It’s been 20 years since we bought our home and did a thorough round of remodeling and renovation projects. That means… it’s time to do them again!
At home in Vermont for the summer, we wanted to tackle a few of these projects. Last year was the roof. First up this year was the deck, which had become, shall we say, unreliable to walk on. Feet and furniture could easily sink or fall through certain boards that had seen tons of melting snow over the past 20 years and gradually turned to soft moosh.
In this interesting post-covid economy, fewer tradespeople are available. We were fortunate to meet Kerney who agreed to rebuild our deck, although he wasn’t 100% certain he’d be able to finish it due to prior commitments and uncertain weather. Well, how ’bout if we help? We’re both somewhat handy and have learned our way around carpentry tools. With some advice, consultation and chuckles from Kerney – and a favorable stretch of weather – we helped finish a 3-week project in 6 days.
We had planned to apply preservative to the new deck along with the original screen porch ourselves. Even if we could’ve found an available painter, we’re ok with painting ourselves (as long as it’s not too often…). Add some new, beefier screen to the screen porch and we’re back in the business of sitting on the deck.
The screen porch also needed new, sturdier trim to hold the new, stronger screen in place. It just happened that friends were renovating (OK, demolishing) rooms in their new home that included cedar boards. In the interest of recycling, Doug ripped new screen porch trim pieces from our friends’ old boards. Fun to make that connection!
We did find a painter who could repaint our entire house and garage, but not until 2023. Oh, well. Sign us up! However, while inspecting the garage we found water damage to the lower siding on the north side and up on a west-facing side wall – places where the snow accumulates and spends 4 months each year being absorbed into the siding. Hmm… that siding would need to be replaced before it can be painted.
Having observed the amazing skills we exhibited on the deck project, Kerney was kind enough to advise us on how we could replace the siding ourselves. With a plan in place and our confidence boosted, we got started on our second major project of the summer. Although the deck has all square angles, the garage is an accumulation of compound angles which took a bit more time. That and the near-daily rain helped turn our 6-day project into a 3-week one. Fortunately, the north side of the garage, tucked into the trees away from the house where no one will ever see it (except the painters next year), is done.
Our landscaping ‘style’ leans heavily towards the natural – whatever grows is good! (Or else mowed.) A friend provided us with some hostas a few years ago and for perhaps the first time in our lives, we had a ‘garden!’ For a few weeks every year it was just beautiful… then the deer would find the hostas and devour them.
For the past 2 years, we’ve tried all kinds of natural repellants to keep the deer away. The deer would always win. We decided it was time to go back to our old style. After some research and soul searching, we decided on a native, go-with-the-flow garden. Although it won’t look as awesome as the hostas, we’ll enjoy ostrich ferns and wild garlic around our birch trees and the deer will have to look elsewhere. Take that Bambi!
The final project was to relocate the hostas far from the house, where the deer can feast in the summers and leave the front garden alone.
Then, once the house is painted next summer, we’ll be caught up with deferred maintenance projects! (Yeah, right…)
For anyone who’s interested, more deck renovation, garage renovation and garden pix…