2 BIG Projects Done!

I'm not sure why I haven't posted about these yet, but over the summer I knocked out two really big projects that I wanted to get done on the house.

Project #1 - The Roof!

Way way back during the inspection, I was told that a new roof would be needed within a few years of purchasing the house. That didn't really scare me off, so my realtor offered to get a quote on a new roof for me to use during negotiations. I'm not sure how he chose the particular company, but they came in, checked it out, and gave me a dollar figure to haggle with. (It worked, by the way - woohoo!)

Fast forward to 2 years later (and a small leak in the ceiling, yikes), and I was able to check this project off my list! For simplicity's sake, I just decided to go with that same company, so I got in touch with them for an updated quote. As it turns out, I found out a coworker at my new job is semi-related to the guy who runs the roofing company - small world! So at least I knew that he was a reputable guy who wouldn't rip me off ;)

A few phone calls and a couple weeks later, I had a shiny new roof!

Before

After!

Say hello to 30 years of (hopefully) not having to deal with this again :) All told, I never actually met my roofers in person, but they did a great job and I would recommend them! I was in touch with a gutter guy who my roofers recommended, but that ultimately didn't work out. I would like to replace the gutters at some point though!

Project #2 - The Fence!

Okay, this was actually kind of a nightmare :( I searched for fence companies on Angie's List since I didn't have any friends or acquaintances that knew of anyone reputable, and found a few that had good reviews that I was interested in getting quotes from.  Only one of those companies was very responsive, so I had them come out and give me a quote. I liked the guy, and what we discussed, but I really wasn't in any rush to get anything done and had fully planned on getting more quotes from other companies.

But then, laziness kicked in, and honestly, I didn't want to have to take more time off work to meet with other companies! On Angie's List reviews, customers are able to post the price of the work they had done, and after extensive research of other companies' comparable reviews, I deemed the pricing to be just fine.

So I called them up, and they came out to install the fence. Step one of install was full on removal of all of the HUGELY overgrown plants.

Here's a reminder of what it looked like back there...

There was also a chain link fence along the West and North of the property, cleverly hidden behind all the greenery. Well, once all that was gone, they put up the framing, and I came home to this:

Yeah!

And then the day after that:

I love it!

It looks great, right? Well, a pretty huge miscommunication happened, and what should have looked like this:

(Taken from the company's website)

Ended up looking like this:

Not the prettiest...

I was lead to believe that the overlapping wood would look more like the first photo, but it ended up looking like more of an afterthought, which you can see in the second photo. And because I wasn't there to supervise, that's what I got. Hrmph.

All in all, obviously it's way better than what was there previously, but I wasn't entirely happy with the company (as well as their lack of removing materials after the job was finished...I don't want to get into it). I'm glad it's done, and that I now have more privacy back there!

As of right now, the back yard is a complete blank slate. I'm interested in putting some sort of deck or patio out there, and I'd like to eventually incorporate foliage that *won't* overtake the yard (I'm looking at you, blackberries). I'd love to eventually have a garden, maybe even chickens (!), but most importantly, I'd just like it to be functional! I don't think I've spent more than a few minutes out there at a time when I wasn't doing yard work. I'd like to actually enjoy relaxing out there! I think I see hammocks in my future...

Megan