At it again (the porch project continues)

Matt has been at it again- setting his hands and talents to something and making it beautiful.  

The seemingly never-ending porch project continues after a brief winter hiatus (to rest and to raise money for the next step!) with the addition of railings.  We loved the porch without railings but it wouldn't have passed inspection had we not added railings (one edge is quite high). 

And besides, we have a little mover-and-shaker these days which would make a railing-less porch MUCH less relaxing.

Our porch is massive, wraps around the whole of two sides and is 12 feet wide.  It was going to cost a fortune to add even the cheapest railings using even the cheapest spindles just because there would need to be so many!  So Matt did what he often does- he started from scratch and did the brunt work himself.  He and his dad spent an entire day ripping, cutting, sanding and pre-drilling about a gazillion spindles and boards.  

The whole railing project cost just about $200.00 because of his hard work- which is the cost of just the most-basic spindles alone had we bought them at the store.

(I could do this allll day long.... stare at this handsome guy, hard at work.)

And *still* it isn't done, because probably next spring we will be painting the whole thing (oh.my.word. NIGHTMARE.) but it is 'complete' for a while. 

Here is it in all its' glory, enrobed in fog this morning:

And while we are on the subject of Papa projects:  here is another!

Matt told me he wanted to mulch around the locust trees by the milkhouse and maybe put a piece of old equipment he found down the hill in the woods on display.  He called it the ornamentation project.

He lured me into his plan when he said he would build a stone wall around it.

(Here I go again....)

As you can see, Matt's perpetual jeans are in need of some more attention.  If I made the habit of swearing, it would be these jeans that made me do it.

Oh look!  How tidy!  How crisp!  How clean looking!  Look at that stone wall!  

I love it just.like.this!

 But wait.

Oh yeah.

The equipment.

Which, by the way, went from ONE thing to TWO things.

And both things were WAAAAY bigger than I had envisioned.

Not sure I love the rusty heap o' junk look- but Matt does, so I guess that is that.

And it can't be worse than the rampant burdock that was there.  Right?  And....that stone wall!

That is TOTALLY worth it.

But then again, in the fog, even the heap o' rust looks almost...well, ornamental.