Creative

The leaning wall needed to be redone; that was a fact. But my wife made the rookie mistake of "asking" can the stairs be made any wider while I'm at it?  What could possibly be wrong with such a simple question? 

Answer: She asked me.

Of course they can be made wider or less specifically my answer ALWAYS is "of course <insert question here> can be done.

The details of accomplishing what that question  asked are what you see above in the photo gallery. 

The resulting extra space by the pool stairs and the far more usable stair layout was well worth the detour taken from simply rebuilding the wall and stairs as they were.

The decision to move the wall had many factors influencing it. 

Increasing the area around the pool stairs was certainly one factor. The stairs curved sides also presented a challenge when it came to adding a hand rail.  Another fact considered was that two people couldn't pass one another at the top of the stairs.

So once the retaining wall's lean became too severe, all of these other factors were able to be addressed as part of the "fix". 

Sacrifices need to be made. An underused vegetable garden was repurposed to become the home of the New hot tub.

There were a number of issues with the location of the old hot tub. Being on a raised deck made the user feel more exposed and detracted from the feeling of having a secluded soak. It was also hard to achieve a "relaxing getaway" ambience when it sat in the middle of a open space like that. Add that it sat under a neighbours bedroom window and you end up with more than enough reasons to rethink the location. 

Deadlines have a Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde quality about them; they can be good or they can be bad.

The patio extension had been slowly coming along when the call to set up the delivery of the hot tub came.

This created a new urgency to prepare not only the spot it would be installed, but to also determine the best route to bring it through to that location. 

Of course clearing that path became yet another project added to the huge undertaking this had already become.

It all started long ago and quite innocently when my young son kept sneaking into our neighbours back yard to play with the frogs and fountains that were in the two ponds they had.

We thought we would build our own pond and a waterfalls for the tranquil sound they make and our neighbour would have peace.

Years and many iterations later, what started as a small project grew to be one that resulted in a perfect oasis. With the sound of the waterfall and the shade of a now mature tree, looking out over the pool and pond, sitting on a well padded faux wicker love seat, it's hard to think of a better place to sit on a hot summer day and read a book while sipping on a nice cold drink.

Technically the size of the patio didn’t change but extending it seemed to double the usable surface area. With the hot tub no longer taking up space on it and with the height change gone it gave the illusion of being so much larger.

We often felt that we would use the BBQ and hot tub more often during the winter season if digging your way to it was not part of either of those activities. 

Heating the whole patio seemed a bit excessive but heating just a path seemed like a reasonable compromise.

We're not getting any younger and the less shovelling I can do, the better my back already feels.

The decision to heat the patio definitely complicated the patio project both from a planning perspective as well as in the execution of the install.

There was obviously the cost factor to consider as well. The purchase of the system and related components and then running it during the winter months.

I would say that if it's an affordable option for you, it's definitely worth having. 

It was a very long and hard summer of work but in the end a lot got accomplished.

It's of course not done. Words like done and finished or complete are not used in my household. 

They imply that there's nothing more to do or improve. Worse yet, those words, used as the subject of a question, seem to also be making the underlying statement; "Are we there yet?" 

There’s a multitude of reasons to install a railing. Chief amongst them is that it is required by the building code. The decision to install one was then a relatively simple one.

However, deciding on what will be the driving factors that determine it’s design,…well that’s another matter entirely. In my case, wanting the view and space to feel open was near the top of the wish list. Short of listing all of the factors that influenced this particular design, I’ll just say that what was there before greatly influenced what was put back.