Done...

Thankfully Irene only brought rain and wind to our house this weekend (you're still kind of a jerk, Irene). We worked on the weird little room, slapped up a few paint swatches, and pulled my closet together. We also worked on the kitchen and, on Saturday before it rained (and just a few hours before we needed to be at a birthday party) I tore out the rotten, awful edging from our flower beds and replaced it with slightly less awful edging. Phase I of the back of our house is continuing as planned. Here's what we've finished:

1. My uncle very generously made our hideous chimney look incredible.
2. He cut down this thorny bush in the process. It's quite pretty when maintained, so he left the stump and we'll keep it in check.
3. The exterior doors are painted. Finally.
4. This rotten wood has been replaced with stone and brick...nothing fancy since we're planning to re-do the patio next summer. I also tried to clean and straighten the patio a bit. The 1/2 wine barrel is gone.
5. We removed a ton of miscellaneous bushes and weeds, making room for perennials.

I'll take a photo as soon as it stops raining. This is PRH's first full week back at school, so I'm sort of anxious to see how things go trying to complete projects by myself with two babes in tow. This guy is coming to stay with us this coming weekend, so picking up stray toys is first on the agenda. That should take all week.