Old Stone House

Since finishing the electrical, we’ve been waiting a month to start the drywall. The problem is, it has rained every-other-day for a month, and we couldn’t coordinate a delivery date with our friends that didn’t leave the drywall sitting in the driveway for a spell. This logistical nightmare was complicated further by the fact that in order to get the drywall into the basement, we needed to rip out the stairs…

Needless to say we had been climbing the walls for a month…

Yesterday afternoon my father and mother dropped by to visit the grandkids (I suspect they wanted to visit us as well). After exchanging pleasantries, my father, sympathetic to our frustration, suggested that we go get the drywall ‘right now’ and just ‘get it done’. Like Uncle Jesse and Bo Duke, we tore off to the lumberyard (which closed at 5:00pm) in dad’s pickup and loaded up 32 sheets of gypsum. It wasn’t until we arrived home that my father (a shop teacher and restorer of old homes) announced that he wouldn’t be lifting a single sheet of drywall.

(more agony and joy…)

Every holiday season my wife and I take great pains to decorate the house – contemplating the most minor details, and orchestrating elaborate stagings to both reflect our tastes, and genuine love for the holidays. This year was no different, so as December began, we started adorning the house with assorted ephemera.

We decided on an understated, yet classy dressing for the exterior of the house – an effective combination of lights, floods and greenery, that enhanced the natural beauty of the home, yet resonated with the appropriate seasonal tidings. We pained over the lights we purchased, opting for environmentally friendly LED mini lights – evaluating the 3 different shades of ‘white’. As well, we acquired fluorescent flood lights – again testing to ensure that the hue of their light partnered suitably with the twinkles.

(more agony and joy…)