Paint, paint, paint

Now that we are back in town, we are quickly realizing that the days are getting shorter and this awesome summer will soon come to an end.  and we still have a lot to check off our lists as far as outdoor projects go.  Would be outside painting right now but both the little ones are napping and not sure if one baby monitor will pick up both of them.  I did make a quick trip outside to do a few minutes of sanding on the garage and slapped some primer on the places I sanded.  I think I can sneak out one more time to put the first coat of green over that primer since it should be dry soon.  Just no time to start the whole second coat of paint.
Over the weekend, Steve finished all the little touch ups on the back of the house and then I did the first coat of green Saturday morning (completing the last strokes just as the sun went up over head and painting needed to stop) and the second Sunday morning.  Also got super motivated and decided that it was high time to put some green paint up on the south side of our garage (if you recall from the spring, Steve removed all the old yellow paint and primed it).  This is the part of our garage we never see as it basically comes up to the neighbor's driveway and planter bed.  Sorry, neighbors, we love you and apologize for being such slackers and this taking so long.  Just sort of put it out of our minds and left you with some ugly. 

After First coat:

All finished with the exception of some trim painting, fixing some paint on the back door and updating/fixing the electrical switch for the back deck light

guess we might want to put the dog door back together now

wow does the deck stick out like a dangerous eye sore

And some pix of the garage with boards in place to glue a couple pieces of the lap board siding back together and with the first coat of paint up

the bottom wood rotted as soil was pushed up against it.  we obviously moved the soil away but still need to figure out a way to keep the soil away from now on

And the project Steve started, or began again, after a 4 year siesta....stripping the paint from the front and rear rafters and painting them.  We don't think there will be time to start the back of the boards (which are virtually unseen), but Steve at least hopes to get the front visible portions complete before fall (and RAIN) officially begins.  This project is no fun, hence the four year siesta. Four years?  Four summers ago (our first summer in our home as we got the keys Sept 1, 2006) we spent the ENTIRE summer stripping all the paint off the lap board siding of the house and hand nailing all new shingles as the old ones had rotted under the aluminum siding.  At some point I will try to post more pictures of our process to remove the aluminum siding, strip paint and hang shingles. 

And Ben on Saturday morning...because I like him and he makes me happy :)

He's on the move

and the fence is on it's way.  Steve and I finally had only Saturday obligations so we took advantage of the great weather and I watched Ben (more like Ben and I basked in the nice weather and watched Steve work-I helped where I could) while Steve got to work.  Steve made as much progress on the fence as he could with the materials we have.

Ben trying out the sprinkler for the first time (we have a hot water hose attachment thanks to our awesome plumber's suggestion) with the neighbor girls...Chella, who is 8, announced that she plans to marry Ben someday (I told her great, she'll be done with school and then can support him through college, right? :)

He spent Friday afternoon and evening making trips back and forth to Home Depot to find the right Simpson joists to connect a 4x4 to the garage as well as finish digging a hole next to the chimney and setting the bracket in concrete.

this was a bit of a fiasco as once the bracket was set, Steve realized that it wasn't quite where he wanted it, but the concrete had already started to set (thanks fast set concrete) so it took a lot of muscle as well as a hammer and some other tools to get it re-positioned but it all worked out...diggin that sucker out when the concrete was complete set would have been no fun

part of bracket attached to garage-Steve had to drill holes through the metal as well as cut down the bracket

other side of bracket...there is another bracket lower on 4x4 as well

Saturday we spent at the Japanese Gardens-gorgeous-with Steve's aunt who was visiting from Nebraska as well as Steve's bro and his wife, Amber!  They plan to re-open the koi pond and waterfall next weekend after it being closed pretty much since the winter storm of 2008 killed most of the koi.

On Sunday Steve went nuts and finished the part of the fence that connects to the garage as well as did as much as he could on the portion of the fence that comes up by the chimney.  Now it's getting heavy duty wire grate (anyone know a good place to go-we are looking for grate ~2"x2")  as well as the remainder of the cedar to complete the gate and the portion next to the chimney.  It's really coming along and we are loving the results.

We are pretty happy with the results and are beginning to be able to lasso Ben in to a contained area....he is just about walking more than crawling and climbing up onto everything!  We'll be out of commission for the next week or so as we are off to get our howdy dooty on in Dallas!  Yee-haw!   My good friend since the first grade (yikes!) is getting married so we are leaving the little dude for the first time and goin to get our party on!  Steve's bro is in charge of the casa, pup and little man.  Cross your fingers I survive without my little guy...but can't wait to have some adult only time with my hubby.  The following week is my big 3-0...30 is the new 20, right?

Ben helping to take things out after we had just put them away clean up

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!