Tag: renovation

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When You’re Good to Paint Pressure Treated Wood- Lessons from a Painting Professional

If you’ve been following along with our backyard renovations and deck rebuild, then you may know that we have switched our plans around quite a bit throughout these renovations. I had a vision of the look I wanted, but after consulting with professional arborists, contractors and our painter, we have changed a few things around. Originally, when we planned to redo our backyard deck, we wanted to put concrete down in place of the old deck that we had. I liked the idea of the smooth light gray and planned to accent it with natural cedar. When all was said and done, we decided concrete wouldn’t work for us and we decided to do a new deck instead. We still plan to accent with cedar although we’re not building our entire deck out of cedar. And because mixed wood tones is a huge pet peeve of mine, I want to paint our deck.

In the midst of our renovations, I stayed in touch with our painter since he was giving us a discount on the exterior painting of our house if we did it after the back deck was removed (and before the new one was built). As I was explaining our plans to him, he gave me some helpful advice that I would have otherwise not known.

You shouldn’t paint fresh pressure treated wood
When we decided to go with wood decking over composite (mainly because of the price) we knew we were committing to keeping our deck well maintained and protected from the elements. I immediately started looking for wood sealers and options for protecting the wood. I knew I didn’t want a stain. I wanted an opaque light gray finish so that the cedar beams would stand out, but according to our painter: You can stain wood right away with an oil based stain, but you shouldn’t paint or seal new pressure treated wood right away because it needs time to cure and dry out before you seal it up. If you paint it without letting it dry, the paint will not last.


Photo Credit: The Feathered Tumblr

Our painter explained that a sealer locks the chemicals and moisture inside and eventually those same chemicals and moisture will eat through the fresh paint and it will begin to chip and peel and bubble. The green-ish hues in the new pressure treated wood are an indication that it has a higher moisture content.

How long do I have to wait before I can paint my wood deck?
After the wood has had a chance to dry. In Florida, this would typically take 1 or 2 seasons. Since we are finishing our deck in late Spring, we will likely paint our deck sometime mid to late Fall. In other extremely dry parts of the world, wood can dry out and be ready for paint in as little as just 2 weeks.

if I can’t paint or seal the wood right away, what do I do to protect my new deck from the elements in the interim?
Nothing. Your wood is pressure treated, and that will keep your wood from rotting while you give it some time to dry a bit. If you wait too long to seal the wood, it will eventually start to go bad, but just a season or 2 won’t hurt it.

How do I know my wood is ready for paint?
You can determine if your deck is ready to be painted by sprinkling some water on your deck. If water beads up then the boards are still too moist to paint or seal. If the water soaks right in, then your deck is dry enough for paint.

Photo: Today’s Homeowner with Danny Lipford

Thanks to our amazing painter, Sam Rios for always doing quality work at great prices and for sharing your experience and wisdom with a couple young, newbie home-renovators. If you’re local and looking for a painter, we know a guy!

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A Budget Friendly Kitchen Makover for Under $250

When you walk into our house, after walking through our small entryway, you enter the large open concept floor plan that is our downstairs living space and find yourself smack dab in the middle of our very open kitchen. Despite the fact that I’m no chef nor do I aspire to be one, our kitchen is quite literally the heart of our home- not because we are foodies, but because our house seems to expand out from the kitchen that is situated in the center. From the kitchen, you can see every room in the house that isn’t a bedroom or a bathroom- although with doors open you can see a couple bedrooms and bathrooms from the kitchen too. Conversely, this means that every room in the house can see the kitchen as well. We learned quickly with this super open concept that there are also cons to having such an open living space including the fact that you can see our dirty dishes from just about anywhere. There’s no hiding them. Also, when we moved in, our kitchen was so outdated and drab, it really brought the rest of the house down with it. I’m always so bad about taking good “before” photos, but here’s the beginning of our kitchen makeover (featuring my lovely husband and our then 20-month-old toddler):


This is a shot of what our kitchen looked like “before”. Although, this shot was after we had taken off a few of the original metal handles and we did paint the top wall (above the cabinets) white. It was previously painted a dark grey color which you can see in the shot below. Knowing that we planned to go with black cabinets, we decided that we needed lots of white to contrast the dark cabinets.


I’ll preface the rest of this kitchen reveal by saying that we did start this process out considering the option of replacing and redoing our entire kitchen. Although we like the layout for the most part, our cabinets were not only outdated on the outside (covered with some fake wood-finish Formica or plastic material) but they are pretty old on the inside too. There’s a good amount of lime green and pink flowery wallpaper lining our cabinets and drawers that looks like something you might find in a hippy bus from the 70’s (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but it’s also pretty worn and dirty in a way that can’t be cleaned or removed easily.

