piers and beams and hedges, oh my!

hello everyone! our major house repairs have been on hold because it turns out (to our surprise) our ceilings look like this:

pretty huh? our ceilings were really sagging, which we thought was due to the movement in the house and the old drywall. our solution was to replace it. sounds easy, right? house lesson #1: nothing is ever easy. the guys came to start the drywall work, and they found this below. they were kind of stumped on what to do. it wasn't just the drywall that was sagging, but the wood below too. a previous owner removed a wall at some point that was a major support for the living room ceiling. they just plain took it out. which leads to house lesson #2: don't remove a wall without asking a professional first.

to solve our sagging ceiling problem, our foundation guy, the drywall guy and his carpenter decided to pour some more piers (things that support the house from a couple of feet in the ground) and then build supports from there, eventually going up through the walls and to a beam that would go through the middle of the living room. i was imagining something beautiful like this:

but to our surprise we came home and found this

hideous, right? the one in the bedroom isn't so bad. but definitely not dreamy.

we have been standing around in the living room a lot looking at the big hunk of 14" wood that is hanging (off-centered) in our living room. sean last night thought of an idea - he is planning on framing out the piece of wood, and then boxing it in with nice wood. so we will potentially have a very large (but rustic) piece of wood going through our living room. and im also trying to talk our man douglas into putting one more beam through the dining room so it won't look so off - and because our dining room is still sagging (so it will serve a structural purpose as well).

while all of this has been going on i one day decided to take my frustration out on our hedges. they previously looked like this if you remember:

they were all thin and overgrown. so after lots of research, and asking sean a million times if i should do what the experts say, i did this

yep, i cut them down to 1'. they're so so sad now. in an attempt to make our porch not look so naked, i planted some flowering bushes in between where the hedges used to be, and some vines that will hopefully grow up our columns (and texas lavender and oregano). ps - like the column that is just a couple of 2x4s? that one kept falling down, and eventually just rolled itself down the hill and into the garbage. and after a couple of funny looks from the contractor, he decided to replace it temporarily himself. ha!