The house itself was bascially sound when we bought it but cosmetically trashed. The fence was falling down entirely so we HAD
to put in a good fence immediately. This is the kitchen end of the old deck which also ran the length of the house before demolition:

You see, we really HAD to proceed, even though we have spent a ton on this house already this year,
we had no choice but to move ahead with the deck replacement before winter.

Various stages of demolition, so you can see what the wood was really like:

Rotton wood pile (full of spiders, spider webs, rusty nails, and other nameless awful things,
all falling apart) I personally carried out to the front driveway to be hauled away:

The new frame:

Various stages of the new deck

Almost completed deck . . . the posts on the corners are going to be framed out and have
wooden trellises which I will be painting that dark green color and for which I've ordered 8 large pots
of the same dark green leaved, fast growing ivy . . . so the the ends of the deck will have additional
screening from the neighbors on both sides.

Polish Immigrant Slave Labor:

Overseer:

Half painted deck . . . our bedroom opens onto this end of the deck and we will have the trellis/ivy
wrapping around this end so as to create a kind of "outdoor sitting room" which I will furnish with
a great outdoor chair and ottoman and a chaiselonge and a lot of plants, like a cozy little extension
of my bedroom. Then we will put French doors where both of the sliding glass doors are now located.
Also a nice garden table and chairs and either a real roof or a small pergola over the bedroom end
of the deck. I'd like to have other things with the ivy . . . grapes? Clematis? Assuming the ivy isn't too invasive.

Naturally we have another large area to clear, smooth, and sod with fresh grass.

Gee . . . did I mention that I've been doing backbreaking labor here. Helped by my slave of course.

I will be finished staining/sealing the decking today and this weekend we are framing out
the ends of the deck and hanging the trellis and next week I pick up my gigantic order of ivy plants.
So I have to dig and shape the beds on the outside of the decking and fill it with fresh topsoil to receive the plantings.

But I can hardly wait to sit out there and read with my dogs packed around
me in the chaise longue . . . private, peaceful . . . and all ours.

Just a simple, modest house . . . filled with memories of sweat equity, LOL.

Actually we kinda like doing this and we work well together so we're when we are finished
with the major rehabing to this house we are thinking of buying another fixer upper as rental
property (the U. of Puget Sound is very close) and investment and redoing that. Apparently
we are natural born blue collar laborers.