Friends, meet the retro inside of our silverware drawer:


The drawers are also just narrow enough to be too narrow to hold any sort of drawer organizers. So all of our utensils jingle around like the disorganized mess of silver that they are and we have to keep the sharp knives in their own spot so no one looses a finger digging around for their soup spoon.

After getting a couple quotes for an entirely new kitchen in price ranges upwards of $35,000, we decided not to spend the next 3-4 years trying to pay for a kitchen. So we set out to find some ways to update our kitchen in a budget-friendly, DIY fashion.

I knew I wanted black cabinets. I love white cabinets also and we toyed with the idea of going white, mainly because it seemed like a nice safe bet, but I convinced JP that we should go dark and if we wanted to change we could always paint over the cabinets later. We found this Valspar cabinet paint from Lowe’s Home Improvement.


We picked Valspar’s Dark Kettle Black color with a semi-gloss finish. And we needed just a little over 2 gallons to paint ALL of our cabinets. This pint (pictured above) was the last bit that I needed to finish the final coat on a couple of the drawers and its still got about 2/3 of the paint left in it for touch-ups later.

We bought these drawer and cabinet pulls from All Modern in a stainless steel finish.

We  scrubbed down the kitchen cabinets and prepped the cabinets for paint. I took all of the cabinet doors off and cut in the edges and corners by hand with a paint brush. Then I used a roller to roll the paint on everywhere else.


Our drawers were a little tricky because the drawers that we have don’t come out all of the way (or if they do, we couldn’t figure out how to get them out all the way) so I just carefully painted around them when they were open, then let the paint dry completely before closing them.


Once the cabinet bases were painted and dried (left to sit overnight), I screwed the doors back on and painted them while they were attached to the bases. Note: this isn’t my first time painting kitchen cabinets. I have painted 2 other kitchens prior to this and previously I laid the doors on a giant tarp to be painted which is actually more difficult and more trouble in our case than just screwing the cabinets on and painting them while they’re attached. When you paint doors that are laying on a tarp, you either need a very large garage or outdoor covered space or a large indoor space that will not be disturbed by pets or babies. Since we don’t have either of those, I decided the safest bet would be to keep the cabinets attached while we painted them and just attempt to keep everyone out of the kitchen for a day while they dried. Also it was quicker to paint them this way because I was able to paint both sides of the cabinet and leave them open to dry as opposed to painting one side at a time while they lie on a tarp.


We decided to get rid of the cabinet and vent hood above our range to help with the sight lines and making the space seem more open. We learned through this process that our vent hood wasn’t even vented out and instead was actually just a glorified fan which would blow the smoke around inside but not actually suck any smoke out of the room.


And we love the way it looks without a cabinet there. We have yet to refinish the part of the ceiling that the cabinet and vent hood were attached to, but it’s on our list of to-do’s.

The total cost of our entire kitchen makeover breaks down like this:

Drawer/Cabinet Pulls (40 count at $2.60 a piece): $104
Cabinet Paint (2 gallons and 1 pint): $116
Removal of upper cabinet and vent hood (DIY with the help of my dad): $0
Total cost: $220

And the finished product:

We finished this kitchen makeover in early September of 2016. These “after” pictures were taken today (May 17th, 2017), a little over 8 months later and we are so happy with how our painted cabinets turned out and how well they have held up. We’ve noticed very little wear and they are extremely easy to clean. The only spot that we have seen wear is the spot right behind our trash and recycling bins. Because of the constant scraping when we open and close the bins, the paint is wearing off a bit. It’s barely noticeable when the bins are pushed flush up against the cabinet, but when you pull them out, you can see the original cabinet finish underneath.


Overall, we think it may be the best $220 we’ve ever spent.

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Our Dream Home- The Best Flip we will (hopefully) Never Make

We have come along way since June 2015 when we purchased our 3rd home.

Our house stats when we purchased it were:
3,534 sqft
5 bedrooms
4 bathrooms
Purchase price: $160,000
Appraisal value at purchase: $180,000

When we bought this house, we knew it would require a good amount of work. We spent $40,000 in improvements just in the first year, and the majority of that went toward mandatory or practical improvements (not the fun cosmetic stuff), but after a year of work, we can finally rest easy knowing that we made a good investment.

When we moved in to this house, we had insane house bills for the entire first year. Not only were we paying to fix things that needed fixing, but we had added insurance costs because our home had previously been a foreclosure. We also paid a much higher rate for very little insurance coverage due to the fact that we had cloth wiring and extremely old galvanized plumbing. Our electric bill was sky high in the hot months (which in Florida is about 360 days per year) because of old single-pane windows and very little insulation. Additionally the PMI (private mortgage insurance) we had to pay for not being able to put down a 20% down-payment tacked on almost $200 per month.

