happy 2010 everyone! how did turtle + mole celebrate the new year? by making a homemade ravioli dinner, going to bed early and getting up the next morning and working on the stairs! well, maybe just turtle worked on the stairs, mole was probably inside knitting.
mathew happily showing off his giant can of bondo. if you keep buying small cans over and over again, it means you need a larger quantity!
popo told everyone she didn’t want a big birthday party this year and that she wanted everyone to visit individually. i guess when you’re 86 you can tell people what to do and they do it. my aunt laura and uncle mike came over for lunch a couple weekends ago.
and the following night my aunt linda, uncle joel, cousins lynne, jarrett and serena and their sons timothy and benjamin came over for their family birthday celebration. (above) the boys playing with all the noisy, scary christmas toys i “love” so much… so glad christmas is over!
(left) aunt linda and popo. (right) popo and her fancy birthday cake.
the following weekend my parents and uncle gilbert and aunt pauline celebrated popo’s birthday again. my mom made cream puffs for dessert and popo had 3 of them! and she celebrated on her actual birth-day with uncle winston and aunt karen. i stopped taking photos because the blog was becoming all about popo and not about our remodel!
last weekend i found mathew painting the stairs. i quickly suited up and went outside to help with the primer. it was sunny and warm while i was out there. but as we finished the primer, clouds covered the sky and rain threatened…
…but that didn’t stop us from putting on a first coat of color! it’s looking a little smurfy right now. i think the color will improve with more coats. (it should be a medium periwinkle. and for all you non-graphic designers, that’s a blue-ish purple.) just not sure when that will happen since rain is forecast for the next 10 days… but at least this part is done and mathew can get some rest and stop worrying about the stairs rotting with every storm that comes.
we’re using a special outdoor step and patio paint that supposedly isn’t slippery when it rains.
and we added a peephole to the door so that popo can look out when people ring the bell. we had her stand there so we could get the height just right. she is tiny! that hole was drilled at 4 feet 4.5 inches. we’re about to order a new door tomorrow, but when it comes we can drill a new hole and use this same peephole.
hope everyone is having a nice new year!
The white on the hand rails is just primer. We haven’t quite figured out the color patterns yet.
Also, I never saw this before, when the steps had peeling paint and chipping wood: Look at the 3rd and 4th step up. The forth step is shorter. The bottom three steps are concrete, but at some point, a piece of wood was put on top of it, so the steps are uneven. “The closer you get to perfection, the more stuff shows”.