patio

We got a new bid from a good contractor for $800 less than the first one.  Given that they could also start within a few days instead of close to a month, the choice was easy.  Because our other bids didn’t pan out (one guy never got back to us and the other bowed out because he worked by himself), we decided to just move forward instead of wasting more time.  It looks as though they’ll start the hanging within a day or two!

This weekend I cleared out all the tools and remaining materials so that they’d have space to work.  I also went ahead and cut a hole in our patio cover and added plywood to make a standing/walking surface.  My initial plan of gracefully removing the panel in order to be able to reinstall it did not pan out.  The nails wouldn’t budge, so plan B was to rip it to shreds.  They’ll have to start with the “fun” job of lifting bunches of sheets through the slot and feeding them into the back bedroom through the window hole.  And that’s after carrying them up our front stairs and all the way to the back of the house. An elevated lot is a major pain.

We ran electricity out to the patio and installed our old dining room chandelier. Low wattage flicker bulbs add to the ambience, as do our new Craigslist bargain table and chairs (only $100 for the set – woo hoo!)

I used a conduit bender (for the wiring) for the first time, and the thought it was a lot of fun. Earlier in the year his company remodeled his office, and he was able to salvage tons of old electrical conduit and boxes. That came in handy for all the practice he needed to get it right.

Yet another place where we spent much more than we wanted to, but where it was worth it in the end.

We had originally planned to put in french doors, since we really preferred them to sliding patio doors. But once we really started thinking about how we would be using the doors, we realized that a sliding door would make more sense. Having a screen that you can slide into place is nice to have in the summertime, even though we really don’t get all that many insects here. In the end, we found these Marvin doors that were fiberglass outside and fir on the inside (“Woodclad”). Since we’d be able to stain them to match the rest of our fir trim, we thought that they would look fine in the kitchen. And they really do. We have had several people comment about how they didn’t think they liked sliding patio doors, but they really loved these.

The football field size cover over our back patio.  It is a fantastic thing to have in a rainy climate!