The Great Outdoors

Now, as similar as possible to the indoors (my favorite place to be)!

Okay, let me back up a bit. Steve and I have been working steadily on our little fixer-upper for almost three years now. Dealing with the ugly pergola in the backyard was pretty darn low on the priority list. It's a mark of amazing progress on the house as a whole that this project finally rose to the top.

It's taken several months, the assistance of my dad and brother, and an immense amount of sweat, but our backyard has been transformed.

The abomination of a pergola in its original state (note the lovely color I'm calling "canary puke"):

Rotting, strange cross-beams:

Genius construction choice putting a large board in front of the laundry room window:

Demolition ahoy! Steve worked so fast, I didn't get any in-progress shots. In the picture below, he has removed the weird cross-beams, the board in front of the window, knocked out the overbearing end piece, patched some rot with wood filler, and sanded the heck out of the whole thing.

He looks (rightly) quite pleased with himself:

Steve then painted the whole thing a much softer and prettier shade of yellow (which will eventually be our new exterior house color as well).

My dad, Steve and my brother hang lights (after doing some wiring to replace the porch lamp with an all-weather box and plug for said lights):

While we're having so much fun, why not fix some rotten siding? My dad guides Steve:

Oh, the lumber surrounding the window is rotten too? No problem. Steve fits the new sill:

Finishing touches, inside...

and out.

While Steve looks on, my dad prepares a new footing for the rotted pergola support post that had to be replaced:

And now for the grand reveal promised in the very beginning on this post, so very long ago. Do you remember? Back when we were all young?

Wait, just so you can fully appreciate the momentousness of this development, I take you back to the summer of 2012, when we first bought the house. This is what the pergola (and surrounding area) looked like when we took possession:

And, now...

Ta da!

I am so proud of Steve for all of his hard work (yeah, I help but I'm definitely the assistant to the master builder). We sat out in the space this evening and just marveled at how far we've come.

But, as the plywood behind the sliding glass door in that last picture indicates, there's always another project in the works. Stay tuned...