The South Wall of Siding

Andy installed the ballisters on the stairs to the loft this week. We haven't fully committed to a plan for the end of the railing or the top of the posts that support it. We're working on it. Sort of. It came up about a month ago, but we haven't discussed it in awhile.
Mindy had some fun at Ikea last week, so the boy's room is pretty well sorted. There is plenty of room for books, toys, and three little boys.

Robb and Colin, a father and son siding team, came out with some other friends on Saturday again. It's fun to get together with good people and do good work. This was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so we had lots of turkey and pie for lunch.

This is one of the retaining walls that help the house to settle into the ground. There are two more much like this one on the other side of the house. The windows on the half wall are pretty low to the ground, and we wonder if we'll need to shovel snow away from them during the winter.

Harold Gushue came out on Saturday, too. At 91, he's the oldest helper we've had out here. He even brought his grandfather's hammer to use on the house. Harold built a cottage on an island off the coast of Canada a long time ago, so this was all old hat to him. The view from the cherry tree. Maybe I should have taken this picture at night - then you wouldn't be able to tell that we'd run out of painted boards! I think we'll run out of primed boards before we're totally wrapped up, but they'll be ok for the next few months. By the end of the day we had boards past the windows on this wall. The East wall isn't in any of these pictures, but it's about 75% done. With as much help as we've had, it has been great to work on multiple walls at the same time. Ladders really become the bottleneck at that point.

The parting view from Saturday afternoon. With the siding up, it really looks like home now.

Words cannot describe the joy we feel when we come home to the house. With smoke curling up from the chimney, the lights of the Christmas tree in the central dining room window, and that beautiful red wall settled into the hill, it's an amazing thing to behold.

We truly appreciate every moment that has gone into this project, both our own and from all of our friends and family who have helped over the last year or so.

We love it!