Looking Good, But Far From Finished

At this point, I am starting to feel a little bit like Frodo, or rather Sam did, at the Last Homely House in Rivendell. He thought that after their long journey to bring the ring to Lord Elrond's house, their part in the quest was done, and they could go home. Little did he know that their adventure had just begun. This is really starting to look like a hobbit-hole, but I'm afraid I'm not even half-way finished with it yet. My goal is to get this to look good enough to be mistaken for a real hobbit-hole in the shire.
What's new since my last post? I finished the flashing on the roof, and went ahead and put some dirt up there, just to get a little bit of a sense of what is to come. Ultimately, of course, all that dirt around will be up on top of the pipe, completely hiding it. The hill will come right down onto the roof, and there will be grass growing all over it.

Other changes include shingles down the sides. These sides will be mostly covered with dirt. They needed to be waterproof as well, but also the parts that stick out from the hillside needed to look nice. I hope this will do the trick.

I started building out the patio, using chunks from an old concrete slab that my brother-in-law tore up from his yard. These things weigh a ton, and he and I carted about fify of them to my place in a tiny pickup truck with a rickety wood trailer. (I'm surprised the truck and trailer axles didn't break.) They have been piled up on my back patio for over a year and now I finally have a use for at least some of them. I'm going to build the patio out several feet, and also extended it a little to the right. The cracks will be filled with topsoil, and eventually ground cover (moss or something). I bought this tiny, hobbit-sized park bench, which will sit right where you see it, but with the patio under it.

So what's left? Tons. Stay tuned.