From the initial first impression and throughout all the aspects of the journey to create a full dressed front or backyard —learning from others' experience will help integrate better goals for your own outdoor living space.

Historically, the concept of being hospitable implied giving guests respect, warmth and protection —especially to a stranger from other lands. In the Old and New Testament hospitality was a vital virtue. Hotels, hospitals, hostels —all derive from the ideals of being hospitable.

When we express that we feel at home, we are saying in essence that we occupy a place in which it feels like we belong. That serene acceptance is sensed through association of the host.  An invitation into the outdoor living rooms the Foutin family is an experience of belonging, comfort and peace. Russ and Shelly are some of the most glad to see you and pleasurable people you would ever meet.

#TimberOutdoorLivingShelter

How did You First Hear of ShadeScape® Outdoor Living Shelters?

Russ: It was at Costco. I talked to them twice on two different occasions. But I didn’t hear what I wanted to hear and I didn’t know what I wanted to hear. It wasn't something that pushed me to want to do something and on the third time…now mind you this is, they come and do their show over a week and then they go. And I don’t know how much longer they did that again. Well, it was the third time and the gentlemen there that I was talking to…he had been, well, you can ask Shelly…I am extremely or excessively neat, careful, or precise when it comes to research …I am absolutely, excessive for preciseness to a fault.

Russ: This is a pavilion.

#OldWorldPavilionKit #TimberFramePergolaKit

Shelly: The pavilion. He had the pavilion over here and the pergola on this side and when you notice the back of the house. It is kind of flat and then it peaks up because the second floor is only half of the main floor. And I wanted them flipped so that the outdoor living space was actually the reverse image with the structure of the home. And then, so he did that for us. It was actually going to be a little bit longer but I wanted this to be our own private oasis, and what I really didn't want was anybody from the street to see the pavilion over the top of the roof line.

(Shelly smiles her beautiful smile)

Shelly continues: And so we asked him if he could drop it, drop the ceiling, the roof, which he could do if he made it a little shorter. So we ended up taking, maybe five feet off, maybe three feet off  —or something like that ...not a lot but enough that when people are driving by the house they don't see any of what is in our backyard.

But yeah, he showed us a number of different lengths.

Shelly: The other reason we changed to this is, you notice these beautiful views of Timpanogos we have and we didn't want to block any of that from being able to see it from our bedroom and the main living area of the home.

Russ: That was another reason we put the pavilion here and the flat over here.

Shelly: I always knew we wanted to have something back here. We had a little like eight by eight pad, just outside, just off the garage door. The only way into the backyard originally was through the garage door and then there was a small pad or something at the top of the stairs.

Russ: Five by five.

Shelly: Russ, the measuring tape is Russ' specialty. If you want to know the measurement of something he can tell you.

Shelly: And then I had kind of a little flower bed but the people I had bought the house from before had put Ivy in and it climbed all up the side of the house. And one of the first things I did when I bought the house was to take that off because I knew it could be very destructive to the structure of your home.

So I had this kind of a little flower bed that grew up every year but I knew I wanted something and when I did it I wanted it...I always had this vision in my mind of running the whole length of the house. I didn't have a specific vision as far as what it was going to be.

#TimberShadeShelter

Shelly: So, Russ and I are going to celebrate our eleventh Anniversary on Friday...And with the exception of I think, the first year we were married we tried to do a project on the house.

(It isn't mine to share here but Russ and Shelly have one of the world's most beautiful love stories of how they met each other. It is to the ambience of their beautiful life together.)

Russ: The last ten years we have had...and I kind of brought this in our marriage. Every year, for ten years I wanted a major project in preparation for when I retired cause I wanted it all done. I wanted it all paid for. I saved my money forever so I could pay cash on all these projects.

Shelly: He is really good at saving money. I am really good at spending it.

Russ: Every year, we have done a major project.

