Monday, September 19, 2011

All Decked Out!


Over the summer we conquered a few home renovations. One of them was updating the deck and creating more privacy in our backyard.

Our house is sandwiched between a tall apartment building and an old, unpleasant-looking house. We never spent much time in our backyard because we felt watched by people in the apartment building, it was awkward because the apartment door is literally 5 feet away from our deck, and the next door neighbors backyard is in slight disrepair... (i.e. weeds, rotten patio furniture, garbage bags, etc.).

Well, you can't move the apartment building or force your neighbors to take care of their yard - so what did we do?.... we BLOCKED them out! We removed all the railings on the deck, and a set of steps on the side of the deck. We built two tall privacy walls on each side and updated the hand railings. Finally, we replaced some rotten boards on the deck floor and gave it a fresh coat of paint.





Special thanks to my wonderful father for building all the railings and privacy fences, making this pretty simple renovation (for me). :)

Wait a second, I almost forgot... While updating the deck, we thought it was a great opportunity to replace a few rotten boards on the front porch and give it a new coat of paint. Just painting the front porch really cleaned up the house and made it look young again. To help with the curb appeal, we removed some dead branches from the neighbors tree that were creeping onto our yard, and power washed the front walkway. This is our beautiful dollhouse we call HOME!


As usual, there is always more you can do to make it perfect. Here is my updated Exterior To Do List:

1. Paint the front door... not sure what color yet but I am thinking a red/burgundy to match the accents on the house.
2. Plant some more flowers in the front yard.... this year I was a terrible gardner... as you can see.
3. Plant a clematis near the new privacy walls. This way in a few years the walls will be covered with beautiful flowers.
4. Buy a moveable fire pit for the backyard. Just because I love fire pits :)
5. Install a clear mesh on the garage for my baby clematis to continue to grow.
6. Buy an outdoor storage bench for all my gardening tools and patio furniture.
7. Install a concrete pad next to the garage for additional parking.
8. Paint the fence white.
9. Replace the side gate.

You're probably saying to yourself, "Wow you must be crazy - that's a lot of stuff to do!". Well, you're probably right - but with some blood, sweat, and LOVE it will get done!

~meg xoxo

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