In the past two weeks we have had one car wreck, one case of German measles, one outer ear infection, one dead owl, one dead squirrel, and two dead fledglings. We built a fence, shipped 2 doors, and built an e-commerce website.
Last weekend I got all fearless with a 20″ chainsaw rented from the local Big Box. I took out 4 dead and/or broken trees. One of them, the biggest one, fell in the wrong direction. It took out a section of the new fence and a small tree I had planted about 4 years ago. I was pissed until I realized the three other directions it could have gone. 1. Across a busy road. 2. Through power lines 3. On me.
If it had fallen due South, it might have hit all three. Would I have dropped the chainsaw and stepped calmly to the north, or would I have run screaming into the street revving the chainsaw Rambo-style with a cascade of sparks, sticks, and cars behind me?

Chickenpox is here. We are going through it with typical Erwin House efficiency. 7 year old got it about 3 weeks ago and now 7 month old and 4 year old are synchronized. Both produced spots this afternoon. We know the drill and it should be over (forever) in about 7 days.
Hu-boy. Family vacation in 8 days. Hope we can go because we are going to need it.

Having to call AAA to tow the minivan out of our backyard was the last straw. So we ordered up a driveway. You know what it’s like when you go to the grocery store hungry and you buy, like, a lot of food? Well, we’re getting a lot of driveway. And a new sidewalk to boot.
The driveway starts out two cars wide, swoops around at one car wide, and winds up by the side door at about three cars wide. The curves are fantastic (although the graphic designer in me would like to find bezier handles on the forms and smooth out a few kinks) and ideas about landscaping are all falling into place.
The sidewalk that used to drain water to our front steps now slopes to the street and is perfectly lined up with front door. (The old one was perfectly lined up with the old front door.)
I’m so excited I’m looking up dimensions for four-square and hopscotch.

Our front door is finally finished. We stained it to match the stairs and with that last coat of varnish it looks glorious.
The first photo is a mid century ranch house around the corner from our house. I love this entry door and we decided to copy it for our front door. Our little neighborhood is full of these mid-century doors – flush doors with veneer and inset windows in a modern design. The most common one is the three rectangular windows set at a diagonal. Like this:
(quick houseblogs question: Is there a name for that kind of door?)
The second and third photos are our door, before and after stain.
Update: If you are looking for this style of door, check out Crestview Doors.

Before Erwin House, I had never lived in a house with a bar. When we were designing it, I kept thinking about the Sopranos hanging out with their teenagers at their bar. It took us 3 months after moving in to find the perfect bar stools, and for that time the bar was a surface that collected paper, dirty glasses, and stuff. Now we’ve had the bar stools for about 3 months, and we living la vida bar.
Breakfast, snacks, and lunch are eaten there. Homework is finished there. Baby Erwin is propped up there to watch mom make dinner. The boys have figured out which seat affords a view of the TV in the living room. My laptop is perched at one end. (We call it Dad’s kiosk.) And the bar stools provide an extra row of seats for the community meetings that are becoming more common in our house. It is lined with snacks for parties.
All this bar activity saves wear and tear on the dinner table and shortens the path of dirty dishes to the sink. But mainly, the bar is where we talk.
Here’s to bar life, and the millions of conversations we’ll have over it.

About a year ago, when we moved out of the house in preparation for the remodel, ladybugs swarmed our bathroom. By “swarmed” I mean there were about a dozen. Which is a lot of ladybugs in an 830 square foot house.
Now that we are back, so are the ladybugs, only in much higher numbers. They buzz the lights in the kitchen, pair off on the bedroom ceiling, roam the bathroom mirror, and dive-bomb us on the deck.
What in the world would ladybugs want in our house? There can’t be anything for them to eat here. We have no house plants. As far as I can tell they are using it as a big nightclub where they can meet and breed.

