Year 2, Months 4 & 5: We’re Back!
Greetings and Happy Spring to you! I combined February and March because basically nothing happened in February. Well…nothing that I was allowed to talk about yet! And March really didn’t even get rolling until the last two weeks, so this is a two part post: One part is the two week period of the work that we’re in charge of—the outside. (We’ll get to the secret stuff in a minute!)
Paul & Dave are back in action and making things happen! You can tell by the sound of classic rock blasting from our corner. Master cement form maker Johnny G. was in on the side yard too, making this ultra cool wavy sidewalk! So here is the before, and then the current state of the yard:
Is it still insane? Yes, yes it is. But the dirt and clay from the basement floor (we’ll get to that!) had to go somewhere, so into the poor abused and crushed-by-heavy-equipment yard it went! Now all the groundwork (get it? Ha ha) has been laid to make the yard beautiful-don’t forget, we still have a fountain to install!
The porch is looking quite curious as well, and a lot of people are asking some form of “what the heck are you doing to your porch?” so let me tell you! We got rid of the steps to the main front doors and the first floor apartment. Why did we do that? Because we wanted to! Ha, just kidding. But not. We wanted to because now there is only one entrance onto the porch- the side door. It has only one step instead of many. By ditching the other stairs, we created lots more room to make a nice spacious front porch with no more treacherous stairs. We bumped out the spots where the steps were; otherwise, we’d have to get out a jackhammer to remove the steps. The extra bonus room is perfect for just a little more space and sun on our north facing porch, and those will be the perfect spots for me to abandon the houseplants over the summer. Since the porch roof doesn’t cover them, they’ll get a nice amount of rain.
To make the whole thing cohesive, Dave and Paul have been pulling the leftover matching railing pieces out of the basement. They are from the Red Baron ride at Dorney Park, and have had many coats of paint over the years, all peeling. Once they are finished retrofitting and installing them, guess who gets to be the lucky devil to scrape, sand, putty, prime, and paint them all? Me, that’s who! So this will be basically my spring and summer project this year. Mindful of my overuse injuries from last year that are just barely this side of healed, I’m trying not to go too gangbusters all at once, so it will be a slow process. But slow and steady is better than not at all, and I’m pretty sure no one else is jumping up and down to volunteer to take on this mess:
So now back to the dirt in the yard that came from the basement! Why is there a bunch of dirt coming out of the basement? And why are there rocks coming out of the basement on a conveyor belt into a trailer?! Because a whole cast of (probably unhappy) characters have all taken turns this winter digging out a large section of the floor so that the massively tall walk-in cooler could fit down there!
Why do we need a walk-in cooler in the basement, you ask? It’s for the brewery! The brewery I can FINALLY talk about that’s going in on the first floor! Holy Ghost Brewing has finally gone through all their permitting hoops and is ready to announce their presence! Tim & Tom are absolutely lovely folks. Tim and his family even live just a few doors up, so it will definitely have a friendly neighborhood, reasonable hours kind of vibe! They’ve been in charge of all the remodeling down there, so it’s really not my place to share their progress, but here are a couple of pictures to assure you that they are making it such a cool space!
Aren’t they doing an amazing job!? Way to go, guys! Their target opening is this summer. You can read all about them in this handy-dandy article.
Speaking of reading things: I published my second book! Dual is book 2 of the series. You can click on the picture below to find out all the many places to buy it, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. I’ll have signed paperbacks for sale within the next few weeks. I’ll even have some with me at our next Free Range Folk gigs! It’s finally time to get writing book 3, with a goal of having it out this Fall.
Well, that’s it for now! If you need me, I’ll be out scraping and sanding that porch!
-Sara