Over the weekend, we got ready to knock out a bunch of progress on the deck expansion and start getting the patio ready. First up, we removed the first half of our current wonky brick walkway to make way for a new 5ft x 24ft deck expansion.
Then, before we could even start digging out holes for the new deck posts, we had an idea that ended up changing our entire plan: What if we built an outdoor fireplace? Not a fire pit, but an actual wood burning fireplace with a hearth and a chimney.
(Ignore the measurements)
How does that change our plan? Well, we don’t have enough space for the full deck expansion we had planned and the fireplace where we want it. The whole reason we were doing the deck expansion was so that we could eventually replace our dining room window with a sliding door that would lead out onto the deck. Moving the doors from the kitchen to the dining room would have given us enough space for 3 more sets of drawers and another 4.5ft of counter space in the kitchen. So we could either keep our original plan or we could add in the fireplace and scrap our plans to expand the kitchen and the deck.
In the end, we decided to scrap our original plans. We have plenty of storage in the kitchen and while we have slightly less counter space than I’d like to have, the island makes up for it. So instead of a full deck expansion, we are just adding on large box steps down into the new patio area and we’ll add another set down into the yard.
Now, I’m not thinking we’ll be able to build the fireplace in the time frame of the One Room Challenge. If we had this idea from the beginning and had started on time instead of two weeks late, I’d feel pretty confident, but we already have a huge list to get done and we’re battling the weather (remind me to never commit to an exterior project for the ORC again, mmmmkay?). Plus, we need HOA approval and I haven’t even submitted our request yet.
ANYWAY. We weren’t prepared for that change of plans and basically lost half of the weekend but we did get two of our new posts set before the rain hit (we’ll still need 4 posts for the steps we’re building).
We also ripped down a sheet of plywood to use for our concrete forms. We used 2x4s last time and that’s what I would rather use but we already had 2 sheets of plywood that were just sitting in our garage with no purpose so we’re using those up first. We ripped enough material to put together 7 forms (I think we need 14 for the pavers and we’ll need more for the concrete pads for the kitchen area and fireplace) and Kyle built 5 of the forms over the weekend.
We started playing around with the placement to make sure spacing will work.
On Monday, we got hit with crappy weather and it rained every day until Thursday.
We’re supposed to get more rain on Sunday so we’re hoping to get a little bit of work done after work today (Friday) and knock out the deck stairs with some assistance from Kyle’s dad tomorrow.
Here’s how it was looking near the end of the weekend (before we got our second post in):
Yikes. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than how it looked a couple of years ago…
In better news, we got our approval from our HOA to paint our brick. I’ve been having the hardest time finding the limewash I want to use in stock due to the shutdowns in Italy but I managed to find a local paint store that carries it and has two of the color options in stock. The store also happens to be on my way home from work (my company recalled everyone to the office this week) and is offering curbside pick up so I’m going to swing by on my way home to pick up some to test out. Eventually we’d like to add brick around the rest of our foundation and maybe above the garage door around front and paint the siding white as well but those things will be done down the road.
Here’s what I’m hoping we can get done this weekend (majorly dependent on weather):
- Test limewash
- Set final two posts for deck stairs (using fast setting concrete for this)
- Build deck stairs
- Build more concrete forms
- Remove second remaining brick walkway
- Remove gravel from patio to prep for pavers
- Cut and cap sprinklers (can only happen if we remove the gravel)
- Start setting/leveling concrete forms
Leave a Reply