We have a deck!!

We are very happy about the fact that we finally have a deck! This is something that we weren't 100% sure we were going to do this year, but decided that in order to move forward on the rest of the home improvements that we want to do, the deck really had to come before everything else. So we saved up our Christmas Club money, our tax return money and the money that we got from selling the red truck after we inherited the white truck from my grandfather and settled on the contractor we were going to hire to do our deck. 

The hubby and I still would like to do the majority of the home improvements ourselves in order to save money, but building the deck by ourselves was not something that we really wanted to do. The deck ended up being between five and a half and six feet up off the ground, and it would have to hold our weight so we decided that was something we just didn't want to mess with. So we went with a contractor that is located right outside our neighborhood so it local, and we really want to support local businesses as much as we can and they were just the best choice. 

Getting the deck installed ended up being a bit of a frustrating process, which was not at all the fault of the contractor and all the fault of mother nature. The week we had scheduled the deck to get put in.. we had rain, A LOT of rain. Enough rain that the main road leading to our neighborhood ended up flooding. Luckily, I have an AMAZING boss who is super understanding and had no trouble giving me additional time off in order to be home when they put the deck in. I did end up having to go into work that morning, but luckily Nico was fascinated by the contractors and didn't destroy anything beyond a box of tissues. 

As promised, it took them one day to install the deck, with the final inspection on the next day, so we were able to start using it immediately. We did decide to wait to really put anything heavy on the deck until after we sealed it, but that process will be a different post because it just deserves its own story, because sealing the deck has certainly been and adventure... and we're not done yet! But the most important part is... WE HAVE A DECK!