painting railings, finishing up around east deck.

 Well we started out with a large hole in our east deck where we had a small greenhouse that we moved to the south side of the house by the handicapped ramp. We decided that we wanted to have steps down this side of the east deck to access our back yard easier on the east side where Joel's house is and where we have the pond and the raised bed gardens.

 We decided to build the steps in the area where the old greenhouse had been, we had to dig up dozens of bricks that had been there to form paths inside the greenhouse. There is also a lot of weeds and plants in this area that have to be cleaned out. There was a lot of unfinished deck in this area and there were NO railings at all on the north part of the east side of the deck.

We bought the materials to start putting up railing on the steps and on the edges of the east side where the greenhouse had been, we decided not to expand the deck at this time, just hurry and patch it up best we could because I'm having brain surgery in May and we wanted to get as much done as we could before the surgery.

 Here you can see some of the raised bed gardens just beyond the new steps that we put down, we still have alot of work to do at the bottom of the steps where the greenhouse was and bricks were dug up.

Here we put some raililng and some patches to holes in the deck to make it safe on the side where the greenhouse had been. I began to paint the railings this week. Ran out of spindles but will pick them up Monday when I go to the Dr for the one year recheck on my shoulder surgery. The closest store that carries the spindles is Menards in Traverse city.

Here we have repaired most of the railings and I have gotten the insides of them mostly painted, a lot of work. The house you see is our son Joel's house next door.

Utility area had no railing around the flower bed, and needed access to the utility box. I plan to build a gate here. 

Ran out of spindles doing this part but will finish this and the gate on the other end when I buy more spindles next week.

Here we h ad to bump out the railing away from the pear tree, as last year the pear tree knocked down the railings and laid its heavily laden branches right down on the deck all fall. We did cut off some branches and moved the railing back another two feet away from the pear tree to give it some more room, hopefully it will be enough. There is a small gate in this end of the bumped back railing to give us access behind the railing to the pear tree.

Here is a photo with ONE coat of paint on all of the railings and spindles (we still need to finish the spindles and make the gate and finish unfinished railings next week after a trip to Menards. Also there needs to be some touch up paint done on the outside of the railings where I need a ladder to reach to top of the back sides..This was 10 hours of painting to get this much done. Still have to repaint the railings on the front and back deck and the handicapped ramp. Back is very sore.