I planted dahlias for the third year in a row and one finally took. The pottery vase (mostly used as a tumbler) is by a friend, Hitomi Shibata. This year I also grew the globe amaranth and, by accident, the zinnias, which compliment the dahlias better than I could have planned.

We're finished!

Awww...no way!!!! I skipped all the boring renovation work by accident. Well, I will share a few choice pics of what happened to this darling house.

We took off the front gable...and the porch under it, and the chimney (You probably didn't even notice it, which means we didn't need it!).







We gutted the whole thing. Those of you who know Eddie and I know that this is the way we roll. Take it to the studs, remove the studs! We like a clean slate, or we just can't help making a huge project out of a simple remodel.




Then is snowed. I don't like cold weather, period. There is nothing cozy about frozen toes and your coffee getting all cold. Okay, enough of that. I'll just say nature is beautiful, purty.







...then it stopped snowing, warmed up considerably and Brandy helped me in the garden...not on this particular day, but on the days before this one. We went to a cookout at the pottery center on this day, or we had lots of cocktails and cooked lots of yummy things on this day. Either way we ate a lot, I love to eat.

Oh, this is the garden..... don't laugh.

Then we put on a new roof, pv and solar water panels on the front, new window cases.....and moved the front door to the west side of the house, and built a deck on the back. Explanation, summer at the front, winter at the back. We spent weekends building the house so it over a year.

Somewhere in there we chopped down a few pecan trees that were growing dangerously close to the house. Really sad because Eddie and I both grew up around pecan trees, but these two had to go. We've got lots more so no worries. And we're going to plant some other tree in its place I promise...so long as it doesn't block the solar panels, or obscure my view of my blueberry bushes.

That's enough for now, right. I have to stop because tonight we are patching pecan wood trim for the doorways. See, we even used the tree in the house. Not to mention that salmon a friend grilled on a plank of pecan from that very same tree!

This is it...

This is our new home! It's looking pretty good at this point, I know, it looks un-special, possibly ugly. But that run down mess of a structure has beauty too. Trust me.

We, my husband Eddie and I, have been working on this house for several months now. I'll post more pics in a few days. My time has been spent in the garden, and input as to where walls need to move, windows. The house came with a nice chunk of land, a large hedge of blueberries, several pecan trees, and several prime spots for growing shitakes. Woods, we've got a bit of woods too. Our renovation deadline is December 31, 11:59pm. I don't think we'll make it, so we may be calling in for backup soon. Charge your cell phone.