So we were on a mission to lower those costs in every way possible. We focused on material updates that would increase our home’s value (to help us get rid of our PMI), and also anything to help us lower our insurance costs or save on utilities. The updates we did in the first year included:

  • Replacing all the windows- $5,000
  • Replacing one of the A/C units- $1,000
  • Purchasing and installing all kitchen appliances (there were NONE originally)- $5,000
  • Paid handymen to remove above ground pool built into part of the deck and the deck that surrounded it- $1,200
  • Replacing all galvanized plumbing- $5,000
  • Replacing and updating electrical (removing cloth wires)- $2,500
  • Drywall repair after redoing plumbing and electrical- $3,000
  • Installing a home security system complete with smart-home thermostats and smoke detectors- $100
  • Redoing the hall bathroom (the sub-floor under the tile was moldy from a small leak that was never fixed and when you walked on the tile floor it moved similar to that of a trampoline under your feet)- $2,000
  • Purchasing and installing doors (multiple rooms didn’t have any doors- thus the beauty of buying a foreclosure)- $600
  • Fixing leak in sports room ceiling/reworking lighting/drywall repair- $1,500
  • Replacing lights in kitchen with recessed can lighting- $500
  • DIY wall install in master bedroom to make a walk through closet- $300
  • Built in IKEA closets- $1,900
  • Reworking lighting in upstairs master bedroom and relocating some wall outlets in the nursery- $1,000
  • Drywall repair and painting for upstairs- $1,000
  • Replacing upstairs floors (including 2 bedrooms and stair landing) and stairs with hardwood floors- $5,200
  • Adding foam insulation in walls and attic throughout the house- $800
  • DIY painting interior walls, purchasing and installing light fixtures (where there were none) and other minor DIY fixes- $2,400
    Total first year costs: $40,000

After a year, we were hopeful that our updates combined with the housing market’s natural climb would get us an appraisal  of at least $200k to allow us to cancel our PMI payments. (In order to cancel PMI manually, you have to purchase and order an appraisal on your home and it has to come back at least 20% above your original home loan price).

Our current home stats are:
3,534 sqft
5 bedrooms
4 bathrooms
Purchase price: $160,000
Appraisal value at purchase: $180,000
Appraisal value 1 year later: $275,000

After a year of hard work, staying focused on our budget and gritting our teeth while putting our hard earned money into many practical things that will possibly never be seen (i.e. plumbing and electrical), we are proud to say that our home appraised $115,000 more than we purchased it for and with an overall investment of $200,000 ($160,000 purchase price + $40,000 renovations), that gives us a net equity value of $75,000! Also, after cancelling our PMI and making the necessary updates per our insurance requirements, we were able to get solid home insurance coverage and reduce our monthly payments by almost $400.

We are in our dream house and we don’t have plans to flip this house anytime soon, but it’s comforting to know that we wouldn’t be underwater if we had to sell.  In the meantime, stick around, follow along as we work our way through our home updates and renovations. Now that we’re through the worst of the mandatory fixes, we can finally focus on the fun stuff.

Next up: Backyard makeover!

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Updates on our Backyard Renovation

I’m so excited about the progress we’re making on our Backyard Renovation! So far, we have demolished the entire deck including the second story balcony, stairs and outhouse.  We’ve leveled out the dirt to prepare for the new deck and while everything was torn down, we thought it would be the perfect time to paint our house. So we did that too. And after this poll, we decided to go with the darker color for our house despite the fact that approximately 90+ percent of you guys voted for the lighter color. If you know me well, then you know I am anything but the type to follow the crowd, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

Right now our backyard is a construction zone. It’s full of dirt and it’s nearly impossible to keep the dogs from tracking all the dirt inside. So don’t expect too many posts about the inside of our house, until we get this backyard renovation completed, because I’m basically constantly cleaning and yet nothing ever seems clean. That’s the life of a full-time working mama in the middle of big home renovations right? We do make time for our kiddos and we love our family time. This past Easter weekend was full of it. Here’s a sweet shot of us at church yesterday after the Easter service.

We spent this weekend out and about, because there’s not too many spots around here to hangout with the construction zone in the back and the front yard off limits because we are trying to grow us some grass. Luckily, we are fortunate to have family with an awesome pool to spend all afternoon Sunday swimming. Meanwhile in our backyard… There is a LOT of dirt and leaves.

We have made some big decisions on the backyard renovation. We decided to do all wood deck (instead of concrete) for the bottom and top story, so that we could keep our live oak. We also decided not to put a roof over the entire deck, just the top balcony (which is off our master bedroom). The top balcony will be covered and screened in. We may add in a roof over the bottom at some point, but for now, our tree gives us plenty of shade and the Tree Lady  says it’s in perfect condition to live on for years to come. You can see the trunk in the picture below.

We have also decided to keep the shell of our backyard shed for now (pictured below).

We have never used this for anything but occasional storage, and had originally planned on tearing it down to make more backyard space for the dogs and kids to play in. However, now that we’re not planning to have a roof put in over the bottom deck, we’re thinking we may take the walls and floors out and keep the supports and the roof to have our own little covered space. Stay tuned to see what we do with it!

