So much happening today at The Manor - a girl could get dizzy... or was that the construction crew's sports radio blaring all day that had my head spinning? Ugh. I love sports as much more than the next person... but Colin Cowherd for hours is more than I can handle.
The sports-radio-loving team actually seemed to make some progress today! Our new deck isn't so much a deck as a tree house! The Port Orford cedar is simply gorgeous. In two or three weeks, we will have the deck sealed with a natural treatment to protect the wood.
Deck or tree house?
By using metal rods instead of cedar, the railings seem to disappear!I love it - and it makes our deck seem M A S S I V E... oh, that's right... it IS massive.
FLASH FROM THE PAST: the old deck seems like an enclosed box now!
New deck railing
The crew still need to finish the deck railing along the "walk-way" portion of the deck and build a little gate (to contain our Grand Dawg and assorted small kidlets), replace the deck railings on the Tiger Room deck and the deck off the master suite (otherwise known as the Hot Tub deck). I do not think they will be able to finish by tomorrow... which brings us to Monday.
Did I say "Tiger Room"? Yes, Dear Reader, our house has theme rooms. Not quite like Graceland, but many of our rooms are decorated in a theme. My office, for example, is the elephant room. I worked for years to secure the sperm future of Asian elephants and have gathered quite a collection of elephant art, figurines, etc., and have needlepointed many elephant pillow canvases. One of our guest rooms is known as the "Oregon Suite" and is decorated with all-things Oregon. The other guest room is called the "Tiger Room" and is decorated with an African (photo) safari mode. (Elvis would LOVE the Tiger Room.)
Okay, so I am a little obsessed... this is the living room(or I think it is the living room... we rarely go in this room)
Which brings me to the theme behind our new family room remodel: the National Parks Room. This room will be decorated with things we have gathered from our travels to reflect our love of US National Parks - especially Yosemite (DT grew up not far from Yosemite). So, in keeping with the new theme:
Yellowstone pillow
Yosemite pillow
America-in-general pillow
If only this room had a big-screen television...
For the third portion of this update... I cooked tonight. To prepare a simple pasta & vegetable dish (with a little chicken) took me an hour. No kidding. Am I slipping? First I removed meat from a two-day old roast chicken. (As long as I had a nice carcass, I boiled it all up with assorted veggies to make a nice stock.) Then I roasted a red pepper and left it to steam... chopped an onion, a few cloves of garlic, fresh herbs, cherry tomatoes, the roasted red pepper and a zucchini. While I was at it, I grated a little fresh parmesan. In my spare time, I boiled a bit of whole wheat bowtie pasta. After sautéing the vegetables, adding the chicken and a little white wine, I tossed it all together and served the pasta with a nice salad of mixed greens, roast beets and green peppercorn goat cheese.
It was delicious.
Roast beets over mixed greens with peppercorn goat cheese
Don't try this at home
Will the deck be finished tomorrow? Until my next update, I remain, your themed correspondent.