Do It Like Dittchelle

 **Yes, our blog is still under construction.  I won't bore you with the details, but Wix (the platform we've been hosting our blog on) has been melting down and not allowing me to upload blogs so we started using Blogger but it's missing the "email notification" feature that Wix had, so we are trying out some workarounds.  Until then, we are trying to make due, sorry for the workarounds!** Anyway, back to the good stuff.  Last week we took the week off from blogging, not because we weren't working on the house (let's be real, we're ALWAYS working on the house), but because the work isn't really exciting.  Yes, the CHANGES are exciting, but the process is all tiny details, small fixes, and layers and layers of paint.  But, Scott has finally deemed the kitchen ceiling finished! Let's take a walk down memory lane to see the transformation, shall we? Here was the ceiling with the soffit (bulkhead? I still don't know).  Originally the ceiling h...

 We are going through some changes here at Do It Like Dittchelle, and not just changes on our home! Our blog platform was being finnicky so we are looking for a replacement host and an easy way to subscribe.   This isn't a "real" post, just something to test out the capabilities of subscribing through follow.it.   Hopefully soon we'll be back to regularly-scheduled programming :) 

This week brought some additional work on the kitchen ceiling, but even more exciting, some much-needed repairs to the exterior of our home.   Ta-da! I thought I'd start with the photo of what we are working with now (much prettier, believe it or not) and back up into what it *was*.  When we bought the house we had some concerns with the retaining wall because there was some sagging stucco that we thought might indicate water issues.  We got the house for a steal (before the market went completely bonkers), and we had someone look at it who estimated a reasonable repair cost, so we bought it anyway and have been living with the issues since then (much to the chagrin of our neighbors, I'm sure).   I don't talk too much about the exterior of our home, so let me set the stage for you: outside of the pool cage we have a retaining wall (8 ft?), a "landing" area on each side of a cantilever dock, and then the seawall.   Here's a drone photo from a yea...