Author Archives: Mike

Personal Dog Park

Winnie and Stella now have a place to run free in the comfort of home, while Mike and Sara no longer have to worry about our dogs chasing squirrels beyond the property line, or dealing with a tie-out cable that’s frozen to the deck in the middle of winter. This post is about the newly installed fence in our backyard.

Pure happiness is a dog rolling in the grass. Not terribly relevant to this post, but an adorable video!

Installing a fence at this home was never a major priority, especially because of the breed of our first dog Winnie. As a Doberman/German Shepherd/Labrador retriever mix, she learned to respect an invisible fence boundary quickly, and we never left her outside for extended periods of time. This breed difference was very noticeable to Mike, who grew up needing a fence to keep his Beagles from running away to chase every small critter smell. Sara had a different experience growing up, with a Bichon that did not have a fence and was happy enough to spend very short amounts of time on a line in the yard. However, when we adopted Stella (a Golden retriever/Labrador mix) in 2020, and more of our neighbors had had young children and adopted pandemic dogs of their own, we decided it was a good time to consider our options for fencing in our yard.

Stella after breaking her line. One of the many reasons we installed a fence.

We looked at several styles of fencing, including wood, decorative aluminum and chain link. We ultimately decided on black chain link because it was the most affordable option that best matched our neighborhood. Dakota Unlimited in Rosemount, MN offered us the most attractive offer, so we pulled the trigger in December 2020.

Winnie spent the winter trying to avoid getting tripped by Stella’s line.

Installation did not happen until much later. It seems quite a few people adopted dogs in 2020 (the year of the pandemic) and also decided they needed a fence. We were 80th in line for installation with Dakota Unlimited for the coming season. The fence was ultimately installed in early June 2021.

Every fence post is individually cemented into the ground.

There is a 10.5′ wide gate along the side of our garage.
There are also two additional gates– one at the back of the property and another on the south side of the house.

Here is a video of Winnie and Stella stepping outside for the first time in their personal dog park:

Overall, we are very happy with the chain link fence. It makes letting the dogs out a little less stress-free.

Basement Before and After

It took six years, but our basement family room is finally one of our favorite rooms in the house!  Getting to this point was not easy.  We had to wait until we had the money to buy furniture, while also deciding where to put it in the challenging space.  The room’s layout didn’t leave us with many options:  you walk in from the north, there is a fireplace on the west wall, a large window on the south wall, and the east wall has a wet bar.  I’ll explain more about the furniture in a moment, but first, here is a look back at how the room looked shortly after we bought the house:

Back in 2013, we changed the color of the room from yellow, to “Irish Mist,” a Behr Premium Plus paint color.

After that, the room essentially became our workout area.

It’s also where we feed the cats (Robert waiting patiently)

In the following couple of years, friends and family gifted us hand-me-down furniture and carpet remnants, and the room began to feel more like a living room.

We knew we wanted to someday put a big-screen TV in the room, along with a big, comfy sectional couch, but first, we wanted to update the wet bar:

Click here to see the wet bar makeover project and click here to see what it took to mount the sink in the countertop.

Here is one last picture of the room, before we bought new furniture:

And here are the after photos:

The TV is a TCL 65″ Roku that we bought from Costco.  It sits on a hardwood TV stand, which we also found at Costco.  Thanks to my friend Eric for helping me lift it into the basement!

The couch is a Rainier 3-piece sectional that we found at Hom Furniture (pillows included).

Go Hawks!

As you can see, we support the Iowa Hawkeyes, University of Northern Iowa Panthers, Minnesota Wild, and are now on a mission to find something to hang up to support the Minnesota Vikings and Twins.  We also installed a power outlet in the wall for the neon clock.

Thanks for reading!

-Mike