Some previous projects

I have thought about starting a blog for a while, mostly just as a way to track our progress and projects on the house. So I've tried to do a good job of catching before, during, and after photos. Here are a few of the projects that we worked on shortly after moving in.


The Deck

One of the first things that we knew we wanted to change right away was our back deck. In the first picture you can see the original size, the remnants of the brick steps to the laundry room door, and the hideous red color of the deck. We called Richard's cousin who does all kinds of building projects, and he and his business partner were able to demolish the old deck and build the new one in about three days. 

And here you can see the new deck! It's a lot bigger than the previous one and eliminated the need for the brick steps that we didn't like anyway. We also opted to have wide, surrounding steps instead of railing all the way around. We did want to keep some railing though -- in the places where the deck was high enough and also to create a little nook for the grill. 

Isn't he just the cutest? There's the finished deck! Cute little planters, herbs, and all. 

Richard's mom had some deck furniture that she was going to replace, so she gave us her old set, and we love it! Here is (an iPhone) shot of the finished deck with the grill, some furniture, and our favorite summer buddies -- the kayaks. 

The Stairs

The entire upstairs of the house and the den downstairs have some old, beige carpet that we would love to replace when the time and finances are right. In the meantime, the carpet is just fine -- not stained or terribly horrible --  it's just not really our style. 

When we moved in, the same carpet ran down the "middle" of the stairs. The stairs have a partial hand rail, so the carpet could have easily looked crooked, but when we looked closely, we could see that it was actually crooked. 

I would love to be bold enough (and have a husband on-board enough) to do something like this. But that doesn't really fit the more subdued feel of our house, so we more in this direction. I had even already purchased the textured wallpaper that I wanted. 

Richard and I thought that it would be a pretty easy task -- rip the carpet up, remove staples, sand, stain, wallpaper, DONE!

Well, the one step that took far longer and far more sweat than we anticipated was the removing of the staples and nails. I don't know much (read: anything) about carpeting stairs, but it seemed like WAY more staples, nails, and tacks than necessary. 

So after days (or maybe a couple weeks) longer than we anticipated, we finally finished pulling muscles all of the staples out and got the stairs sanded. Richard prepped, stained, and sealed the stair tops, but left the risers since we new those would be wallpapered. 

Then I measured, cut, remeasured, and recut the wallpaper and applied it. That part was actually pretty easy since the wallpaper just involved soaking in water before application with no additional glue or adhesive. 

The Craft Room Shelves

Lastly, Perf built some custom shelves for me! One night, we sat up in the craft room, and while I painted, he measured and designed some shelves. That weekend, he bought the wood, built the shelves, painted them and installed them. What a man!

Look at that organization! And the utter mess that it was a couple weeks after moving in. He really is the best! :)