This Week's Work

It seems that there are never ending projects right now and that our big House Painting Project has spurred some side projects that we weren't really planning on tackling right now.

Case in point....the back deck.  Here's what this area looked like last year just after we moved in...

It was a 10 by 10 foot deck that had seen better days and not one that we used in any way shape or form except for the obvious...getting out of the house into the backyard.  We had long ripped out the bushes and replanted the hostas to other areas of the yard.  We knew that we had some issues with the skirting of the house behind the deck, so before we start painting the back of the house these had to be address.

I want to let it be known, that I wanted to run and hide my head in the sand on this one...I just wanted to get the painting done, but now that the deck is gone, I'm glad we did it.

It's in the awkward in-between stage where progress has been made but it just not that pretty...so be forewarned...

When we removed the deck, a large portion of the cement skirting had been damaged and it was in need of repair.  Unfortunately I didn't take pictures at that point, but you can see where McG made the repairs.

There are still some to complete, as we  also dug out the garden that was here and leveled the soil back down to ground level.  You can see the staining on the concrete where the dirt had been built up for the garden.

This weekend McG was a concrete GOD and was able to patch up the skirting with a few layers of concrete.

We decided that because we never sat here on the deck (it's way too HOT in this corner because of afternoon sun) that we would not rebuild the deck, but just move the concrete steps back up to the door.  This was a feat in itself and took McG, our son, and McG's cousin the better part of a day to do.  And of course, it was almost 100 degrees with high humidity two weekends ago when they decided to tackle this.

This past weekend on top of finishing up the concrete skirting we also started to extend the walkway
to meet up with the old sidewalk.  Ideally I would have liked it to be all done in pavers, to match the existing sidewalk, but time and money dictated otherwise.

We had hoped that painting could resume tonight but it's been raining here again.  We are hoping to have this project completed by next weekend.  I will be sure and keep you posted...and to let you know when we can officially cross this house painting project off our list of things to-do!!