We finally got around to redoing our deck this summer! Matt’s super thankful this project is over!! Haha! He started it early June and him and his step dad got it done around middle of August. When I say this took up Matt’s whole summer, I mean it! I’m super thankful to have such a handy man of a husband! He saved us thousands by him doing it himself. Our old deck was very rough. If you’re new here, our house was built in 1909. The deck obviously wasn’t. Ha! When we bought our house 6 years ago it needed to be redone then but like everything it got put off. But this summer it had to be done! The people who built it definitely didn’t do it right. It was hanging on by a tread. This is what our deck looked like before. Very tiny and just not any space to do much. It got to the point where it was dangerous to be on.

Matt spent almost everyday after work and weekends working on getting our deck done. It was a long summer for him. We got all the wood and materials for the deck from Menards. And then we did the 11% rebate on it and got back quite a bit of money! Well worth it! We used some of the rebate money to get a new grill that Matt had been wanting. When they took the deck down they realized they had to replace some stuff. Like most projects that happen in this house, something else needs to be fixed. The joys and old home! The ledger board (which is what holds the deck to the house) didn’t have any flashing around it so the wood that was there to support it needed to be replaced. When they took the rotted board out, they had to remove some of the siding and when they did some of the original 1909 siding was behind it!! (SO BEAUTIFUL!!!) They saved me a piece of it! I’m not sure yet what I’m gonna do with it but I definitely couldn’t let that old wood be thrown away! I wanna put it in our house and make sure it stays with it the house forever!!

While Matt worked on the deck I kept the kids busy with the waterslide, doing water balloons, going to the pool, basically anything to keep them out of the backyard haha! When Matt started working on the deck, he found the perfect patio set too! We hurried and ordered it because it was out of stock and then came back in stock. We really wanted a lounge dining set so that we had the option to eat outside or just relax and chill. He ordered it and it got delivered the next week. Then it sat in our living room all summer haha!

When Matt did the concrete for the post he had the kids write their names in it so that it would always be there! And the left over concrete we used to make a stepping stone with their hand prints in it.

We also decided that we wanted to do a privacy wall on the side where our house and our neighbors house are really close. Matt found this cool tutorial of a weave type pattern for the privacy wall and I loved it! And it didn’t take him long to do at all! We did the weave pattern half way up and then did a little ledge right where the patio set ends so if you’re sitting there and want to set your drink down behind you, you can. And I’ll be able to do a fun décor or something in the empty space.

Link to patio set • Umbrella • Matt’s grill
Link to how to do the weave privacy wall

And that’s my deck story! 😀 Matt did such an amazing job on it! We’ve loved getting to use it with fall and eating dinners out there! The kids really love! And veryyyy happy with the patio set we chose! Its perfect!!