Patio Door Paint Job

When we lived in Wisconsin we had a nice sized patio surrounded by a fountain, birdbaths, planted pots and an arbor with a rose vine that was the entryway to the dog's fenced in yard. You could access it from the kitchen and the family room. Here on our tiny patio in DC, we have a single door access from the kitchen. This door is covered with a locked iron gate for security reasons. I never heard of locked iron security gates in Milwaukee neighborhood. Since we live in a condo it is not always clear who has responsibility for what when it comes to outdoor upkeep. Rather than fight city hall, we routinely fix and repair most things on our patio space. The white paint was peeling in a bad way from typical water issues, so my husband thought it was a good time to scrape it off. We got a quart of exterior paint from Frager's but haven't yet had a chance to use it yet because of the incessant rain this week. Hopefully we can get this finished soon. It's really not that big of a job, but it is an eyesore - at least to us. I'm not sure a lot if other folks around here would even notice. 

 

A Luggage Carrier Put to Good Use

One thing we learned in Milwaukee was to make sure the soil next to the house was high enough against the wall so any water would flow away from the foundation - not towards it. Because water damage is more common around here than I'd like to think about, we needed to make sure the same approach applied here. We are lucky to have a nice little patio garden attached to our condo. Unfortunately we have to maintain it ourselves. That's fine when replacing tomato plants with mums, but not for heavy lifting maintenance. The soil in the corner had worn down so replacement dirt was required. It's not as easy to get this kind of thing to the patio, and we are a lot older and very wary of carrying heavy objects. We know too many people with back pain. We don't own a wheelbarrow any longer, so we needed to improvise. I'm glad we saved our old luggage carrier - that we bought before luggage had wheels - and used it to move the dirt from the car. We don't have a large shovel either. So we used our dustpan to do the job of moving the dirt from the bag to the garden. Unfortunately, three bags just about did it. I really don't want to do this again!