Currently, we are expanding the back steps into a mini-deck (all that will fit in the space).

Once it's finished, with railings and a roof extension, there'll be room in the corner for a little barbecue grill. Should be a nice little place to sit and enjoy the back yard (and the traffic on the cross street).

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Some more progress on the minideck today.

The railings are up and there's a little bit of a lip around it to stop things sliding off. Also, the frame for the roof extension is up. When completed, it will partly block the view from the kitchen window, but into each life a little rain.

The view from the bench is... well, the standard-height railing is kind of a problem, if I'm honest. We may need to do something. Maybe put the bench up on a step?

(disregard the clamp, that's just holding a splinter that came off the post while the glue dries.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Just wandering through here again, and I suddenly wondered if there's been any changes to the mini-deck. If I had to guess, stain and paint would be the only guaranteed changes, but one can hope for other interesting things.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>Just wandering through here again, and I suddenly wondered if there's
>been any changes to the mini-deck. If I had to guess, stain and paint
>would be the only guaranteed changes, but one can hope for other
>interesting things.

Oh yeah, as a matter of fact there have. We haven't gotten around to painting anything, but we did build this cool tile countertop thing to put a portable cooking device on.

This, and the toolbox for implement and supply storage, replaced a couple of cabinets which I used for the purpose last year, but which weren't really meant to be out in the weather and probably wouldn't have stood up to more than another season or two without problems.

At the moment, what's there is a gas griddle, but I'm hoping that next year I'll be able to pick up a little grill too, maybe swap them according to what I have for cookout food.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Nice! I also note the addition of a comfy cushion to the bench.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>Nice! I also note the addition of a comfy cushion to the bench.

Yup, my mother made that. It's weather-resistant canvas with memory foam inside, very nice.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I have nothing to contribute to this except to say it looks like you live in a very nice neighborhood and have a lovely house, it looks like very picturesque American Suburbia to me and I hope it is a good place to live.

>I have nothing to contribute to this except to say it looks like you
>live in a very nice neighborhood and have a lovely house, it looks
>like very picturesque American Suburbia to me and I hope it is a good
>place to live.

It does look kind of like suburbia, but that's a little misleading, since there's no "urb" anywhere nearby. It's more the case that towns like Millinocket are what mid-20th-century suburbs were trying to look like--that whole idea (largely illusory) of recapturing the experience of small-town America for the urban masses moving out of the city centers.

In Millinocket's case, the town's layout is weirdly dense for a rural small town because it was built around a mill rather than farms. The paper company controlled all land distribution within the town limits, and their surveyors laid out the house lots with narrow frontages so that the people who lived there, virtually all of whom were employees, could walk to work in a relatively short time.

By the time the part of town I live in was built just after World War I, ~20 years after the town's founding, automobiles were becoming a Thing and the houses started to space out a little more compared to the oldest neighborhoods, but only a little. We're still packed oddly close together for a little town out in the woods.

As for the town itself, well, it's seen better days--the mill is long gone and nothing much has come along to replace it, economically speaking, so the population has shrunk dramatically over the last decade and skews heavily toward retirees and other fixed-income demographics--but it's not experiencing the same sort of post-industrial blight as, say, the Rust Belt or RoboCop-era Detroit. It's still a pretty quiet, relatively safe place to live, and it is picturesque AF. Natural splendors and all that. I can't see Mount Katahdin from my house because the other houses are in the way, but I don't have to go far to get a sightline on it.

When you live in a place where this is your view on the way back from the dump, it can't be all bad. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.