Back to the house.....

You might remember that we had a surprise visit in June for a gorgeous giant white oak tree as it crashed through our roof.  Well now I can say that the work is finished and even the swing set has been replaced and is a huge hit. :D

It was definitely a long process but because of the age of the house and good insurance we now basically have a new outside shell to protect all the people living inside.  Have a look at the final pictures, now we just need to do a little aesthetic work, and our little house will be simply lovely. :D

 So first off the siding could not be matched since the house is 60+ years old, so off it all came, and believe it or not the wood siding underneath was in good shape.  Woo hoo!!  So brand new Hardy Board went up over the whole house, and this meant new paint too.

 It was already starting to look great even without the paint.

 This is the side of the house where the tree came down.  Now we have a nice graded side play yard for Boogie's new swing set.

 Kitchen side of the house and the dog yard.  I wish it still had beautiful grass but dogs will do bad things to grass, so we struggle to keep it alive.

 Here we are with new siding all finished and new paint.  This color is called Aruba Aqua and it looks fantastic.  We have the matching accent color to put on the lower bricks.

 Play yard side with all the old aluminum siding removed and brand new Hardy Board and paint.  The house looks so fresh and clean now.

 This is before the swing set went up, but you can see the slide sticking up there above the crazy fence.  That is what I am dubbing Jon's attempt at extending the wood fence because believe you me it is definitely crazy.  He promises that he will fix it, and when it is properly cut it will look great. :D  The window at the top is to Charlotte's little room in the attic.  Update on that soon.

 Here is the back and side of the house at the kitchen.  Just a nice clean crisp look with a pretty new roof. It looks like a brand new house.

 Then we had to put up the new swing set for the girls, and its a doozy.  We decided that we could get more bang for our buck if we recycled so that's what we did.  Courtesy of Craigslist we found a fantastic swing set with swirly slide, monkey bars, swings, climbing wall and little picnic bench for what we could have bought the basic structure for.  So we put a little elbow grease into it, with a little plastic paint and wood stain, and we got a fabulous swing set for the girls.

It was definitely a hit with all the kiddos at Boogie's slumber party recently.

 PJ has mastered the climbing wall much to my horror, as I just know that she is going to fall at any moment.

She loves to climb and slide though, so I just keep an eye on her and let her have fun.  She's my little daredevil to be sure.  I miss the shade of that big beautiful tree to be sure, but the girls love the bigger play yard that they have now so I think it was a good trade.