I know there is still a lot left to do, but it’s encouraging to see how far we’ve come already when this is where we started.

We can’t wait to share the finished product with you! You can follow us on Instagram (@phillipsflips) to stay in the loop with all of our day to day progress and updates.

 

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How to Choose a Style and Color Scheme for your Home

When it comes to home decorating, most people have a style that they gravitate towards and most people decorate individual rooms with similar color schemes, but should you have a house-wide color scheme and style?

Maybe you should.

While there may be some legitimate reasons to have a room with a different color scheme or style (for example: kids rooms and nurseries or specialty rooms like a theater room or kid’s play room may have some different style/color needs that exclude them from following your house-wide color scheme), for the most part you should stick to a cohesive look. Having significant variations in decor/color/finishes can make your home seem choppy and feel smaller than it really is. Especially with the open-floor plan trending high on most priority lists, a house-wide color scheme and style is even more noticeable and needed.

When you’re looking into buying your decor/textiles/paint colors or considering bigger more permanent renovation projects like changing the floors, cabinets, light fixtures or other major renovations, having a color scheme and style in mind is key to making sure that the decisions you make for your home now will be good decisions for future buyers as well as your future self.

Coming up with an idea board and color scheme for your home is a great place to start.

First, consider your house. Does your house have a style already? Maybe you’ve settled into a 1920’s Victorian. Your mid-century modern pieces probably won’t be welcome there. Victorian houses typically look best with darker wood tones and rich colors like maroon, navy, and maybe some green with off-white accents. The fixtures usually have an antique style with black iron or brassy finishes. They are usually chock full of character and intricate woodworking details. Vintage rugs always pair nice with this style- although I may be a bit biased because I’m convinced that vintage rugs will go with any style.

Some houses may not have a distinct style in which case they are more of a shell to infuse with your own style. The good thing about those houses is you’ve got a clean slate to work with. The bad news (sometimes) is that the more generic houses that are flexible enough to work with any style usually lack the unique character that most people love, but you can always add character pieces in! Other houses may have a subtle style that can be changed by changing colors, finishes or fixtures.

Whether you’re looking to flip or just lovingly inhabit, you’ve got to have a style in mind. Once you’ve determined your style, start pulling together some ideas for an idea board. This is a great time to incorporate Pinterest. You can search on your specific style and/or colors that you’d like to incorporate and get a feel for the vibe you want in your own home. Here’s an idea board example of a modern beachy style perfect for houses near the coast- or landlocked ocean lovers. Someone with this idea board would be looking for most all neutrals (tans, grays, beige, greige – yes! that’s a thing). They would accent with lighter wood tones or vintage or weathered wood pieces, anything white (or white-washed), woven textiles, linen fabrics, and lighter blue tones or anything that pairs well with those. You could accent with a little bit of navy or coral or even bright red if you wanted a more bold look- but not all three.

Consider the more permanent/semi-permanent features of your home. Do your floors and cabinets go with the theme you’ve picked? If not, consider if you plan to change those or if you may need to change some of your ideas around to fit with your current fixtures.

Here’s a mid-century themed board. Mid-century houses are usually accented with medium wood tones, gold or brass fixtures, tapered legs and always the starburst lighting. This is usually a style relegated to houses built in the “mid-century”- think 1940’s to 1970’s occasionally the 1980’s and while this is a pretty distinct style, you can usually infuse this style into a more generic home with mid-century decor and maybe a few added character touch-ups. Commonly used mid-century colors include mustard yellow, dark orange and olive among others. A common trend these days is the mid-century modern style which combines the mid-century board (below) with more modern elements.

Once you’ve got your idea board, pull out some specific things to help define a template for your home theme. What type of wood tones will you have? What temperature will your neutrals be? For example, do you like the warmer tans, beige and cream colored or off-white neutrals like the farmhouse idea board below?

Or would you prefer cooler toned neutrals like pure white and shades of gray? Make a list of your top neutral colors as well as the accent colors or brighter colors you plan to have in your home (if you’re planning for any). And then use your idea board as a guide when you’re picking out new decor or paint colors. This bright bohemian board is almost enough to convert my style. I just love the fun and bright eclectic patterns mixed with the crocheted hammocks and Pom Pom decor. And of course bohemian style isn’t complete without house plants.

