The Foursquare

We knew when we moved in here that we'd probably have to replace the deck. It sat untreated for too long before we bought the place. We tried flipping a couple boards last summer just to see, but sure enough, they were too far gone -- and what's more, for some reason instead of deck screws, they were secured with GIANT NAILS. Just to assure that doing basically any repair work on any of it would be 10 times harder. It's just as well. Half of the deck completely covers the part of the yard that isn't properly graded -- we need to remove it just to regrade the soil so we don't end up with basement leakage. I don't know what we'll eventually do back there. Maybe...