Its Patio Time!

When we were buying our house, the inspector found 3 issues that he thought should be addressed: the roof, the deck, and a few fogged windows. We tried to negotiate for all three to be repaired or addressed by the previous owner, but in the end, only the roof was repaired. 

After a local news story came out of a deck collapsing, we decided that replacing the deck should come sooner rather than later so no one gets hurt at future garden parties (can anyone say Pimms o'clock? large hats? lawn croquet?)

We got some quotes, but realized that we would have to save up through the the winter in order to get the deck we wanted, so we put it out of our mind for the time being. Alas, a Thanksgiving miracle arrived in the form of Doug from Square Root Construction. He called us and said he was looking for winter work and would give us a discount if we built it sooner. So we fiercely negotiated the price ("The cost will be XXX? OK, that sounds good.") and gave him the go ahead.

The old deck came down in less than one day. It's amazing how quickly you can destroy things but how long it takes to re-build them. Then we just had to wait for the materials to arrive and the deck would be done in 4 weeks, perfectly on time...right? Oh how naive we were. First, we were hit with a massive snowstorm the first week of construction that left the poor crew having to dig out of 20 inches of snow, than Doug's partner in crime moved onto another job, so Doug had to work alone, then we had the permits to wait for, the electrician to move the plug, and the list went on and on. Eventually, the end of January came and the deck was finally done.

Now that it is done, we absolutely love it! It isn't perfect, but its just right for us. We love sitting out there in the afternoon,  looking at the mountains, soaking up the sun with a frosty beverage or a glass of wine,  and talk about how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful place.

Here are some before shots. Sadly, I forgot to take any pictures during the process, so the only ones I have are from our original listing.

The old deck had an open section below it that wasnt really useful

This is the old gate and fence that attached to the deck

And here are a few after:

We still need to paint the closed-in area

The new fence and gate

We've moved.....again

So it seems very appropriate to be writing our first blog post ever with an update on us moving. It seems that moving is something Simon and I do... quite a lot. In fact, since we met, we have moved 9 times, and only 5 of those moves were done together, so we really we have moved 13 times in the last 9 years together. I was told the other day by someone that they were going to stop writing my addresses down as they had run out of room in their address book 4 moves ago.

However, this last move was a little different as we were moving into a place that we actually can call our own. That right people, Simon and I decided we need to drain our bank accounts, put on our DIY hats and climb onto the big, scary first rung of the housing ladder.

Below is the first photo of the Katie & Simon Dream Mansion:

OK, maybe mansion is too much, but Katie & Simon Bi-level just doesn't sound the same.


While it's a little hard to see all her beauty now, we have big plans for this ol' girl and are starting the transformation one project at a time. First project up? Get rid of giant purple wall....