Home Improvements

Tim and I have put off some home renovations for a while--most notable, the roof.  Both the garage and the house needed to have the roofs replaced, but the garage was much worse.  We had a company come out and do the garage since it's steep pitch made Tim doing it himself impossible.  Tim decided to save some dough and do the house roof by himself.  A lovely surprise was waiting for us--when the previous homeowner did a new roof 20 years ago, he left the old roof down!  So we had TWO layers of roofing to take off!  Tim got so much of the work done himself, and then I called in for reinforcements.  We paid several teachers' teens serious money to scoop up all the roof debris and get it put in the rented dumpster.  We got a 40 cubic yard dumpster and thought it would be too big--that thing was packed!  The kids worked so hard to clear out all the old plywood, shingles, tar paper, and nails.  Two of their dads volunteered to help out Tim, and it was great to see the "Amish barn raising" mentality of all of these people coming together to help us put a roof up.  Em got the chance to go up and help with the roof cap and she LOVED it!  I'm not a heights person, so I took some pics from the ground.

Our other improvement is something we've talked about for a long time--a hot tub!  We found an amazing deal with American Spas and decided to go for it.  It took a while to prep the back yard, pour the concrete pad, and then run all of the electric (thank God I married an electrician!).  But Tim had it ready to go by Labor Day weekend, and we got the hot tub moved into place with some friends' help and an amazing dolly that Tim made from wheelbarrow tires and spare lumber!

She's a beaut!  Five seater and a lounger seat, LED lighting, and a waterfall!

Framing up, gravel poured, and concrete retaining wall set to keep the gravel from washing out.

Tim's dolly in action!

Ignore the pallet and plywood landing!  We're pouring a separate pad for a small walkway from the patio to the hot tub.  It just has to quit raining long enough to do it!