How We Spent Our Anniversary
Carrie Finds Her Calling
Get The Gunk Gone
The Stupid Things Previous Homeowners Did
The Day My Blog Turned From Beads To Home Improvement Central
Thank you for the lovely "Happy Anniversary" messages yesterday. I know most couples enjoy a night on the town to celebrate their marriage. Dinner and dancing... greeting cards and flowers... maybe a something special and sparkling. Ron and I have been known to do such things on this annual occasion. But not this year. This is officially The Year Of The Exterior round these parts.
When I say that I was super excited when Ron said we should pressure wash the deck yesterday, I say it without a drop of sarcasm. We are project people and we love working on the house! (granted, we don't always agree how a job should be done, and we often fight like cats and dogs about it... but we love each other none the less... and this wasn't a brawling type of project) This year, we have a laundry list of projects for the house. When I think about it all, I start to get anxious and antsy. I want to get started... NOW!
Here is the list as it currently stands...
*
* Replace metal front porch railings with pillars
* Scrap/repair/prime windows
* Rebuild the breezeway with new windows/doors/floors
* New roof for the shed and fresh coat of paint on it
* Paint/Side the house ( THE BIG ONE!)
* Possibly have the garage torn down and replaced with a 2-car garage (this one is a dreamer)
Why do we have such a long list of to-dos? The previous owners where nincompoops. This house has had 3-4 owners in the last 12 years. In 2000, the owner at the time had a ginormous 800sq ft addition put on the house that we estimate cost at the very least about $80,000. You would think, WOW! That's awesome!. But they completely neglected other, important, things that should have been taken care of first, or at the time. Like the breezeway that is crooked and has 50 year old privacy windows that the glass panes fall out of. Or the 70 year old one car garage that isn't much bigger than a shed. Or the rickety front porch railings. Or... or... or... I could go on and on.
But, I digress. Yesterday was about the deck.
Let me tell you, Carrie was in OCD hog-heaven as soon as she saw the first line of grim blasted off the floor boards of the deck. You see, when the deck was built in 2000, it was never sealed (plus they put the floor boards so close together the water pools, grrrr). And it sets under a mighty maple tree. It has built up 11 years of sludge and slime and gunk. It was getting down right slippery to walk on after the rain. Naturally, Carrie would get excited at the sight of beautifully bare wood boards brought back to life. Oh me, oh my... row after row... line after line... cleaned in a wonderfully meticulous way... the water blasted and busted away the gunk. *sigh* The things that make me giddy! Ron and I only bickered a little bit... over whose turn it was to blast a few boards.
All in all, we ended up washing for about four hours. Though, it took from about 9am to 8pm. Sprinkled among the spraying was Andrew' meeting (it went really well!), a trip to Lowes to fix the master bath plumbing problem, a trip to Home Depot (for sealer! where a 19year old literature major tried to tell me opaque means semi-transparent when he mixed the sealer wrong... yeah, I pulled out my smart phone and showed him the definition is "not transparent or translucent." grrrr.), a lacrosse game, lunch and dinner. That's how our DIY projects roll. I still have a bit more of the railing to blast this morning, then once the sun is on the deck, and the wood is dry, I'll be painting on the sealer. (And painting on a thick layer on sun screen on me too.)
So yes, with this many projects in the works, I give you fair warning. This may turn into a home improvement blog from time to time. I'll do my best to treat you with beady goodness interspersed. Are you with me?
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9 comments:
I love our pressure washer too! Unfortunately right now it's kinda busted but Kev's promised me he's going to fix it or buy me a new one :D It IS pretty funny what we'll get excited about!
Love the deck.
I think our to-do list may be just as long if not longer!!
Right there with ya! Our home was built in 1917, need I say more? It's one never ending project. We do still have the horsehair plaster walls though, I've kinda romanticized them, history and all.
It is really amazing to see the difference pressure washing can make. Lookin' good!
There are few things as satisfying as pressure washing something that's crusted over with slime. Congrats on your new deck!
Truly amazing what a power washer does! And amazing what we grime we live with without noticing (I am talking about more than deck slime, at least in my own home!). We did that to the deck at our last house to prepare it for selling... it looked brand new! (Because we were nincompoops and never sealed it!) We plan to do that this summer sometime to the fence that runs around our entire backyard...!!! And if I forgot to tell you... Happy Anniversary! 13 years looks good on you two!
Enjoy the day!
Erin
Kerry, what an amazing before and after shot of the deck! Glad to hear your Anniversary was spent doing something Carrie loves with someone you both love (Ron). :-)
My blog isn't about the beads hardly anymore either. But when YOU show beads and jewelry, you really go to town! :-)
Oh yeah, I'm with 'ya! We have so many things that need to be done around our house, and its only 15 years old. They just don't do things like they used to. Everything, and I mean everything is falling apart all at once and needs to be replaced. I can see a home improvement loan in our near future.
I think a lot of wire workers have a dose of OCD in them. The project must be completed and completed now. It doesn't matter if I'm half asleep or dinner is calling.
I so envy your deck. The wood grain is beautiful. How exciting! Is it sad that I think this is exciting? There is a pressure washer in my near future and I too will blog about it on my jewelry blog. After all sometimes the deck is the studio.
You did well on putting this together. I did not expect this to find this today. This is a great story.
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