Here is the deck from the back yard.
The new deck is much sturdier than the old one. Before:
Now we have a gate close to the door of the house, so we can easily let the dogs out into the yard, or keep them penned on the deck.
Our new problem is that a pair of woodpeckers have begun digging holes in the old wooden stairs and railing by the driveway:
The rails were also spaced too far apart, at exactly infant skull size. At one end the rails were missing. The stairs were at the far end of the deck, only a few feet from the neighbors' house, and there was no gate.
When the deck came off, this was left:
Pictures of the roof before:
Now that the roof is taken care of, the second most pressing project is replacing the deck:
...and dealing with the wet, damaged sill:
Master bedroom before:
Master bedroom now:
We need to clean up some of the spots where paint got underneath the tape, but overall, a much better look.
The old heating grate.
We'll see on Wednesday how it looks with furniture.
I want to avoid spraying weedkiller; no matter how safe Monsato says Roundup is, I don't want poison near me, my dogs, or in my ground water. After our neighbor was kind enough to mow the knotweed down to its stumps, we staked four heavy duty tarps over the entire patch.
It's putting up a fight under there, the pointy stems trying to slice their way through to sunlight, but without photosynthesis, it should eventually tire out. We'll see. Since the knotweed is in a low part of the yard, we may eventually fill in soil right over the tarps and plant grass.
Three coats of primer and two coats of paint later, the pink laundry room is finally green and white. I love the colors, but the lumpy wallpaper underneath looks awful. It was already painted, and we just didn't have time to peel it off before the washer and dryer were delivered. Eventually, I'd love to replace the wood laminate cabinets and redo the walls.
Rod installed a dehumidifier in the basement, and hooked it up to the sump pump. Thank god, because that basement is spider city, and I was getting tired of going down there to empty out the water. The basement is still ridiculously wet. It needs a barrier of plastic and crushed rock to keep out groundwater. I will have nothing to do with it. Too creepy down there.
Spiders, earwigs, and possibly mice have had the run of this place for almost a year. I'm shooing them out, room by room, and sucking up their homes with our new shop-vac. I feel like Mary Bailey fixing up 320 Sycamore in It's A Wonderful Life.
Next projects: paint the pink for girls and blue for boys bedrooms classy, boring colors before the movers bring our furniture on the 26th. New roof at the end of the month. Also, should we replace the rotten deck this year or buy a new refrigerator? Should we get an energy audit and learn where we need insulation? (Do we really want to know?)
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We've got a patch of invasive Japanese Knotweed in the backyard. I don't mind a little patch of shrubs, but I don't want it taking over the whole yard. We're both new to lawn care. Our new manual lawn mower did an admirable job on the grass, with no gasoline, but it couldn't cut through the knotweed. We bought a propane powered weed whacker, but haven't tried it yet. Our neighbor generously came by with his power mower and sliced the weeds down to their stubs. We're thinking about covering this patch with a tarp, and since it's a low spot filling it in with soil and eventually grass seed. 
Wooden bannister along the stairs.
We have a busy weekend ahead of us. Pictures of repainted rooms next week. We just bought our first house, a two-bedroom cape built in 1842. Join us as we tame a wild garden:
