Other Minor Exterior Improvements

I wanted to make sure to document some exterior improvements made last summer--now that spring is upon us! And maybe include a few updated progress comparison shots!

I cleaned up the garden beds to the left of the front door, looking out:

This involved re-placing the brick edging (remember the 1890's leftover fireplace brick? yeah, that), replacing weed block and mulching. There are two hydrangea shrubs here, a new boxwood, a tall emerald Arbor Vitae, and some spray rose bushes. We also re-seeded the lawn because it didn't seed well the fall before when we removed the large boxwoods.

I re-located these yucca from under the Rose of Sharon to a new location near the entrance of the driveway. It is too crowded there and I think it will do better here!

There is an un-identified shrub that we have next to it to the right, that is doing really well. It is one that we got from Gabe's work for Arbor Day a year ago. It *might* be a dogwood.

See? It's doing so well! Except that I took this shot right before the deer got to it...grr

Took this shot mid June 2020

And another with a little cumquat:

In the background you can see a redbud tree doing well, and a pine tree in the farthest sight.

A few other beauties around the yard, blooming in June,

My peonies, in an unfinished garden bed in the front:

Beautiful climbing roses blooming next to the deck in the back:

I haven't quite had success getting them to climb, yet. As opposed to the climbing rose on the other side of the deck I've had since 2017 that has done quite well in the climbing/blooming department!

Here's a slightly different angle of the front garden bed shared earlier, with the hydrangeas about to bloom and the spray roses blooming:

Hydrangeas in the front left garden bed, going crazy awesome:

They started out like this in 2015!

Day-lilies, running out of room, growing up in-between our viburnum and evergreen:

Here is our garden and chicken coop/run combo:

A close up of the watermelons getting started in there:

Progress on how the front garden beds are doing, at the beginning of July:

Do you spy the elephant ears getting their start?

And now, the front facade, in the middle of September, elephant ears in all their glory (and swallowing up the juniper tree! Not to worry, it was looking pretty bad, having gotten a bad infestation of bag worms):

More up close shot:

We made a few other improvement too, to our back yard. We added a shade sail to our south facing deck which really helped make it more comfortable back there with a dark colored stain of the deck underfoot. Also, we added a stock tank pool, which is bigger than the other pools we came up with and is a little bit more in-destructible too.

We added some of the same white granite gravel around the pool to cut down on weeds and grass clippings that would make their way into my house ;)

This girl loves the stock tank!

Some technical difficulties are seen here--the pool got rusty looking because the chlorine was reacting with the metal. This year, we are going to spray 6-8 coats of rubber sealant instead of just one ;) 

Visuals of the set up at the end of the summer, on a foggy morning:

Last but not least, we have some pictures taken by my brother in law, who just got a drone/license and was having some fun taking some pics of our property when they visited in May:

And that's all for now, folks!

Deck build!

And so it begins!

We are building a back deck-so exciting!!  It is to be 12' X 20' when all is said and done.  240 square feet of outdoor space!  It's gonna be marvelous to keep the back door open and have Judah play on the deck, and I can work in the kitchen (window to the farthest right) looking out the window on occasion.

Early/mid April, Gabe (and my dad helped some) broke ground on the deck.  First, he dug four 30" deep holes to pour concrete footings for support posts.  Then, they worked on drilling into the brick siding to attach the ledger board with large bolts.

A visual of that day's progress:

A view from up the hill:

Gabe spent some time breaking brick away from the house too:

The next Monday, an inspector came to inspect the footings and that passed with flying colors.

Gabe (and dad) worked the following Saturday on setting the support posts and perimeter framing.

First, they needed to complete the ledger board to the right of the back door:

Continuing to work on perimeter structure:

Setting the structure posts:

Gabe created a landing pad for the lawn mower under the deck:

He used leftover pieces from the pallets making the shelves for the basement, with tar paper on the bottom.

Started work on setting joists:

Once the most of the joists were laid, Gabe installed the rail posts:

The stair stringers can be seen above.

Before the joists could be 100% installed, the existing porch pad had to be removed.  This was a concrete pad laid on top of brick, attached to the house by a concrete stoop.  

Here, he is scoring the concrete at the stoop to separate it from the house:

Progress breaking up the existing porch pad:

That took a lot of muscle to remove!

The rubble will be covered up!

Here is a shot of the joists in place over the existing stoop:

After the joists have been completed, here is a sweeping look at the view from the deck!!

Love it!!!!

Next, Gabe worked on digging post holes for the stairs going down to grade:

Then we got the framing inspected.  It passed!!  Yay!

Last weekend (Memorial day weekend), Gabe worked extra hard on the deck...he started with the stair framing:

A note about the stair location--instead of centering the stairs, we decided to line it up with the back door, so it's a little off center, but it makes sense.

More progress on stairs:

After this, Gabe and my dad start working on perimeter decking boards:

This part is complicated (and time consuming) because they needed to scribe around the posts.

Here he is starting on decking!!!

nice face Gabe.

A few treads on stairs:

A happy little boy with his coconut ice cream ("I-geem") on the new deck boards!!  :)

Mmmmmmmm!! perfect for warm dayzzz

Eerebody look to the left:

 Eerebody look to the right...

A couple of weeks later, Gabe started work on the handrails.  He smoothed them out real nice.

Here he is starting on the supports for the balusters:

with an onlooker

Aren't they cute?

Judah is getting better about not being afraid of the loud noise the saw makes!

must have just gone through the sprinkler too

A couple of days later with a bit more progress:

In July, almost a month later, one side is done!  

Looks so great:

Street view:

Lookin' sharp.

Detail shot, from on top of the deck:

Next, Gabe worked on the balusters down the steps and around to the other side.  These next photos was taken about a month later, in August:

And done!

More finished around the other side:

We got the final inspection in mid August--IT PASSED!!  Yay!  FOUR months later and we have a deck. :)

Next spring, we will stain the deck after the wood dries out completely (takes a couple months for this) and after we give it a good power wash!

We quickly proceeded to buy an outdoor table with benches so we could start entertaining out there:

I love it!!

I ordered it from a local company: Modern Rust.  Here is a link to the curved custom base detail they worked with me to get: http://modernrust.com/heatherTable.html.  It was Gabe and my birthday present to each other this year.

A detail shot of the deck stairs from the grassy ground level, taken in October:

I took a little time to landscape around the deck.  First, I dug out the grass, then laid down weed paper, lined the bed with our 1890's bricks from Bluemont, and finished it with a fresh coat of mulch from the nearby landfill (free!!).

I happen to love it.  Come spring, we will have some flowering viburnum flanking the steps!  I will plant more in these garden beds later.  For now, it is getting established with some evergreen shrubs as well.

That's a wrap on the deck project!  I intend to follow up with our next basement projects soon.

Cheers!