What can I say? My family is awesome…sometimes. This past year for my birthday (June), my family (hubby, sons, my father & mother) helped me with a project that was long past due. You see, we’ve lived in our home for over eighteen years, that’s right eighteen years! This is amazing because when we purchased our home we’d come to the agreement that we’d probably only stay here for about ten years…um, yeah. Life changes, things happen and before you know it eighteen years have gone by and you realize that there are things that need to be done.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve done a lot of things over the past eighteen years to our home to keep it up-to-date. I’ve tiled floors, back-splashes, changed out light fixtures, door knobs, hinges and painted just about every surface more than once! At the ten year mark I managed to convince my husband that we should landscape the backyard and it totally came out awesome! Of course he’d never admit I was right, but he loves it now.

Yeah, from a distance the deck looked fine…15 years ago!

So one of the things that have been a pain in my butt is the deck. Eighteen years ago I had the crazy idea (with a little help from Home Depot) to paint the rails on the upper deck white…uh, yeah, that would have been fine if my builder had used decent wood, but he didn’t (half the wood was still green after eighteen years!) and I have paid the price ever since. How have I paid the price you ask? Well, within the first six months it started peeling…grr, still gets me mad, especially when  I went back to Home Depot and complained about their Behr product and even contact Behr themselves and what did I get? I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it goes.

Needless to say I had to live with my decision for the past eighteen years…until June.

It started out pretty innocently to begin with, a single spindle was all it took. My parents had just moved here from Colorado, they were staying with us for a few months. My brother-in-law had given my dad a planer because he never used it. So, when I say it all started with one spindle, I mean it all started with a single spindle.

Here was the idea…my dad had a planer, I wanted to strip the spindles on the deck and just stain them. Simple right? Well as everything seems to go in my life with home improvement projects, this quickly cascaded into a full blow remodel!

We managed to pull down a few paint crusted spindles and strip them down quickly with the planer. I remember thinking that this would be a piece of cake! I already knew the top rails on the deck railing needed to be replaced. This would be an inexpensive fix! I was even contemplating using Trex decking…and then it all fell apart.

Deck down, pergola here we come!

I had the bright idea to pull off the front facing of the deck, since it’d been painted too and replace it with Trex as well. With each step I took I realized that almost the entire deck was rotted…ugh! I mean, I knew the top rail was, and a few of the actual deck flooring, but I didn’t expect to start pulling things off and find that it was actually amazing that my deck was still standing!

So here’s where the real fun began…I changed my mind! I know, crazy, huh? Instead of replacing a deck that we never used because it really only ever overlooked into my neighbors yard, which isn’t a good thing when they decide they’re going on a cruise, and you accidentally see them in their back yard sunbathing in the buff and they’re like albinos! Okay, that was years ago before we had the landscaping in…but it scarred me for a long time!

In place of the deck, that was never used, I thought it’d be cool to have a pergola. Yup, a pergola! Now if I were to be completely honest here, the pergola idea came about after pricing out what it would cost us to replace the deck…yikes! Pergola here we come!

There was only one problem with this idea…we had a slider door off the master bedroom that would now lead to nowhere. Problem easily solved! My dad and I went down to the Habitat store and bought a used window that matched what I already had!

You’re doing good, honey!

Never trust them with a hammer when the word destroy is used!

The boys removed the old slider, and framed out the opening to fit the window. It went fairly well until we went to install it. You see, when you purchase new windows they come with installation tabs, makes it a piece of cake. When you buy a used window, typically the tabs have been cut off during removal from it’s previous home. We managed to get it installed and sealed up the opening with siding and facia boards.

See, all closed up!

Here’s where the real fun began…I was the painter, yup, I painted every stinking piece of this pergola. I had an assembly line on the back lawn…that’s how I spent my birthday, painting.

My makeshift assembly line

After the painting was complete, next came the assemble…and because I was busy assembling I realized I didn’t take any pictures! Ugh! What I will tell you is that lifting a 12×16 wet header beam above your head isn’t as easy as it looks…nor is lifting wet 4×16 posts either! The reason why I say wet is because when I purchased the materials from the lumber yard the wood was still wet…I didn’t have a choice. Sometimes you just have to take what you get.

 

Here’s where I’m extremely grateful for the men in my life! Coley was a trooper and came home for the weekend just to help lift the 4×16 posts into place! Of course he got puppy time as well too!

Cute, isn’t he? I mean the puppy! 😛

So here’s the final product…which I should have taken the picture when the weather was nicer and I had it set up all cute like, but alas, that’s the life of an author…I got busy with my writing and completely forgot about it.

The finished pergola

Used my leftover scrap lumber from the deck to add a mini pergola over the shed

Even added a sun shade to help block the summer sun and fall/winter weather.