We’ve had to tell the kids to wear shoes outside the house. That they should look out for screws, staples, knife blades, saw blades, broken glass, staples, and rusty nails. We had a guy go over our whole yard with a magnet, twice. Each time filling buckets with these items.
So yesterday 4yo walks in with this thing.
I have no idea what it’s for or where it came from. Did Christiane dig it up with the Toyota Excavator? Is it a survey stake? Ground stake? My guess is it is from the old house (1951) and not the new construction. Christiane thinks it’s from the farm that was here before the house that was here before our house.
Any other guesses?

[15:32] thismetalife: there?
[15:32] dmetx1969: yup
[15:32] thismetalife: um
[15:32] thismetalife: i made a boo boo
[15:32] dmetx1969: waiting
[15:32] thismetalife: does AAA tow?
[15:33] dmetx1969: yeah
[15:33] dmetx1969: flat tire?
[15:33] thismetalife: um… from your own yard?
[15:33] dmetx1969: stuck in mud?
[15:33] thismetalife: yeah
[15:33] dmetx1969: ha ha
[15:33] thismetalife: shutup
[15:33] dmetx1969: stick a piece of wood under the tire for traction
[15:34] dmetx1969: no nails
[15:34] thismetalife: um
[15:34] thismetalife: what tire
[15:34] thismetalife: you might not understand HOW stuck i am exactly
[15:34] dmetx1969: one of the front tires, both is best
[15:34] dmetx1969: hu boy
[15:34] thismetalife: the car slid into the area next to the house
[15:35] thismetalife: up to bumper
[15:35] thismetalife: (*ducks and hides*)
[15:35] dmetx1969: i’ll be stopping at a bar on the way home
[15:35] thismetalife: lol
[15:35] dmetx1969: might be late
[15:36] thismetalife: bring me daquiri
[15:36] thismetalife: big one
[15:36] dmetx1969: so where exactly is tha car?
[15:36] thismetalife: where the removed driveway, behind fence
[15:37] thismetalife: tire is touching east edge of concrete
[15:37] dmetx1969: between the side steps and the gate?
[15:37] thismetalife: yeah
[15:37] dmetx1969: how did the jog stroller fare
[15:37] thismetalife: got bumped to side
[15:38] thismetalife: still alive
[15:38] thismetalife: covered in mud, tho
[15:38] dmetx1969: good, that’s your new car
[15:38] thismetalife: i tried to back up, mud everywhere
[15:38] thismetalife: lol
[15:38] dmetx1969: take a picture, blog it and call me in the morning
[15:39] thismetalife: LOL
[15:52] dmetx1969: hm, i bet the tire went into the hole for the old fence
post
[15:53] thismetalife: yup
[15:53] dmetx1969: that was just filled with enough dirt to not trip
[15:53] thismetalife: now its filled with tire
[15:53] dmetx1969: yeah, we’re gonne need a helicopter to get it out
[15:53] thismetalife: yup

Long story about the jelly jar lights. We wanted the Otis from Rejuvenation, but it would have cost over $1k for all the lights we have. And we didn’t like it that much, so we spec’ed cheap ($2.71) jelly jar lights for some of the lights and kept shopping for the others. The electrician installed the jelly jar lights in all the wrong spots, but we liked how they looked, so we left them there.
A porch light should light the ground and your house, but not your neighbor’s bedroom. So I thought I’d wrap cut up peach cans around each light. The peach cans started to rust before I could eat 11 cans of peaches, and I was really starting to hate canned peaches.
So a couple of weeks ago I had an idea for putting something in the glass to shade and direct the light. I found a roll of roof flashing at Home Depot and cut it into strips, and drilled some holes for a mid-century feel.
Viola. 11 cool mid-century lights, 40 bucks.

I had this idea to turn the whole house into a jack-o-lantern. I picked up some poster board at the grocery store, and the boys and I blocked out the windows. 7yo designed the teeth, carefully sketching them on paper before getting out the ruler and scissors.
I wonder if we’ll do this every year.
Happy Halloween!