We are pretty much finished with the retaining wall along the front of the house. Whew what a job. Planted some grasses and daffodils and Irish moss, along with a few small trees and shrubs. It still looks a bit bare but hopefully by spring it will fill in a bit. Still have the corner area by the main driveway to landscape, hope to get started on it soon.
    Brian has been on the tractor a lot too, digging into the back hillside to create a terrace, and using the dirt to do some fill around the garden area.  We have pretty much put the garden to bed, but will be pulling a lot of it out as we fill in and build it up a bit.  It has been dropping a few inches a year and needs to get built back up again.  I am sure it will be a mess for a while but will be great in the end.
  Put away all of the lawn furniture and got most of the outdoors winterized.  Discovered a leak on the stairs just below the upstairs porch, so Brian cleaned it all out and re-caulked it.  I am sure this will be an ongoing issue as it did it last year too.  Time for some paint touch-up once it dries.

We have been busy on the out buildings. Now that the house is done, we have more time to concentrate on the landscaping and the garages.  Had a new garage door installed on the small garage and took off the old metal siding and put up shingles to match the door.  Looks NICE!  We can even park the car in the garage.  
Now we are working on the big garage, got it about half cleaned out and already took a big load to the dump. Brian is going to move his shop/workbench out there, so we will have more room in the little garage for the car and he will have more room to do his projects in the big garage.  
Have cleaned out a few of the flower beds, getting them ready for fall, always a big job, but it has to be done.
We have also been building a retaining wall in the front of the house along the road.  Brian did some terracing with the tractor, and we are putting in concrete blocks, and eventually we will put in plants.
That is it for awhile...time to do some traveling again!!!

We did it! We are an official B&B

Where do I start?  We have done so much since my last post in May. It's been too busy to put it all down on paper.  I guess I will just list all of the projects we have finished.

• The Pillar rock Room is done, new mattress, box spring and sheets.  It is all decorated and ready for guests. 
• We finished the railings and the front deck, looks so fresh and clean
• Hung up more art and did more decorating in the stairwell
• Finished putting down the carpeting on the stairs and upper hallway
• Repainted the floor on the upper deck and touched up the railings, finished painting the trim out there too.
• Brian installed new toilets in two of the bathrooms, for better flushing! 
• Built a new retaining wall and drainage field and then moved the big trailer back into it's permanent home.
• Power washed and stained the Gazebo, wow, it looks brand new!
• Did lots of yard work
• Installed a new garage door on the small garage
• Brian built and stained two new trellis's for the garden
• Stained the arbor and added more stepping stones to the walkway
• Started the landscaping along the road in front of the house
• Cleaned out the small garage
• Brian built a fancy shed for the garbage cans. 
• Painted and put up a new headboard in our room.

           In mid June we had an Open House.  Had a fun time showing people around the house and visiting, it was a great day.  We sure appreciated everyone's support.  We had the health inspector down the next week and we passed the physical inspection.  The following week we took a water sample in and nervously waited to hear back......and when we did, the news was good!  We passed with flying colors. And we got our B&B accreditation! WOW!  We have been working for 10 years for this to happen, could not be happier!  Unfortunately I was having some health issues so we had to put off our official opening until next year, but the excitement of actually succeeding is amazing.
          We did have our first guests a few days ago.  The reservation was made earlier this year so we said...what the heck let's do it!  It was a wonderful experience and now we are really looking forward to next year. We are setting our opening for mid April of 2014

Back to work.....

Been busy ever since we got back from vacation! We had about a week of great weather so concentrated on outdoor projects.  Power washed the front deck and got it ready for painting.  We went with a fairly new product called Restore.  It was a lot of work to put on, but it looks great, and if it holds up it will be worth all the work. Had to tear apart quite a bit of the railing as it was rotten.  What a mess, but Brian has been busy making new posts and getting it put back together, even some of the deck had to be replaced. I cleaned off and got the conservatory deck and railings ready for stain.  Got it about 3/4 done before the weather changed.  Hope to get it finished when we get a dry day or two.  Brian has done a lot of work with the tractor too.  We are hoping to move the big trailer back into it's permanent home, but still have to put in the french drain and the retaining wall.
  Bought a little antique table for $10 and after putting a few hours of work into it, it now sits beside the bathtub with the towels and soaps on it! Doesn't look like a $10 table anymore! Also inside, we have been working on the stairs, getting the carpet runner down.  Made it half way before we ran out of the padding. To be continued soon.  Have also been doing some little projects, like putting on switch plate covers and decorating the walls with a lot of art that has just been sitting around.  Good to get it up! Also finished the trim in the Pillar Rock Room, and hung the blinds, just the mattress to buy and that room is done! 

