New Deck

We finally got the deck done!  Here's a before and after

And from another angle

(this shot was taken before we sealed it)

We're so stoked; it looks great!  We went with TimberTech composite for the floor boards and local, sustainably harvested redwood for the fence railing.  It seems though as soon as one project is done, another is born.  We exteneded  it a bit, so the stairs come out further, so we need to add a step at the bottom to even it out.  We have a temporary one there for now and probably won't replace it until we do the patio in the back yard.  But who knows when that will be!  I just want to enjoy having this done and not add anything to the projects list for a while!

Catch Up Time

Winter at long last is over. No need to rush home and get a fire going every night, we can grill for dinner and not have to do it in the dark, no more roof leaks.... yeah, I'm stoked! An unexpected roof repair added to our list of improvements so far this year. We got the new wood stove in January and it's great! Chek 'er out:

We also finally painted our bedroom a much more pleasing color.

Next now that the weather's getting nicer we can finish painting the outside trim forest green to match the gutters we got last fall. Inside, we want to paint the living/dining room/kitchen area

as well. We started framing and hanging our Fillmore and other concert posters in the hall, so that will probably be the very last area to see any fresh paint!

Our taxes are getting worked on, and we're hoping to get a good return because we need to get the deck fund going. We have lots of friends that have said they're willing to pitch in a help do it, but I'm not sure. It's in the air on posts, maybe 12-15 feet or so, and I just don't feel great about D lifting heavy stuff up and down ladders, not to mention making sure it's done right. Some of our friends have some experience w/ this kind of stuff and so does D, but how much I can't exactly gauge, so that makes me a little nervous too. Although if we keep spending money on concert tickets, we won't have money left!

We just went to Phil's 70th Bday show, yesterday I put in for the lottery for 3 nights of Phish at the Greek and last week we bought our High Sierra tickets as well as tickets for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at Oracle Arena. I really wanted to go see Conan at SJSU but we had to pass on something. Oh yeah, I got a speeding ticket too. I wish I could say it was for going 90 or something, but no... 40 in a 25. At least I get to do traffic school, but the expense still sucks. It's only my 2nd speeding ticket ever, so I guess I was due.

Weathering the Storms

We've been getting walloped with nasty wet weather for the past week or so. Thunder, lightning (which is pretty unusual for these parts), hail, high winds, you name it! We've had over 8 inches of rain in Ben Lomond since Sunday. Tuesday was the worst... power went out around 5am and didn't come back all day, so we decided to eat out for dinner down in Santa Cruz after work before heading home. When we finally headed up the hill around 6, we got stuck in some of the most horrendous traffic I've ever had to deal with in Santa Cruz. What is normally a 25 minute drive home took 2.5 hours, yes hours!! Both the main roads home, Hwy 9 and E. Zayante Dr, were closed due to fallen trees or downed power lines. Power was still out when we finally made it in, but came back around 9:30 that night. We are so glad we did the tree work we needed done last year b/c I'm sure they would have been a problem. A tree took out our neighbor's main power drop to his house yesterday during a high wind gust and the power co. says it won't be restored for a few days at least. Getting a generator is quickly moving up our priority list!

Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

We finally painted the door trim over Thanksgiving weekend. This is what it looks like....

We still need to do a bit of touch up as the friggin blue painters tape look some of the stain off the door = / And we need to do the interior trim as well, but the outside looks good. We went w/ forest green because our new gutters are the same color. So now that means more trim painting for the windows and shutters once it stops raining.

Also today, the blower in our wood stove went out. We've been having trouble with it, but thought we had it resolved. But today when D went to check it out, we saw a big spark in the back and it won't turn on at all. Since the stove is so old, we're not sure we can just replace the motor/blower/electrical. Considering this is our main heat source, we HAVE to address this right away. Luckily this didn't occur during the record cold we had last week. It was dropping down into the 20's overnight, which I know isn't that cold for most places, but for here it's damn cold. We actually woke up last Tuesday to find our water pipes frozen!! Nothing burst, but it was pretty surprising to have that happen. My succulents took a beating from it as well. I can only hope they recover come spring.

The past several weeks have been ridiculously hectic, so we haven't had alot of time to put into house projects. That will change in the coming weeks though. Interior painting will be next on our agenda. D's parents are coming out for a few weeks over the holidays, so maybe we can put them to work like we did Nando & Jon when they visited!

Rainy Season is Here!

We got hit w/ the remnants of a typhoon from Japan yesterday and man was it a nasty storm! Ben Lomond recorded over 10 inches of rain in a 24 hour period. I knew when we moved up here that BL seems to get the most rainfall in this area, but damn! There were high winds too, with gusts up to 50 mph. Luckily the worst has past and we just have a few showers continuing right now. The bad thing is that because of all the rain, the roof leaked in a few spots. D has been out of town on business, so I had to ride this one out all by myself here. We had no power for most of yesterday but it finally came back on in the middle of the night. Thank God we didn't lose everything in the fridge and freezer, I just went shopping a few days ago. The roof did stop leaking on it's own too, but I still have a roofer coming by today to check it out. More of that joy of homeownership stuff I tell ya!

But aside from that, everything has been going pretty well. We did finally stain the front door and it looks amazing, I'll post some pics of it soon. We have our gutters on order and those will hopefully be up before the next big storm hits. Next month we have a few friends coming out, so we'll be sure to exploit their labor in exchange for couch surfing! ; )

New Doors at Long Last

We finally got the doors done and man do they look great! It makes the house look so much different, so much better. We still need to finish them (add another project to the list!) but we are stoked. Check out the pix!

Old Back Door

New Back Door

Old Front Door

New Front Door

Next up... gutters

Fire on the Mountain

After coming home from work Tuesday, I returned a call to a friend from Maine who heard about the Lockheed Fire and wanted to make sure we were OK. As soon as I hang up after telling her we're in the clear and the fire is almost contained, sirens come wailing down the street.... and they kept coming and coming. We went online to firedispatch.com to see what was happening. Turns out the Brookdale Lodge & Inn, just a few miles up Highway 9 from us, was ablaze. Initially, they said it was a gas leak. It quickly turned into a 3 alarm fire. Flames were shooting up 75 feet into the trees. We heard trucks and sirens come up the valley for a solid hour. Since there were so many fire crews in the area from the other fire, they were able to give it a full assault and got it out quickly. They even had 3 aircraft come and drop water and chemical retardant on the surrounding wildland. We're lucky that this happend when there were so many firefighters in the area, or it could have gotten a lot worse fast. Here's a link to the full story http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_13156098?IADID=Search-www.santacruzsentinel.com-www.santacruzsentinel.com