You can click on the pics to enlarge.
Both ponds are low now but rain is on it's way. Copyright '12 Debra Howard (all photos)
Cypress knees are so cool.
A section of a fallen hollow cypress tree is sitting on top of a cypress stump. A simple piece of yard art now covered with cypress leaves.
A foggy morning in the woods.
The large pond from the front porch.
Our new look.
We added a dormer roof over the front stairs to dress up the front and redirect the rain water. We were tired of going through the dripping wall of water gauntlet at the head of the stairs.
We replaced the old carpenter bee riddled shutters with these good ones from the back porch and made them useful with hinges. The old ones were just nailed into place. The hold backs are antique ceiling fan arms. You can see that the human carpenters scaffolding is still there.
This is the wall of the new closet in the guest bedroom. Right now it is one big closet but just to the right of the door we will add a wall inside to make a coat closet to the foyer on the other side.
The side porch.
The side porch from the other direction.
A nice sunny shot of the back porch.
This was a curb find in a nice neighborhood. We cleaned them up and reupholstered the chairs.
Found these great mats to replace the old carpeting. The bricks are very very slick when wet.
Here is a coffee table that has taken two years to assemble. The base was a hollow section of an oak from just up the road that was going to be burned. That was two years ago. During that time, the mold started doing it's thing to lighten the wood and color of the inner bark layer with oranges and reds. The inner decay actually hardened the hollow ring and turned it to beautiful dark brown with the ribs and knots of the tree.
The base was started just before Hurricane Issac and fortunately had three coats of poly. I had to find them floating around in the work shop. They needed to dry for three or more weeks.
The top is from an oak that we had to remove from our property. Our roof and it were trying to occupy the same space. The tree lost, but we had it milled and the wood has been slat stack drying for about two years as well. This was part of the only plank that was wide and thick enough and had bark on edges. Perfect.
It's hard to see but the top is a trapezoid where the ends are 5 degrees off of square. Each leg face matches that bias.
In place.
To finish off, is the tree for Christmas '12. We had a party on the 15th and asked guests to help decorate. Seems to have worked out just fine.