Shelly: As I mentioned to you earlier when we changed out all the windows in the house, probably the second or third year in preparation for whatever this was going to be I had them put in a sliding glass door. For a number of years all we had was a sliding glass door with support trusses from the old bay window that used to be there. We never even used it.

Before installing a timber frame pergola and pavilion kit.

It stepped out into the dirt of the flower bed. Someday we are going to need this sliding glass door. And I shared that dream with Russ, I had that dream since I bought the house twenty years ago. And he was incredibly supportive of it.

And one day we were shopping at Costco and Russ said, "I'm going to talk to these guys." And I didn't know that he had talked to them in the past and had kind of been doing research but hadn't said much about it to me. He is excessively thorough in his research. If we are looking at buying something and he says, 'This is the one that we need', I know it is because he has checked and that is the one we need to do. I don't ever even question it. He is just so thorough.

So, I'm shopping at Costco pushing a big cart around going, "What's taking so long? Where did he go?" And he's over there talking to them and he did mention to me that one of the things they said was that he did not need to be a part of the house. And there were other things that we had been talking about doing and I knew that he didn't want to mess with the roof line. And it was like the switch was flipped and he knew that he had done enough research that he would knew he would know when he found what what he wanted to do. And wasn't it that same fall?

Russ: Oh, yeah. It was just weeks.

Russ: Well, I just called after it had got done and I said 'Oh, I didn't talk to my insurance guy, cause I know when I put this shed in you have got to let them know that you've got outdoor buildings. And so I got with him figuring forty-five feet by fifteen and seventeen —it was going to be a headache.

As you can see this is not built into the house. This is a separate structure. Even though it is about three inches, it is a completely separate structure.

Top of pavilion roof and house roof line.

And when he told me the insurance...

[Russ spoke slowly and with great emphasis]

...IT was PENNIES on the DOLLAR.

I could insure a whole bunch of stuff for less money.

I mean it WAS FABULOUS! I was just tickled to death. To insure this thing is not prohibitive in making a decision of whether to do it or not.

Shelly: We entertain a lot. My folks just live a few blocks away and I have a younger sister is just on the other side of town and then an older sister that lives near the Phoenix area. When she comes up, her kids are grown now, a couple times when she has come up they haven't come with her, they've had to be in school so it's just been her but we love to entertain.

We were looking forward to having neighbors come over for barbecues and I do big sea food boils, potatoes, corn on the cob, lobsters...

Russ: Pork sandwiches.

Shelly: Crab legs, shrimp and clams, and whatever. I do a lot of smoking pork, sandwiches or whatever so we were looking forward to having the neighbors over and doing some entertaining this year, finally...and now — covid.

Russ: Covid. And now we're sitting here.

Shelly: Yeah, Oh well. We enjoy it. We REALLY DO! We really can use it all year long. If the wind is gusting in the winter, obviously we don't want to be out here when the weather is super cold but we have these amazing heaters over here. We have three of those and we've got the fire features that put out a good amount of warmth. And so even though...starting into the early Spring even and into the late fall we are out here every day enjoying it.

Russ: It's worked really well.

Shelly: It's been super nice. When you get to the end of a really stressful day to come out and the dogs are playing and Russ got a dog who thinks he is Pele. And so Russ will throw the ball around with him and I can turn on the waterfall and the fans...

Russ: And we'll just come out and sit when we're tired.

Shelly: ...and just sit on the love seat and listen to the waterfall and watch Russ and the dogs play. It is so wonderful to be able to unwind.

Russ: Look at our view. There is a lot of birds. A lot of different kind of birds that come around. So it's fun.It's just in the last week we have had two families of quail. We had one clutch that had like twelve and the other had what?

Shelly: I don't know, like eight or more.

Russ: The dad would go along the top of the fence quacking. The mother would go along the ground and right behind her was ten little babies.

Shelly: Oh, they were teeny.

Russ: (laughing) Yeah.

Shelly: That's one of the things I tired really hard to do was when I was...not necessarily the shrubbery for back here but the flowers was I purposely picked flowers that attract bees, humming birds, dragon flies. Our neighbor along here puts bird seed along the fence so we have a lot of birds coming so it just...

