Sunday, July 25, 2010

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

It was a really hot weekend for outside projects, although I think the folks on the east coast would welcome our 80 degree weather. I got a sunburn on Saturday and spent Sunday trying to even out the tan lines with no success. The other thing we did on Saturday was assemble the majority of the handrail for the deck. On Sunday morning, all that remained were one side of the stairs and several small pieces of blocking that needed to be cut and nailed into the foot rail. We still need to fill a lot of holes in the wood where the screws went in, caulk all of the joints, repaint the whole shebang and find and paint some post caps but as is, it looks pretty finished.

Alfresco dining? Yes please!

While I was stocking us up on groceries for the week, Justin swept out the whole garage and feeling a little short on projects, swept up the alleyway too. That Justin, he always loves a clean floor.

And in other news, Justin smoked his first salmon! Boy was it tasty. I'm accepting tried and true recipes incorporating smoked salmon--we have a lot of leftovers!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Safety...Second

I think the saying is actually safety first but we've been without a railing on this deck for a good two months (and have averted all accidents!!). But we aren't going to leave it to chance any more, especially after discovering how delightful a brown derby or two can taste on a hot summer afternoon. We got the easiest parts in place this weekend before the big event of the summer: friends Heidi & Aaron tied the knot.

Next weekend, we'll tackle the remaining railing pieces, except for the one where Justin accidentally cut the bottom railing an inch too short :( For that one, we need to start from scratch and cut and paint and new piece.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Queuin' up

Mostly we've been painting railing parts for the past two weeks. Photos aren't too exciting. See:

We are queuing up for the weekend when we're going to try to assemble this bad boy of a railing.

In other less photogenic news...Justin wrapped up the plumbing on the north side of the walkway so now we have a spigot and hose on the garage. His plumbing skills have really improved since his first plumbing project when he took a whole day hooking up the ice maker in the new fridge at the last house.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Happy Holidays blog readers. We had a busy and productive weekend around the house. Mostly we got busy in the painting barn (aka the garage) but we had a few other items we were able to check off the list.

Justin and I put the fascia and trim around the deck this weekend which was a chore! Believe it or not, the deck isn't square and plumb :( Moreover, everywhere we wanted to install a fastener for the trim, Justin seemed to hit a fastener that was installed in the framing. So, it took twice as long as can be imagined. We are going to need some tips on how to make nail holes inconspicuous in the Trex material because we have quite a few.

Decked out!
Meanwhile, while Justin fiddled with installing the trim, I painted our future railing. We don't have enough staging space so I'll be painting the railing in batches. This will be a slow project since it needs 3 coats.

Everything's drying out.

Justin moved all of the scrap lumber that we've had piled up next to the garage and we graded and moved some of our new soil into the bed between the garage and the house. It's now a ~12x12 blank slate in partial shade. We made a stop at the nursery to take advantage of some coupons and pick up a few plants to fill in around the edges. I see a paperbark maple tree in our future, just not today. Mostly we still have a blank slate left.

We picked up a hose reel to take care of a little organization problem in the front of the house. Unfortunately, the connection leaked in the new reel so it's going back to the store.

Before: messy eyesore!
During: Reeling 'er in.

After: stay tuned. The saga continues...