Hardin Home: Home Improvement Projects at a Country Home in Verona, WI
Home Improvement Projects at a Country Home in Verona, WI
After my wife sadly lost her parents a year and a half ago, we inherited their elderly cat “Little Orphan Annie,” who had mobility challenges due to her age that made it safer for her to live in my wife’s office as an appartment. Given the messes inherent with that, it didn’t make sense to … Continue reading Updated Guest Bedroom and Office Flooring
In early August, Lake Wisconsin got hit multiple weekends in a row by very severe thunderstorms with extremely high winds. Unfortunately, the second one was bad enough that it decided to send a massive pine tree straight through the new deck and part of the lake house roof! Thankfully, Acuity Insurance sprung into action. Between … Continue reading Storm Damage
I built a large shed behind the guest house several years ago to hold the ATV, riding mower, pool furniture, and other things that I didn’t want cluttering up any of the garages. It has served its purpose very well, and as the first full building I built from scratch, I’ve been very pleased with … Continue reading Shed Floor Rebuild
Since buying it in 2017, I’ve remodeled almost every aspect of the lake house. The last major piece that needed to be done was the deck, which was clearly past the end of its life and was getting close to becoming a safety issue. This spring, I worked with the same construction company that rebuilt … Continue reading Lake House Deck
After finishing the flooring project in the master bedroom closet, I decided to tackle the other auxiliary room in the master suite, which was a smaller walk-in closet that my wife uses as a makeup / powder room. Last year, I added new shelving and drawers to make it easier for her to keep everything … Continue reading Powder Room Flooring
Over the past several years, I’ve redone almost all of the flooring in the house. Since it was built in the late 90’s, most of the original flooring was carpet. I’ve gradually been switching to various solid surfaces (wood on the top two floors, vinyl plank in the basement, and tile in the bathrooms). The … Continue reading Closet Flooring
After some severe weather this spring, I noticed that a couple of shingles had blown off of the roof. Thinking that some quick repair work would be all that was needed, I had the crew from Sunset Ridge Exteriors come out and take a look, since they did such a good job on the lake … Continue reading New Roof
The last in a long line of projects to improve the waterfront at the lake house was to bring in a barge service to remove rocks, wood, and tree debris from both the beach and the water, to reshape the sand to be more usable, and to install more concrete steps to make it easier … Continue reading Beach Clean Up and Resurfacing
Over the past several years I’ve done numerous repair jobs on the last flight of stairs leading down towards the water, and I’ve also done a lot of work to keep the beach in good shape. It’s difficult work to do by myself though, especially without a barge to haul equipment and materials down to … Continue reading Stair Reconstruction
Shortly after returning from a trip to Barcelona, Southern Wisconsin was hit by a number of large storms, which included very high winds. Up at the lake house, this resulted in numerous downed trees, and left a lot of chaos. While it was disheartening to see some of the railing that I’d recently worked on … Continue reading Lake House Storm Damage and Railing Repair
