A Big Creek Summer With Home Improvements

Summer is in full swing here at Big Creek!  I’ve gotten through my biggest wedding of the season, and I have one more week to work before my vacation starts.  Do you know what that’s got me thinking of?  My awesome Brother Bear and his family are coming to visit again this year for the week of the 4th of July!  And, I’m also thinking about how different everything will look to them.  They haven’t been here in a year, and we’ve done a lot of improvements since then.  Here goes another recap of Big Creek happenings, because you know I love showing off our home improvements.

Indoor Home Improvements

Inside, other than cleaning up and putting down some strategically-placed floor coverings, we’ve pretty much just left it alone.  You may remember this,

hallway improvements

which is our hallway back when we were first prepping the house for our arrival.  Here’s how it looks now.

hallway improvements

We’re covering a long strip of plywood with this rug,

IMG_7220 and that plywood strip is covering a hole that we created,

hole in floorjust to find out what was going on underneath.

Do you remember this?IMG_5197

 

Here it is now.  IMG_7222

See what I mean?  It’s not much different, just clean and covered.

Coach and Cousin Janet installed our gorgeous tile backsplash, backsplashand Coach finished our new cabinet soon after moving in.  cabinet with walnut tongue and groove side

What you haven’t seen was the handmade countertop Coach made for me.

We just cut and nailed down planks of 1″x4″ lumber.  It stayed like that for a while, and I hated it, because it just didn’t feel sanitary.  I used a cutting mat for everything, and wiped the countertop down constantly, but that raw wood just wasn’t cutting it.  Coach finally found a break in time to do this project, and I could’t love it more.  He used this product, photowhich is a self-leveling, pourable polyurethane, and the finished result is like doing 60 coats of the stuff.  It’s awesome! We had to fill in the cracks with wood-filler before using this.  I can clean and sanitize my handmade countertop now, and it looks so rustic…perfect in this old train-car kitchen.

IMG_7226

Outdoor Home Improvements

Coach has also, as you know, painted all the shop buildings and added trim.  Since that looked so great, we also did some pretty gardening.  Just this week, Coach mulched everything, and Madre filled in some of these beautiful rock flower beds with some new plants.rock flower beds

rock flower beds

impatiens and hosta

coleas and hosta

I can’t stop looking at any of this…it just gives me such a happy feeling.

 

Here’s a neat ‘before-and-after tree removal’ shot of the house from the same angle.

My old country home.

My old country home.

 

My Old Country Home without trees behind it.

My Old Country Home without trees behind it.

It looks so different with the trees missing! Here’s the back yard, soaking in the sunlight for the first time in years.back yard in sunlight

This has already been a wonderful summer, and we have so many more memories to make around here.  The week of July 4th is always an exciting week, when Brother Bear and his brood descend upon Big Creek, and we all just turn into creek rats for seven days or so.  It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year!  This year may be a little hectic, because hopefully more renovations will be starting very soon, but it will still be a summer to remember.

Come on, VACATION!!

X,O,X,O,    Martie