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.