We’re Remodeling!

Okay I know I said I'd post some photos of what we're doing around home these days, so here's a start. We're remodeling a bit (mostly on the outside) and taking care of some much needed upgrades to our house in Portland. In the category of "much needed upgrades": a new roof and a new retaining wall.

The new roof is awesome, but makes for a boring photograph, so here's the new wall:

SO much better than the old railroad ties there were there before. I'm not sure if you can see 'em, but there are two spots where the wall "splits" to make some flat areas that will be perfect for planting something nice (or, in my case…asking Carlos to please plant something nice, since I've got a bit of a black thumb).

There's more rock wall like this around the side of the house, and there will be some rock steps leading up from the downstairs patio to the new deck, but I'm going to wait to post "before" and "after" photos until I have some good "after" photos. 

In the meantime, we're planning our next long trip! We're thinking of heading slowly south down the west coast in January, then turning left and driving across the country to the other coast, then as it warms up, we'll head north to take care of some of those blank states in the NE. We could do a big lap of the US! What d'ya think?