Deck'n

Eric and Phil are at it again, this time rebuilding our back deck about 2' longer and 6' wider than the previous. Eric has been planning out the details all week. They started the morning with a trip to Home Depot for materials and had the old deck completely disassembled by lunchtime. Since then however, there have been more challenges, an old concrete sidewalk was uncovered where they wanted to place one of their posts. Luckily it's only 2-3" deep so it's breaking up pretty well. We're hoping to see Kwaku perform at the Corner Store in Capitol Hill tonight at 8pm but Eric says we have to get these footers poured tonight, no matter what time it is, so that they can start building the deck tomorrow, so I think Kwaku's concert is up in the air...

White roof

Long time no post! We're married now! Phil came down 2 weekends ago and he and Eric coated the roof with a white membrane that they describe as having the consistency of marshmallow fluff. The coating had 2 purposes, one to extend the life and water-resistance of the roof and 2) to reflect light and heat from the roof, thus reducing the cost of cooling the house. We weren't quite organized enough to take before & after temperature readings in the attic, but we did take before & after photos below. It's almost blinding it's so bright!

Next is a photo I took last weekend of Eric on the roof through one of the skylights. He's a little obsessive about keeping them clean and they provide an awesome amount of light to the house during the day, so it's important to keep them that way. We're both a little giddy about living in our first house ever with skylights! This photo also shows off our very cool tracking lighting above the stairs.

This weekend, we are rebuilding the back deck with Phil's help. It's going to be about 6' wider and 2' longer than the current one and made of gray composite decking. Just the 1st phase of the backyard beautification!

The finished (and now rented) basement!

Stairs & rails

Finished just after Christmas, these are the finished metal stairs and rails designed by Eric (notice the single stringer). They look amazing! Even this project was not without challenges, as the welder's first attempt to assemble them was not level or aligned so we made them cut it all apart and redo. I'm looking forward to planting up the yard in just a couple more months!

Fireworks

Welding produces awesome fireworks. Our stairs and rail installation started last week and is almost done, delayed slightly by some shoddy work they had to redo and then by the holiday schedule. Very exciting!

Still plenty of punchlist and perging/organizing to do but we're making progress and even hosting Blodnikar Christmas on Tuesday!

Long Time No Posts

We're pretty close to done but still have plenty of punchlist and boxes of stuff we don't have room for! We finished our dining room and den light installations, which were tedious but worth it. I even hosted a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom on 11/13. We also have a fabulous Christmas tree. Pictures to come.

Nice photos of upstairs before we moved in!