The Home Improvement Edition

Keith has been very busy of late. I'm pretty excited--our first real home improvement project! Ever since moving in last summer, we've discussed many, many ideas. But there was always those pesky issues of "money" and "time" that seemed to get in the way.

But, with our 2nd summer in the house waning, we threw caution to the wind and decided that we'd just go ahead and build the deck, and figure out how to pay for it later. So far it's only taken him two weeks, with being gone last weekend even, and it's just about finished. My Dad helped out tremendously with the purchases and framing, otherwise we'd still be standing at Home Depot, scratching our heads and trying to figure out how to get everything transported home.

Since taking these pictures, we've filled in the frame with gravel to suppress the weeds, covered the top with boards and screwed them all in. All that's left to do is cut the top boards to the octagon shape. Then we'll leave them for a few weeks to dry out/settle, and then stain them.

Last night we even ate dinner on the deck for the first time. It was fabulous! Keith also saw Beckett reclining on the deck later that evening, so I guess he's given his seal of approval, too.

The hyper-organized, task-oriented part of myself can't resist asking, now that the deck's nearly done, what the next project will be. But I'm trying to ignore that voice, and spend some time just appreciating our fabulous new deck.