Dahlia House

Dahlia House
Taken in August 2013

Friday, September 14, 2012

Summer is at an end....

I cannot believe my last post was April! Boy how this spring and summer have flown by.  We have been super busy, and I will just list all of the things we have gotten done.

Finished the front hallway, painted the walls, put down the flooring and decorated.  We are still working on the front door, sent it out to be rebuilt and now Brian and I are re-finishing it.  In the meantime we found a storm door and have that up, nice to have light in there again.  Just had a piece of plywood up in the doorway.

Sent two doors out to be stripped, the hallway door and the one to the upstairs porch.  So far we have the one upstairs, painted,  stained, the window glazed and back in place.  Still have work to do on the hallway door before it goes back up.

Completed the Hummingbird bedroom. Repainted the walls, refinished the floors, put up the trim, new curtains and decorated.  The room is beautiful!  We even had some guests stay  (family) but it was fun to have them enjoy the room.

Refinished the floors in the hallway, and painted, still have the decorating to do in there. We rented a sander and did all three rooms (bedroom, hallway and bathroom) in a day, wow, what a big task.  There was sawdust everywhere! Got some of the scratches out but the rest are just character!

Refinished the floors in the big bathroom, decorated and that room will be finished when we get the rest of the trim up.  Did the floors in there with heavy duty spar varathane, 3 coats...that was a chore but worth it.   So shiny, and protected from the water too! Put up paintings and other decor, it turned out better than I could of wished.

This summer once the rain stopped we have focused mainly on the outdoors.  We had the back hillside dug out and put up a retaining wall. Cleaned up the area and had it rocked.  Now we have a big back yard and lots of parking area.  Brian dug out the hillside across from the swing set to put the 29 foot trailer in.  The "bunkhouse" for family and friends now has it's own view and is not in view of the back of the house.  Love it!  Colleen and Adam helped to spread rock and create the "RV site". Really appreciated their help. We are just now getting a canopy over the top of it to protect it from the rain. 

We had to reinforce the garden fence this summer as one of the deer figured out how to get in there.  Not happy about that at all!  It is just crudely done at this point, but next spring we will do something permanent. Dahlias are beautiful this year, really enjoying them. Had a bumper crop of potatoes but so far all the tomatoes are still green. Onions and chives and peas did well too.  

The county did some work on the road in front of the house, widening it by cutting away  a little bit of our front lawn.  Glad to see it done.  Now we need to figure out what to plant to keep down the weeds and the blackberries, that will be a project for the fall.  

Other than that it has just been maintenance which always keeps us busy.  Next inside project will be the last room to do. Wow, amazing to even write that...never thought we would get this far...although it has been over 7 years.  We hope to finally open our B&B in the late spring.....again....AMAZING!

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