March 2021 Part 5: Home Improvemements

 Last month, on Home Improvements...The expansion on the deck was underway, but got delayed by weather. 

This month, the deck expansion continued and was completed. Again, we watched mostly from the comfort of our office. 

We found a guy to do our new metal railing for the deck (he actually did the original railing), but we had to wait a few weeks for the railing to be made. In the meantime, we attached our old railing to our benches with zip ties

to keep everyone safe. 

Brian really wanted to sit on the new part for a second, so we carefully stepped over our temporary fence to enjoy our new deck. 

And then climbed right back over. I realized that I really don't like being on platforms without guardrails. 

In order to order the railing for the deck, we needed to build our slide so we'd know where the opening needed to be. There were so many pieces and the instructions weren't super clear, especially because we were somewhere between an 8 foot slide and a 9 foot slide. We had lots of helpers though:

We put it together at least three different ways before finally being satisfied. 

With the slide measured, we were able to order our metal railing, and two weeks later, they came and got it installed. One of the kids thought one of the installers looked like Daveed Diggs and another thought he looked like Thomas Jefferson from Hamilton (played by Daveed Diggs) from the back. 

Finally, the railing was in and Brian and I finished installing the slide. It was mostly Brian, but I did help. A little. 

Ta dah!

Gabe was the first kid to go down and test it. He said, "It's good!"

It was time to get patio furniture. We tried a bunch of stores, but apparently we were still early in the season. What we did find, we didn't love. We decided to look more after we got back from Florida. 

Brian made little shelves for our kitchen, and I put stuff on them. 

We did a little more organizing in our pantry, including this IKEA bar thing (which we had to replace their metal bar with this wooden one because the metal one was too long) to hang cleaning things on. 

Brian cut a new shelf for the kids bathroom, and it looks so much better spanning the whole section. 

After months of waiting, all the speakers and things for our theater room arrived! They took up so much room in the car that there wasn't room for me inside, so I walked over to a home decor store while Brian hauled the car full of boxes home. Then, he came back for me. 

A few days later, the screen came in, and we barely got it into the car. I had to ride home in the back seat in order for it to fit. May it never be said that I don't love my husband. 

Unfortunately, Brian didn't have any time to do anything with any of these things before it was time for us to head to Florida. At least he got to go to Florida though.