Every house has its story. What's yours?

If you have ever read any of my previous blog posts you'll be familiar with the large backyard deck I built a couple of years ago. I completed it pretty swiftly, but it took me a couple of years to decide how I wanted to build a place for a cozy fire. Sweden can have some chilly evenings in the summer (not even going to mention spring and fall) and it's also a handy way to keep these damned mosquitoes at bay. Anyway, I'd left an open corner in the deck for just this purpose and my neighbor had lovingly welded a metal container for a fire pit for my birthday a couple years back, so I finally decided what I would do with my fire space.

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My latest creation/addition to the backyard is a 2 bin compost to replace the now rotten one made decades ago and since taken over by nettles, thistles and other aggressive weeds. I went with a 2 bin system to allow for periodic rotation of the vegetative matter in addition to the weekly stirring.

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Well I had a long weekend to work on the deck and since I had to miss a fine party thrown by my bestest buddy in the whole wide world I forced myself to make the best of my time stuck at home....aww, poor Jimm!

Anyway, I continued with placing the floor which was rather uneventful, but still time consuming. Before I completed the flooring I had to grab my trusty sledge and knock down the old brick fireplace since I didn't want it to topple onto my precious new deck. After the fireplace destruction was completed I finished off the remaining few board and placed the last frame piece. 

Now I was able to begin working on the railings along the deck.    » read more »

Here's an update following a long holiday weekend. 

My 50 square meters of pressure-treated lumber arrived on Wednesday of last week. I still had a lot of prep work to do so I decided to furnish the stack of lumber in the meantime:

I thought it added a nice little touch to the front yard and the kids liked being there rather than "helping" me.     » read more »

After a lively weekend of mixing concrete (bucket by friggin' bucket) I have all of the support pillars set.

I dug out around the supports and then proceeded to backfill with stones jammed into the concrete. I must say they are pretty darned sturdy now after curing for a couple of days.

I made the little grooves in the concrete above ground for functional purposes rather than aesthetic.    » read more »

Now that spring is almost here (mid May in Sweden), it's time to stop thinking of things to do around the outside of the house and get to it.

My first project was to rip out the 2.5 x 5 meter deck that was attached to the back of the house. It wasn't very nice and it was built too tight to the side of the house so moisture has managed to rot the vast majority of the siding (the replacement of this will be in a post on down the line).    » read more »