Watch out HGTV…Doug's on the job

Since we’re assuming I’ll be on bed rest all summer until Logan arrives, Doug’s been working hard to give us some play space on the back deck.  Before now, this was dog territory (warning: this problem will take a while to explain, but you have to understand the entirety of our problem so you can really appreciate my genius husband).  There’s a gate at the end of the deck that we can close to keep the dogs off, but there wasn’t another good spot for their food and water.  We really wanted the space to be clean and stay clean (without muddy dogs coming under the porch so we’d have to clean it every time we wanted to go out).  Another issue is Harley…Harley actually has LOTS of issues.  One of his issues is that he freaks out…during storms, when there’s construction going on, when someone sneezes, pretty much over anything that isn’t a beautiful silent sunny day.  He likes to warn us that something isn’t right (or that someone just sneezed) by scratching on our back door (aka destroying our door).  If we close the gate on the deck and he couldn’t get to the back door to scratch, he would actually scratch and chew on the siding of the house…I told you he has issues!  Our solution has been to put him in the shed and it’s worked really well.  He’s not interesting in destroying anything that Doug has stored in there.  He’s very happy to be locked safely in a confined space.  The only problem is that one of us would have to go out to put him in and then to let him out…and since I’m stuck on the couch that leaves Doug (or whoever’s here during the day, but I hate sending someone through the poop trenches of the backyard to do that).
Doug, in all of his genuisness, has come up with an incredible solution!  The first thing he did was to put a doggy door on the shed hoping that our neurotic pet would actually push the door to get in and out.  (I’m happy to report after a traumatic experience involving high pitched 2 year old squeals and a ultrasonic bird house that keeps Harley from barking, he successfully went in through the doggy door all by himself…and came out by himself later!!) Then he built a little deck onto the shed where we can put their food and water (complete with a ramp to the side so he can roll the lawnmower down).  He stained the deck by the house and is going to stain the concrete on the porch to match and paint the deck railings white so they’ll match the porch railings.  Now the dogs have their space in the yard and shed and we have some space for the kids (and me in my lounge chair) to go outside for a picnic.  Don’t tell Macy, but mom and dad are going to give her a water table to go on the porch for her birthday.  Maybe if they get to play with a water table, they won’t realize we haven’t left our house all summer???
As usual, we had some neighbors come over to help with the project…

Macy has been going nuts to get outside and see the finished product, so one day last week after school, Doug took her out for a tour (Harley was proud to show off his new pad)…

I can see all 3 of our kids crawling through the dog door one day…

I think Macy was just as impressed as I was with her Daddy’s skills…

I’ll take pictures of the patio and deck when they’re finished…just to brag a little more. 😉