Last week Apartment Therapy did a post on DIY concrete counter tops.  I saw the article, and embarrassingly enough I glanced at it a few times when it would pop up in by FB feed, and on the third day I saw this:

That’s right, do you see the little mini tile on the lower right?  Let me click on it for you.

That’s right.  It’s my kitchen!  Though it wasn’t a feature…I’ll get there someday. Well, who am I kidding…I am struggling to finished any projects.  We have so many long term projects around the house, that I haven’t had time for little quick ones that can be posted quickly.  So here is a little status update.  I suppose it will serve more as before references.

To start, I posted a little teaser to instagram a few months ago of our upstairs attic space.

The funniest thing about this was that I commented: “I tend to be good at starting projects…finishing them is another story – fingers crossed.”  And I haven’t finished it.  Here’s the deal – we’ve decided that in the next year, we need to move upstairs and convert it into a master bedroom.  We are in the process of trying to figure out how to put a bathroom upstairs.  We’ve come to the realization that a 3/4 bath is probably not in the cards.  The only place that a bathroom can be added is against the wall that’s directly above the downstairs bathroom.  Due to room size and the slope of the ceiling the only option in the cards is a half bath.  But that’s so much better than nothing.  I continued on with the upstairs, painting, and packing up boxes.  Then Jesse and I had a talk about project time lines, and realized it made more sense to focus on our yard, with summer quickly approaching.  So, I did what I do best.  I abandoned this project and moved on to another….our rotted deck.  Though I will come back to it later this summer/early fall.

On to the deck.  Ours was pretty rotten in a few places and Lucy is at the age that she wants to play outside, so we need to make it safe.  We had no idea what lay beneath the deck, so before we could plan/design the deck we had to rip it all out, which added a few weeks to the process.

Once out, we found the none of the structure was salvageable and we’d have to start from scratch.  We found patches of the old patio, and were able to start designing the new deck and where all the structural elements could do.  This was everything cleaned up.  Next came a few weeks of placing and digging holes, then pouring concrete footings…10 of them to be exact!  Then it was all about leveling and placing beams.

This weekend was all about the joists!  A lovely, “huh?  What do we do next?” photo.

But before we knew it, all the joists were in place!!  I am a little in shock over how big the deck it.  I planned it out, so the numbers aren’t a surprise, but seeing it take up so much space is a bit of a shock.  I guess it doesn’t help what we haven’t had a deck in about a month.  I know it will be so wonderful once it’s done…I just can’t wait!  I wish I could say, after the deck everything was finished, but then it’s all about the lawn that we’ve killed.  It was destroyed when we repaired our retaining wall, so that will be another few week undertaking.  But hopefully by mid June we will be ready to fully relax in the back yard!

Hopefully within a few weeks, I will be back with a proper after!