I hate remodeling. We are currently in the middle of two projects, both of which are taking way longer than I thought they would, and I’m ready for both of them to be over and done with.

The first remodel is our bathroom. Geoff and his dad started tearing it apart on March 2, which means that the only full bathroom in our house has been under construction for 118 days (that’s almost four months, people). It also means that last month we spent two full weeks showering at my in-laws’ house, which is only a few miles away, and that we have only had a concrete board floor to walk on that entire time.

I shouldn’t complain because we have saved so much money by having Geoff and his dad do all the work themselves. Plus they have really only been working on the weekends except for a week or two when they needed to work weeknights. And what they have done so far is awesome.

The good part is that the end is in sight. The walls are up and painted, the shower tile and floor tile are in and the beadboard, toilet and vanity are the last steps. I’m hoping the project will be complete in about two weeks (cross your fingers!).

Here are some photos from before we remodeled as well as some of the work in-progress:

The second remodel is our back stairs. We had some crumbling old concrete stairs that basically fell apart a little more each time it rained. Those were knocked down last weekend, and will be replaced with a beautiful new deck (once it stops raining and the bathroom is complete).

Here’s a before shot and the work in-progress:

This is our inspiration for the new deck, though it will be modified to our house/yard:

I’m hoping to have some garden boxes along the length of the privacy wall so that I can grow some veggies (mostly tomatoes). We only have one door instead of a sliding one, so that part will be different. We are also thinking of including a pass-through window from our kitchen out to the deck, so we’d need to add a little bar area outside the window where we can put a couple chairs. We’re keeping part of the yard as a patio, though most of it will be the deck now, and we are cutting into the yard a little bit. I can’t wait to see the finished product!

Once these two projects are done I can turn my attention to the most important project of all: designing the nursery!