POD Delivery

Projects never end at The Troutman's!!
In October we decided to tackle giving our garage a face lift. On Oct. 9th we had a POD delivered so that we could move as much out of the garage as possible.

Inspecting the POD.

A garage full of our old kitchen cabinets that we hope to use for storage and other "stuff" that will be moved to the POD while work is being done on the garage.

Staining the Deck

In October we tackled staining the deck. A project we wanted to get done before winter gets here. I didn't realize how many surfaces there actually are. One weekend we stained the horizontal surfaces and following weekend we stained the vertical surfaces. It was a lot of work but we are thrilled with the outcome. We used an Australian Timber Oil by Cabot.

Before

After

Before

After

BeforeAfter

The result of cats walking on the deck before it was dry and then walking on the hose storage box.

Fall at the Troutman's

I couldn't resist taking some pictures of the trees as they changed colors - we had a beautiful Fall!
View looking out our front window - all of the trees hadn't quite turned yet.
View from our deck of the backyard.
View from the end of our driveway. Don't our neighbors have nice landscaping!! Someday we will dress up our side of the road to give them something nice to look at!

View at the end of our driveway looking down our road.
My favorites are several trees at the side of our house that turn vibrant reds and oranges.
These are the same trees. This is the side of our house that faces the street.

New Pantry

In May we built out our new pantry. We didn't have a pantry in the kitchen, this is where the stairs went to the basement prior to building the addition. We had to work around the slant that was created at the bottom of the pantry due to the rerouting of the stairs. So we turned it into a step that you can climb on to get to the top shelves.

This photo shows the rails we put up to hold the shelves.

There is the completed pantry. It is amazing how much food I can store in here! It is also amazing that I am still excited about having a pantry!!

Our supervisors...

Until it is nap time.

A New Yard

We were fortunate to have a Spring filled with rain and our new yard grew in beautifully!!!

Cats in Straw

Andy & Cleo, our two cats, decided that the straw would make a nice bed. Basically our yard became an out door barn for them to sleep in. Everytime we went outside we would find them sleeping somewhere in the straw. Even as the grass started to grow through the straw they would find a place to sleep. I couldn't resist taking several pictures of them.

It's Been A While

It has been some time since I have posted to our blog. Looking back I can only determine it was because I finally gained access to my studio. After spending several months getting it back in order while working on other projects around the house I had little time to post. Over the next few days I will attempt to catch everyone up with what has been going on at Casa Troutman and let you see the latest project we decided to tackle.

In April we hired landscapers to come in to grade and seed the yard. Here are some before and after pictures. The last photo shows the straw that was spread to prevent the birds from eating the seed.