As a wrap up of the five-year before and after extravaganza, we’re getting our shoes on, heading out the front door, and taking a peek around the exterior.  Before, the exterior wasn’t the best selling feature.  What, with the dated windows, two-tone unfinished siding, and completely overgrown landscape.

We’ve since replaced every.single.window, wrapped the house in extra insulation, followed up by a combo of dark lap siding and rusting CorTen steel.

Landscaping has been a long road, starting with a water and energy-saving rock base.  To soften all the rock, water wise plants dot the property and are filling in nicely.

Along the front of the pool house, a large but falling apart deck awaited a refresh.  With the rotting supports and splintered wood, the deck was beyond repair.

A complete rebuild took many weekends over the course of a summer, but we now have an outdoor oasis.  Covering the southern exposure was crucial in making the space usable, avoiding roasting.

From the road, the pool house was quite an eyesore.  Missing pieces of siding and topped with a leaking roof due to the old solar panels.

Now, it’s sleek, streamlined, and more private thanks to a horizontal railing.

At the far end, we carved out room for a grill station with plenty of room for a relaxing seating area.

At the back of the house, there was a very overgrown flagstone paver patio with an ostentatious lion head fountain in the center.

When the patio was created, the landscapers brought in fill dirt.  But, that dirt was higher than the concrete foundation, which could cause wood rotting and possibly basement flooding.  Before we could do too much inside, we had to fix this situation and the landscaping followed.  By removing the top foot of dirt, we fixed that problem.  To make the space more usable, we built a big deck out of chunky reclaimed beams.

While digging down, we decided to add a water feature in the form of a waterfall.

It gives a similar sound effect as the fountain, but is set back, allowing more usable space with a gas fire pit in front.

Lowering the back landscaping also gave us the opportunity to drop the back pool door down.  Previously, there were four steps to get up to a small landing, which cut off both the interior and exterior spaces.

This back deck sees a lot of use.  It’s a space for the boys to play, an outdoor dining room, and a private hang out space.

Pool house progress coming up next!