we have a wall!

Wow, what a lot of work this project has been – and we aren’t done yet! But we’re SOOOO happy to be done with the major build part of the project! My glass half full mentality had me thinking that this project would take maybe 2 weekends and done. Oh no, that was not the case, our time so far has been allocated like so:

First full weekend – demo and cleanup on day 1, getting the wood, unloading, setting up, and building frame for wall and installation of frame on day 2
A few weekday evenings and the next Saturday – Starting to paint three sides of the wood and starting install
The last two full weekends – Continuing painting three sides of the rest of the wood (me) while Mike installed it, puttying and sanding, and painting the backside of the wall

So, it has been a lot of work, and a LOT of sweat. Ugh, it’s hot. We are so tired of working outside…but all we have left to do is finish puttying the holes and paint the front of the wall. It’s totally been worth it though, we LOVE how it is turning out. And for a cost of about $600 for doing it ourselves, as opposed to what would probably be $2-3k or more if we had hired it out, we saved a ton of cash by DIYing it. However, it is definitely a project that required some pretty good construction know how (a la Mike) as well as tools. My handy husband is awesome!

And, even better news – we were approved for a small home improvement loan to redo the siding and paint on our house! So…we are getting a complete makeover of the outside of our house (well, sans landscaping) and we are so excited about it. Once we change the paint colors, and with the addition of the wall, it will look like a completely different house. And right now the slightly off white paint really doesn’t make sense with the house colors as they are now, but I hope it will look amazing once the house is resided and repainted. And that will be another major thing checked off our very long list of home improvements!

Here is the backside of the wall finished (pre paint)

And after 2 coats of primer/paint

My handy husband working on the last part of the wall – see those Agaves? They are pointy and mean if they getcha.

construction done!

So, that is where we are at with our patio redo! I hope by the end of the weekend to finish puttying, sanding, and painting! So all that will be left to do on the wall itself is add the light fixture and house numbers. See upcoming post about our light fixture dilemma!