Patio

Our 2009 house project has been to put a roof over our outdoor patio.  Joe, along with my dad and brother, spent 4 Saturdays out in the backyard.  With the exception of some stain and paint, it's completely finished and looks amazing.  Here are a few pictures of the process.  By the way, it was up to me to fix lunch and keep plenty of cold drinks on hand, a very important job :).

Here's a picture of the patio before we started any work.  It's a nice big space, but with direct afternoon sunlinght in the summer, it gets way too hot to enjoy.  We also wanted a place to grill in all weather.  

My brother in quite a carpenter and had everything planned out in no time.  He also has the right tools, which made a huge difference.  Here's his patio with a similar covering that he built last year.  (That's sweetie pie Elizabeth coming out the back door.)

Here's the end of day one.  Lots of hard work to get the main boards set in place.

With all the boards and trim pieces, it was a constant cycle of measure, cut, nail gun, measure, cut, nail, gun...  I saw a lot of this.

We added 2 electical outlets and a ceiling fan.  My dad handled the electrical work.

Around 9:00 last night, it was finished!  Here's the happy work team, and the finished product.

Now all we need to do is a few cosmetic things like staining and painting.  Thankfully, I have some live-in help that's great at that.

With such nice weather this weekend, Jack and I got in on the home & yard work too.  Here I am preparing a spot for an herb garden.  

At 18 weeks along, I'm feeling lots of baby activity these days!  Joe felt his first kicks last night.  I think the baby knew his/her daddy was there and put on a good show.