Jeff’s vacation = working too hard

This is Jeff’s first week off. He’s been working so hard. He has 3 projects he wants to get a start on:

1. Dig up 2 walls of the basement walk-out to extend the foundation drainage pipe around the walkout foundation, and reseal the leaking foundation wall in the basement walk-out
2. Run electricity from the house under the driveway to the new shed
3. Prepare the front of the house for a future deck

So far Jeff has removed all the 20+ year old shrubs from the front of the house and pulled off the old crooked steps. He just had to attach it to the ATV and pull!  Except for stopping quickly when we realized the satellite co-ax cables were wrapped around the bottom of the deck.  That is why there is a quickly ripped hole in the deck to untangle them.

Jeff dismantled all the boards and they are already at the dump!

The house looks so much better without all those old overgrown shrubs! It’s just screaming for a deck, eh? We’re thinking 12 feet out, the full length of the front of the house, under 24″ high so we don’t need a railing (because that would block the lake view from our living room). Jeff’s thinking of attaching the ledger board to the basement foundation, just under the vinyl siding. At that height, we’ll need a step or two up from the deck to the front door – maybe just a nice platform and step in front of the door.

I also want to get rid of the pastel green paint around the windows, eventually. Any colour suggestions?  Our front door needs replacing someday soon so maybe it will inspire a colour.

We have a half load of cleaned gravel coming for around the perforated drain pipe for the foundation work. A neighbour has a little mini-backhoe. He is going to come and dig up that foundation, dig holes for the sono tubes for the new deck, and dig a trench for the electricity and pvc protective piping. We are also waiting for another neighbour to check out our driveway before the entire thing erodes away into the lake. His company has a grader.

And what am I doing to help?  Just about nothing.  I am not supposed to lift or pull anything.  It is really hard to not help.