A tiny hair ruined my day!

      We have been making great progress!  The Pillar Rock Room aka the black and white room is really coming along.  The floors are done, the furniture is in place, the bed is set up including the box spring and dust ruffle,(still need a mattress).  The curtains are hung, and most of the decorating is done.  
     Yesterday I started in on the bathroom that is attached.  It was "done" about 5 years ago and has had a lot of use, so needed to put up the trim pieces, and spruce it up a bit, re-paint the trim etc....  I sanded and put down a coat of spar varathane to protect the part of the floor that is wood, and wow it looks great! Better than it did originally.  Went in there this morning to put on the second coat and discovered a hair about 4 inches long embedded in the varathane....of course it was in a spot that would be noticeable so I had to scrape and sand that area down to bare wood, re-stain.......wait.......put a coat of varathane on that area.......wait some more........and finally a few minutes ago put down the final coat. Whew!  Who knew one little hair could cause so much work?

     We went to Portland this week to Hippo Hardware and Rejuvenation and finally found the trim pieces we needed for the bathroom door, but forgot about the plinth blocks.  Phooey!  Well Brian got busy and made some to match the others in the room!!!  They look so good!  He is really getting good at all this woodworking! Just a few more details and both rooms will be done!!!  Now to clean up all of the mess!  Gees we are sure good at that!

Last Room cont....

Wow, we are done with the last room except for a few pieces of trim which we need to go to Portland for.  I just hope we will be able to find some!  It has to match the old 1895 trim that is around the window and door, so got my fingers crossed that we can find a piece. The last coat of Varathane went on last night and it looks great!  Now comes the fun part...decorating!  This room has had it's challenges for sure but we are very happy with the result. The board and batten went up pretty easily, it was time consuming but worth it!  Of course the walls are not straight, so trying to make everything look level was.........shall we say interesting?
   Have also been working on a few other projects around the house.  Stained and got the rest of the trim up in the big bathroom, so that room is DONE!  Love saying that!  Bought and painted the trim pieces for the black and white bathroom, so those can go up this week.  
  I got my food handlers license!  So now we need to get the health inspector down to check things out and see where we are on that. We are thinking of having our open house in June, stay tuned for updates on the date. 
   There are a lot of little finishing touches to do, but will work through them room by room.  Must make lists! 

The Last Room

   We are slowly working our way through the last room to remodel!  So far we have cleaned it out which was a big chore as it was our "junque" room!  Son-in-law Adam helped me get it organized and cleaned out, whew it was a big job!  A lot of the items will go back in the room when it is done, so they are kind of randomly stored in the bathrooms and in the office.  Tony came down and did an awesome job on the sheet rock.  He is truly an artist and even did a special texture on the ceiling by using some sand off our beach.  It looks great.

   After Tony left we got busy and painted the walls and ceiling, and then I put up the wallpaper on the upper part of the walls.  We are doing a board and batten treatment on the lower part, so we also spent time painting lots of boards for that effect, and we painted lots of trim boards too.  That was all set aside for now as we worked on the bathroom and bedroom doors, sanding and staining them. Also refinished two night stands, one armoire, and a dresser.  Got all the trim around the door and window sanded and painted, still have to find some matching trim for the bathroom door,  have looked in a few places, but no luck so far. We got the old floor covering torn up and Brian fixed a hole in the floor, so now that is ready to sand and stain. I cleaned and re-painted the outside window sills, they were looking pretty rough.  Have really made good progress especially since we took two weeks off and went to Florida to soak up some sun and re-charge the batteries!!!  Came home tan and ready to finish the room.  We are hoping to have our open house in June and open soon after.