What a difference a deck makes!

I was recalling earlier what the front of the house looked like at the beginning of the year. It is amazing what a weekend project can do for appearances, and functionality as well! Rob built me a front deck for my birthday this year, to replace the pallet (which I detested) that served the purpose when we bought the place. It took him a day and a half to build, but its like we added a whole new room!

Here's the before and after pictures...

Before...

...After

We have so many landscaping plans for this pile of rocks we live on, its hard to decide what to tackle first. We mostly want to get in the gardens first, but this was much needed, and much appreciated! It helps keep the house a little cleaner in the summer, also, because I leave my front doors open thanks to the lack of mosquitoes in this particular spot. I didn't realize quite how drastic the transformation was until I looked at both of these pictures together.