This and That

For those of you that are interested in knowing what we have going on in the way of fixing up our "fixer upper" of a house I wanted to share some the hard work that Eric has been doing. He has been and continues to be a very busy little bee and has been working so hard to fix and improve things around here.

For starters he has been working on fixing a roof leaking problem that has been around for quite some time. We hired someone to fix this back in January however they pretty much completely failed to fix the problem and although they replaced a lot of the rotted wood and shingles they didn't address the real issue of how the water collects and runs down the side of the house. Eric has fixed the gutter, put up shields to direct the way the water flows and replaced even more rotting wood and siding. He still has more to do on this including replacing the drywall that has been damaged on the inside of the house, but at least the water is going in the gutter now as opposed to running down the side of the house (and even getting in to the house) like it was before.  He is still in the process of of putting up new siding and it will need to be painted as well but he has accomplished so much already. I keep joking that he is rebuilding the whole house piece by piece, in another 10 years we will have a whole new house!

In progress on the side of the house, rotten wood replaced and plywood put up, siding part of the way done.

Added support under the chimney box

Our house is old and made of cedar which means we have a lot of siding and wood that needs replacing all over. A lot of the beams in the front of the house are water damaged and rotting as well and Eric recently replaced the worst of these all by himself! I was amazed to come home and find that he had completely removed one of the beams underneath our large front windows which he then replaced with weather treated wood and cedar facing.

A lot of our front wall is going to need replacing in the next year or two which will give us a chance to replace some of our cracked windows as well. We have had some pretty ambitious plans for the house since we moved in. We are looking at ways to make the front windows in to doors so that we can open up the house more when the weather is nice. The cool thing about about owning your own house is that you can get really creative and make it in to exactly what you want.

Rotten beam removed

Beam replaced, in progress

Finished beam replacement, so much nicer! There is still more rotten wood that needs replacing on the front of the house but this was the worst of it.

It's a lot of work but Eric doing it himself is saving us a ton of money and he is excited to be learning new construction and carpentry skills. I'm not really able to help him much because I am always watching Echo but I am really proud at what he's accomplished. We love our house so much and are happy that it is getting some of the long neglected TLC it deserves.

Dinner by Eric

This is from a few weeks ago but I am a little behind in my posting and I still wanted to make a point to go back and brag about my husband's culinary skills. Eric has been shifting his work schedule so that he goes in extra early and gets to be home by around 4:00 each day. This is partially in preparation for starting a family but mainly he just wanted to shift his day so that he and I would have more time together in the afternoons. Luckily he works for an awesome company that really values him and allows him to be flexible with his schedule :-)

Back when I worked at an after school art studio I had hours that kept me at work until almost 7:00. This was when Eric and I were dating and I would usually head to his apartment after work. He would always have dinner ready for me (can you see why I married him?) and it was nice to be taken care of that way. Well, since I usually get off earlier than him these days I have been in the habit of making dinner but now that his schedule allows him to come home early he will occasionally treat me to a special dinner that he cooks up all on his own. I do love to cook but I don't mind having a break now and then and it's something he enjoys doing for me.

His latest dish was something he thought up completely on his own ( I usually at least have to start with a base recipe and modify it from there). Here's a picture of the dish,

I think I have mentioned before how I am currently craving fruit and all things tropical and this dish really fit the bill. The base was saffron rice cooked in coconut milk instead of water and mixed with pineapple tidbits and cashews. He topped that with mahi mahi coated in cornmeal and fried in peanut oil and garnished with toasted coconut and grilled limes. The flavors went so well together and the whole thing was delish! I will have to let him make me dinner more often (although I already have him making me smoothies every day).

I have also been cooking up some pretty fun dishes in the kitchen lately so I will be sharing those soon along with some more baby related stuff :-)