Fixing Up

Suzy Painting the Porch Floor

We've worked on Woodman's Lee for nearly 15 years...and it's far from done.

The porch needed sprucing up to be suitable for our overnight visitors. Suzy painted the wall and floor to brighten it up and make it easier to clean. Despite our fastidiousness the porch always reverted to a middenish hovel. 

Our first step was to remove everything, then clean and paint the walls and floor. We took the old table, benches and bed to the thrift store and I burned the old mattresses. I moved the tools and supplies to the tarp -covered containers on pallets in the back. Eventually the ever-growing number of tools and supplies will move into our new shed. Then we moved the vanity and futon to the porch. It's now a rather nice guest room.

The Old Loft Window

The loft window was a big job because it was my first window replacement. We needed more light - hence a bigger opening - and the work wasn't at ground level. Scaffolding was well worth the investment, it's safer than working off a ladder and access is key to a high quality job. 

The replacement window is energy efficient, it's significantly larger and provides much better ventilation because it's a double hung window. We can vent the heat from the high ceiling quite effectively by opening the upper window, or close it down tight for cold weather operations. We'll crack it open just a bit on cold nights, allowing the crisp night air to mix in with the heat from the wood stove. That's a luxury you can't find at some of the finest homes and hotels in the world because either the climate is too humid or their windows are fixed. Civilization may impress itself with its modern sealed, recirculated-air conditioned buildings - so essential for survival in the South - but I think they are unpleasant and unhealthy.

The New Loft Window

Suzy also painted the loft floor, brightening it up and making the floor easier to sweep. Then we hauled the big Tempur-Pedic mattress from the storage facility and hoisted it into the loft. So now we have a very cozy sleeping loft, and now it'll be all too easy to sleep in late on those cold winter mornings.