Brick by Brick

My parents came into town this past weekend and brought us all the flooring fresh from the kiln. Once that was unloaded, my dad got busy laying the old brick for our hearth. Most of these bricks are handmade, over 150 years old and came from the old Sherill house in my hometown of Cornelius, NC. Some also came from an old store that was torn down in Derita, NC. Lorraine's sister, Kate, brought us the old star bricks which were found in a salvage yard in NJ. Our mantle is made from 2 granite window sills that were in the Thompson orphanage (the same building our slate roof came from).
We are so thankful for Dad's beautiful work and can't wait to sit around the woodstove next winter and enjoy it.

Even Ferlin got to leave her mark.

Today is a great day

To celebrate President Obama's Inauguration, we played some pong and had fun in the snow- which lasted 12 hours and left about 6 inches! I was pretty much glued to the tv today, but tore myself away to paint a little. We are soooo close to finishing all the priming inside.

New Year, New Home

Cheers and Happy New Years to all! It has been frigid cold outside, but that hasn't stopped us from moving forward. Greg and our neighbor John finished siding the house (with the help of John's son Branson). The heat was turned on inside and the drywall is finished. The poplar that we cut last year has been kiln dried and milled for our interior trim. Greg's dad Clark delivered it to us in his dump truck this week and it is beautiful. We have started priming the interior too.

We celebrated Greg's 40th birthday last Saturday. It was our first real get together at the new house and we had 20 people over for dinner. It felt so much like a real house- despite all the sheet rock dust and the port-a-john.

don't worry boys, the ping-pong table is well protected