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 (2021) 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 (2021) 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.