Let There Be Light!!

My mom and dad visited this weekend! Lukie is their only grandchild, and at this age, he changes so much from one month to the next that I think it's hard for them to be away for too many weeks without seeing him. Mom and Dad came in Friday night and Lukie not only was happy to see them, but walked out and hugged my dad as soon as he opened the door. There was a hug for Momo, too.

And then there was this a few hours later-- courtesy of my sister-in-law Rebecca, who gave us this alligator outfit after her boys were done playing with it. I believe it was originally a gift to them from Pete.

Saturday was another big house project. I posted this picture a while ago; it's the "after: shot of when I painted the dining room and took it from a super light powder blue to a nice, warm grey color. Not much had changed, other than Frank the Desk (in the corner there) getting a new steel grey paint job...but there was a thing about this room that has bugged us since we moved in. That far wall is an outer wall of the house. See the door? WHY, you may ask, then, IS THERE NO WINDOW THERE? 

This is a question that we have also asked and I have never been able to come up with a good answer. The guy who remodeled our house never put one in, but I think that was a huge mistake. This room was dark, just a little box in the very middle of our house. It was dark all day, keeping light from coming through to the kitchen, which can also get a little dark because of all the wood and the fact that the window in there is a North-facing window.

Add to this the fact that Peter has now closed off the door way to the right (the one that now leads to the bedroom) to make a beautiful built-in hutch (pictures of that to come when he's finished), and that room was a pit of darkness. We've talked for years about putting a window in this room. This weekend was the time!! 

Pete ended up having to cut a long hole in the wall because there was a stud right where the window was going. He split that and framed in the window before my dad came. It was handy to have another pair of hands to help Pete this weekend, seeing as how my hands are often busy keeping Lukie away from saw blades when Pete is doing a building project.

Pete used a reciprocating saw to cut through the siding...finding out in the process that the original siding is still currently on the house...covered by plywood...and another layer of clapboard siding.

This house is coated in a lot of wood. The fun things you find out when working on a 115-year-old house!

The view from outside-- the grid of metal there will be covered in black-eyed Susan vines soon. They are growing in two buckets at the base of the trellis. We grew them on our fence last year and decided we liked them so much that we wanted to cover the wall in them this year. They're annuals, and the grid is about six inches off the wall, so we should avoid anything actually touching the clapboard while still getting the sweet, cottage-y look of flowers climbing up the wall. Also, Pete has built a deck on this side of the house. It'll be finished and painted soon, now that the window is in the wall.

Let there be light!

This is pretty much the state of the dining room now, with some of the mess taken away. Pete has patched the drywall, but there is sanding, painting, and trimming left to do on the inside. The outside also needs painted. The room is a ton lighter. I'll make sure to post a final update on the dining room once the window is trimmed, painted, and curtain'd (well, maybe I won't get to that for a while, considering we've kind of blown the budget on a new custom window...) and Pete has finished the new built-in cabinet you can just barely see on the right. Once this is all done, we'll take a break in this room, but someday, we may also put paneled wainscoting in this room, and when that's done, it will be very fancy indeed. :)

We went out to pizza on Saturday night and my dad played guitar at an open mic night that my friend Chris hosts at Scintillare restaurant every weekend. Lukie danced a little, but mostly, he just ran around and kept Pete and me on our toes. He's still not really at a great age for going to restaurants, though his recent development of an abiding love for pizza does make at least the eating part of the experience a little better.

On Sunday, we went to Horse Creek in the Cherokee National Forest. Pete and I had never been, but our friend Suzi suggested it because it has an excellent area for wading into the river. She was right- it was great! There's a really nice picnic area with lots of rocks and little pools for wading in. Sunday morning was the perfect, most quiet time to go, and we had a blast! We'll be bringing the dogs here (after Dixie gets better-- she had a really rough weekend of gastrointestinal issues) to play probably every couple of weeks this summer. It totally supplants our previous creek of choice, which was 45 minutes away. This is a 13-minute drive and way more accessible.

We found a spot where butterflies were congregating (probably poop or something dead, but we couldn't see it....ignorance is bliss sometimes...) and I tried, in vain, to get a picture of Lukie with butterflies all around him. Should have gotten on the other side of the rock, but ultimately, he just wanted to chase the butterflies.

And oh, the intense joy of throwing rocks...

Another attempt at the butterflies...

We'll miss Momo and Papa, but we look forward to seeing them later this summer. I've got two more weeks to work and them I'm off for two months, so we have lots of adventures coming up! Stay tuned!