We just can't seem to leave anything as is.

Our house in Lake Villa

We moved into our current home in Lake Villa in August of 2020. That year, we didn't do any work, but we did have work done. We had to have the entire roof replaced, then both air conditioners were going bad so we had to replaced both of those too. I say both because this house has two small HVAC systems, one for each floor.

Year 1 upgrade, the Pergola

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures early on, so this is the first picture I took of the pergola. I began building it atop a two-level deck in our back yard. I used 8 4x4 8' untreated posts, since I was planning on painting it right away. I put in the outer ring that would support the ends of the cross beams and installed two temporary cross beams to support the other end of the cross beams.

Year 1 upgrade, the "flagpole"

After building the pergola, we wanted to put a flagpole in the front yard, but we were pretty tapped out from the pergola expenses. So we bought a couple of shower curtain rods and put them together and shoved in the small wooden flagpole into it and stuck it into an umbrella stand. This didn't work very well, as any strong wind would knock it over.

Year 2 upgrades, the patio and wall

In 2022, we took on a very ambitious project of building a sitting wall with a patio in the front of the house. This is what the house looked like before we did any work on the front.

Year 2 upgrades, the primary front garden

If you recall, the house had a row of red blocks, separating the mulch area from the grass. The first thing I did here was to dig them up, then bury them in the ground, so they were flush with the grass. I then added another row of gray/white blocks on top so they somewhat matched the color of the wall.

Year 2 upgrades, the "real" flagpole

Having done all these upgrades, we felt the cheesy flagpole made with shower curtain rods just didn't do the yard justice. So I bought a real 25' flagpole. We dug down about 18 inches below grade and about 16 inches wide. We used a box lined with plastic to form the concrete.

Year 3 upgrades, Replacing the back deck.

Before working on the front yard, we decided to rebuild the back decks, since the outer edges of the boards were rotted. The framing was fine, it was just the decking that was bad. So I started with the smaller of the two decks, which was the hex. For safety reasons, I only tore out a couple boards ahead of what I needed.

Year 3 upgrades, Replacing the wall.

After the upper deck rebuild, we moved back to the front yard. Since we were going to tear down the old wall, we decided to make it wider so we could get in more plants. So the first thing was to figure out how wide we wanted it. As you can see here, I tore out the corner and block it in, but this was too narrow.

Year 3 upgrades, stairway to the backyard

After we finished the octagon, we noticed the staircase outer stringer was also rotting. So I immediately began removing the treads and risers, thinking this would be an easy job. But after purchasing a replacement, I realized the original stringers were non-standard, meaning I have to replace the entire set!

Year 3 upgrades, Main deck replacement

Since I hired my contractor buddy to do the main deck because of the overall size, I don't have many pictures. But here is one that shows the extend of rot that was going on. This deck was 20 years old and was probably not maintained very well.