Painted lady.........

She's done! She's not blah anymore!  She looks so pretty... she's bright and really stands out.... can you guess what she is???

She welcomes us every time we drive into our yard..... we love her!

Oh that POOR garage door! What's a gal to do????

Now cover your eyes...............are ya ready???

TA DA!!!!!!  NO, IT'S NOT PINK!

I know, I know.. it's bright, but it grows on  you... even the neighbors told us that at first they thought it was awfully bright, but they really like it now. It looks different colors in different light... sometimes soft light green, sometimes bright and sometimes yellow.

New garage door???????? NO.... painted garage door with Peel Bond underneath... looks almost new again. She's so happy now! (me too......)

Painter guy put Peel Bond on our entire house! It really seals the older wood and protects it from moisture.. covers up imperfections and cracks.... we had never heard of it, but sure makes her look new again.

When we bought this house 2 years ago, it had a "non working fireplace"..... an ourdoor square "chimney" that looked really funky... and weather worn....

 ......covered with some sort of siding horizontally and it was all peeling paint and rot.... what was a gal to do? We thought it was a block chimney covered with wood...... what a surprise when the painter tore it off.......

uh oh..........

.....not a block chimney at all! Was a (very poorly) framed stove pipe! The good thing is, it's triple wall stove pipe, and goes into a steel firebox that is in good shape. It had leaked somewhere into the firebox in the house and that's why the realtor said it was nonworking..... well.... the painter guy who is also a licensed contractor, said there was a leak up at the top where the water was running into the firebox, but he sealed that up.......... and his son, who is a certified welder, is going to replace that rusty old firebox with a new one... and it WILL be a working fireplace again! We are thrilled!

You won't believe what was inside.............. it was FULL of old pieces of sheetrock and old insulation and PAPER (yes paper!) stuffed in behind the pipe! We were shocked... so was the painter guy!

Paper that he pulled out from inside.

Rotted wood.............

Sheetrock pieces and gravel!

Siding was totally rotting out.

So... the painter guy cleaned it all up and reframed it, leveled it (was crooked and leaning down towards the ground) and caulked it and painted it..... now the lady has a proper chimney... and we may just have a working fireplace in the near future..... we are very happy about that, as temps here in Madras get down to 20 to 30 below (but then of course, we need a place to store our firewood.........hubby?).

And painter guy's sons removed our front raised rock flowerbed wall for us and dug out all the dirt and hauled it into our back yard (for a raised flower bed) - bless their hearts - so we can level the area and have cement put in there, or bricks or pretty rocks.... so we'll have a nice little front entry covered porch area to put out my wicker chairs and my bench, potted flowers and a table. Hubby loves to sit out there in the mornings..(he gets up way earlier than I do).  I LOVE front porches where I can watch the neighborhood goings on... don't you?  I like sitting out there in the evenings.........

This is the flower bed last year (below), full of chrysanthemums which looked beautiful, but......... and a big "but".........being close to the house and sheltered, I always had to water by hand, plus it was an ear wig, ant and spider attraction, which I hated, and could not get rid of the ear wigs and ants there! It also made our front walkway seem narrow and we couldn't sit there and be out of the rain... so it had to go!

Voila!

We are even thinking of putting a deck across the front of the house,....... so this area will all be covered anyway.... not sure when that will get done, but it feels so much cleaner now and at least for a temporary fix,  we'll put down some plastic and pretty rocks for the time being, or maybe some bricks? What do you think? I really wouldn't mind cement there either, as it would widen our sitting area. 

Although....... painter guy says he can put a nice deck in there for us......... hum.m.m.m.m.m...... painter guy can do just about anything!

I think our painted lady is very happy now, don't you?

Next post..............we're hubby is undertaking a NEW project! Oh boy............ but the end results will be awesome. Stay tuned........

Hugs.........Marilyn

Alot happening..............

Oh my! Has it been 3 weeks since I last posted??? SO MUCH is going on around here (and has gone on) that time is speeding by like the trains that chug through Madras in the wee hours of the morning! 

I'm feeling pretty good now but have had kind of a rough month. The total eclipse here on August 21st just did me in for some reason. I don't know if it was the actual eclipse that was going to take place, or all the media hype leading up to the eclipse, making it sound like Madras, Oregon was going to become a catastrophic place to be with over 170,000 people here! About two weeks before the eclipse, I started having anxiety attacks and started dreading the event... I felt like doomsday was coming!