Labor Day Labors 2010

I can only wish that your own Labor Day weekend activities were as productive, happy, and fun as my own were.  The other thing was absolutely glorious weather.  Not a cloud to be seen and temperatures in the mid/upper 80's every single day.  It was a long weekend made for working outside and I had scheduled myself to be off on Thursday and Friday which made for a 5-day weekend.  Things started on Thursday when the new furniture arrived.  So, now I have somewhere to sit.  

The new stuff.  Comfortable and it all reclines... yippee!

And work on the deck... at last.  When David was over to pick up the furniture we replaced the top boards (the railings/bannisters) and I had been working on them to fill in the screw holes and sanding them a bit.  As for the deck itself, the original thought was to paint it because it was in bad, bad shape after 5 years or so of absolutely no maintenance, not even a cleaning.  I had powerwashed it a few weeks ago and it looked good enough to go with a sealer instead of paint.  So on Friday I powerwashed it again just to get the stuff off that I missed the first time.  On Saturday, as I gave the deck another full day to dry, I took to trimming ALL the bushes and trees directly in front of the house and that was a rather massive job as well.  I don't know exactly what I'n doing but I think I got it looking pretty good.  I had never used an electric hedge trimmer before and I only cut the extension cord one time! 

Sunday I went at applying the water sealer to the railings and posts on the deck which was another rather large, tedious job... there are 92 of those upright thingies... but I got through it in good shape with no injuries that I remember.  On Monday I sprayed the sealer on the deck surfaces. 

Somewhere during the weekend I got out to find a nice, big clock for the porch and I found one.  That's it hanging over on the brick wall. 

There you have it!  The upright boards extending down from the porch level were put up to keep Rossi... David, Samantha and Hannah's dog... from getting under there and getting tangled up.  The boards came from a fenced in section that existed to the right of the deck in this photo and that I took apart the first weekend the dog was a visitor.  It was where the previous owners kept their dog(s).  There is a section remaining that looks very much like a hitching post and I've taken to calling it the corral area.  Someday it will come down but then again, someday someone might bring a horse.  The last bit of work outside was to sow some wildflower seeds in a small section within the large section of "nothingness" that exists between the edge of the grass in the back of the yard and extends to the tree line.  If they do come up, it's going to be rather nice I think.  More on that as things begin to come up!!

One last thing... this is how the porch looked before.  Grey... green from the mold growing... top boards dried up, warped and cracking.  Hard to imagine people allowing that to happen to a home that they had built.  But, now it's all better :)