Deck Work

Hey guys! Here’s what I was working on while Seth worked on the fence:   Okay, so I actually worked on the deck over weekends throughout November and between work trips while Seth galivanted around the country hunting or sat on the couch watching football but, let’s be honest, I wouldn’t have let him help anyway. 😉
  Our deck looked so sad that I decided to make it prettier and help it blend in with our house better. It’s so tall that it looks sort of tacked on and not attractive at all. I couldn’t fix the thin, spindly legs, but that will be a project for another day.   We let it weather naturally for the last two summers, which basically means that it was super dry and soaked up – gulped – twice as much stain as the good folks at Sherwin Williams said I would need. 
  The floorboards and stair treads turned out darker than I hoped for, but I love them.   The floor and treads only have one coat of stain so I need to get another one on at some point once it warms up. 
  

   I also need to decide what to do underneath the deck. The lighter trim color would look nice, but cobwebs and bird nests would be super obvious so I’m still trying to decide what to do with that.   Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out. Now I can’t wait until summer so that we can enjoy it!

Fence Progress and New Shoes!

Seth made more progress on the fence before work yesterday. 
 If you look closely, you can see Ruger stalking the neighbor’s chickens. He started digging under the fence to get at them when our nanny let him out yesterday, so I’m taking bets on how long it will take him to reach them. (p.s. the patio chairs are sitting on the rocks because I had my own project to work on that I’ll tell you about later!) What he would do if he actually got under the fence is yet to be seen.  He just wanted to “guard” the duck that Seth brought home from hunting last month.  Seth also started on the fence between our house and the neighbor. We’re hoping to have it done before Christmas, but have a temporary wire fence for now since Seth is working on the panels a little bit at a time in the mornings before work.

After the fence is finished, we can finish landscaping the rest of the backyard and build a shed to store things like the lawnmower and four-wheeler. Right now, the four-wheeler is under the deck and the lawnmower is making parking in the garage a tight squeeze.
   Instead of saving my money for a shed, I ordered these cute little booties on Black Friday from DSW. I combined a $20 coupon and a $10 reward with an extra 30% off and used a $100 rebate card from buying tires in September, making them a deal that could not be passed up. Bonus: I still have money left over!

No running today – I slept in – but tomorrow is long run day!