Big Projects

I wasn't going to post about this until all the work was done and I'd have complete before and after pictures, but I decided to just go ahead and I can post more pictures later as more of the work gets finished.

So, when we bought this house last spring, we bought it knowing there were some big changes we'd be making. The shed was up near the house, on the patio, and the basement door had this weird little building built over it. There is a water well sticking up out of the patio (yes, a real water well, but it's not exciting, it's just a pipe sticking up out of the ground.) It's great for watering the lawn for free. The original owner had the shed put overtop the well to protect it from the elements and to hide it (It wasn't exactly legal when he had it put in).
The weird little building we were told was there to keep the back steps from being icy in the wintertime.

As you can imagine, we didn't like having the shed next to the house, blocking our kitchen windows I might add, and we didn't like the dumb building over the stairs. We need to be able to see our yard from the windows, to keep an eye on the kids while they play. I can't tell you how annoying it was all last summer to try to see the kids from the windows in the Kitchen.
We also wanted to put in a door where our big kitchen window is and add a deck.
We weren't able to get to these projects last year, but have been doing a lot of the work this summer.

This was in April 2010. Also notice the wooden fence off to the right. It was a terrible fence!


Other shots to show how obnoxious these buildings were in the middle of our patio. May 2010


In July this year, we were able to make a concrete pad in the corner of the yard, with the help of some family members. A week later, some men from church came over to help Brad move the shed. It was not an easy task, only 4 men showed up, but with a lot of effort, it was done! We are so greatful to those men taking time out of their Saturday to help us.

It already looked SOOOOO much better!

In August this year, with the help of more family members, Brad was able to get our deck put in! It was a lot of work too, many many hours were put into this, but it's worth it!

Notice our new chain link fence to the right? The rest of our yard was already chain link, so we got rid of the yucky old wood fence between the back and front yards and Brad put in this new fence by himself in July! Wonderful to be able to shut and latch the gate from the backyard as well as the front!

After being stained. I LOVE this color, it looks so much better in person too!

Here is a shot that shows the shed in it's new location, in the corner of the yard, where a shed belongs!

This project is not done yet! We need to build, install, and stain some railings to go along the side of the exposed stairwell for safety and to have it up to code.
We also need to take out the wall and put in our sliding glass door. I'm hopeful that can be done soon, before winter starts.

We haven't run our well all summer, we've been using culinary water attached to the house for watering the lawn, but we hope to get the well up and running again next year. Before it gets cold, we need to figure out something to put over it to protect it this winter.
Next year we're going to build some kind of permanent thing over top of it, I'm thinking I want to have it look like a real wishing well. It's hard to explain the idea in my head, but I think it will work. I'll for sure post pictures once we do something with it.

We're also going to be putting in a new basement door, one that has a window. The room just behind it is the laundry room, and it's really dark. We want a window to let in some natural light, so it's not so dark in there. That door needs to be weatherproofed really good too before it gets cold, it's not sealed right. We hope to do that door, and the sliding door before winter comes.

I'll update with more pictures once there is more done.
I'm so happy to have this much of the work done already. I've enjoyed watching the kids play while I cook dinner or wash the dishes. I can even let Josh out with the girls when the fence is shut and I'm watching. It's great!