October 13, 2013 – The Deck/Pergola Addition

It was time to rip the 30-yr old entry deck off the front of the house. In addition to its age, it was too small to allow comfortable seating and entry into the house. Sooooo… the newest addition to the house – a deck/pergola combination.
I didn’t want to make a normal suburban deck on the house. Why be normal?


I wanted to tie in both the farm and the prairie style, mission-lite features inside of the house into the deck.

Cattle panel railings tie in the farm with a few cross-bars cut out for some additional creative style.

The ceiling of the pergola was a labor of love – ripping cedar deck boards into one inch strips and then staining all four sides.
Leaving the house, here’s the view from the front door. It’s nice to leave the house in stockings and take a seat outside. All this work has taken up all the recent weekends, thus the dearth of postings lately.

October 5, 2013 – Pasture Labyrinth

Linda was excited after walking a labyrinth this summer and I said – “You want a labyrinth, I can make you a labyrinth!”

A few minutes mowing in the back pasture and there you go! Although you can’t see it well in this photo, the center focal point is an old glass ball and lightning rod.