Before moving into our Orcas home, we had wool carpets installed to replace the purple, pink, shag, and industrial carpets orginally installed in the house. One of the rolls of wool carpet for the basement was slightly off color, so it had to be reordered. We were not able to move boxes and furniture into the basement until a month after we arrived, which was a major inconvenience!

A year after we moved, we had the interior of the house painted. Our neighbors had a friend visiting who was a professional house painter (he painted Rosie O'Donnell's house in Florida!). He was looking for work to make a little money while visiting the island, so we asked him to paint the interior of our house. He did a fantastic job and for a very reasonable price.

One of the major limitations of our Orcas home was that there was no garage, shop, or tool shed to store our garage stuff. We had to store boxes in the laundry/utility room until we were able to erect a storage shed for garden tools and bikes (see first 4 pictures). A year after we moved, we had an architect draw up plans for a workshop/garage building. Our requirements included a work area with greenhouse window for Michelle, a work area for Mike, garage area for working on a vehicle, storage area, and bathroom. We also wanted the exterior to have the look and feel of the house (craftsman-style, similar siding, same roof, and same color). Construction of the shop began in October 2005 and finished about 6 months later. It was a major undertaking, but worth the effort to have such a nice space for outdoor projects.

A couple years after building the shop, we had the exterior of the house painted. Some of the other home improvement projects that Mike did himself included installing a sandbox and playset for Emma, building more raised planter boxes for Michelle to grow vegetables and strawberries, and installing a 4-zone automatic sprinkler system in the yard and garden. Michelle also pulled out most of the plants in the flower beds and replanted with perennials and ground cover.

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