It’s Christmas time again at the lake. The outside of the home doesn’t look very festive right now. I added a wreath to the front door, but it doesn’t do much to detract from all the construction debris.

Our stone for the patio wall was delivered this week.

The stones for the wall cap should arrive on Monday and then hopefully we will have the wall completed. I’m not sure on the deck timing. To compensate for the outside disorder, I went a little overboard trying to make the inside of the house feel cozy for the holidays.

Unfortunately it’s fake. We had to replace our stove pipe due to a bird that decided to fly in and get stuck. When hubby went to install the new pipe, he noticed an air draft around the ceramic wall insert. It looks like it wasn’t properly supported on the far side and shifted overtime allowing air to break through a small slit. Since it isn’t currently safe to have real fires, I asked hubby if we could make it look like we have a fire. He immediately said yes and by that evening he rigged a beautiful illusion.