Rainy weekend

Almost nothing better than sleeping in on a weekend morning late in October and waking up to rain. Much needed rain. Kind of a bummer that the Giants are a game behind in the World Series but the good news is Kevin's sister and brother-in-law, Molly and Scott, will be at the game tonight so the Giants have to win.

So back to Steinback Mountain. Friday morning we woke up to another incredible sunrise to greet the Tombleson crew and the painters. Dave, Corey and Justo immediately got to work on the fence and the painters finished touching up the ceiling in the BBQ room. The painters also started (and mostly finished) painting the exterior of the guest house. Note the color of the primer they used, it's very close to the grey we plan on repainting the three buildings after the renovation is complete. The prior homeowner had a painting business and did a very good job of painting the place shortly before we bought so we're in no need or rush to repaint.

We got home late Friday afternoon after all the workers had left for the weekend to find the sheetrock had all been taped and the fencing addition to the chicken coop completed as well as the part to the right of the gate. We've been going back and forth debating what to do with the new gate and our three options: 1) Keep a two-panel gate, 2) Have a single panel gate requiring a wheel, or 3) a single barn door-like panel that would slide behind the fencing on the left. Option 2 isn't ideal because the concrete slab in front of the gate slopes down so the wheel would rise above it when completely opened. Option 3 requires cutting a track into the slab and adding more concrete behind the left fencing. Option 1 will work as is, so that's the direction we'll be going.

Between the deck railing and all the new fencing, there's a lot of horizontal line action that, for a brief few moments, had us wondering if it was too much. We're thinking that when the redwood starts to weather a bit and loses its intensity, the overall look will be just fine.  We're also thinking that we're going to need to spend some time (and money) redoing the vegetable garden area so that it looks as nice as the fence that surrounds it. We're probably going to build redwood frames around the existing black tubs we currently use for the tomatoes and veggies, although we've toyed with the idea of framing them in Corten steel which we've seen used in a lot of MCM landscapes. The Corten would look really good with the pea gravel we'll most likely be using on the ground.

We also really like the concrete block wall as garden idea we found on the gardenista blog:

Not quite sure how we'd attach the new bricks to the existing retaining walls down below and outside the guest house but we love this look too much not to give it a try.

We're a week away from starting the fifth month of the renovation. Here are four videos to recap some of the progress so far:

September 10th to October 2nd

First Week of October

Second Week of October

Third Week of October