Fence Project Detour

We've taken a bit of a detour (I promise temporary) from the fence project.  Last weekend was my big 3-0 and there was some serious celebrating to be had.  Oh, and my birthday gift proves what a huge DIY dork I am.  I actually asked for a tool-a Kreg Jig and I got it (along with a really pretty pair of earrings and being spoiled all weekend)!  I have been wanting to bust out a DIY table for Ben's room and I think this would help it look non-DIY.  Steve has done most of the wood work up until this point but I am feeling adventurous (could this be the theme of my 30s?) and want to take up something new so why not something functional that fits my frugal persona as well?  Anyways, I love it and can't wait to find some time to bust out that table for Ben...hopefully I'll find some time in June.
So we never planned to put much work in as far as house projects go, but we did plan to at least get the remainder of the materials needed for the fence.  That includes returning some of the cedar that we over-bought and purchasing a couple 2x6s for the gate part of the fence as well as picking up some wire for the fence.  Well, in order to accomplish all this we need to borrow our neighbor's rig and it was loaned for the weekend.  So it will have to wait until this weekend, but that is ok-the weather was not great last weekend anyways so Ben wouldn't have gotten too much outdoors time anyways.

Wine tasting with friends @ Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese on Fremont for my B-day-awesome!

So, other than celebrating with friends throughout the weekend, Steve got the itch to do a little DIY for the backyard patio seating set-up.  We love our new table and patio (seen here & here).  We purchased a larger table as we felt that we were always in need of outdoor seating for more than 4 peeps at a time.  However, after setting in up, we found that the new brisk patio felt rather cramped and well, we only had 4 matching chairs so the whole seat more than 4 dilemma was not solved.  I guess we are both feeling rather frugal these days and the thought of spending a couple hundred on chairs did not tickle my thoughts.  So we thought that we should use some of the wood we have lying around to build a bench for our patio.
I have been eyeing many of the DIY projects at ana white and found a cute bench that seemed relatively straight forward.

So Steve took a look and made a few adaptations and we were off to Home Depot to buy the various bolts and screws we needed for the project.  Well, I guess the project wasn't free (bolts and stuff cost a pretty penny these days), but it sure cost hundreds less than nice and sturdy seating for 4 would.  Steve spent about half the day putting it all together but we have an awesome wood bench (made from pressure treated 4x4s that we pulled out from the garden to build the fence, left over treated 2x6s from out porch railing rebuild a couple years back and concrete blocks the were left by the old home owners) that will add 4+ seats (depending on booty size) to our outdoor dining space.   And did I mention it's sturdy (Steve always goes over and beyond making sure things are sturdy (could it be that he is an engineer-hmmm)?  This thing has over 20 simpson ties in it and 12 bolts!

Sun umbrellas make great rain covers

think he's sturdy enough? ha

this thing could hold the world's largest man and then some

The new arrangement allows us to flip the direction of the table and therefore have more space for people to walk past the table and to the grass (we do need to add some rocks around the new bench as people will currently have to get all muddy trying to sit down).  Well done, honey, you are awesome. :)  Now we just need some nice warm and rain free weather to test it out.

see where the mud issue will come in when people try to sit down?  Nothing some Portland Potatoes won't solve