Man at Work

With Craig being a school teacher, summer is mostly about the fun. We go to the pool. We stay up late and argue over whose turn it is to get up with the kids (I usually win that one, but only because I'm up with Ryder in the night). We travel a bit. We watch a lot more movies and TV than we normally have time for. But it's also the time when Craig tries to blast through a few home projects. Last year it was the entire downstairs. The summer before, it was the master bathroom. And the summer before that was when we bought our house and took all these projects upon us!

So it's not like Craig is just sitting on his laurels (<---whatever those are) doing nothing all summer long. And this summer is no different. But he's had a lot of smaller projects going on, instead of one huge one. He started out by building a shed for our backyard. We don't have a garage, so the only place for Craig to store his tools had been in our crawlspace. At 6'1", this was a big pain for Craig. Which meant that whenever he was in the middle of a project, rather than put his tools away at night, he would usually just leave them on top of my washing machine and dryer. So it got to be my headache, also. So you can imagine that we are both very excited to have a better place to store tools at the end of the day!

Here are the pictures of the shed's construction:

Preparing the foundation

Bentley helps with the hammering

One wall up (thanks in part to Natalie and my super muscles holding it in place while Craig pounded in nails!)

Kendra also contributes

Three walls up! It's like we're Amish or something! Except I think this picture is from a week later...

And it's built! Now for paint...

Ah, yes, it will blend right in with the trees now!

And this is where I accidentally knocked over the paint can.
Good thing it was outside at least and Craig was done painting...

All nice and organized! We've got wood stacked in there. Ladders, snow shovels, my bike... All sorts of things that were a big pain when they were stored in the crawl space!

So the shed is done.

The next thing Craig tackled was the upstairs windows. This house still had the original 40-year-old, single-pane glass windows. Well, no more! Now they're all shiny, new, double-paned and argon-filled. And they're absolutely lovely. See?

Old, ugly, messed up frame

Pretty new trim!

I think that might be dry rot...

But now it's gone!

All new windows! Now we just need to replace that door...

So the windows are now checked off the list, too. The only original windows still left are the two in the kitchen. We're still trying to figure out what we want to do about that kitchen...

AND, now that the windows in our bedroom are done, Craig is finally willing to paint our room!!! I've been wanting this done since we moved in nearly three years ago! It's funny with our bedroom, because the color isn't that bad-- it's a creamy sort of beige. A bit nondescript, perhaps, but a perfectly nice color. Except EVERYTHING is painted that color: the walls, the trim, the doors, the ceiling... It makes the room feel like a box. A really boring box. So I'm excited to finally paint. Unfortunately, while this is being done, I have to endure a bedroom that looks like this:

Of note: plastic and cardboard covering EVERYTHING; the bed is in the middle of the room so Craig has access to all the walls-- but this makes it hard to walk around at all!; and there are no shades or blinds over the windows.
Fan.tast.ic.

Ah, life in a construction site! Craig actually suggested we wear hard hats to sleep in. I hope this is one project that can be finished quickly!