Current Picture of House 2020

 

Painting/Sealing Side Steps to House

#FatherAndSon project today -- painting and sealing concrete side steps to the house. I had repaired the steps a couple of years ago and the guy who did our concrete driveway/patio kind of stucco'd the side to blend it in. Much less expensive than replacing. 

What it was like a couple of years ago...

Sam putting down painters tape

Sam touching up

Concrete Work 2020

 We've lived in our house over 20 years.  The concrete work is probably original to the house (1959) so it was time to replace it.  We chose to remove the deck and replace it with a concrete patio.  Here's some photos.

What we did:

• Full tear out of driveway and old patio that was beneath the deck (which we removed last year)
• new concrete driveway
• new concrete patio roughly 18'x28'.   We opted for a patio over a deck so that when we look out from our four-season porch, our view is not interrupted by enclosing railings.

The contractor did it in sections.  Some minor stats of our project:

• done it in 4 separate sections (tear-out, pour concrete) on separate days.  So we had the concrete mixing truck coming 4 times...fun for the neighbors
• took about 24 cubic yards of concrete
• approximate size of patio:  18x28
• we had the original driveway from 1959.  There was no rebar in it
• project duration:  about 2 weeks

The deck that used to be there...

(photo from 1998 when we bought our house)

Our Raised Bed Garden 2020

After years of talking about starting a raised bed garden we took the plunge in 2020.  Here are some photos of the progress...

Deck Tearout

 

Our deck was deteriorating, even though we tried to extend its life in 2008.  It was old when we bought the house in 1998, so  we decided to tear it out and replace it.  In 2020 we did replace it with a concrete patio.  Removing the deck opened up the view from our four season porch (not having the railing in the view).  We had our handyman Lincoln do the tear-out.  Underneath the deck was a concrete patio (a DIY quality project) that had a pattern of decomposed pressure treated lumber between segments of concrete.

Bench seats for the 4-season Porch

We decided that our 4-season porch needed some bench seats which would double as storage areas.

Before...

Planning...

Installation...

Result...

Another angle of the finished result...

Adding Built-in Bookshelves in the Living Room

We added some built-in bookshelves on both sides of the fireplace.  We had them make the top similar to the existing mantle.

In the morning...

A few hours later after installation...