Another back-dated post to cover a large project we did in the fall. In September we started the new back deck project. This involved removing the old deck, digging post holes for concrete supports, clearing out all the old gardens and somewhat leveling the back yard by the house.

The project continued with a beautiful retaining wall and stone stairs down to my garden which I’ll include. The deck isn’t 100% done – we plan to do more planters (on each corner) and stairs as well as one section should get a roof. We LOVE having this deck that spans the house and we can officially use all the sliding doors now!

Our new doors came in (sliding doors) in January and Ryan decided it would be a good weekend to install them… on January 30. It was COLD and we only got one done that weekend but the new doors look great.

That’s a long post but it covers a very long project and our main focus over the fall/winter/spring. Hopefully I’ll get a garden update going soon as 2022 Garden is in full swing!

The dock was the main focus of our April 2021 Vacation week off so it’s been done for a while but I never finished updating so this post is backdated.

The finished pictures are actually from much later but that’s just because I didn’t get pictures of it finished as we started using it immediately 🙂

The dock is perfect. The kids even love to swim off of it – even though it’s very shallow!

We made some general progress on things like painting the kitchen and installing trim in the hallway so I’ll post some updated pics of that work.

We got the second coat on the center of the ceiling trim strictly so we could install the chandelier finally!

In August Ryan started working on installing trim in our hallway. This is ongoing as well (he actually just added some more this past weekend)

This past weekend Ryan got the tops to all the doors installed

The stairway is also getting trim but currently doesn’t have anything to show. Looking forward to having a finished hallway – we’ll probably push to get it done before Xmas if I had to guess (the diningroom painting too).

New projects this spring include building a new dock on the lake – just as the water started rising and then over April staycation – getting the kitchen trim painted that was installed last year (yes a year ago!).

First the dock. The permit came in just before the water level started to rise. Ryan and his dad rented a post hole digger and the first Saturday got the posts installed (it then rained all day on Sunday). The next Saturday they got the rest of the main framing/joists done on the dock.

Trex decking came in the next week in time for our staycation. Ryan spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday installing the decking on the ramp part of the dock. It then rained for a few days but he was back to it on Sunday. He probably has a full day or two left to finish off the decking at this point.

The old dock will come down in the fall and we’ll close out the permit. We are looking forward to a nice dock that should last!

While the dock was in progress I focussed on the kitchen trim project. First I had to sand and prep all the trim in both the kitchen and diningroom. Next caulk in the kitchen and priming. I focussed my attention mostly on the 2 sections that needed the grey cabinet paint because it’s oil based and I wanted to do it while the kids were in school. Any other time I had I got some of the trim (especially around the cabinets) painted and some of the wall in the kitchen.

The diningroom trim is all primed but not yet caulked or painted. It’s quite a large undertaking and hopefully in the coming weekends I’ll have time to make some progress there.

That’s it – all caught up on house progress. I’ll add a post on the garden soon as that project kicked off in March with seeds starting and I now have plants in the greenhouse.

Another update – more family related. I’ll just caption some photos.

Sorry – in progress .. more photos coming soon

That was 2020! I’ll do a spring update in a bit – that was a lot of photos but a full year in review.

2020 was quite a year but staying home and having no activities meant we had lots of time to focus on the garden. The garden it turned out after building it was really easy as gardens are the first year. Not a lot of weeding because the beds were new (I am in for a change this year I can already tell).

Some pictures from the garden at the end of the summer.

A very successful first year gardening and now planning and starting up the garden this year already. I’ll do a separate update for that!

In September the girls went back to school with extra Covid precautions. Work was busy for both Ryan and I and we were both working from home plus picking up the girls at 2pm so they didn’t have any bus exposure or extra daycare. This meant we were exhausted mostly.

Ryan managed a few interesting projects however throughout the fall and winter. First he installed this little cabinet over the fridge as part of the trim finishing. It has a little flip so we can put items on the fridge for storage but it folds back down.

Ryan worked on getting the hallway spackle and trim done this winter. He installed a new front door (once it finally arrived) and we have a lot more light in the hallway now.

The surprise winter project was the basement gym Ryan decided to build out. He really wanted a treadmill to run more so he sheetrocked most of the basement then finished off the one smaller room with trim, electrical, a door etc. The room isn’t totally finished but it works for the treadmill for now.

Ryan also built a sliding barn style door which looks great.

The room isn’t finished – we will leave the ceiling open but we do want to finish the floor and organize it a bit. For now it’s useable at least.

That was winter! Now spring has hit and we have new projects underway from our annual April Staycation which I’ll update about after I do my final garden update from last year.

The veggie garden has exceeded my expectations this year. The girls love it, I love it and it takes almost no work after the initial build which was a lot of work mostly on Ryan 🙂

I’ll let the pictures tell some stories…

The peas never make it inside – the girls just eat whatever is ripe each day — it’s one of their favorite parts about visiting the garden.

It’s been a wonderful summer in the garden. As planned we’ve learned a lot and experimented quite a bit as well. We have lots of ideas for next summer and we’re enjoying the early harvests.

Next up I have to figure out how to make fresh tomato sauce and use these awesome tomatoes!

It’s been almost a month and we’ve been busy with trim in the diningroom and kitchen and Garden projects (I’ll post a different update there).

At the end of June I got the kitchen island painted with the paint we had bought when we got the cabinets — so it matches very nicely.

Next up Ryan spent a few weekends working on the diningroom and finished up the trim. The one last thing in there is to make the box for the chandelier but otherwise the trim is done.

The diningroom will look amazing once that trim is all painted!

Speaking of painting. The last 2 weekends I’ve spent working on 1/2 of the kitchen – sanding, caulking, priming then painting this last weekend. It’s almost done (1 more coat on the walls) and Ryan has to build out the pantry shelves next.

So excited… the walls go quick so one night after bedtime I can finish up that second coat. I have to touch up the ceiling paint too so add that to the list. Hopefully next weekend the pantry build out starts!