyed fan Missy Moo that in the above pic, it appears my new garden is going to spill way out into the street. It won't, of course. Obviously a problem with the software (or user thereof). The perspective is very inaccurate.

3 comments:

Rainey Day Knitter said...

Your yard is going to be gorgeous! Also, I agree with you on the water polo issue...not my favorite thing to watch either.
Enjoy your serfs, it's lovely to look outside and see them scampering about.

Grammar Moses said...

Thanks, Rainey! btw, I read your blog regularly. I'm just not much of a commenter. So you do have at least one fan out here!

Rainey Day Knitter said...

Thank you! I'll try to stay on top of things then for my people ;)