Come on Inn, Y'all!

Taking down the old sign

So many moons ago (23 of them to be exact), we set up an obscenely tall ladder on the gentle slope that is our road and spent some time fixing up the Chestnut Walk archway that presides over the entry to the Inn.  Although the arch is pretty solid, it is also quite tall and sways alarmingly when one is fifteen feet or so up on a ladder.

We painted the chipping sign and removed the old bed and breakfast sign that was hanging from the archway.  This was necessary both to take down the old name (which we had no ownership of) and it helped slow the flow of people coming to see the Inn.  We love visitors, but at the time parts of the house and grounds were unsafe and we had all kinds of projects in various states of completion.  In other words, it's been a bit of a mess.

But now the honey-do list has shrunk from a thousand things to a mere five hundred and we are actually getting ready for our grand opening!  So we decided to put up a new sign.

We decided on a painted wood sign for now, in the shape of our leaf logo.  What, you thought we would do a simple rectangle?  Crazy talk.

We painted the sign grey and then hand painted the leaf outline in red laquer

Next we hand lettered the Inn name with a black Sharpie paint pen  - I love these things

Hanging the sign - a little to left, honey!

The finished sign, mostly straight and almost centered

Spring Cleaning

So its sort of spring here in the mountains.  At least, it would be if it would stop threatening to snow, but we will take what we can get.  One of the joys of having such large property is there is always something new to do outside, and we have been taking full advantage of the warmer pockets of weather.

We've replaced the original cement pavers that we dug up the first summer we were here with faux stone pathway that is both prettier and more even.  We used the old pavers to create a small, impromptu patio in the hidden garden with the swing and began landscaping around it.

Some of the old shutters we took down when we painted the Inn were transformed into a corner planter.  And a fresh attempt at cleaning up the pond was begun, with the trees in the pond cut down (again) and the small pump house next to the pond being torn down.

There is still plenty more to do and plant, but we are starting to finish up many of our projects and hopefully our opening date will be soon!

Smoothing the path for the new store walkway, and, yes, it is snowing in this shot

Getting ready to make the pavers

The shutter planter

Torn out the pump house, although that motor will probably stay there until the end of time

The "Hidden Garden" just off the upper lawn