The Outside Also Counts

My husband is a truly amazing man.
Why?  Because he will endure rain, cold and serious muscle fatigue to build an entire fence - by himself - before the winter ... and so that we can let our dogs out without chaining them or watching them do their business with extra minutes we don't have in our day.

I must have forgotten to take a picture of our backyard sans fence, so this one is the best I have.  It's facing the back of the house, not facing the backyard, but you can get an idea of the fence-less terrain and rickety deck.

And now, the result of my husband's multi-day Do It Yourself effort ...

This was the last piece, and you can't tell, but he is E.x.h.a.u.s.t.e.d!

He put a gate on BOTH sides of the house, which is an improvement from our last house.  It used to drive me crazy that I could not get to the front or the back from both sides of our house!  

Gate 1:

Gate 2:

My favorite is the creative use of existing ... infrastructure ... to make sure that there are no ... vulnerabilities ... in the perimeter!  We took this tree down a few weeks ago because it is beyond dead, but rather than remove the stump, he just recycled it into part of our fence.  

No sooner did the fence go up then we hired a contractor to power wash, caulk, repair and paint the exterior of the house.  They did a wonderful job!

The house had not been painted since it was built, as you can kinda see below.  Very dingy and dirty.  In fact, the background image of my blog is this same photo:

And, post-facelift:

It's so bright and cheerful!  Especially with our pumpkins from The Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur, IL.