Summer is Gone

It's hard to believe that there is snow on the ground.  Trevor and I were discussing this just the other day, where did the summer go?!  We felt as though we didn't quite enjoy it like we had planned.  Why?  Hmmm.  It seemed like we had no real reason, until Trevor brought up all the yard maintenance that happened this year.

1)  DECK

I mean, really - have you seen our deck?  If not, I'll fill you in - IT'S HUGE.  We love it, we use it, but it's huge.  And it was starting to look like crap.  The paint was flaking, the wood was giving us and the boys splinters.  It was time to change it up.  So we (and by we, I mean mostly Trevor - aside from the color choosing!) stripped down the deck and began to recover it.  We used Rustoleum.  It took a long time.  And by a long time, I mean WEEKS.  And by weeks, I mean close to 5!  Yup, that's how long!  Between stripping, painting cracks, filling screw holes, watching you tube videos, and rolling 1, 2, and in some areas maybe even 3 coats of the texture.  But you know what?!  It looks AH-MAZING.  So amazing that I think two of our friends are going to steal the project after they see how ours holds up over the winter.  And I'm telling you - it BETTER!

Before...

 

During...

 After...

 

It's beautiful.  Seriously.  It has an amazing texture.  Most people think it's composite, but it's our old wood.

Nice work Trevor.  You knocked that project out of the park!  And, a little side note - Trevor STILL has the farmers tan above his butt crack to prove that he worked his tail off on this project!  Haha.  Sorry babe, it's true though!

2)  MULCH

We knew we had to 'top up' our mulch.  It was looking pretty grim in a lot of areas, and with that we decided to switch it up and change the color completely.  I think it was a total of 4 dump trucks full of mulch that we shovelled and raked that day.

The absolute truth behind this is that it was hands down my favorite day of the whole summer!  Really and truly.  The boys were in there like dirty shirts.  It was so much fun doing it as a family and it looked great.

 3) DOOR

This little project was pretty insignificant in comparison to the others but made a huge impact on our home.  So glad we took the afternoon to pain our front door - even though the lack of a front door resulted in a nice scab on Sawyer's forehead!

 4)  THE FLOOD.

We are still waiting for this to wrap up, but the flood of our basement threw a huge wrench into our lives.  Mostly because that space had become a very well used area; especially in terms of Kristen J. Photography.  The loss of the space for 3-4 months really sucked and we are thrilled that we have the space back and looking better than it did before.  As I'm writing this I realize I don't have finished photos, but I will put that on my list!  

Pulling these photos actually made my eyes well up with tears.  The whole process of watching them rip everything out was truly heavy on our hearts as we put a lot of us into the basement and there's a certain level of attachment that comes along with something that you've done with your own hands.  The worst for us was how quickly they were able to tear it all apart.  Months went into it and it was gone within hours.  Sitting sadly on our front driveway.

 When Jackson has friends over one of the first things he says to them is 'OUR BASEMENT ISN'T FLOODED ANYMORE - Come see!  Come play!'.  So sweet!  

Doing this post was a really good thing for me.  I had thought we had kinda missed summer and looking back at this, we did a lot of work and made a lot of headway for next year's summer season.  Hopefully we'll be enjoying more beers and less blisters!