A new front door was installed today! We're very happy with it.

The door we had until today was the original 1967 one, and it was at the end of its useful live. Very drafty and it made the downstairs cold. Because our thermostat isn't too far from the door, it would make the rest of the house overly warm. The new door has glass windows, with privacy glass, which gives a little more light in our hallway. And no more noisy and cold mail slot.

The installers came at 10.00 am, and they took about 4 hours to do the full install. At the end I discovered some concrete that needed to be repaired, so I drove to Home Depot to get a patch and they used that to finalize the step.

It was great working with these guys; a marked difference compared to the previous project five years ago.

Leo and Adrian were quite excited to see all the machines and instruments. When they got home from AMH they could hardly wait to get changed and check it all out. The contractors had a power cable going through the window to the front yard, that was interesting for them to see.

After the work was done, the contractor's car didn't start. I helped try to kick-start, but that didn't work either so they had to call their boss.

The old door.

It's gone.

A big hole.

New door in the front yard.

Door being installed.

The new door!

Inside view, in the evening.

Today I fixed a few of the mesh screens in our house. Leo and Adrian had a period where they liked to poke their tiny fingers through the mesh, and several bedroom windows and downstairs windows were damaged.

I watched a explanation on YouTube and in the late afternoon went to Home Depot to pick up the equipment.

On my way home from Home Depot I saw a car from Screen Mobile, a commercial service for restoring screens. No need to call them.

It wasn't hard to do, and it's nice to no longer have these ugly holes in the window screens.

Another milestone... we removed the gates to the living room. We used to have them to keep the guys in the living room but we haven't used them in the past several weeks.

Adrian went down the stairs a few times this week, all by himself.

When we were looking for a house a few years ago, we always checked out the vent system above the range. Most houses we saw did not have a vent that moves air to the exterior. Neither did the house we bought and love, but that is changing today.

We're getting an exterior vent installed. Initially we will use the microwave -- if that's not strong enough we can always install a hood later. But this exterior venting will make a huge difference.

The boys are no longer happy in their playpen -- they want to explore the whole room.

Here are some of the changes we have made in our living room.

Things we have changed

Of course there are gates everywhere.

The coffee table was one of the first things to go -- the boys used to play on the carpet when they couldn't crawl yet and it's still a favorite play area. We had the coffee table behind the sofa for a long time until the guys managed to climb onto it.

I created a wooden contraption to force the small doors to the kitchen open. Too much of a temptation for little hands otherwise. Nora doesn't like it, but it's a lot safer this way.

The speakers for our sound system, the ones that I'm so happy about with the cables in the wall? Yeah, they are gone too.

This plant is better off outside. Also, there are big stones in the pot -- stones that Leo liked to crawl around with.

Things we haven't changed (yet)

The boys love shaking these standing lights. They are the only reading lights we have so we don't want to put them away. We'll see how long that lasts.

At the other hand, the pink chairs definitely need to go. Adrian learned how to climb on them.

So far the boys haven't been able to climb on the sofa (though they try).

Our street tonight.

The Federal Government is still closed -- not surprising given that there were people skiing on our street today.

Over the past 6 weeks I've been working on our deck. In July I fixed the lower part of the deck by replacing all the boards, but that wasn't really needed for the main deck. Nevertheless, there was a ton of work to do. I flipped over about 20 boards, power washed and sanded everything.

I took a day off on Thursday and applied the stain. It's an oil base stain (Armstrong Clark) and it was easy to apply. I started at 10.00 am and by 2.30 pm I was done.

We unexpectedly got some rain Thursday night but with an oil base stain that isn't as much as a problem and except for one or two minor spots that I'll redo, everything looks great.

I still need to finish the railing and balustrade, but at least the deck itself is ready for the winter now.

I wrapped up the deck resurfacing yesterday.

It feels great.

Today I replaced 15 boards of our deck, the smaller part at the entrance of the backyard.

Our deck is from 1996 but the wood hasn't been cared for very well so some of the boards were cracked and splintered. The main deck is in better shape, thankfully.

It was a fun project to replace the boards but it was hard work. I started at 11.30 am and finished around 6.00 pm. Milan helped me get started and I'm proud of the end result.

The most exciting part was at the end, when I had to cut a board to fit in a smaller opening. I used my own circle saw for the first time.

Last night we hung four picture frames on the long wall in our living room.

It was a bit nerve-wrecking but they are hanging beautifully straight and on equal distance from each other.

The frames make the wall look very nice and it's great to have our own photographs on the wall. We chose pictures from our history: one from Antonio's, two from Haarlem and one from a year ago when we learned that we had gotten our house.