We’ve been home as a family of 5 now, with my husband on parental leave, for 2 weeks. The only one with a real schedule these days is our 6 year old because he has school Monday to Friday! It’s definitely going to take some getting used to having my husband home on parental leave this spring and summer (Oh Canada, how we love thee!) and probably the moment I really feel comfortable with it, September will come and he will be back at work.
In the meantime, he has several projects planned and of course I have my own honey-do list for him. The main summer project here is building a new deck. Currently, we have a very small deck off our kitchen that barely holds our bbq for now. We want to make it into a two-tiered deck this summer, having the lower level being quite large with plenty of room for outdoor patio furniture and (my idea) a built in bar!
The current set we have is a basic metal table with metal patio chairs and cushions and we’ve had it now for about 10 years. I think with a new deck, it’s time for a new set! I’ve been browsing sites online and will definitely be wandering the aisles at my favorite home improvement stores checking out the options this spring. We have a bad habit of not covering our table and chairs to protect them from the rain, so I will have to be better about that.
I’m so excited about this big project (as usual it’s my husband doing the actual reno work and me doing the design with the furniture and decor like flower boxes, etc.) Do you have any outdoor projects scheduled for this spring/summer?
I love your new deck idea! I can’t wait to see how it turns out! And I’m so jealous of the paternal leave in Canada.
ugh! More then I want and my husband keeps adding to HIS list. We have a new built house, so fence, sod, pathways, increase deck size, increase driveway size, patio furniture, trees, flower beds…. My list: stay sane, cool, wait for baby, keep the girls entertained and out of his mess and encourage him to make his own decisions even though I am typically the picky one! We should have bought a house that only needed a kitchen reno, I can totally handle that!!!!
I want to build a permanent fire place for the back patio. You can buy special bricks and it looks like a Lego construction type. Hope it’s easy. The kids are looking forward to it. You will enjoy the deck. Having breakfast on the patio in the summer is one of the kids fave.
Good luck…my hubby build a gorgeous deck in our backyard, not connected to the house but lower into the hill to give us more useable space. Took him nearly 4 years. Of course, he was only doing it on weekends.