Our New Outdoor Spot

We've been in our house for two years in July and we finally have a deck for the house. Unfortunately, stupid zoning laws in our city prevented us from building a deck the size we wanted off of our door to nowhere, (it's all because we have a corner lot! I hate zoning laws! Why should they get to tell me what I can and can't do with my house?!?!?!) but we were able to build one as big as we wanted to off of mom's door. So here is the 20 x 24 party deck that is built out of her door. The furniture is coming this week. And all that is left to be done is to finish the steps that will go up the hill to the driveway and a retaining wall to keep the hill from sliding onto the deck during a big rainstorm (like the one that dumped 4 1/2 inches on us last night!!!) We can't wait to get back from vacation and enjoy a get together with friends and family. By the way, I should definitely mention that my wonderful and amazingly talented husband built this! He had some help along the way (thanks Michael and Blair, Orlie, Jonathan, Russ and mom!!!), but mostly he did it by himself! Great job babe! You should be very proud of all your hard work!

Incredible huh? The parkay look took a while because all of the support beams had to run the opposite direction of the decking boards on top of them, so it took a while to get the framing worked out. But once he did that it went much faster! So yeah. I'm pretty proud of Steven! He's learned a lot since we bought this house and has done things he probably thought he'd never learn to do. He's gotten to be pretty handy-I think I'll keep him around a while longer :) 

And for those of you who like "befores": here is what the space looked like before the deck was put in. 

Better, isn't it?!?! 

Well, that's it for today. I'm working on getting the house cleaned up, getting the laundry done (I HATE coming home from vacation to a messy house and laundry piled up to the ceiling!), getting started on my lists of things to pack. We're on the countdown...4 more days til the big road trip! Now would someone like to pack for me?!!?!? Anyone?!?!?! Please?!?!?! Oh well! Just thought I'd ask! I hope you all have a great week!