Goodbye Orange Paint, Hello Pine

So anyway, this is what we're up to this week and I'm just so tickled with Hubs' progress, I wanted to share it.

Here's the house before:

Here's the front of the house after day 3:

And here's the front after today (day 4):

Here's what Hubs did on the first day:

And on the second day:

Look at all that gorgeous wood.

Of course, everyone's feeling the need to voice their opinions.  It's too much work.  Why don't we just paint over it?  Why not use paint stripper?  Yada yada yada.  One look at the finished product tells us that 1) it's not too much work for that result and 2) the last guy painted over it and it looked like shit, so why exactly would we paint over it again?  As for 3) We explored every available option and this one suits us the best.  Do you have any idea how many gallons of stripper we'd need to buy to cover this size house??  And don't even go there with how much it would cost to have a crew of people come out to sand it or strip it with corncobs or whatever.

Anyway, I'm damn proud and we'll have the house we dreamed of.  Complete with pine knots and real wood and NO MORE ORANGE.  (We swear, it did not look orange in the pictures before we bought the place.  Not that it would've changed our minds, but at least we would have known.)

And while Hubs was doing that today, this is what I did.  I took the chunky rock border out from our wildflower bed and replaced it with pea gravel.

Before:

After:

And why I did it:

I found Mr. Copperhead hiding in the chunky rocks when I went out to weed.  Now they have nowhere to hide.

Not bad work for two old farts, eh?

Today... Hubs will be sanding and I will be inside trying to avoid the buzz of the sander by throwing on my headphones and writing.

What's up with you?