Our New Deck!!!

When we bought our house in 2007 we realized that the deck needed to be replaced.  After all, you couldn't get to the fenced in yard from the upstairs unless you went out the front of the house and around.  Thanks to generous gifts from our wedding we were able to afford to get it replaced this year and thank goodness we did!  As the contractor was tearing it down he found numerous problems with it.  For example, the flashing against the house was screwed into existing flashing, some boards were not screwed in properly (too short or missed the board completely), and the footings were held in by barely a foot of cement so he could basically just kick them down.  Yikes!  To think of all the people that were on there and it could have easily collapsed..scares the bejeebies out of me!

And of course, since none of our projects go as planned, this one didn't want to feel left out and took about 3 weeks to get done instead of a week and a half to two weeks.  ::sigh::

In any event, I'm glad it is done!  And done early enough that we can enjoy it the rest of the summer!

Before pics:

During the teardown:
See how the footing on the left is out?  The contractor just kicked it and it fell...not good!

 

New flashing done right!

Starting to look like a deck...eek!

Deck boards are down!

Yay the landing for the steps that will go into the fenced in yard!

Railing is going up!

The new landing coming out of the garage.

 Steps to go into the yard are in!!  Sadie was scared to use them at first but now she's got the hang of it!

And the almost final pictures (he still has to put in a bench next to the grill)

I'm so excited that it's (almost) done!  I can't wait to enjoy it!

Downstairs Remodel

While I have been slacking in my blog posting, we have been super busy with some remodeling projects and of course yardwork since it's finally nice out. 

First up is our downstairs living room/computer room/exercise room.  The room was nice carpeted but it was hard to exercise in, hard to roll a computer chair around, and became easily dirty as it was the only way in and out of the fenced in yard (unless you go ALL the way around the house).  So we decided to put some laminate wood flooring in.

So over Memorial Day weekend, my parents, brother, Keith, and sister came over to help us.  I didn't get any pictures of the process since I was busy working on an outdoor project (more to come on that later). 

Here is the before:

And after (please excuse the messiness):

Ahhh...so much nicer!  We've worked out on it a couple of times and it's amazing how much higher we can jump and how different the exercises feel!  Now the only thing is the fireplace!  That thing needs some work!

Thanks Dad and Keith for all your help in getting it done!