Our weekend....

...of relaxation and puppy preparations!!

I had a rare weekend off from the gym and coaching this weekend (because the gym was closed for a tournament) and so I was able to spend all weekend at home with Jason....like a mini "staycation"!!

On Friday night when we got out of work we decided to go see the new Pirates movie (opening weekend) in 3-D.  I have to say that I liked it quite a bit----I'm not an avid fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise...but this was probably one of my favorites of the films.  I'm pretty sure it's because mermaids were a big part of the story and film and I love mermaids...but whatever...it was a nice way to spend a Friday night.

After that relaxing evening out....it was time to knuckle down and get some work done...

....Saturday and Sunday were spent getting some work done around the house, going out shopping (we haven't done any "real" grocery shopping since we got back from the trip...so our cupboards were a bit "Old Mother Hubbard"-esque! LOL), and then we had a major project to get done:  our front and back porches.

When we left for our trip, it was basically still winter here so we hadn't yet set up our lawn furniture, etc.  Now the nice weather is finally here and so we wanted to set up our front and back porches for the season.  Before we could do that, however, we had some construction to do on our back porch/patio.

 As you can see from these pictures, our back deck was kind of a mess.  It needed to be cleaned and decorated, for sure, but we also wanted to make some improvements---especially considering the new addition to our family that will be coming home to live soon!

In these pictures you can see that the back deck has no gate----just an opening through which we can walk out our back door, off the deck and into our garden (which backs up onto a shared lawn because we live in a condo/townhouse---and which is adjacent to a pretty busy road).  You can also kind of see that there is a sizable gap between the deck and the bottom of the railing.   We would really like our back deck to be a space where we can let our new little puppy, Merlin, out to play and/or to sit out there on our deck furniture, cook on the grill, etc. while he's out there playing with us.  Unfortunately, the way it's currently constructed, if we didn't have him on a leash he'd be able to just dart off the back deck like a bolt through the open doorway/gate area and/or to climb under the railing and get away. 

That won't do at all!  I'd be nervous all the time that he was able to get out and get into trouble or get lost or get hurt....so I decided we needed to do something to enclose the back deck better----by extending the railing/fence all the way to the floorboards AND to construct a gate so that our deck is fully enclosed. 

We knew how to do it...but it meant a trip to the Home Depot and we had to bust out all our tools (yes, that's right folks....us two gay boys own a whole cadre of TOOLS!! LOL).  So we spent most of the day Sunday cutting and drilling and measuring and building and painting:

On Sunday morning we got up and put a couple more coats of paint on the gate and lumber and then it was time for the install.  First we installed the lip at the bottom of the railing so our little guy can't crawl under and escape.  Here's a before and after picture:

Pretty good, huh?  No escape artist puppy is getting out under that!

Then it was time to install the gate itself:

I am pretty pleased with our work!  Not only did we almost exactly replicate the railing of the porch itself, but we were even able to get the Home Depot to make us paint that matches our porch (which we didn't paint and aren't even responsible for painting----condo living!! LOL) perfectly!

Once the install was done, it was time to decorate with our outdoor room decor:

And viola!  We have a our great outdoor space set up for a nice summer...AND puppy-proofed so that our little furbaby can play "outside" without really being outside!!