Little Changes- Big Difference

Here is a quick view at some minor (not necessarily cheap, though) changes that have made a big difference in the past few weeks...

I think enough has been said about the palm tree saga, but it does look great, doesn't it?

Our new carpets in the living and dining room made a huge difference in separating the rooms and also in the amount of dog hair found on a daily basis (funny...I thought we paid all that money for NON-shedding dogs...)

Below is just some of the progress that has been made in landscaping. Ian has been working really hard and has done a great job with making the yard really look good. Note that the picture to the left was only taken about a month ago when we first attained containment for the Portuguese. Dare I ask....who's nesting?

Goal: Yard of the Month; July. We'll keep you posted!

April Showers bring...falling trees?

Ah, yes, we had one of those extremely colorful Texas thunderstorms last weekend where you get about 9 inches of rain in about 15 minutes. As the wind blew and the thunder roared, Ian got up throughout the night to check on his new tree, only to find that all was well with the world. It wasn't till about 9am the next morning after a few more inches had accumulated that I looked out the window and gasped "Uuhh- the tree fell over!"

Well, putting it up the second time was almost as exciting as the first! In true engineering fashion, Ian designed a pulley system from the tree -to the house -to the car. Why not? One palm tree is worth risking the house and the new car, right?

Not to worry, though, we got that baby back up (not straight, but off the concrete) and it remained tied to the outermost pilings of the house and the truck for the remainder of the weekend. So posh.

A few days later, I am glad to say it is now straight and secured. Ian assures me that the tree won't fall again unless either the metal cables break or the house comes down...very comforting...

Bigger is always better!

Especially in Texas, right? Bigger may be better...but not always easier. Ian found himself a hell of a palm tree for a hell of a deal and no amount of trouble was going to convince him that he just didn't need it.
It was a bargain not considering you had to go dig it out of the ground and transport it...all before figuring out exactly how to go about planting it.

As usual: some borrowed equipment, a few friends and a lot of beer later, we have a beautiful, grand palm tree where a only slightly less grand and beautiful one stood just days ago. Ahhh...the life of a man never satisfied.

The new & improved living area

Thanks to our shopping spree with Mav and the long awaited arrival of our broyhill furniture, it is starting to look like a house!

Baby-Proofing

Not baby-friendly...

Baby-friendly!

The table that is...although, apparently when I took this photo, I didn't have this comparison in mind- hence the close-up of the couch, not the dining table, but in any case, you get the idea.

Mavis came down to visit and helped us pick out some new furniture! We bought the new dining table (which I will have to get a close-up of because it really is wonderful), a bench, six chairs (Mavis bought a few of these for us!- THANK YOU MOM!) and a coffee table. We are enjoying it all, and it has started to fill the house nicely.

Completing fence construction...for now

There is still much to be done to the detail of the fence but the primary goal of containment has been achieved! If you look carefully in the picture above, you'll see that there is a barrier that encloses the entire 4 feet between the house and the bulkhead.

Above and below you can see just how important containment is to us right now. We are willing to downgrade our envisioned galvenized steel fence to one of stakes and chicken wire. Like we said, the main goal of to keeping the Portuguese maniacs in has been accomplished, so we are satisfied.

Our lower-than-anticipated-quality cross-section does, however, have a very functional gate.

Here the final side of the fence is complete -with the exception of the detail...and the trimming of the posts. It steps down so drastically due to regulations that only allow the fence to measure 4.5 feet in the front of the property. The back portions can measure 6.5 feet, hence the extreme change in height.

Minor details

The minor detail of house numbers became necessary with pregnancy. How is that?- you ask. Well, as it turns out, when your pregnant wife is tired and hungry, the pizza man and the chinese food man have a really hard time finding your house without numbers. You think mentioning "it's bright orange- you can't miss it" would do the trick, but apparently not.

I also tried to convince Ian that this cabinent looked just fine open and without glass- or even the doors for that matter (again probably due to the whole tired/pregnant bit) but he just wasn't buying it. So, after about 8 months of beautiful, custom built cabinents with no glass, we finally have the finishing touches.

If we only had caulk...

I believe the backsplash here is the last of the tile work...that is to say, there is still grouting and caulking to do, but all in good time, right? It's not like our lives are about to be inturrupted by anything time consuming ;-)

I would also like to point out that this was -with the exception of thr border pieces- all done with leftover tile. That either speaks highly of our use of materials or poorly of our skills to do take-offs. We prefer the former.

Fence Building

Here are some preliminary photos of the fence building. This is the back corner...the one that separates us from the crazy neighbors. Is it wrong we started there?

Here is one of the doggie gates. This gate gives Monte and Mulligan access to Maggie, their German friend who lives behind us.

Here you can see a more "finished" version of the crazy neighbor's side. This is not complete, however. The fence actually gets some pretty fancy finishing touches. We should have those up someday. For the meantime, we are just trying to make it functional to keep to the Portuguese maniacs contained.

More perspective

For those of you who don't know...a few months ago we decided to trade in the Jeep Wrangler for a more appropriate "family" vehicle. Now...this is a Honda Pilot (lovely car, by the way, I am truly enjoying it), the Pilot is a large vehicle. It seats 8; seriously, it's big. Check one out sometime and then look back at this picture. It is swimming in this garage! Incredible!

So much for building to sell...

Well, our intentions were good. Build it ourselves + sweat equity = big profit! Or it did before the garage came into play. Check it out. This place is Ian's heaven. He has so much space, storage, a huge work area, it's never ending! To give some perspective- look in the picture above and to the right- that is the Datsun under the grey shroud. A car doesn't even take up a quarter of the width, and forget the length!



Ian really has worked hard on getting his garage in order and seems to be enjoying his time down here.

Oh Baby!

Just a quick update...we have started working on a blog for the baby. A bit early, sure, but hey- we're excited and want to share every little baby step of the journey with anyone who is interested in listening, so- why not?

The url is: http://babyblayne.blogspot.com

We hope you enjoy!

You know what they say...

...new house, new baby.

Well, we're no one to buck the system, so as many of you know, we are preparing to follow suit. Yes, it's true, we have been allowed to reproduce! Here are some of the 20 week photos of our little baby. For those of us who are unfamiliar with these alien photographs, this is a profile shot with the head to the left of the picture.











Here she is proclaiming her gender. That's right, she, a little baby girl. If you click on the photograph to enlarge it, there is an arrow that apparently points to something (or at least the lack of something) that confirms the double x chromosome.











Our baby girl has now been cooking for officially 22 weeks and is planned to make her debut in early May; the 9th to be exact. We are super excited for her arrival. Be on the look out for a new blog in the next couple of weeks with Baby Miller as the center of attention.

A Very Merry Christmas & An Exciting New Year

Here the boys are posing to wish everyone a very late, but none the less merry Christmas and a happy New Year. And...it gives us the opportunity to show off our beautiful Christmas tree.















We were very busy preparing for our annual trip to the not-so-snow-covered North and our own Christmas celebrations got somewhat rushed. I actually went by myself to pick out the tree and then left it up to Ian to get it decorated. We did manage to have it completed a few days before the long drive, but plan to keep it up for a while to enjoy it.















We (the boys especially) had a wonderful and safe trip this year and enjoyed every minute that we got to spend with family and friends. It was -as always- a whirlwind tour and we did miss seeing some very good friends, but are looking forward to making up for it during our visit this coming February.

Christmas in Texas

Here, you can catch a glimpse into Christmas in Texas...or at least the decorations for such. You can also check out the harth which matches the kitchen tile and granite. Again, we did smaller travertine inserts on the diagonal for accents (harder to see here, but you can almost make one out on the left side toward the middle).















Ian did an awesome job fabricating this keystone piece to offset the top of the fireplace. The 'V' actually protudes about 1/2 an inch out from the other tile and is then beveled back in to match the travertine which gives it a nice distinct look. A new trim piece finishes it nicely.















One more full view of the wintery scene...

Busy, busy

Despite our lack of updating the blog, we have been quite busy. Here is a very dark shot of the finished kitchen. We ended up just using the travertine with a smaller accent piece of the same material set on a diagonal. We also did an insert above the stove with the same travertine on the diagonal. Details are below...














If you look closely, you can see the detail piece we added for some variation in the design. Like I said before, it is just a smaller version of the same stuff set on an angle. And further down you can see the picture frame and inserts we did above the stove.