July/August/September Outside

  

Just as we spent lots of time and energy working on the inside during the summer months, we also wanted to make the most of the incredible Oregon summer weather to improve the outside. It does, after all, rain a lot in Oregon!
The deck project has its own post. Here are images of other areas we worked on as well.

Okay, yes, that's my finger at the top. You still get an idea of what the front of the house looked like when we arrived! 

  

 The lawn had to wait a little bit till Bruce decided on a lawnmower. 

Gardens were overgrown

 

But it didn't take a whole lot to make it better. 

 

There was our redwood picnic table and 4 benches, custom made in 1988 and sitting on the deck ever since. Sanded, cleaned, and oiled, it's almost like new.

                                       One of our first dinners

 

Deck power washed but not stained yet.

 Ta Da!

The whole exterior had not been painted in about 20 years. We were just plain lucky that it wasn't in worse shape!

Katie Copeland helps out during a visit with Aaron

  

We went from old brown to NEW brown, better brown.

New outdoor light fixtures - keeping with a loosely Japanese style

July/August/September Inside

Various tasks were required to make the inside of the house as livable as possible until we can focus on the bigger remodeling projects.

First, we cleaned and painted.

Made some repairs

We also found we had a few unexpected things to clean up, like the nearly 500 empty bottles and cans in the attic!

Then we gradually brought in furniture - from our storage units, and then when our shipment arrived. We also shopped, filled in more gaps, and replaced a few appliances.

We are gradually finding places for many of our things. Some remain in boxes until the time when there is a place for them.

 

The deck

Back in the early 1990's, we had an amazing deck. I'm talking 800 square feet of amazing deck. It was already more than 10 years old when we left, so it was no surprise that another 10 years later, it was rotting out and needed to be replaced. It's a long, sad story, but after much effort, money, and materials, we have a lovely, large, but a bit quirky, deck. With the great weather we've had this summer, and because we wanted to use it right away, restoring the deck was high on our list.

The posts had some very healthy moss growing!

The steps and posts (gray) are synthetic Nexwood, left over from a failed attempt to rebuild the deck in 2005. The floor and rails are cedar. Different materials added to our challenge.

First, good friend, Gerry Kosanovic, brought his industrial power washer and cleaned deck, rails, picnic table... and even some siding and the front walk!

The power washing before/after pics are always dramatic.

A few weeks later, we had a sanding party, and with rented floor sander and several power sanders, the deck floor, rails, and picnic table were all looking almost like new.

Wendy, Bruce, and Aaron spent the next few weeks priming, staining, and painting. We stained the cedar,

painted the entry and steps,

 and Aaron even painted our white security doors to better match the house.

Now we have a beautiful outdoor space! Yes, we know the colors don't all match each other, but stain and paint are just plain different!