here's one overall photo:
to see the progress along with some cool detail shots and commentary, click on this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/renterprize/ShakerSeeds
Thursday, July 26, 2007
I have the coolest Uncle...
My Uncle Rene is, among other things, an awesome artist. He just sent me a link to look at this installation he's been working on for 8 years, which he's finally finished. (the slow progress was part of the concept of the piece)
here's one overall photo:
"Shaker Seeds"
to see the progress along with some cool detail shots and commentary, click on this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/renterprize/ShakerSeeds
here's one overall photo:
to see the progress along with some cool detail shots and commentary, click on this link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/renterprize/ShakerSeeds
Saturday, July 21, 2007
More Clearing
Yay, it was cool again today! well, not as cool as last weekend, but it was a beautiful day and we got about 4 hours of jeans and boots work in without dying of the heat. We lopped for 2 hours first thing this morning, before even showering (why shower just to get dirty and sweaty?) and then spent 2 hours this afternoon chipping. There's still a lot to chip (everything from last weekend plus everything from this morning) but the new chipper works great, and it's fun too :oD
then of course, there will be more lopping, cutting down everything that's too big to lop, chipping it all... going to be a long process.
Here's a couple pics of where we were working today. In case you haven't been to our house and seen what it looked like before, this whole area was impenetrable brush right up to the path, pretty much everywhere you see skinny trees standing:
and here's another project for the not-too-distant future, the poison ivy field:
work on the screened porch will resume tomorrow afternoon.
then of course, there will be more lopping, cutting down everything that's too big to lop, chipping it all... going to be a long process.
Here's a couple pics of where we were working today. In case you haven't been to our house and seen what it looked like before, this whole area was impenetrable brush right up to the path, pretty much everywhere you see skinny trees standing:
and here's another project for the not-too-distant future, the poison ivy field:
work on the screened porch will resume tomorrow afternoon.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Ridiculous
You know what drives me crazy? Going to Wal-Mart (or anywhere) and seeing 3-year olds with pacifiers stuck in their mouths.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Clearing
It's not very warm today, so we took the opportunity to do some work that requires wearing jeans and boots-- not fun when it's 90, but not too bad at 70. Clearing!!
Jeff already has 2 pairs of loppers, but he bought the second pair because he'd worn out the first, and the second has had it by this time too. So, we went to our favorite money-hole, Home Depot (ok actually our favorite is Lowes, but HD is closer to the paint store where we also had to stop) and bought 2 more pairs. Some Home Depot Employees teased us about "his and hers" loppers.
We started next to the house, intending to clear out the bit of brush keeping you from seeing the creek that's right there, and got through that so quickly that we just kept going. And going... and going... and going... we went along up the creek, clearing anything small enough for the loppers to handle, (that's about 3/4" for me and 1"-1 1/4" for Jeff) pulling down vines, battling prickers, sweating and exclaiming over how much we could see each time we cut something down. We made it a good 50 feet up the hill from the farthest deck, clearing from the stream to the path, and then hopped over to the other side of the path a cleared a bunch on that side as well. We spent about 3 hours out there, and the backyard is a totally different place.
On the screened porch front, we now have blue soffits:
and a mostly black ceiling fan:
Note: I thought I was doing good this morning, lopping away, not even taking breaks, totally keeping up with Jeff.... but after lunch, he went out and painted the soffits blue (and is out there now, working on the white) while I totally crashed and fell asleep on the couch for an hour and a half. oh well, so I'm not as tough as him, surprise surprise :o)
Jeff already has 2 pairs of loppers, but he bought the second pair because he'd worn out the first, and the second has had it by this time too. So, we went to our favorite money-hole, Home Depot (ok actually our favorite is Lowes, but HD is closer to the paint store where we also had to stop) and bought 2 more pairs. Some Home Depot Employees teased us about "his and hers" loppers.
We started next to the house, intending to clear out the bit of brush keeping you from seeing the creek that's right there, and got through that so quickly that we just kept going. And going... and going... and going... we went along up the creek, clearing anything small enough for the loppers to handle, (that's about 3/4" for me and 1"-1 1/4" for Jeff) pulling down vines, battling prickers, sweating and exclaiming over how much we could see each time we cut something down. We made it a good 50 feet up the hill from the farthest deck, clearing from the stream to the path, and then hopped over to the other side of the path a cleared a bunch on that side as well. We spent about 3 hours out there, and the backyard is a totally different place.
On the screened porch front, we now have blue soffits:
and a mostly black ceiling fan:
Note: I thought I was doing good this morning, lopping away, not even taking breaks, totally keeping up with Jeff.... but after lunch, he went out and painted the soffits blue (and is out there now, working on the white) while I totally crashed and fell asleep on the couch for an hour and a half. oh well, so I'm not as tough as him, surprise surprise :o)
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Alethea Grace
I'm afraid I can't remember Alethea's exact birthday (I have to start writing these down) but it was just before Thanksgiving which makes her about 7 months old or so now. I took these the same day I took the ones of Logan, but unfortunately am just getting around to posting them. Isn't she a cutie?
The Continuing Saga of the (un)Screened Porch
So, on Saturday Jeff had this brilliant idea.
