Watch that first step

I think I am getting to old for this. Or, thats what my body is telling me after a weekend of gloved hands, lifting six by six posts and four by twelve pressure treated posts and beams into some position. I say some position because of the semi irregular shape of the deck on the back of the house that was a pain in the ass to keep square, level, and plumb. Up the posts went... six by six, four by six, four by four, each post with a specific engineered load requirement placed, more or less, where the engineer required them to be. And then the beams, twenty foot long, four by twelve monsters that took three and sometimes four of us to maneuver into position nine and a half feet above our heads. Up it went, moment by moment, until just before dark on Sunday night when we suddenly were staring at the frame work for the massive decking that surrounds the back of the house. All of these body aches just to get our power turned on. Do we really need it? How about candles, kerosene, and wood stoves?

Every evening this week we are working away at the small pad of concrete and bricks at the end of the stairs. Tonight when we arrive we will be leveling the form and learning how to mix cement. I have watched others do it and I am sure we can handle it. If we can get the stairs up tomorrow, we can call for inspection on Friday and have electricity by Monday night.

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I have been looking at other peoples house blogs lately. Blogs about restoring antique homes. There are a few I will admit that are really great and I have become a follower of a couple of them. I would recommend "The Petch House". Greg, the owner of the house and the blog, is a great writer and is doing very much the same things we are... but he is a lot further along! I have secret thoughts of playing house switch with him!

One odd thing that I have noticed, well odd to me anyway, about a lot of the blogs about home renovation/restoration is that they are not writing about fixing their homes at all. They are plugging the latest "sooo cute vase" from Pottery Barn that will look so wonderful in your powder room, against the latest wallpaper from "so and so", while you do crafts with the children, and bake super lo-cal, but incredibly delicious chocolate cake. Or posts about fluffy not feeling well and perhaps needs a visit to the dog psycho doctor or a doggie whisperer, and lots of "sorry for not writing lately, I just had fifteen babies", I think its an epidemic!

One of these would definitely help that situation!

But mostly an incredible number of renovation bloggers writing about their gardens, and their cute little flower beds. I suppose it is somewhat related, kind of, but at this point in our adventure the concept of garden is just, well, foreign! So I have been thinking that I would share some of the lovely views of the gardens at 227 North Street, I am sure you will be amazed and astounded at the beauty.

Beautiful spring flowers growing amongst the lush carpet beneath the trees

I know that I will receive many request for our landscape designers name, but I promised I would never tell. I am posting one more photo below that shows another sign of things to come. it is a shot of the wooden template that will soon be transferred to a piece of White Statuary Marble and permanently installed as our new front door sill.

When next I write we will have some lights on in the house and not be so dependent on one hundred foot extension cords plugged end to end, to end, to...