ready for lounging

The back deck is now, officially (by my account) lounge-able. Matt and I took a load of tile and things from Nona's garage up on Friday, and there was room for some deck chairs. :)

But we didn't spent our time in Julian lounging: we finished hanging the window trim. Lovely, no?

The driveway is now done, too. Scary and steep, but done. (And just like the old days.)

Matt also worked on the railing some, and scouted for useful logs in the woodpile below the house. You can tell he means business, 'cause he's sporting those kevlar chaps...

Some friends stopped by to help, too, including Lea and her friend, Noela, who is in town to run the Rock and Roll Marathon. (What better pre-marathon activity is there than painting the underside of a deck?!?) Thanks for the help!

Memorial Day Work

On Memorial Day, a good group of folks went up the hill to work on the house. It felt awfully good to me to remember Grandpa with a day of housebuilding work.

Matt's been working on turning this impossible idea I had into gorgeous reality, building a railing for upstairs out of an oak tree we had to cut down to build the house. Beautiful, no?

Here, he and Ryan put together a piece of the railing.

Little Ryan got in on the action, too, working the sander for a while. (His folks got in on the work, too, but somehow I didn't get any pics of Karen or Jeff painting under the deck...)

Dad spent most of the day in the electrical box, making all those twisted wires connect to breakers.

Everyone got to share lunch on the beautiful back deck, with Nona's supervision.


Mom spent her day staining the back porch, using brushes, rollers, a turkey baster and a little help from Dad at the end.

Josh worked on the wiring for phones and computers. The perfect job for Josh.

Lea and I worked on hanging trim around windows.

Tuckers stopped by to say hi, just in time for Jerry to lend a hand in installing the first long piece of balcony rail.

Marian offered some sanding assistance on the railing.

And, at the end of the day, dinner was delicious.

And, after dinner was dessert heaven: root beer floats and 3 homemade pies. Including Nona's famous apple pie and Karen's first rhubarb pie. Glory.


We offer a big thanks to everyone who came by!

Pour the root beer!

JulianDeck
Originally uploaded by Matthew San Diego

Matt finished his last final of the semester today, and promptly headed up the mountain to Julian. There, he discovered the newly-finished deck. It's rad. You can click on the photo to get to Matt's flickr site and see even more.

And, now I can't wait to have that root beer float out there.

Anyone got plans for Memorial Day?

a new tool

Humoring my desire to find a way to mill the pieces of tree we've had to cut down on the property, Matt tried a new tool today: a chainsaw mill.  With all safety mechanisms in place (note the protective chaps, mask, glasses and earplugs), he made it work, and now we have something more like lumber.

Here we are hauling our score for the day.  Now it's at Dad's house, waiting for further milling.  Our plan is to make it into the balusters for the railing along the balcony edge.    It wasn't nearly as bad as we'd imagined it might be; but then, I wasn't really doing the sawing, so maybe you should ask Matt.  ;)
Meanwhile, the ceiling work inside is progressing, too--a couple more days and it should be done.  A pile of lumber for the back deck is waiting by the house, too!   Oh, I can almost taste that root beer float I'm gonna drink back there...