A little pretty for the garage

Decided that spring is here, and yes, time to start planting!  I still need to either purchase starts or get some seeds started for our garden. 
Isn't mother's day the golden rule on the A-ok to start the garden? 
and isn't that coming up in just a couple weeks? 

and while super ghett-O (yes, that is with a capital O, we trimmed down the existing gate so that I, being uber-short, can actually reach the latch instead of constantly hollering at Steve to open it or having to go through the house...we do plan to replace this with a shorter version that matches the one we're building

I decided to pounce on some flowers for our hanging baskets as well as buy 3 lavender plants to replace the 3 that didn't survive the winter 3 years ago.  While Steve informed me that one of the hanging flower baskets would need to be moved once the fence is connected to the garage, I decided to plant them anyways.  I was thinking that maybe I could just raise the baskets because, man, they look cute hanging off the garage and because I will be spending a lot of time in the driveway/garage area this summer, I look forward to a little eye candy in the form of flores!

this is the one that will need to be shortened or moved

and, of course, one of my munchkin because I love him so and he is eye candy to me

Cleanin out outside

Finally, a hint of spring is here in Portland and we bounced on the good weather....by.... cleaning out the garage.  Man was it in need. Look at how it looked yesterday morning...

I know, despicable, right?  and that was after we had pulled some of the crap our treasures out

  And how it looks now:

We plan to hang the large ladder horizontally from the rafters with large brackets but we were just outta oomph yesterday (and I couldn't find the brackets but did this morning)

finally hung the cabinet (free Craigslist find) that has been laying on it's side on our garage for 5 years now and it is so handy-maybe one day soon I will muster the energy to paint it (I got to priming it 5 years ago) a fun summer-y color and surprise Steve.  Other big cabinet on it's side in the back of the shot?  Super old and bought for the kitchen but now I am thinking laundry room?  For now it will live in the garage.

used all the random buckets and bins we had to organize all our garden tools & shop-vac attachments

hopefully we can keep all of Ben's outdoor toys down to what fits in the red bucket

what we have stashed in the cabinet we finally hung- car & bike supplies; also found a use for all those old BPA ladden tupperware that I just couldn't part with but no longer planned to use in our kitchen

Whew!  while it took us the better part of the day (Ben was a champ chillin' with us, playing while we cleaned and taking a couple long naps as well), we are so glad it is done cuz nothing says summer is comin' like a clean garage (I think this has been one of our spring projects each year for the last few years).  We still have stuff to get rid of-like the 3 recycle bins full of cedar shingles; Steve hopes to finish that project this summer).  We have been jonesin' for a bike trailer to carry Ben in as well and now we finally have room for it.

Also,  a pix of what the fence looked like as of last Monday night, right before my parents left.

And how it looks now:

....look the same, yep, that's right, crappy weather last week and cleaning out the garage has put a little snag in the project but Steve dug out a bit more concrete last night to allow a place for another 4x4 next to the chimney and after book babies today, Ben and I hit up the cedar store for more supplies so we hope we hope to be back in business and see it finished some more progress soon.

Plus, having a clean garage makes accessing tools and the overall fence building endeavor much more pleasant.  Being the nice wife that I am, I even plan to hook up our radio/ipod player (stolen from Ben's room-I purchased a cheapy for him when setting up the nursery but haven't used it much yet; it should go to much better use in the basement/garage/outdoors-it is weather-proof after all) in the garage to surprise Steve with some musica when he gets back to workin' on the fence tonight!

Lookin' like a fence

After figuring out the design and tailoring it down a bit to make the process go a bit quicker, my dad and Steve made some great progress on the fence over the weekend.  We got all of our materials (sans the 2x4 joist hangers which came from Home Depot) from Custom Cedar Products on Sandy Blvd and 163rd....they have gorgeous cedar products and mill it all on site-it hails in comparison to Home Depot cedar & we like to support local companies when we can.  It really is beginning to look like a fence and my excitement is growing at the thought of a place for Ben to toddle around this summer, throw his ball, ride on his little toy.