Let me start at the beginning. On Friday we were talking about staining the deck(s). We've been going back and forth about what color to use, and whether it should be solid or semi-transparent, etc. Part of the reason for this is that we don't like the railings. They're made from alternating 1x4's and 1x6's on the flat, with about 4" of space between them and they're just very rustic and camp-like and not at all our style. There are pictures somewhere in my old posts if you want to look. So anyway, we want to rebuild them, but it's really not at the top of our priority list right now. But staining the deck is, cause otherwise it's going to rot away. We like the colors our deck was on our old house (dark brown deck with white railings) but we can't really see those huge in-your-face railings being WHITE. And, of course, railings like that have so many darn surfaces that they take forever to paint. Anyway, we were out there Friday and realized that most of the deck is only 18"-24" off the ground, and you don't even NEED railings until you're 30" high (we won't mention the railing-less stair inside) so, we're going to take most of the railings right off and not stain them at all. We'll stain the remaining ones for now, and plan to rebuild them in the future.
So, back to saturday and the brilliant idea. The bottom and top of the screened porch are built in the same design as the deck railings (and therefore have 50 million little surfaces everywhere) and it is taking FOREVER to prime. Anyone who has never painted old, dry pressure treated lumber (especially in the shape of a porch) with icky, sticky oil-based primer just can't understand how miserable it is and how slow-going. So we're standing around out there, trying to get motivated to prime the last few bits, when Jeff says something to the effect of "Why don't we just cut all those flat boards out?"
**dead silence**
um, yeah, why not?
HELLO? WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THIS BEFORE PRIMING ALL BUT ABOUT 4 BOARDS??
It's funny, because all along neither of us has been crazy about the design of the porch, and once we talked about killing all those railings, I was even thinking about how much the porch REALLY wouldn't match once we rebuilt the rest of them. The problem for both of us, I think, is that when we thought about changing it we immediately thought "rebuild the screened porch" and that's just way too much project right now, with the bump and the kitchen looming. I for one never thought of just cutting out the part we don't like.
You can see from what's done in the photos that it's way more open this way. It's much brighter on the porch and in the kitchen, and you can see the blue ceiling from the deck without having to look for it. The whole thing also looks a lot taller, which is neat. We know there's a chance that little kids visiting could be a hazard to the screen on the bottom portion, but if it ends up being an issue, we'll probably just reinforce it with heavier-weight mesh. And even though we didn't save time priming it all, we're still saving the time it would take to put 2 coats of paint on, and we've done away with the little niches the bats like to sleep in too :oD
Let me start at the beginning. On Friday we were talking about staining the deck(s). We've been going back and forth about what color to use, and whether it should be solid or semi-transparent, etc. Part of the reason for this is that we don't like the railings. They're made from alternating 1x4's and 1x6's on the flat, with about 4" of space between them and they're just very rustic and camp-like and not at all our style. There are pictures somewhere in my old posts if you want to look. So anyway, we want to rebuild them, but it's really not at the top of our priority list right now. But staining the deck is, cause otherwise it's going to rot away. We like the colors our deck was on our old house (dark brown deck with white railings) but we can't really see those huge in-your-face railings being WHITE. And, of course, railings like that have so many darn surfaces that they take forever to paint. Anyway, we were out there Friday and realized that most of the deck is only 18"-24" off the ground, and you don't even NEED railings until you're 30" high (we won't mention the railing-less stair inside) so, we're going to take most of the railings right off and not stain them at all. We'll stain the remaining ones for now, and plan to rebuild them in the future.
So, back to saturday and the brilliant idea. The bottom and top of the screened porch are built in the same design as the deck railings (and therefore have 50 million little surfaces everywhere) and it is taking FOREVER to prime. Anyone who has never painted old, dry pressure treated lumber (especially in the shape of a porch) with icky, sticky oil-based primer just can't understand how miserable it is and how slow-going. So we're standing around out there, trying to get motivated to prime the last few bits, when Jeff says something to the effect of "Why don't we just cut all those flat boards out?"
**dead silence**
um, yeah, why not?
HELLO? WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THIS BEFORE PRIMING ALL BUT ABOUT 4 BOARDS??
It's funny, because all along neither of us has been crazy about the design of the porch, and once we talked about killing all those railings, I was even thinking about how much the porch REALLY wouldn't match once we rebuilt the rest of them. The problem for both of us, I think, is that when we thought about changing it we immediately thought "rebuild the screened porch" and that's just way too much project right now, with the bump and the kitchen looming. I for one never thought of just cutting out the part we don't like.
You can see from what's done in the photos that it's way more open this way. It's much brighter on the porch and in the kitchen, and you can see the blue ceiling from the deck without having to look for it. The whole thing also looks a lot taller, which is neat. We know there's a chance that little kids visiting could be a hazard to the screen on the bottom portion, but if it ends up being an issue, we'll probably just reinforce it with heavier-weight mesh. And even though we didn't save time priming it all, we're still saving the time it would take to put 2 coats of paint on, and we've done away with the little niches the bats like to sleep in too :oD
Owls
We have a couple of barred owls living in our yard, in fact, in a nest in a tree that's visible from our bedroom window. They appear to be an adult and a younger one... the smaller one mostly sits around making whiny screeching sounds rather than the hooting sounds the larger one makes. The craziest thing about these owls is that they don't seem to understand that they're supposed to be nocturnal. They're out flying from tree to tree by about 6 pm every night, and sometimes earlier. They're also not too afraid of people. Yesterday the small one was sitting maybe 40' from the un-screened porch on a low tree limb, and actually stayed there long enough for me to run and get my camera AND go OUTSIDE and take some pictures of him. In the second one he looks shorter because he's sticking his head out toward me, just before flying off.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)