Spring Break Progress Part 1: Curtains and Siding

After months of slowly puttering along the two weeks of spring break provided an opportunity to put some focus back into my house project and to build a bit of momentum again. Here's what's happened lately:

Curtains:
My friend Deirdre stopped by again for a few days. This time on her way to a bike trip through Europe. She does get around! However, she brought her sewing machine with her and managed to fabricate blinds or curtains for most of my windows before she went. Pretty handy with a sewing machine that lady!  :-) She successfully (and somewhat forcefully) avoided the camera, so I don't have any pictures of the seamstress at work.

Here's the bathroom window, with funky fabric Deirdre brought back from a trip to Africa a while ago.

and here's what it looks like when closed.

Some kind of dark pictures of the big windows. These blinds are made from a couple of curtains I got at Jysk. Materials for eight blinds and curtains came in under $100, so I thought that was pretty good. :-)

 South (to be) window, blind down.

North and West Windows. I quite like the African fabric contrast.

...and curtains for upstairs. They are all done, but I've only got one of them up so far. They will pull back and tie with a string on the ends.

Finally finished the siding

 The last few pieces of white at the top that have been bothering me all winter are finally covered.

 and the top row on this side of the house - the one with so many cut-outs in it.

..and around the door and in the gable above the porch roof. I still have to make the deck railing though.

...and around the upstairs windows. I was quite concerned that I wouldn't have enough siding. Fortunately I did - with two pieces to spare!  :-)

My father refusing to look at the camera. I wouldn't have gotten nearly as much done without his help!

Me in my "spring" clothing. It seemed that siding days all turned out to contain snow, rain, sleet, hail, cold, wind, or a combination of the above. This last bit mostly had just cold and wind - but one session was curtailed due to rain mixed with snow pellets. Funny how it always came out that way.