Russ: It's an outdoor LIVING area.

Shelly: Yep. Yep.

Russ: We have electric timber posts. It looks like all the others. Only thing is, is that Western Timber has bored it out inside and put in all the electrical wires and things so after they put it in on the footings all you have to do is tie it into your electricity of your house and it is all...I mean you can see how many...all the electric outlets we have and there is another one over here...

Shelly: Light switches.

Russ: And there is an outlet over here and we brought on in over here and we tied that into my shed so we've got full electric inside and outside. The outdoor lights, we've got USB, regular dual --- there. We've got the power plug for the light, power for the waterfall. And before we put the grass in our electrician put the wire over there so the pump to the waterfall is right to the side of the waterfall. And then they put the grass in and all the rest together. I don't know it just kind of works.

Bleach is perfect for someone who loves the appeal of rustic, weathered barn wood and as an added bonus: never wants to re-touch or re-stain —NEVER EVER.

Comeliness — the outward appearance of the wood timbers left unprotected —exposed it to the elements year after year, will increase over time with a rustic aesthetic appeal —the essence of a homespun, simple life.

Nature will confer a natural protective coating that will last indefinitely. On the other hand, the life expectancy and unity of future potential blends for stain coatings will continue to be influenced by the process of exposure to the weather changes requires at least a minimum of some maintenance over time.

For the first hundred years or so, the colonies of America allowed the exterior surfaces of their homes and shelters to weather naturally. This Early American tradition can be considered the first method of finishing. Later, people, in general, used paint on the surfaces.

Today, interest is revived in the colonial tradition of rustic finishes and natural beauty of weathered wood.The process of naturally exposing timbers to the weather modifies the molecular structure of the wood. Generally, within two months of being exposed to the sunlight, light woods will become darker and dark woods will become lighter. The progression of weathering is influenced by many factors, e.g. extent of exposure, the density of the material, the rate of growth, extractive and lignin content. The more exposure the faster the rate of weathering.

Weathering through commercially prepared bleach is the perfect alternative. The stain is water base bleach with a silver-gray pigment finish that is allowed to soak for hours and then exposed to sunlight. There is no restraining of the timbers. The longer the timber basks in its environment, the more beautifully rustic the timbers become.

The beauty of natural weathered wood as found on old American barns can be pleasing as the initial changes as the surface is a slowly seasoned.

As beautiful as the timbers in the are in the daytime, night lights really set the a stunning ambience.

Russ expressed his delight that Mark had suggested wrapping his front entryway posts to compliment and tie into the design of his outdoor living area in the backyard. The front 4x4 posts have 2x8's beveled together and drilled with holes for lights and wiring with a bleach finish that also is gorgeous with the evening light glow.

3D Concept Rendering of Entryway Awning Plan for Post Wraps

"After having over a dozen local places try to tell me what I wanted wasn’t possible (basically they all claimed to be "custom" but turns out use pre-fab kits and install them... I did not want a post coming down in the middle of our patio), we had an amazingly capable, patient, engaged, can-do design experience with Tyler - precise dimensions and several iterations during patio construction...

I was SO happy as every single joint in a complex puzzle came together perfectly, to the millimeter, after we installed that main support post in the middle of that stone column on install. No big deal to be an inch off if the support posts are terminating in the ground... this one had to attach to the house and then had to nail the mark on a single corner out on the patio column. I could tell it was a piece he was proud to create. I was nervous about working with a company on the other side of the country but SO glad we did.

Customer service was also prompt in making it right when we were missing a part, including overnight shipping of a large item on the weekend and reimbursing me for installer downtime... More important to me that it was handled quickly and fairly than that the experience be perfect... everyone makes mistakes and this was a highly customized design.

We love our one of a kind structure and it really frames in that fire pit/seating area in a way that receives constant compliments." - Josh Kaptur, Maryland, U.S.A.