For our house theme, we’ve got a industrial modern meets mid-century modern vibe going on and I’m gravitating towards black and white and cool grey neutrals. We’ve got a giant camel colored leather sectional from Restoration Hardware that lives in our family room which is really the heart of our house so the camel color is part of our home decor board. In addition to our cool neutrals, we’ve accented with navy and an occasional pop of yellow- because yellow is just the best color ever! We have a mix of finishes from black industrial-style metal finishes to stainless steel finishes in our kitchen and then a handful of the more mid-century gold accents as well. We’ve installed some light hickory hardwood floors with lots of variation from light to medium tones and we plan to install more downstairs eventually. We also want to add in some polished grey concrete floors in our family room and some fun cement tile accents- probably black and white. So I use this idea board as a base for our home decor purchases and any new finishes. That doesn’t mean we don’t ever go outside of the box. For example, my daughter’s bedroom is a fun cotton-candy pink with grey and white accents. And since our sports/theater room houses our old dark brown and tan sofa and chairs, that room has more warm tones to coordinate with the furniture. Also, the sports room has actual football field turf on the floor which isn’t really part of our idea board, but it makes for a fun (and super cheap) floor covering for the (mostly) football-themed room. Remember when I mentioned those exceptions above? There will always be some. But for the most part, our open-spaced living downstairs, follows the rules for our intended style and color scheme.

Here’s our home idea board complete with pictures of our actual home and decor as well as a few “dream” items.


You’d be surprised at how much an idea board like this helps when you’re browsing the throw pillows at Target and trying to decide if they will go well with your decor or not.

How do you keep a cohesive look in your home?

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Our Exterior House Paint Color

After much thought and a few friendly Facebook and Instagram polls, we decided to go DARK on the outside of our house! Here’s the first coat on the front:

There is still work to be done: some touch ups in the paint, painting the sides and back of the house, cutting in the white trim, painting the front door (for now until we pick out a new one), adding some landscaping and trying to get some grass to grow on our front lawn! But all in, I’m super happy with our color choice.

We went with Sherwin Williams Iron Ore- SW 7069

A few days ago we polled our Facebook and Instagram friends on which of these two colors they liked best:

The response was overwhelmingly in favor of the bottom (and lighter) gray which is Sherwin Williams Peppercorn (SW 7674).

Our original plan was to paint the house black (yes, I said BLACK). These were some of my favorite inspirations for going black.

So with those ideas in mind, you can maybe imagine my slight disappointment that literally everyone I know (with the exception of maybe 5 people) voted to go light on the paint. Anyone who knows me personally likely knows that I am anything but the type of person who follows the crowd. On the contrary, I’m a bit of a skeptic and if everyone else is doing it, I’m probably googling it for more information and asking myself if there’s a better alternative.

Surprisingly, my husband and both agreed on the darker color being our preference and even with all the votes against us, we weren’t wavering on our opinions. So we did what I imagine anyone in this situation would do: we painted bigger swatches on the house!

After we painted this and saw it with the white trim up top, we were set on the dark. And a few of our friends changed their vote too!

Although the whole house isn’t finished being painted, we have at least tackled most of the front and I’m super happy with how it’s turning out!

Stay tuned for more of our home renovation adventures!

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Our First House (Flip)

In honor of our recent closing day anniversary, I thought it would be fitting to share the before and after photos from our first ever house which later became our first house flip! Technically speaking, I guess we bought and flipped our second house, then bought our 3rd house and flipped our first house. It was a crazy 3 years! More on our Phillips Flips (home flipping stories) here.

On March 21, 2013 we bought our very first house. It was dreamy… and I mean “dreamy” in the sense that you had to dream about what it would look like one day and not what it looked like right when we bought it.

Here’s what it looked like when we bought it:

And the inside:

Check out those floors! The floors on the right of the picture above are linoleum tiles. There was 2 full layers of ceramic tile where you see the tile up there at the top and the carpet to the left was dark green. And about 8 feet inside the front door was a nice little 3-way junction where all 3 of the mixed floors met up for no real reason.

All the bedrooms had that same dark green carpet.

The kitchen was pretty small and awkwardly closed off to the rest of the house. So the first thing we did was grab a sledge-hammer and bust through some walls:

We removed the wall shown above which opened the kitchen to the entryway and a little more to the dining room over to the left.

We removed the upper cabinets that were hanging above the island which opened the headroom up a bit and made the kitchen completely open to the family/TV room.

We ripped up all of the floors to make way for light-colored hardwoods.

And then we got to work! We painted the kitchen cabinets white!

It was much more open with the overhead cabinets out of the way.

We painted the front door this fun minty color and I DIY Frosted the front windows with a little hand cut monogram in the center.

I replaced the fan in the dining room with this Maskros Pendant Lamp from IKEA and we painted the fun accent stripe wall on the side wall over there. That was SO “in” back in 2013!

We gave all the other walls a fresh coat of paint (either white or light gray).

And replaced the dark green carpet with a neutral “greige” color that we found on crazy sale at one of our local carpet/flooring warehouse places. We found just enough carpet to put in our sunken den area and all 3 of our bedrooms. It was meant to be!

I didn’t get a ton of great shots of it, but originally we had vaulted ceilings that were covered in dark wood paneling. We painted over that with white paint and it looked kind of like vaulted shiplap covered ceilings!

