House Update: Outside!

One of the projects on our house to do list since we moved in 

has been to re-stain our deck.

We Mister tackled this project a few weeks ago.

(I did help paint/stain quite a bit but he definitely did the majority of the work)

This was not the quickest project but it also did not 

end up costing us a fortune. 

Score!

Our neighbors told us they had recently been given a quote to have the 

exact same thing and it was going to be $2,400.

We spent about 10% of that. 

I strongly encouraged Mister to let me pick out the stain color 

and a after a lengthy discussion at Lowes,

I we decided on a mushroom brown color that contrasted nicely with the house.

Hubs, choosing color is what I do in life, remember?

 I won't bore you with details of the actual staining process 

but it included things like:

pressure washing

deck cleaner

paint sprayer

and a teeny tiny brush to pain the spindles

oh and the occasional freak out that I was going to be stung by a carpenter bee

all while trying to keep Floyd out of the wet stain.

However, we were not successful at that because he definitely 

ended up with stain streaks on this ears by the end of the process.

Here is the awesome (not) red color it was before:

and now the final product!

(please pardon the muddy paw prints)

Much better! 

And in other news,
Floyd is clearly utilizing his pool to it's fullest potential...
as a water bowl.

During the summer his ears are constantly sopping wet.

For Mother's Day my mama brought me this beautiful planter for our brand new deck!

AND! my lilies are finallllly blooming! 

We were fortunate that these were already here when we moved in.

I think they might be stargazer lilies?

Can anyone confirm that for me?

So there is a quick update on how things are looking around (the outside) of our house!

Have you done any home improvement projects lately?