Our old pavilion was falling down, so we began the long process of tearing it down towards the end of 2020. We had enjoyed it for 22 years.
You can see it is getting quite wavy. It wasn't until August, 2021, that it was completely taken down.
The beams alone stood for half a year. We had taken the top portion off cause I was afraid it would fall and damage the patio surface or kill someone. I left the beams until we would actually replace it with something else so I wouldn't have to dodge the holes that would be left. Also, that tree has a lot of mistletoe doesnt it?
Snowmageddon happened in Feb. 2021. Good thing we had trimmed all that mistletoe by then.
This was the low point. About the 1st of June, 2021. We had already decided to do the extensive pool repairs, because the inside pool surface was destroyed, the equipment wasn't working properly so it could not be cleaned, the surface had some major cracks, and it was also falling deeper into the ground on the end closest to the pavilion. 23 years of use had taken its toll. We needed to do some work.
The swamp was drained
Some piers were installed to keep the north end from plunging any deeper into the ground.
And the cracks stitched like Frankenstein
The upper tile installed exactly as I laid it out and I then laid out the lower tile like I wanted it
The new surface went in and finally on July 27, it was filled with water
We loved it, but we knew we had to put up a new pavilion structure of some kind. I was thinking we would just do something similar to the old one but the builder (along with help from The Mrs.) decided "Oh no, we must do something much more expensive". I'm easy.
After going back and forth with the possibilities (each one getting more and more expensive) I gave the builder this photo I had found and told him to build it. Isn't it beautiful? But we didn't need the extra column, we just made a real beefy 24' beam to hold it up, made it a hip roof at the ends and put the gable right out front. I even wanted the arched opening on the fireplace as shown above.
Finally on Aug. 16, 2021 construction began.
Finally on Aug. 16, 2021 construction began.
The beams are made of 9 stacked two by fours. I tried to lift one of the ends of the 24' one. No can do.
Rest In Peace Max 2008 - 2021
September 11, 2021
October 8, 2021
Mom and Dad made this all possible. I wish they could have been here to enjoy it with us.
We've had a lot of dinner parties out here and have really enjoyed it. Especially in the fall of 2021 and even through the winter.
Dad's license plates on the left and Mom's on the right.
But then, as I sat looking back at the house, I noticed that the back portion of the house itself needed something to dress it up.
I mapped out a plan to place a covering over the back door, have a double gable on the roof and columns just like the pavilion and install some new doors. After going over all this with the builder and the door company we decided on a single gable, wider than the photoshop example above and a four panel door / window combination. We also straighten up that chimney and the leaky roof it had caused.
We started on it late August 2022. About halfway through, we got a torrential rain, and since we had removed the gutters from the house, the water poured into the flower beds, over the decomposed granite sidewalk and washed the granite down onto the patio and into the pool. This destroyed the pool pump and set off a two month quest to clean the pool. The progress was excruciatingly slow.
Here the new doors and windows have been installed. Windows all around the house were replaced, and we got a new roof too. New gutters were installed as well. We had a hard deadline of October 8 to have everything perfect because of an event we were having.
This picture was taken on the evening of October 7, about 24 hours before the event. We went right up to the start of the event cleaning everything. I hope you have enjoyed looking at our 15 month transformation.