With the wall knocked out, the upper cabinets gone and the white paint, the kitchen looked much more open and bright!

And finally, we got around to painting the outside of the house and redoing the roof with light metal panels.

On our first ever house flip, we spent about $10K in renovations:
Flooring: $4,000 (purchased whole sale and installed by a friend of a friend)
New roof: $5,000 (we pulled our own permits and had a friend do the work for us)
Paint: $1,000 (we used a lot of leftover paint that we had sitting around in storage and we may have used plain old white primer on some interior walls- you got to save wherever you can!)

We ended up selling this house for $16K more than we paid for it which was a $6K profit on the sale alone. We also rented it out for several months during some of the transition time while we were in between houses and we made a total of $11,700 in rental income. So all-in-all we made $16,700 on our first flip.

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Our Backyard Renovation Plans

I’m finally putting pen to paper on our plans for our backyard, and man is it getting real! We have been saving up for this project since we finished buying our Christmas gifts last year (around mid-December) and we have been planning and getting inspiration for our backyard renovation since June 2015 – when we moved into this house. We’re planning to share all the details of the entire process right here for you to follow along, but for starters, we wanted you to see the “before” photos and share a little bit about our future and upcoming plans for this space.

Welcome to our backyard:

As you can see, the backyard is full of decking- literally. With the exception of our side-yard, a few flower beds and our long concrete driveway, our backyard is almost entirely solid wood. There was a “pool” when we moved in. And by pool, I mean that technically we had an above ground pool that was built into our raised deck, but it could be more accurately described as a broken-down plastic hole used for frog and mosquito breeding. So this was one of the very first things to go. We ripped this all out piece by piece which left us with a giant hole on one side of our yard that can be seen below:

It’s a really unappealing look – not to mention very unsafe for little kids. We’ve been living with this hole over here for almost 2 years now and we are finally ready to tackle this backyard renovation project.

First, we are demoing EVERYTHING! Literally every non-living structure in our backyard is getting ripped out, with the exception of this completely unfinished mother-in-law apartment- which we also have big plans for, but that’s another post for another day.

We recently decided to do the demo of our backyard ourselves instead of paying someone to do it for us. It’s proving to be a slow and arduous process that’s taking even longer than normal because we are having to fit the time in somewhere between our day jobs and parenting 2 little ones under the age of 3, but we are looking forward to getting the most bang for our buck! You can read more about the beginning of our DIY backyard deck demo here.

As of last night, this is how far we had come.

Like I said, it’s a slow process, but even a little progress is still progress, and I’m okay with that.

Once we finish the demo, we plan on rebuilding this second story deck in the same dimensions that it is currently.

The things we are doing differently with the rebuild include ensuring that the posts holding it up will be in the right spots. You can see in this picture below that the second story hangs past the posts that are holding it up and there are no additional supports to the part of the deck that’s hanging over. So those posts will be moved to the corners of the deck to support the entire second story properly.

We will be eliminating a few of the posts holding up the deck as well. Right now we have 4 posts going across the main part of our deck. We will be eliminating 2 of the 4 posts so that the only remaining posts will be the ones on the corners of the upper deck and around the edges where the roof needs to be supported. In the photo below, you would only see the post on the far left of the picture (but it would be moved out to the corner of the deck instead of in the middle).

The floor joists supporting the deck will also be built closer together- they are currently 24 inches apart which is not considered “to code” for the 2 X 4’s they are supporting. We’re going to install modern industrial railings around the upper deck and stairs.

I love the simple black iron railings here from Jordan Iverson Signature Homes

I also love the mixed metal and wood in these railings from Atlantis Rail Systems.

As part of our re-build of the second story, we will be gutting this outhouse- yes we have an outhouse and yes, it is plumbed and officially counts as a 1/2 bath for our home.

It also moonlights as a nice nesting ground for the local squirrels, opossums and small rodents.  So we will be removing it and replacing this spot with a very nicely sealed and (hopefully) waterproof custom storage area that will extend all the way under the stairs.

We originally wanted to do a composite decking solution for our stairs and deck, but after researching and weighing the pros and cons, we ultimately decided that we would rather save the money by doing a wood deck and painting and sealing it. We also made the decision to commit to the yearly maintenance of re-sealing that’s required to keep a wood deck in good condition. We’re planning to use standard pine for the deck and paint it a medium grey color similar to this deck featured on Atlantis Rail Systems website.

But we plan to use cedar posts for all of the supports that we’re going to seal with a clear sealer so we can see the natural wood accents like in this photo from 2Modern.

We are also planning to re-structure and slightly extend the aluminum roof above our deck area. Right now we have 2 different roof lines: one over the second story and another that begins at the top of the railing for the second story and angles down to the end of our deck. You can see what I mean in the photo below:

We are planning to move the bottom roof to meet up with the upper roof-line and also extend it out to go the full length of the upper roof. We are also going to extend the roof across the side of the house a bit to cover the stairs and help keep them from being hit directly by all the elements- which, in Florida, really just includes sunshine and rain. You can see below how the stairs are uncovered right now.

