Back Porch Stage 7

Putting on membrane to waterproof roof. Not too many sunny days left so Scott is going to try and finish the trim tomorrow. After that, he'll do the exterior walls.

Back Porch Stage 6

It has a roof!!! Making progress.....

Back Porch Stage 5

Here's todays progress. You can already get the feel of it with just the joists going across. Pretty cool. Considering it was almost 100 here today, its amazing he got so much done working solo.

Back Porch Stage 4

He's been hard at work this week and made some great progress. Like posting the small incremental steps.

Back Porch Stage 3

Making some good progress this past weekend. Really getting the feel for his design finally. Its going to be a beauty!

Back Porch Stage 2

We tried to give Scott as much time as possible to work on the back porch- he made some amazing progress in such a short time!

Stages of the back porch

And the back porch project has begun. Trying to carve out time working full time with family in town for two months with events most nights of the week makes it a long long project. We hope to finish it by the time Reece goes to college. :) Here is the first phase...

Outdoor seating- looking good

With the help of Grandpa Kewley, we finally have some pretty sweet chairs out back. He scrapped and primed them which was a huge chore. Scott finished painting them and they are ready for wine drinking. Come over to enjoy them!

Outside space shaping up- February 2012

Superbowl party is here. We wanted to finally have a space outside for people to hang out. Its far from finished but at least you are not standing in mud outside the dining room doors. We borrowed the firepit for the party which was nice for drinking some wine under the stars. We planted bamboo at the trailhead of the Little bear trail. Cleared the trails so that you can do two loops in the back. We are really starting to enjoy it the backyard more. Pretty exciting stuff for us!

A little more gravel added....

To have a workable space outside Scott has been working hard at leveling off the floor and then adding gravel on top. He's had two truck loads of gravel delivered and will do runs up the hill w/the wheelbarrow whenever he has time.

Back Porch work

Trying to create an outdoor space for us, which in theory shouldn't be too hard but we have to do everything the hard way. We had contractors work on the retaining walls and now we are working on creating a flat space for the floor.

February snow

We have had some snow in the past couple of weeks. Portland Public schools actually closed for snow last Thursday. Here are some house shots and pictures of Reece hiking with his dad on the back trails.

Betsie Trail

As many of you know, a dear friend of ours, Betsie Och, passed away at the end of February. In dedication to her, we have created our first trail

in the back in her name. We had to cut through a ton of blackberry bushes, trees and miscellaneous bushes. The trail starts at our dining room door brings you down to the creek and then loops back to the house. We try to do it each week for its a quiet path that we know she would love. All our love!