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| Graham and Sherry enjoy the new paint
job on the front porch. (above) |
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The deck on the back of the house
looked rotten it was so black. Tom cleaned it up with a pressure washer.
Far left you can see the progress half way through the cleaning. Near left
is the finished product. |
| After we painted, Sherry applied a beach mural from
TatouageDesigns to one wall
in the boys' play room. (right) |
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Jill, our realtor, suggested we
paint the dirty risers on the stairs black. Sherry thought this was a good
July 4th project. (left) |
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A friend from work brought his pond-aficionado
friend over and they emptied the good plants out of the big pond in the
back yard. Scott also helped remove half the liner and lots of weeds. Tom
was able to get the rest out himself. |
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| The back yard pond measured approx. 30'
long x11' (avg width). After 6 weeks of trying to get someone to do the
work for under $1500, we got 32
yards of dirt dumped in the driveway and rented a Gravely Skidster and did
it ourselves for under $400 (in Charleston in July)... (above). Below
is the swingset where the pond used to be. See the "after" pictures below: |
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| There is also a
smaller pond in the side yard that we plan to keep. I think the pink
flower is a Lotus and the purple a Water Hyacinth. (above) |
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| Lots of furniture in MBR. (above) |
Peter enjoys the LR before we moved in. (above) |
The boys watch a video (above) |
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The living room after the
furniture arrived. My friend Fred gave us the gorgeous rug, which he
bought when he was in Iraq. (left) |
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| The dining room table & chairs were
delivered during a tremendous thunderstorm with hail. The delivery guys
were not very bright. Our friend Patti came over and helped paint the
trim. (above) |
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On the left is our $700 trash bin. It
used to be a broken trash compactor, then Gpa Glaab took the tin snips to
it and made a big empty space in the cabinets for the new trash bin. We
think it is nice. :) |
| Xmas 2005 -> |
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| When we came home after Christmas, Tom announced that he
thought the house needed some curtains.... First was the MBR, then the LR,
then the Kitchen. Pix below are of the LR. |
Below, Sherry & Peter try out the new chairs on the
front porch. |
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Left, Kitchen Curtains |
| CTMS had a silent Art Auction as a
fundraiser in March 2006. We brought home this Frankie Stevens Painting
(she has a child at CTMS). We also picked up some pretty botanical prints
for a song. |
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| We had to replace some rotten windows. Don't buy a house
from Larry Zobel if you expect him to honor the builder's warranty. Most
of the windows in the house are on their way to rotting. So far, we have
replaced 4 for $2700. |
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The window company
filmed our house for an ad |
| Click here to see some of the
first flowers blooming in March 2006 |
| April Yard Pictures |
May Yard Pictures |
June Yard Pictures |
| Below: New transom |
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Left: House at Halloween |
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| Some of the boards on the front stairway
were rotting and the 1 year old paint job was already in bad shape, so
Sherry nagged Tom until he replaced the top surface of the stairs and one
rotten riser board. |
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The old boards were in bad shape. We decided to just
replace them all at once with pressure treated decking and use green stain
instead of paint to color them. |
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Tom did all this in two afternoons. Now Sherry has to put the stain
down, but the boards have to dry/cure for a bit first. |
| In Feb 2008 we got new granite
countertops in the kitchen - check out the B4 picture |
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