Backyard Remodel - New Doors & A Little Polish

Hope everyone is enjoying their Labor Day Weekend! With the end of summer comes a really busy fall for us so we wanted to take advantage of the clear weather to get a few more things finished for the deck.

The one thing that has been bugging us the most is the old back door. Besides looking grungy on the inside out out, whenever you opened it, the inside door blocked one of the entrances to the sun room and always causes issues when we have people over. (We had to use an old camera while our new one is in the mail, so please ignore the time/date stamps on the pictures below)

Gross and inconvenient

 Our old storm door was dark and it looked a little like a prison door, so we removed that too.

Storm door down

Once we got the storm door down, we started removing the trim...like everything else, the previous builders didn't lay it in correctly so it was a bit of a bear to remove. There were 10x more nails used than needed.

One of the most difficult pieces to remove

Taking down the rest of the frame

The old piece of wood they used had rotted because they didn't use the right kind and they didn't have flashing in to protect it.

Added some flashing for more protection

First we dry fit the door to see how it would fit in and then added a new piece of treated wood to the base so it had a level footing piece to attach the door to. After a lot of work we were able to get the door to fit snugly so we could tack it in.

View from the outside

A view from the inside

Once the door was securely screwed in, we got out the insulation foam and sprayed around the outside to seal it off. I think Brian had a little too much fun with this stuff.

Adding spray foam

Then we used caulk to seal the rest of the edges. We let everything dry overnight and then we added on our new storm door. Compared to the main door, his was a piece of cake! Take a look:

New storm door

We're really happy with the new doors and they are sealed so well that they are a lot more energy efficient and functional now that we have two left-opening doors so they don't intrude with the flow. Plus Tequila can keep watch over his yard without having to leave the house - he loves it!

With the new white doors in the dinginess of our back siding really stuck out s we decided to break out the power washer for some much needed cleaning.

Before - huge stains where the old deck used to be

Before - really dingy

Doesn't that new door look good? :) You can see the mess inside now :)

Already seeing a little bit of difference

After...a lot whiter, and cleaner!

Brian's really good at this 

The side of the house was pretty stained, so we have some more to do but the bleach we used made it a lot better.

Getting better

 And the best part...we got to move the grill up on the deck just in time for football season to start!

Go Chiefs!

On our way to the lake to relax with friends and family. Hope you have a safe and fun Labor Day Weekend!

XOXO,

Sara, Brian & Tequila

Backyard Remodel - Adding Some DIY Tables and Flowers

It's been awhile since our last post, but we've been pretty busy in the back yard. Our deck is quickly becoming one of our favorite parts of the house especially with our new outdoor couches and the beautiful weather we've been having. Work has been a little hectic, so it's been nice to come home to a comfortable space. The one thing we were missing was a table of some sort that we could set things on.

When we were making the cuts for the sofa and love seat, we decided to go ahead and make the cuts for a simple coffee table (Ana's plan's here). We didn't need anything too big or heavy, just something we could set candles or cocktails on.

Easy cuts for a coffee table

 While Brian was sanding down the sofa, I decided to tackle the coffee table. Once we used our Kreg Jig to drill our holes, I just had to line up the frame and zip everything together.

Frame for the coffee table

I made sure that it was square and level before attaching the top. In Ana's plans, she says that you can screw the top slats on. That seemed a little excessive (and I was already a little exhausted) so we took the nail gun and tacked everything in place. You need to make sure that there is a little spacing between the slats for drainage, but we just eyeballed it.

Simple and easy

Not bad, if I do say so myself! Since we had the wood already cut, I would say it took about 10-15 minutes to Kreg Jig the holes and about 10 to assemble - so much easier than trying to assemble something from NFM.

We sanded the coffee table and let it sit while we painted the sofa and love seat. We knew we wanted to paint the majority of it white, but I wanted to do something a little different with the top. I had no idea what we wanted to do yet, so we went ahead and primed and painted the entire table.

A lot easier to paint than the couches!

We tried a few things with the top of the table but unfortunately it didn't work out, but it gave us some ideas for future projects. We added nicer top boards on the table, painted again and Brian made a quick side table to match.

View of the coffee table

Our little side table

It hasn't been all work and no play, we did have a date night with Justin Timberlake...it was definitely a fun show! And we were lucky enough to get a chance to spend last Sunday on our friend Jess' new boat!

Date night

We have been working on finishing up some minor things on the deck: we added a step, cut down the railing posts and bought some flowers to add a little color. Here are a few pics of our progress:

Built out the box and set in place before we tacked it in

When we removed the old deck, we dropped down the height quite a bit and it was most noticeable near the back door. The old deck had been there for so long that they cut the siding around it, so we had to come up with a solution tho clean it up without getting all new siding. We decided to lengthen the stair all the way out and attach some of the composite to the house to cover where the deck used to be attached.

Attaching the composite to the house

Then it was time to bracket down the box so it wouldn't slip and slide. We used a lot of scrap wood to build out the box so it wasn't too pretty, but it was sturdy. We decided to use three boards to give us enough width that even the clumsiest ones of our families would be able to use effortlessly (ok - me and my mom).

Box bracketed down

Then we screwed down the rest of the deck boards. We need to get a couple more pieces of composite to finish up the step and the gate for below the deck, but we are getting closer! (And please don't look too closely to the siding, years of having an old deck wear against it made it super dingy. We will be power washing everything soon!)

Step is almost done, but useable

Then it was time to add some bushes and flowers. Both of us are far from green thumbs, so we headed over to Suburban to search for what we were looking for and to see how we could avoid killing them off in the first week. We found azaleas that should grow out and up, plus they bloom throughout the spring and summer so they look great and they will fill in the area nicely.

Our first little azalea

Our other azalea, love the color

It will be fun watching them grow over the years...and good news, it's been almost a week and they are still there! We also had this gray urn that is super light that I picked up at a new home sale several years back. We decided to spray paint it and then we found the perfect flowers to fill it.

It's a hanging plant, so all we did was set it in - super easy!

We've got a few more additions and a lot of cleaning up to do, but here is a quick peek of what everything looks like right now:

A view of everything put together

I love how everything is coming together...and we made the furniture ourselves :)

The boys seem pretty pleased

My handsome and hardworking boys

We have more work to do but we are happy with the results so far. We'll keep you updated as soon as we get more completed. Hope you all are surviving this heat wave!

XOXO,

Sara, Brian & Tequila