The finished product, inside and out.

basement - before, during

kitchen - before, during

BEFORE. Vintage 1968. this kitchen included a dead-end desk area and blocked off view from the backyard.

dining room looking into kitchen.

note: back wall = our view of backyard (NONE!).

kitchen looking into dining room. note singular door opening (we planned to blow open that wall).

 DURING. Sheetrock, painting, and floors.

dining room to kitchen. now open and views of backyard!

facing back yard. note new bank of windows.

facing dining room/street. note wider opening (6') between kitchen and dining.

 

cabinet install, no countertops 

kitchen cabinets, partial install. countertops installed and oiled.

Framing Month 2

early summer exterior shots. 

Framing, Week 2

A few shots from this week. Framing started again on Tuesday, continued late into Wednesday evening because of impending thunderstorms.

North and south walls built and raised, roof dry enough to withstand a rain storm (that is expected this week.)

Final wall raised on Wednesday afternoon!

Always tricky tieing into old houses -- the hip roof has sagged, and they are stick framing, compensating for differences as they move out toward the back.

Updating our 100 year old house

Before. Original 1916 design, ready for a little addition.

Original ice porch removed so we could do a full basement.

Full basement in progress.

Deck on addition. Ready for framing!

Framing: end of day 1. Rear door will have left side light, enter into ground-level mudroom. 

Before, During, After

We moved into our new, old house last week. Before we moved, we wanted to get as much done as possible ahead of actually living there to minimize the amount and duration of dust we'd be exposed to. So, finally, we are filling the spaces with our stuff and really enjoying the new place.

Before we owned the place, previous owner's decorations and all.

When we removed the carpet, it revealed an economical refinishing some decades ago.

After the first sanding, before the finish was applied.

Refinished floors, fresh coat of mossy green paint. Just about ready to call it home.

Spiders and scenery

Garden Bounty

Finally a little bit of produce for all of our efforts in the city.

Fireflies

Not a great photo but taken the first weekend we saw them. It was amazing. A goal is to learn how to photograph them better in the coming years.

Pollinators

I'm amazed at the diversity our little habitat creates for insects of all kinds. Here are a few shots of some of my favorites that we've seen this summer. We easily have more than a dozen butterfly and moth species in our prairies, had a huge hatching of fireflies in June, and have all kinds of beautiful bees and moths, like the ones below.

Giant Swallotail feeding on our beebalm

Hummingbird clearwing moth (my favorite!) feeding on bee balm 

Bumblebee on our purple coneflower