We’re also going to screen in the upstairs balcony and add a door for access to the stairs and another door on the other side for easy roof access in place of the gate we have right now.

Once all of the building/painting/roofing/screening is finished, we will have our concrete guy install some simple polished concrete that will span the entire bottom level for the area that’s under the roof.

We like a medium grey but with natural variations and something with the natural shine of polished concrete (not high gloss). We like something similar to the floors in this updated farmhouse by Archizer.

Or the concrete in the photo below featured in this article by Homedit.

Finally, once we finish everything above, we will frame everything with some minimalist, low-maintenance landscaping and some grass for our dogs.

Phase 2 of the project will include outdoor kitchen plans, a bar, a mounted TV and furniture- but we’re just wrapping our minds (and our budget) around phase 1 for now.

Still left on our to-do list after we finish the demo:

  1. Finalize our drawings and get the architect to sign-off on the final building plans for our second story balcony and stairs.
  2. Pull the permits for the entire project – we will save money by doing this ourselves rather than having multiple contractors pull permits for their own pieces of the work.
  3. Finish collecting quotes for the rebuild of our second story deck, the pouring of our first floor concrete, the rebuild/restructure of our aluminum roof covering and screened in second story balcony.
  4. Bring in dirt to level out our backyard and fill in the holes
  5. Have our aluminum guy demo the current aluminum roof (We’re attempting to reuse anything we can from our current roof since it’s in good condition- so we’re letting the expert handle this part of the demo)
  6. Build the 2nd story balcony and stairs
  7. Rebuild the new aluminum roof
  8. Paint and seal the wood decking on the balcony and stairs
  9. Pick out, order and install some modern iron railings for the second story and stairs
  10. Screen in the second story balcony
  11. Pour and finish the concrete on the first floor
  12. Re-work the backyard landscaping and lay down some sod

We’ll be checking these off our list one by one and keeping you updated as we make our way through it. We hope you enjoy following us throughout this process. You can subscribe to receive email notifications of our updates on our home page.

Update: For more on the plans and status of our backyard renovation, check this post out.

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5 Reasons we are NOT Using a General Contractor

When this process started, I thought that a “general contractor” was just the fancy term for a person who was licensed to build things with permits and stuff. That just goes to show how much we actually knew about construction! We originally planned to have someone do our entire backyard transformation for us, and of course we first went to some general contractors to get quotes. It didn’t take long for me to realize that a “general contractor” is actually someone who charges you to get quotes and juggle all the people that have to come together to build something. The “official” definition of a general contractor is,

“[Someone who] is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of a building project.”

Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not undermining the value of this position and I can only imagine how important it would be to have a general contractor for any major build. However, for a backyard deck demo and rebuild, it seems a bit excessive and after our first quote of $50,000, downright crazy.

Here’s why we chose not to use a general contractor on our backyard transformation.

1. Steep Price Tag – We are just literally not able to spend $50K on a backyard makeover. So we have already started cutting and shaving items off our “dream list” and one of the first things to go was the general contractor.

One thing that we will not be cutting from our “dream list” is how we plan to incorporate one of our backyard live oaks into the deck plans! 1. I can’t bear the thought of taking down the tree with all the little bird nests nestled up there. And 2. Live trees worked into the architectural design of outdoor spaces are seriously one of my top 5 favorite things. How can you not love this?


– And this beauty designed by Dana Pacific Landscape in California. Hats off to you Dana.


2. No Time Crunch – I can see the value in having a project manager overseeing the building, scheduling the workers and making sure that each piece of the puzzle fits in right where it belongs. I know the process would be quicker and more efficient if we had a general contractor running the show, but frankly we aren’t in a time crunch. We don’t have deadlines, we’re not rushing to get our backyard ready, and I would rather take my time and live in a construction zone for a little bit longer if it means saving big bucks on this transformation.

3. I Know a Guy – I get that one of the benefits of having a general contractor is being able to use their connections to get the best prices/quality work, but we already know a guy- we know a handyman who’s offered to help us with some of the big demo pieces for a steal of a price. We know the best concrete guy in the city shout out to No Boring Concrete in Lakeland, FL. We have a couple builder friends, and when all else fails, social media is the best avenue for getting some solid recommendations for local businesses. So even though it might take us a little longer to weed through the quotes/reviews/options, we’re already halfway there and willing to put in the work.

Check out some inspiration from our concrete guy’s previous projects!

Aren’t these concrete countertops dreamy? Check out the built in herb planters – makes me wish we had a wall of windows in our kitchen!


And just try not to drool over this modern wood accent on these concrete counter tops! No Boring Concrete did these for one of Lakeland’s new coffee shops (Concord Coffee).


