Friday Night Photos: House Renovations v. 2.1.8 (Siding, a Garden Path, and Tomato Beds)

It's summertime, finally the rain has stopped, and the living is relatively easy around here. Although the house is still not done, you can see from this photo that I'm starting to do a bit of relaxing on the new decks. Tonight I had dinner on the side deck with Maria from Two Peas and Their Pod (who used to be my neighbor) and Chris from Mele Cotte (who's in Utah right now.) This is the first time I've been able to have guests for dinner since November, when the house project started, so as you can imagine, I was happy!

About three-fourths of my house now has the James Hardie siding, which is a great product made of fiber cement which looks good and lasts forever. I was a little worried about this green color, but I'm liking it. This photo is the west side of the house, where there's a covered deck in back.

This is the front of the house, where the siding is done on the outside walls, but the posts need to be covered, and trim by the door isn't painted yet. My porch is full of stuff I managed to purge during the inside painting, and I'm trying to give it away to anyone who comes over! I guess I'll have a yard sale and then donate what's left.

I was taking these photos when the sun was making a shadow on the east side of the house. This side had the biggest wall that needed siding so the siding work started here. The little double window in the middle is my kitchen, which is now right in the middle of the house. Seems fitting, don't you think?

There's been a lot of progress in the back too, including these beds for tomatoes added next to the south deck. I won't try to transplant this year's tomatoes, but I'm looking forward to growing tomatoes here next year. This is the sunniest part of my yard, and we put in drip irrigation, so I I think it should work very well!

In the last update on house renovations I showed the digging for this garden path. It's finished now, and I'm thrilled with how the path turned out. And it lines up perfectly with the steps, which line up perfectly with the back door! (That's a joke, because we decided to add the path when I realized that the original back sidewalk didn't line up with the new back door, something I realized I just could not live with!)

Finally, they say that good fences make good neighbors, and I have this new section of tall fence which helps keep my deck a lot more private. I live right in the city where houses are close together, so I'm really happy to have a fence here, even though my neighbor on that side is a very nice guy!

I'm almost scared to say it, but it seems like the end is in sight on the house renovations. I'm guessing maybe three more weeks and the house will be done. When that happens, I'll be having a very big party! (If anyone is interested, you can see my whole set of House Renovations Photos on Flickr or use the label House Ronovations to see all the posts.)

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