WOW is all I can say ladies! Those look BEAUTIFUL, Annette, that's pretty much the look I'm going for. I don't need anything fancy, the house is a habitat for humanity box, I don't care for the style and am not too worried about it standing standing for any more than 10 more years...I just want to be sure whatever on it is sturdy, because it will get HUGE back there. I can build something like you have piece by piece myself. My concern with Marylou's for this area is the strength. I need something ironclad because I'm loading this wall with plants! I figure it's my one chance to do it because the husband doesn't like climbers on wood siding of our "keeper" buildings :) I am however planning on making a frame with the wire in it to wrap around our driveway water tank, exactly what MaryLou has but with bent wood. This week my job will be to create a new wire trellis for some variegated confederate jasmine to screen the back plant shed. Again, a temporary fix (we are planning on tearing down the shed and going up along the back of our house for a master suite and double deck that will overlook the eventual back yard garden)... I am finding that I can deal better with the idea of "temporary gardens" than I once could. Once I would put in plants and be terrified that anything would happen to them. Now I only wish to keep a sliver to keep them going of something should happen to them. I guess after the tornadoes, flooding, droughts I've learned some mental survival skills :)

Oh, I love that you decorated by your entry from your garage. Everyone comes into my house thru the garage too! We recently put in a brand new entryway door & even that thrills me evertime I come home & see it. We had a big old wooden door for years & DH decided to update with a new aluminum door, with a full window, our wooden one had a small window that was too high for anyone to see out. I bought a door sign in Florida to decorate my new door, it says "All dogs are pets, but Shih Tzus are family", it looks so cute on my new door, so I guess I have my garage entry decorated just a little bit! Wish I had room for a small table like you did, but too many skateboards, bikes etc. out there! LOL All of your holiday decor is looking great, there have been so many posted lately, want to make sure I didn't miss anyone.

FWIW it is worth to those looking at the options like Localeater. Did some research today. A 10x14 pergola starts at about 4k (pine) and goes up based on material and features. We like Walpole (have bought from them before) and they make a nice one in Azek (looks like wood but wears better ... we used it for new steps at our beachhouse) for 10k. The retractable sun shades for the top are another 2k. 8 weeks delivery, alas. Then of course we need the mosquito curtains, another 1k or so. We would also need to dig up our stone patio to put in a foundation, then the put the patio back and drill through it. Meh. An awning with Sunbrella is about $3200 for a 9x16 (that size would nestle in nicely near our koi pond area). 6 weeks plus. More expensive if it is retractable, but that kind cannot accommodate mosquito nets. The awning vendor had a product that was like a screen that came down at a push of a button, hidden up under the awning. That was another $10k though. Alternatively, you can use mosquito curtains. Not crazy about any of these options so far ... we might start simple with mosquito curtains for our french doors off the MBR in Maine and see how the y work. I like that we can get them in white...

If it were me, I would go low impact. You're not crazy. The charm of an old house is that it doesn't look like a new house. You just have to make your own call as to where the line is between "old house charm" and jankiness. A good floor guy can do magic to patch a floor. We have a large patched area which is invisible in our kitchen. Can you buy reclaimed flooring to match what you have from anywhere locally to use for patching, or can you salvage any flooring from any of the other work you're doing on the house? You might need to do some legwork but in most areas with a lot of old homes, there is someone. Another note...you absolutely do not need to tear out the old plaster to rewire if that is a concern. We just had our entire 1914 bungalow rewired, and in many places brought up to code, as part of a larger project. Basically the only holes to patch are where the old outlets and switches used to be, if we are not reusing them. They dropped in the new wires and left the old ones disconnected but still inside the walls. There are other reasons you might want to open up the walls, like if you want to add insulation inside the wall cavities (because of the need to install a vapor barrier, not bc of the wires), but a good electrician would not suggest it just for wiring. The vast majority of the plastering we had done was from reconfiguring the floor plan and moving our upstairs ceiling up 7". You can see the latter below. The texture of our old horsehair plaster (rough surface) does not quite match the new, but we don't expect that to be an issue once it's prepped and painted. I'm sure the availability and cost of doing blueboard and plaster varies by location, but here in Boston it is fairly standard.