Back deck

We "cut twice and measured once" a few times, but managed to piece together a cover for the hole in the deck

Then the rest of the deck was powerwashed and you can't even tell where we made the changes! Ha! No one will notice the mismatched seams and different pattern by next year when the new wood has aged.

Now that its done, we can use this part of the deck again. Until the mosquitoes come along, then I'm going back into the screened section.

The back deck wreck

This tree and this deck are the reason we own this house. When Jeff saw it online, he begged me to go look at the house even though it was so far away from our city life. We bought the house and the 200 year old Copper Beech tree came with it.

We learned these trees are very susceptible to drought, one of which we had a few years ago and it stressed the tree. So, we took care of the tree and also removed some of the decking that was choking the tree.

Then we had a nice deck with a huge hole in it.

Once the tree rebounded, we started to think about the best way to replace the deck. You can see the way the boards are warped where the tree;s growth has pushed the planks.

We are going to carefully replace the boards in a way that will make it easier to adjust when the tree grows.

But we aren't going to fully rebuild the deck this year, I'm sure in a few years we will have to revisit this, as you can see the tree is totally touching and growing over parts of the deck beams.

Summer of the Exterior: New windows

We are making lots of changes to the exterior of the house this summer. The first big project is replacing the bay window in the family room with 2 double-hung windows.

The bay was a more recent addition to the house, and isn't a style consistent with the exterior. Plus, it is very drafty.

Here's the view from the exterior. Removing the bay will also gain a few inches of space on our side patio, off of the kitchen. The slider to the left is also coming out, details coming in a later post.

The goal is to add some energy efficiency and make the side patio usable as a place to sit and watch the neighbors walk by.