Painting the Money Pit

We began with the front porch 2 years ago and that's where it had ended. I was going to get to the side porches but just didn't.

But in prep of getting the hot tub from my parents house I had to fill the cracks in the block foundation of the side porch and painted it. So I just kept going.

I am hoping to get the lower part done this year all the way around, including the 2 other porches, at least as far up as I can reach. Not sure if we'll get the paint sprayer I want or not, but either way I'll get to what I can.

I was the one up on the ladder! I had to scrape off the old nasty peeling paint under the gutters. Of course being on a ladder is why there is only a little patch done! As you can see we still haven't finished the siding from replacing the window. I just didn't want to put up what was there, but I think I'm going to have to give in.


This hole has been next to the basement door since who knows when, long before we bought the house. It looked like there had been several patch attempts but not with the right stuff, so we picked up a bag of morter mix & hubby spent an hour "doing it right." At least what we think is right & looks nice. The next step will be to build up the rest and paint! The hole went all the way through along the door

Garden edging

This past week was a productive one for the outside of the Money Pit at least!

We smoothed out some parts of the yard that were un-mowable piles of dirt covered with weeds! I jammed up the mower a few times trying to cut them down. So I had dh go get my Dad's bucket tractor & smooth things up a bit. Now I have patches of dirt that will eventually be grass covered & as a bonus I had an abundance of rocks.

So I loaded them up in the kids red wagon & rolled them out front to edge one of my front yard gardens.

If you look at the front photo of my house you can see the sad empty space in front of the stone on the porch. The sad pointy evergreens are long gone & what you aren't seeing is a garden, landscaped & edged. There were actually plants here! A sad little azalea shrub on either side of the stairs, and misc other plantings. The previous owners had even used landscape cloth. When I ripped it all up (it just looked sickly!) I found that neither of the shrubs had ever outgrown their original root ball. The evergreens were still in their burlap. Since then I have been privileged to enjoy the work of former owner planting bulbs. There are multiple layers of flowers. In the early spring I enjoyed the white & purple crocus that came up, and now these are covering the entire length of my porch.

I have planted 2 Wisteria that climb up the posts, we almost lost one this spring to the unseasonably late cold weather, thankfully it has finally started to leaf. Last year I planted a mini rose bush I had received for a holiday, I was able to divide it into 2 plants so there is one on either end as well. Just this week I was at Aldi & bought a climbing peace rose for $3.99 and planted it to the right of the stairs.

The forget-me-nots are just getting started & will be in full force once the current display dies off. There is a daffodil in there & a tulip, but I think it got mowed.

This year we are going to focus on the right side of the stairs garden & getting a couple trees planted out front. I hate to cover up the facade, but we get a healthy wind as there is a wide open field across the street. DH wants to plant cherry trees, I guess I can live with that, at least they will be pretty in the spring.

Up on the roof...

I really need to pick myself up a copy of The Complete Photo Guide to Home Improvement: With 300 Projects and 2,000 Photos (Black & Decker Home Improvement Library) by Creative Publishing international. I think it would be extremely helpful to me!!!

There are just so many projects we need to tackle here. I even got hubby out on the side porch roof just the other day! We lost part of our gutters, since they were just hanging by a strap I didn't want them blowing around possibly scratching the roof up. So up he went. First we tried our ladder, not exactly the best option, the ground is still really soft. So I suggested he go out the window in the upper bathroom. He had to remove the lower pane to do it, but he did!

I am constantly picking on him about his fear of heights, kind of like then why did we buy a 3 1/2 story house??? We don't exactly have the hire it out budget, at least not for the simple things...

Right now I think we are waiting for direction! We have lots of things we are "into" but no real idea where to go next... We need to finish the ceiling in our bedroom, we got half way & stopped because I decided I want to wire for a light fixture. So we need to buy wire & such before we can move ahead in there. We need to finish taking down the drop ceiling in the front room. We are going to paper that (with the embossed tin tile looking stuff) wire for overhead fixtures & eventually build our own box beams. We are also going to pull up all the carpet in the living areas. Seal the floor in the living room & probably paint the floor in the front room... I need to get the kids toys organized again & get the room cleared out before any of that can happen...

I guess I am having a Spring yard sale!