Our new deck

I don't have any before pictures of the deck to post, but here are several of the finished (well, finished but not yet stained) product! I still can't believe that FJ and I have friends who are so talented. They designed and built this deck. FJ helped, of course but will be the first to admit that he was merely labor - the brains behind this operation was led by George and Kevin, two of our very close friends. They each came in from out of town for a very long weekend to work on this and a lot of time was put in with drawings, creating supply lists, etc before they ever got here. Not to mention that after seeing all the stuff they brought down as far as tools, I am pretty sure it took them days to pack and unpack, too!

The really cool part is that I did get to participate in the design by simply saying "I want ____________" and they made it happen. I wanted to take our existing deck, or something the size of our existing deck and build another one about the same size just one step below (the back yard has a very steep grade down to the lake so we were never going to have a backyard without a very expensive retaining wall) and I also wanted it to go out further - beyond the kitchen window, so that we had a good home for our grill and the kitchen window would have a better view than the rain gutter. Lastly, I wanted stairs so that the dog could go down to our limited back yard while we were on the porch. Also, whenever we were out there and something blew off of the porch, we had to climb over or go around, so I wanted some access. I got all of this and then some! I am so excited about it and so grateful to our friends for all of their hard work!

We were able to test out the deck when we had Ollie and Anne's engagement party and it was perfect! Of course a deck isn't a deck without some fun deck toys so we did buy a chimenea (outdoor fireplace) and have already used it 3 times. Boys = firebugs. Luckily we had too much deck furniture for our old deck so it's not quite empty at this point. Of course we've already developed a wish list for more deck stuff and I'm sure knowing FJ that this list will change and morph over the next weeks.

I'm so excited that we will have a deck to use for grilling, entertaining, relaxing, etc. It's also kind of cool because from the kitchen and breakfast area, it really looks somewhat like a dock - you can just see the water rather than the grassy shoreline. The water fowl seems to be pretty pleased with our progress, as well. Next we will have to pick out a stain. That wood reflects the sun like crazy till about 1-2pm!

I secretly want a large planter and maybe a box garden for herbs, but let's get real - I can barely keep a cactus alive so we'll just take that one step at a time.

I just wanted to share some pictures and say thanks again to Kevin and George for dreaming up and doing most of the work for this deck. Thanks to my wonderful husband for helping and having friends with this kind of talent (and for letting me off the hook with helping out). Thanks to Ryan B Goodman (why wouldn't you include a middle initial that made your name that much more awesome every time you say it?) for coming over to help with some of the grunt work and thanks for Fred for helping get the order placed for materials which kept us under budget!

Anyone who would like to see the deck in person is more than welcome to come check it out! We are very proud of it and as luck would have it we are homebodies for the next couple of months anyway!!