2008 News Archives

This page contains the news updates from 2008, in order to keep the Welcome page from getting too big as I continue to add updates to the renovation project and web site on that page.

click to enlarge
The exterior siding installation was completed in Fall 2008

2008 Projects
The House: Most of the year was spent finishing the installation of the exterior siding on the old porch area and back of the house, including the installation of the new windows along the back of the house. In the Fall we also started tearing apart the kitchen and bath to prepare for installation of new plumbing waste lines.
The Site: After some prompting from my brother, I finally put together a website to track the renovation project and the KesterHouse site went live in the Fall of 2008.

2009 News Archives.
2010 News Archives.
2011 News Archives.
2012 News Archives.
2013 News Archives.
2014 News Archives.
2015 News Archives.
2016 News Archives.
2017 News Archives.
2018-21 News Archives.
2022 News Archives.
2023 News Archives.


Old News Updates


2008.12.18
The House: Plumber has been in and done plenty of work - hooray! Lots to update but still busy getting ready for rough plumbing inspection.
The Site: Looks like my local web server may have lost a hard disk... will tinker with that soon and see what's going on there.

2008.12.03
The House: Kitchen and bath wall are ready for the plumber - he was supposed to show up on 12/01, but we haven't heard from him yet... I also had a miserable battle with the Flu last week. Yuck.
The Site: Re-wrote some of the Garden section (and added a lot of photos), and finished the Garden Design section.

2008.11.17
The Site: I've really got to stop messing with layout and get busy on the content. So, I've uploaded the finished pages... just need to make a proper search results page.

2008.11.15
The House: Still tinkering with the kitchen and bath walls for the plumber. Did a major leaf cleanup on the yard before rain came this weekend.
The Site: Got the search engine running, and I'm pretty comfortable with the final page layout at last. Doing final clean-up on meta tags.

2008.11.10
The House: Work continues getting the kitchen and bath prepped for the plumber. Messy.
The Site: The Garden section main page is finished (I think).

2008.11.09
The Site: Finished thumbnails for all the books we've purchased related to the house and garden project, then populated the Garden, Bonsai, Tea House and Specs sections with the appropriate titles.

2008.11.06
The House: Weather is lousy out - lots of rain so stripped kitchen walls to studs and dis-assembled the cabinets. All pots & pans went into plastic bins for now. Plumber should be happy when the time comes.
The Site: Inspiration section is finished. Have the site loaded on KesterHouse.com, with redirect page at Home.Comcast.net/~kesterhouse . Going to try and find a search engine for the site, then see about how I can make a scrollable time line page... that should be challenging.

2008.11.02
The House: No project work: weekend in New England with the lovely bride so we got loads of apples from Russell Orchards link opens a new window and made apple sauce, apple butter and 4 apple crisps. The freezer is stuffed!
The Site: Fair progress on the Inspiration section. Getting the site ready to move to the actual home at KesterHouse.com

2008.10.31
The House: Yard work... gave the turf a final mow for the year, then hit it with the leaf vacuum once before the Oaks let go.
The Site: The House section is pretty much done. Started working on the most personally difficult section... Inspiration

2008.10.29
The House: It's chilly out there! Finished caulking the nail heads and seams in the North side siding - all siding is weather tight!
The Site: Validation completed (XHTML 1.1 and CSS3 - Woohoo) and double-checked compatibility. Put some pretty pics on each of the top-level pages of the main menu sections. Started working on The House section.

2008.10.27
The House: Weather is about to turn, so got outside and set nails, then started caulking the nail heads and seams in the North side siding.
The Site Final design uploaded and tested for validation and compatibility. Started filling the pages here with my long-winded blather.

2008.10.23
The Site: First design uploaded and tested for validation and compatibility.

2008.10.13
The Site: Starting working on page layout for the KesterHouse site.