I don’t usually post photos of the back of my house, do I? It’s lovely, thanks to the good work of architect David Muriello and general contractor Pam Whitehead, even if it does appear to have been partly swallowed up by a giant (and very Covid-overpriced) POOL (purchased on eBay).
The whole right section bump-out you can see there is an addition we did. We cut the deck in half so we could build out a mudroom (ground floor) / eat-in-area (first floor) / master bath (second floor). We added a pergola over the half that remained, which may have a wisteria growing on it soon, fingers crossed; that’s been plenty of deck space for us.
The pool is purely a product of pandemic frustration, and a huge thank you to everyone who bought books and masks and curry powder and soaps this summer; it’s helped keep me from blowing out our household budget completely.
Installation took about an hour with the kids and Kevin helping, plus another 30 minutes or so to assemble the filter and the ladder. It’s not level, but it’s only about 3 inches off, and the Intex site says that’s okay, so I can live with it, especially since it meant I could skip the whole heavy labor digging up sod / filling in with sand / wetting and tamping it down step — we just put the tarp down right over the grass (which was reasonably even, if a bit sloped away from the house for drainage).
What you’re seeing is after about 3 hours of filling, so we have a ways to go in the morning. 
But it’s supposed to be 95F tomorrow, so I guess I know where we’re going to spend tomorrow…
Hm. I ought to get the string lights up on the shed, have been meaning to do that forever. That’ll be nice for nighttime swimming.
