Thread: Home improvements

Thats looks nice Mike. I cannot imagine trying to shovel your previous walk in the winter. I think your new curb appeal is awesome. I am a little surprised at the composite decking, seeing as how concrete is fairly inexpensive in most of Canada, it does suffer with the Canadian winters though. I am interested in how that decking stands up to shoveling. Looks great now, but I have never seen it done in snow country.

You did a fine job. My home was made 1967 so not really old but old enough. Im always upgrading or repairing. Last project of painting the insides of the house we took on one room at a time. My play room took the longezt and the most work. But this last weekend we took all the interior doors out into the back yard and i bought aj air spray paint gun and painted all the doors. They look much better. So do all the rooms. Well, one room left to do and a couple closets but almost done.

They regraded, making the inside by the front porch the highest point, as it was 50 years ago when the house was new. Slopping out and down to the driveway and beyond. Fabric under the rock garden and composite porch to prevent re growth of weeds.
Decking is good to -80 and should shovel easy as I had him do the boards long run.
Supposedly salt proof, so we shall see how it fairs in our climate.
Small deck as a test project. If it's crap in five years, I may be able to afford new stone again by then ,hehehe.

With the front done, moving to the back.

We have a larger property and the pool was installed in the 70s. Winters have killed the concrete and it's time to redo everything or fill it all f'n in..
First we removed about 1200 sq ft of flagstone.

Going to remove all the concrete perimeter next and replace with engineered 3" pavers and epoxy, run a new 50' retaining wall along the south side while pushing back the hill enough to gain another 400 ' of patio area around the pool.


The rain this summer is killing my timelines though. We are a month behind where we should be. And the pump hasn't been able to run in two weeks.


And a new snag with the plan in that the pool walls are retained with an inverted A frame and rebar type design keeping the walls all rigid and strong like..
Well these days they go with an A not an inverted A so the frame is widest at the bottom of the hole, not the top like mine.this means we need to repour a concrete and rebar ring to give the walls the rigidity they need. So more cost, slower removal as they need to save the brace ends to redrill and reconnect everything with new rebar. And this all has to be 3" lower at its top surface to still leave the room for the pavers to surround the pool to its edge.
No backing out now, and in the end, with new drainage tubing above and below the hill to control future run off, this should be an upgrade that survives another 50 years and is easier to maintain as I get older, and lazier.

Dang Mike, that is quite the undertaking to say the least.
But in the end it'll be worth it right

And as long as the dog approves all is well, I see he was assessing the situation in the first picture

Saving some coin by doing the pool line plumbing replacements myself.
Figure it prudent to replace the 50 year old lines now, before all the new stone is laid.


Hard to swing a pipe wrench in such a narrow trench, but who wants to dig more than they have too?

All tested and leak free!
Going to fill it back up and leave it running to clean up the algae that's trying to take over..
Hopefully tomorrow i can see the bottom again.