Deck!

Before we left for our latest East Coast adventure, we hired Pablo and his "guys" to build us a deck in the backyard. When we bought the house in 2005, the "deck" consisted of rotted boards resting upon other rotting boards, as well as some concrete bricks and a large railroad tie.

Lovely "deck" of 2005

It took us a few years, but we were finally able to tear it down in 2007:


Only to have the junk pile sit there for another year. In 2008 we cleared the pile away, but lived with a mud/weed pit for another year.

Mud/weed pit

Summer of 2010 has brought good things - finally we've got our new deck!

Mike and I sealed the deck ourselves

While they were at it, we also had Pablo build an overhang over the back door. Again, when we bought the place there were some pretty horrific aluminum awnings over the back, which were unsightly but very helpful in protecting our stuff from the PNW weather. Adding back a nice wood overhang will at least give us a little space to bbq in the winter, or to sit and enjoy the shade. We still need to put the tongue & groove ceiling in and clad/paint the columns, but at least it's functional! We recently purchased a new patio set, and I've been busy staining some Adirondack rockers... a future blog post.