We're friendly people

    Hi there! So while I am trying to heed the advice of others and not make too many changes too fast, there was one change I knew needed to be made right away. Well...there are a lot of changes that I feel that way about, but most involve paint, new furniture, or my Mom's help. This was one I could do all by myself!

    So our house came with a pretty great back deck. It looks out on to the green space right behind our lot that from what we understand can't be developed on (at least not anytime in the next ten to twenty years). The people that lived here before us did a lot of changes to the deck. The added a tin roof to it and blocked off the sides with privacy fences. While the tin roof might not be the most beautiful of structures, I don't mind it (love the sound of rain coming down on it...and since it has rained every day since we got here, I've been able to enjoy that a lot!). However, the privacy fences had to go. I like to think of Robby and I as friendly people who want to be able to "yoo-hooooo" over at our neighbors when we are out enjoying dinner or a drink. So two nights ago, while Robby and his dad were inside fixing a broken toilet (happened two days after we moved in...it was the first time we couldn't just call a landlord!) I went outside with the power drill and got to work on taking down the fence. I quickly learned  that using a power drill isn't as easy as my Mom makes it look (my mom loves power tools...much more than my dad :)), but once I got a rhythm going it came down pretty fast. I got one whole side down, then Rob and Robby came out and played around with it a little bit and took down a couple more slats. While we were doing this, we saw one of our neighbors out, got to chatting from our porches (the whole point of taking down the "privacy wall"), and ended up putting down the tools and heading over to meet them. We ended up chatting for a while, until it was dark, then decided to finish up the next day. The next day it only took about five minutes to get the rest of the nails out (it was like we became power drill experts in our sleep...it seemed so much easier!) and voila!

    A much more friendly looking deck that let's in lots of light and is all around more enjoyable. We still need to decide what we are doing with the shelf like thing you can see in the picture. I want to try and leave part of it, to serve food off of maybe, but can't decide how I want to go about doing it, so we just left the whole thing. Part of my "waiting to make some decisions" plan. :)