On Friday after my dad & I made the first trip to Custom Cedar Products

After holding the 6' clear cedar 4x4s in place (on the brackets that were already cemented in by Steve & my dad), we penciled where the holes should go and my dad drilled through-had to drill from both sides to get the whole way through

my mom helping out-note awesome outdoor furniture :)

What the "fence" looked like on Saturday morning just before Ben's b-day

After Ben's party (while he took a nice long nap and my mom stayed behind with him), we decided on the design and made a second trip to the cedar store to gather all the supplies and then my dad and Steve got to work putting in the rest of the posts

Yesterday, Sunday, is when the real progress was made and now it actually looks like we have a fence and I am getting excited!!!

Putting in the rails using joist hangers

they had to modify the joist hangers to fit around the brackets by cutting them using the chop saw (that was a scary sight & I was convinced that while my dad avoided losing fingers on Mt. Everest, he would surely lose them while cutting)

Note the custom cut outs they had to make to fit the 2x4 over the brackets

And by Sunday evening (they worked until it got dark out--> I think that the hot toddies I brought out helped)

 lattice made on site at Custom Cedar Products

gap in middle panel will have wire grate so that our garden plants will have a place to grow

A Puppy Party

well, what one year old can do without a first birthday party?  How about one like the new TLC program about outrageous kid parties?  Surely the beer and hot dogs were all for him :)  While the weather did not exactly cooperate (no rain but overall cold with just a short sun break), we had a little party for Ben on Saturday morning.  It was great to know that our house can easily accommodate 20 peeps when they flow between inside and outside.  I realize that our house keeps improving a bit with each party.  At the first party we hosted in our home (an ugly sweater party no less) we had no baseboards, an ugly kitchen, horrid floors, a raw old chimney (meaning old brick with the facade removed) and a piece of plywood for a dining room window. 

Big improvements with the majority of the backyard complete (still need a new deck, a few plants and maybe an even/level grass area) and 90% of the main living space done.  Here are a few pix!  Happy Birthday to our big boy Ben!

One picture for each month of life

homemade cupcakes (yellow, red velvet & coconut) as well as puppy chow, scotty dog licorice, animal crackers & puppy pops made by Ben's auntie

check out the super old deck in the foreground-it's missing half its rail

chocolate zone

fence progress

Well, it has been slow but we're getting there.  With some yucky weather, more yucky weather and a trip to Seattle to visit friends and unload baby gear (we have two couple friends up there who are expecting), we just haven't had much free time.  Ben even had his first swim lessons last week (I know, ridiculous, but he loves the water and had so much fun)!

We got the driveway bracket in last week and even had time yesterday after getting home from Seattle to re-measure everything so that it was even/level/plumb and put in one more bracket.  After having to re-dig a hole and having to cut down all the concrete tube forms, we think that we are now in business and hoping that everything will move a bit more quickly.  My parents arrive Weds afternoon so my dad will be ready to take over the fencing project Thursday.  They will just need to get to the cedar fencing store to buy all the materials and I just need to finalize the plan. 

Steve working on the holes that the quik-tubes will go in-turned out ~12" wide (tubes are 10" wide) and 30" deep-supposed to have ~1/2 of your final above ground fence post height buried  and hole 3x as wide-our posts will be around 5' high

1st bracket in  saw-zaw was used to trim down quik-tubes...we did not use a quik-tube for this bracket being that it was in the driveway and there was already concrete going several inches down

bought 6 of these puppies-4' high each and we cut them down to 30" to fit in the ground

measuring it all up to make sure it lines up correctly-remember geometry?  we used the 3-4-5 triangle rule to check that everything was in line (one measurement was 6' (3x2), another 8' (4x2) and the hypotenuse (diagonal line) is 10 (5x2)...leave it to the engineer to figure this stuff out