First days in South Carolina

We arrived in South Carolina on Wednesday after a cross-country jaunt that covered nine states in all, including a 500-mile diversion to avoid a fight with winter storm Decima! We turned south from Albuquerque on Sunday, allowing us to complete the journey hugging the southern coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

No matter the route, there's no lack of scenery... from Pacific coast, to desert, tall pines, badlands, prairies and hills, bayous, forests and, finally, the South Carolina lowcountry, we have a beautiful country!

In addition to a successful road trip, this week proved to be very productive for our construction project. The roof structure has been framed, and great progress was made on the porches and balcony. 

We discovered one issue today that will require re-framing window openings that flank our kitchen rangetop, but otherwise everything looks good!

Being the first we've seen the house in-person since Thanksgiving, we're including an extra healthy dose of pictures to share this week.

Merry Christmas!

This is about all you can see clearly from the road. The overall view of the front elevation is filtered through our landscape buffer of saw palmetto and other native plantings.  

This is more or less what you see as you approach from the street. The staircase is temporary -- our builder had it built for us to use when we arrived.

The rear porch and balcony above were being framed on Thursday.

Work on framing details continues throughout; some being pretty complex...

This jigsaw puzzle of lumber is the framing for the ceiling in the study!

The wraparound porches on both levels require a lot of lumber and hardware, with seeming endless rows of rafters, joists and metal hangers and rafter ties.

This is the floor framing for the front porch, main level. Here you can see where the permanent staircase will rise up from ground level from underneath.

Finally, the views are looking good; we're quite happy with what we see...

Kitchen window view encourages dish washing!

The master bedroom has a great view of the community pond in one direction, and a more distant view of the marsh surrounding the island in the other.

Guests staying in this room will have a view of the marsh in the distance, while the other guest room provides a limited view of a pond across the street.

Bonnie can keep an eye on the neighbors from our bedroom balcony!

Here's the view from the side porch off the guest bedrooms. 

We were pleased to see this peek-a-boo view of the intracoastal waterway from our balcony; you have to look through the pines to see the water, but a pleasing view all the same!