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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Peter's Room

This is Peter:


...and he has his own bedroom since he is our only "child" right now (and he started eating our couches when we tried to let him stay downstairs).  I saw this super-cute DIY bunny sign over at Designing and Diapers and I just had to make one for the door to Peter's room.  Luckily my super-awesome husband bought me a Silhouette cutting machine for Valentines Day (it's possible that I asked for the Silhouette solely for this project :)), so I hooked her up, cut out my bunny stencil and got painting!

The sign is just made from wood shims glued together.  I got the shims from Lowes for $1.57 and I used leftover paint samples from our family room, so this was a very cheap project (we will not count the $200 cutting machine... hehe)



Isn't it adorable!?  I think it looks just like the pose Peter is doing in the picture above!

Monday, March 25, 2013

Deck Update #4: Goodbye Safety Rail!!

We made some great progress on the deck this weekend!  We got all of the posts for the railings up, installed our drainage system for the upper level (since we will be storing stuff under it), and laid all of the deck boards (except one...haha) for the upper level!!!  My dad also cut the stringers for both sets of stairs. 

I am in love with the decking we choose.  It is Harvest Bronze from Timbertech's XML Tropical Collection.  The "pattern" in the planks looks so natural and it really does look tropical.  I couldn't be happier with how it looks so far.  We ordered it and our railings from Delaware County Supply Company in Boothwyn, PA.  If you live in the southeastern PA or southern NJ area, I highly recommend their services.  Everyone there is very knowledgeable and super nice and helpful.  With so much crappy customer service around these days, it was refreshing to deal with people who take pride in their trade and actually want to help you.  We will be giving them our service over Home Depot whenever possible!!

We went with the concealed fasteners for the decking in lieu of regular visible screws and it really does make such a difference.  Unfortunately installation is not quite as easy as the advertisements/directions lead you to believe.  We wound up having to use a sledge hammer to bang each board into place, which was pretty tiring and time-consuming.  Greg and I are hurting after two full days (4 days for Greg and my dad) of hard manual labor, but it is totally worth it.  We're getting so close to being finished!!!

Enough talk... here's some progress pictures:

Tell me that's not the most beautiful decking you've ever seen!  :)

Upper level decking complete!
Safety railing is gone!  We can finally walk out our back door!
Removing the safety railing!
Progress photo showing the DekDrain drainage system under the decking.
Another shot of the drainage before the deck boards went down.
The runoff flows down the troughs in the previous photo (placed between each joist) into this gutter which is attached to the beam at the end of the deck.  Those "bibs" at the ends of the troughs are just to prevent the water from overshooting the gutter.  We still need to add a downspout at the end of the gutter.  Voila!  A dry underdeck!

Monday, March 18, 2013

Checking in

Sorry I have been MIA... work is taking up most of my time lately.  Just wanted to give  a quick update on some recent service requests and some stuff we have been working on!

Service Requests:

We've been getting leaks in our basement under the front of our house.  There is a crack in the foundation at the spot of leakage so we assumed it was getting in through there.  However, when RH came to check it out, we discovered that the water was actually getting up under the siding and coming in above the foundation.  Apparently the culprit was an incorrectly installed stoop.  Now they have to come back and take off a whole bunch of siding and replace park of our framing that is already water damaged.  I'm a bit nervous because it's somewhat of a major fix, but hopefully it will go smoothly.

We had also been having problems with a banging heater, which they easily resolved with some extra screws where pipes were loose.

We lost some siding during the crazy windstorms down here last week.

And the final thing is the infamous shower!  This is the third (hopefully final) time we are having our master bathroom shower tiles fixed! 

Progress:

We have been working hard on our family room!  We did some painting last weekend, bought some awesome new furniture and I've been working on some DIY wall art!  Progress photos to come soon!

We have resumed work on the deck as well!  We are in the middle of installing our drainage system and we have ordered all of our PVC decking and railing materials, which should be arriving this week.  Once we are finished I'll share the breakdown of costs.  Let's just say our original budget was a little off. :) 

I hope everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day!

Monday, March 4, 2013

Deck Input Requested...

Now that it's March (where did the past three months go?!?), we gearing up to finish our deck.  If you missed the progress we made in the fall, check out here, here, and here.  Our framing is complete and approved by our Township Building Inspector so the next step will be installing our drainage system on the upper level since we'll be using underneath as storage.  Then we can get to the fun part... laying the deck planks and putting up the railings and steps.  Greg and I visited a local lumber yard on Saturday to check out some composite decking samples.

I said composite decking, but we are actually going with an all PVC product from Timbertech.  After much deliberation we have narrowed it down to two choices and of course Greg really likes the one and I really like the other.  Here are our choices (shown next to our siding and the white railing that we will use):



Which option do you like better?  I should note that the second one is slightly cheaper than the first one.  It would only amount to a few hundred dollars difference though.