Ye Olde Red Brick House

The RH side of my porch looks so amazing! Well worth what I'm paying. As soon as he found out I put everything on a credit card, he lowered my bill to $3,000. I get to make payments on the $500 that wasn't paid with the credit card. :)   The mason put a steel bar in the center of the corner column and inserted into the cement footer. This side of the porch is very sturdy now! And I love it so much better without the ugly white lattice!   Now I need to get this $3,000 paid off so I can get the LH side repaired next year!     If you notice the little brick towards the LH center, it's a drain hole. Whenever I wash the porch, I can remove the brick so the water flows out instead of going down under the porch. 

The mason company started working on my porch today!     I came home from work so I could help with some of the scraping of plaster and mortar... I scraped for 4 hours so I could save a little money.  

I did not put much thought into how much maintenance and repair would go into owning a brick home. It's time to get my porch repaired. Both corner columns are shifting because there is no cement footer under the corner. It does not help that a lot of the bricks need tuck pointed. I called 3 different masons within 3 days, no one called me back. One mason company has a very good reputation in town, so I was a little persistent in leaving messages. After the 4th call, he finally answered! He came and checked my porch and gave me an estimate of $3,500. Ouch. I told him I'd let him know in a few days. I did a lot of praying. The day before I needed to let him know, a blank check from my credit card company came in the mail. :) I was able to write a check for $2,500 with 1.99% interest until December 2014. He's coming to repair my porch as soon as the check clears! 

Brittany and Adalyn came over for Easter. The girls hunted eggs in the yard and then we sat on the porch and blowed bubbles.   These are the moments memories are made of.   My beautiful family.   

I love decorating for Spring! My roses are so beautiful and I love taking photos of them. (an update: my large white wicker chair was stolen right off my porch in June! I grieved for it, as I got so many beautiful photos of my girls and grand-girls in the chair.)   

Last weekend, I put away the Fall decorations and put up the Christmas lights, tree and decorations. I absolutely love Christmas in my old house, especially since my grandchildren are getting older and love lights. As soon as I got everything set up, I told Jewell to close her eyes. I plugged in the lights and said "Ok, open your eyes now!" She opened them up and said "Grandma, it's magical!" She is such a smart 4 year old. Here she is telling me "I love you" in sign language.