I just want to make sure everyone is aware that the last post was placed by a guest poster...my beautiful wife, Cheri. Thank you for finally posting the pic of the finished porch!

Christmas In The Country...Harper

We finally have some more pictues to show you of the Harper home improvement projects. This is the completed front porch! As you can see, the porch is open for lounging in this pic. We enjoyed some beautiful fall evenings 'rockin' on the front porch and watching the 'goins on' of the neighborhood. Of course, it's a little chilly now, but we our lovin a great place to display the Christmas lights...

The biggest thing these days is getting ready for the Christmas House Walk on Dec. 6. It's been a lot of work, but WOW, we're our loving having the 'to do' list almost completed!!

We'll pass along some more pictures next week of the inside home improvements. We've done a lot of cleaning throughout the house, plus some painting and repairs.

Thank you to Dad for the fantastic Thanksgiving meal at the Claremont!! We really enjoyed our visit with Dad, Bonnie, Mary Beth and Terry. Then, we had a wonderful visit with Mom in the hospital. She was in good spirits despite of the circumstances! Keep praying for her!

Some earlier work

First two pictures that show the before and after of some cement work we completed earlier this year.

I had promised that I would follow up later with some pictures of some earlier work we had done this summer. The area between our driveway and the house was a small patch of grass that was never very usable and not very easy to mow. We decided to make this area a bit more presentable. Without a lot of comment, I'll just include a series of pictures that show the progression and final result.

What a coat of paint can do...

Just some quick pictures to show how much a coat of paint can do. The first pictures below are the "before" pics which show the progress up to Friday night.

Then a few pics after the posts have been primed. This made such a big difference, I thought I would try to document it. I also included a picture of our assembly line for painting the spindles. Believe it or not, it took over 5 hours to paint all these posts and spindles yesterday. Well worth the effort, but much longer than I expected.

Getting close...

The pictures will tell the story today. Things are moving along very well. These were the pictures from Friday morning. The progress as of tonight (Friday) includes finishing the decking, the aluminum wrapping, and soffits. Cheri and I will paint the posts and spindles over the weekend with the first primer coat. This will make it easier to do the final coat later. Next week should be the final work. All that's left is the railings, vinyl siding, steps and lattice. This should all be done by the end of next week.

This final picture is of our contractor guy. Actually, this is a picture of our contractor, Guy. That is...his name is Guy. Since I know he's reading my blog, I will say nothing but wonderful comments about him. Actually, I would say that anyway. He's doing a great job, and is wonderful to work with. He does a great job of listening to us and being very flexible to our "slight changes". He also works with another guy named Jim. I'll have to add a picture of him next week.

We're very excited about getting this project completed.

2 days of progress

Some pictures from the last two days. It seems to move slow, but they actually get a lot done each day. I never knew there was so much involved in building a porch. We were supposed to have the roof done today, but the roofer did not show up. Now it rained tonight (which you can see in the last pic), and the roof will be wet for them tomorrow. Not sure if that makes a difference when you put on a new roof. You can also see in the last picture that the posts are in! They are installed and the contractor is working on the decking now. We've been told that this should be complete by the end of next week, and that will be great!

I'll get some better pictures tomorrow when the rains stop.

Now it looks like a porch...

Quick update to provide some new pictures. In the first picture, you can see our contractor in the background. Posts did not come in over the weekend as they were supposed to. They did some more work today but I did not get the pictures before it got dark. This is the progress as of the end of Friday.

The last picture is a of a new cat that has made himself a part of our family. This cat showed up in our backyard...mal-nourished and very lonely. He is very friendly and hungry. Trevor immediately named him "Buster" and I think it will stick.

Still coming along...

It's been about 2 weeks since this project started. Our contractor does not work here every day because his assistant also has a second job as an EMT. If he has heavy work to to that day that he cannot do with one person, then he chooses to work elsewhere. Anyway, they are still making good headway. Primarilly they were working on the roof trusses this day. This was a rather frustrating day for the contractor because this new roof line was challenging.

These first pictures were taken Wednesday morning (8/13) after Tuesday's progress. You can see that we were able to place some chairs on the deck. The contractor was nice enough to leave out a couple sheets of pressboard on the floor for us. Cheri and I enjoyed our first glass of wine on our new porch Tuesday night. We are REALLY excited to see this completed!!

Here, you can see that the roofline has been fully established. These pictures were taken Thursday morning (8/14) after Wednesday's progress. They are building the roof with temporary posts in place. Our new posts will be delivered this weekend, so next week we should start to see the overall look comming together. This was a much better day for the contractor. We're starting now to see what this will do to the look of the house.

I'll keep the updates coming...

The work begins...

OK, so this did not get off to a really great start...but at least we can expect improvement from here. (as this picture demonstrates) There's no where but up from that last post. I will admit, however, that I never expected to have a blog on the internet...never actually WANTED a blog...not really sure what a blog was or if I even wanted to say that word every time I talked about it. You have to admit, it is a rather funny word. You don't sound very "manly" when you say the word blog. blog, blog, blog, I'm just trying to get used to it...blog, blog, blog...this is going to take a while.

Anyway, as the name implies, the intent of this wonderful blog will be to document some improvements that are being made on our humble abode in Harper, Illinois. I'll start with the current project and at some point, I'll step back to some work that was done earlier in the summer. That will keep everyone thoroughly confused...and makes me feel more like I'm in control. Remember the "manly" comment above. So, sit back and enjoy the ride. I truly do not know where this will take us.

This picture is a "before" picture of the front of our house. Today's project is to add an 8 X 16 open porch to the front of our house (something that I believe every farm house should have). We've had this addition designed for over 5 years when a friend of ours said that he would build it for us. When he backed out, I wanted to wait until he would agree to do it...I finally gave up waiting, so we hired another friend to do it. The first step was getting those huge bushes out of the way.

Then, the work began. After the bushes were removed, Trevor and Andrew and I needed to move in about 2 yards of road rock to put down underneath the area where the porch would be. This is done to keep trees from growing up underneath our new porch. None of us were really excited about moving that much rock around; but flash them a little cash...and a teenager will do just about anything. These pictures show the bushes removed, gravel laid down and the basic structure of the porch floor has been added. Our dogs hate it at this point because we can't let them out the front door...no floor on the porch. It won't be long till they'll make that front porch their new perch to sit and look over the town and get ready to bark at the next train going by.

This the progress as of today (August 9th, 2008). The contractor had initially believed that we were going to be able to incorporate some old porch posts that had come out of Cheri's grandfather's house. When it came time to get them into the project, however, we found that they were not structurally sound, so we needed to order posts for the project. Of course, they are special order and won't be available for 10 days. Therefore, you can see the contractor is building the roof with temporary supports for now which will be replaced by the new posts when they arrive. This will be a longer project because of that, but our contractor is OK with that as he has other projects to work in between. I'm just hoping we can have our new porch complete by the end of August.

I hope this post was somwhat of an improvement from the first (thank you, Sara). I'll keep you updated as more progress occurs. Until then...tata for now!

This is my blog!

This is my new blog!! Hurrah for me!!