4. I Know What I Want – The more I talk to contractors/architects/pool guys/handymen/painters etc. about my vision for our home, the more I realize that what I like and what I want is not the “norm” around here. I don’t know if it’s the modern, mid-century vibe that throws people or if they just don’t understand implementing something with clean straight lines and a minimalist approach, but I just can’t rely on a GC to be able to get quotes and carry out my vision on this whole project. I know what I want, but no one else seems to! And let’s be real, some things are bound to get lost in translation right? It will feel good to know that I can control who does what and I can take each person step by step to see my vision and make sure expectations are clear (plus possibly save money by doing some things ourselves!)

Speaking of DIY, we’re thinking about DIY-ing our own privacy fence once we get things cleared out. Check out this chalkboard privacy fence some friends of ours found at The Bearded Pig in Jacksonville, FL! I love the clean, modern style plus the bonus of a lifetime of family chalk drawings. It could also double as a handy scoreboard for outdoor games, seasonal murals, birthday decorations, practicing ABC’s… the possibilities are endless!


5. We Learn More – We are admittedly not experienced in construction work, building things, cutting things or any other number of home projects. I’ve learned a few things from watching my dad over the years and JP knows even less than I do. So we’re really learning as we go. Not having a GC will require us to be involved in every aspect of our backyard transformation, and we are bound to learn a few things. We will be more hands-on and by default able to take some notes and get some good tips for more DIY projects in the future – which will all be thoroughly documented right here of course!

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A DIY Backyard Demo to Kick off our Backyard Makeover

Today we started demo on our backyard deck. It was a total sporadic, impulsive decision that is completely characteristic of my husband. He went to the gym to get in a quick workout while the girls were napping and came back with a circular saw that he had borrowed and picked up from my parents’ house. He proceeded to walk right outside and start sawing our deck and pulling up boards. (In case you missed the memo, we have big plans for our backyard space- but we’ll share more about that later)

Here’s a little more on the story behind this impulsive (yet wonderfully frugal and DIY-ish) decision to demo our own deck:

When we moved into this giant and beautiful fixer-upper that we call our home, 90% of our large backyard was full of decking that had probably once looked amazing. However when we moved in, the wood boards were rickety and on their last leg. They were borderline unsafe to walk on and certainly not “family friendly” for a family with a soon-to-be toddler. Imbedded in our deck was a run-down above-ground pool that was serving as a breeding ground for frogs and mosquitos and any number of other green slimey organisms. We decided that needed to go as soon as possible. We hired a handyman to rip out the pool piece by piece and the rim of deck immediately surrounding the pool which left us with a couple steep drop-offs on the side of our deck and a large hole full of dirt on one side of our yard. We have been living like this for a little over a year and half. So we have had plenty of time to dream up what our backyard will one day be.

After tackling the non-cosmetic “required” fixes in our home and several months of planning and saving (and a forth-coming tax return), we are finally ready to redo our backyard. So first things first, we need to demo what we’ve got before we can build new stuff. Our first quote to demo our backyard woodpile was $14,000. -yes, JUST the demo! If your mouth dropped when you read that, then you share my sentiments exactly. When we were shopping around for quotes, we didn’t know what to expect or what standard prices for this kind of stuff would be, but we definitely never dreamed the demo alone would cost $14,000. This demo includes TONS of decking, a second story balcony, outdoor stairs, an outhouse [yes, someone built and outhouse in our backyard] and a large wooden building that was at one time used as a dog pen and/or fish cleaning station, but it is all JUST just wood.

So we set out for some cheaper options…

We reached out to some handymen to get demo quotes and we found a guy who quoted us just $3,000 for the demo if we could provide a dumpster. All-in we were looking at $3,500 to completely remove everything made of wood (barring the live oaks) and that was something we could stomach.

We began to move forward on quotes for the build of the 2nd store deck, the polished concrete that’s going to make up the ground floor, modern steel railing for the stairs and top deck and dirt/sod companies to fill in the rest of the yard. All the while we have been saving.

Fast-forward to this afternoon. My husband shows up with a saw and says, “babe just think what we could do with $3,500!”

Okay! You got me. Have at that deck with your saw that you’ve never used before. Just don’t lose any fingers okay?

Here’s JP making the first cut. He’s standing in the hole that used to be home to the above ground pool and surrounding deck that I mentioned earlier. Now you can visualize the “unsafe” edges I was talking about right?


Look at him go. There’s nothing sexier than a man with initiative and determination am I right? He spent about 20 minutes outside and this was the result:


Pretty good right?

There’s still a lot of work to be done, but we’ve never been so determined. Now that we have seen just how easy it is to pull this stuff up and add to that the promise of saving at least $3,000, this decision seems like a no brainer.

Feeling good about the plans ahead. More on our Backyard plans and the inspiration behind it coming soon!