Knock Off #2: Outdoor Bench

Well, I tackled the bench today. It was a bit more difficult than the table and a little less forgiving, but it's finished! I am thinking once the chairs are finished I'll make cushions, but the bench top is so pretty I'm not sure I want to cover it. We'll see :).

I finished just in time to take a couple pics just barely before dark. People have asked how I manage to do something like this with three kids. I worked on it a bit at a time as my day (aka children) allowed. I just take advantage of Elijah's naps and the kids are more than happy to play outside alongside mommy. In fact, while I was working Riley was picking up my scraps and building his own creation with his own drill...

And Miss Naomi was busy caring for her babies as usual...

And while we weren't outside or napping this little doodle was happy to be jumping away! Apparently Riley was having some fun with him as well :).

Next project: chairs!

Eat Your Veggies, or Better Yet Grow Them!

While I'm on the subject of improving our outdoor living space, Brad's been working hard on our vegetable garden this year. The kids too! They have their own little corner in the garden where they planted watermelon (of course they pick the one thing that really needs the space of the entire garden), so hopefully we will have success with it this year. Last year was pretty disappointing, but we had a very cold summer and sounds like it was a bad year for everyone. This year we've already had a lot of hot days and quite a bit of rain, so things are growing fast! I'm looking forward to enjoying all the yummy veggies we're going to get in the months to come!

And while our little gardeners in the making aren't helping daddy, they can most likely be found in their clubhouse using their imaginations :).

We've also started revamping our fence that we added back when Riley was a toodler to keep him from running into the driveway from the back yard. Since the kids are at an age where they are riding bikes and scooters and doing all kinds of things in the upper part of the driveway, we decided to remove part of it and rebuild it so that it crosses our driveway mid-way rather than up at the garage which isn't a garage but that's another story (and there's still room to pull two cars in the driveway). That opens up the back yard from the house quite a bit and keeps the kids safe from the cars while they do their thing :). It also gives us more "patio" space. We'll also be adding another stairway down from the deck to make that easily accessible without going through a gate. And I'm working on restaining that from the awful messed up orangey-red I ended up with last year - it's now a very neutral, soothing gray :). Much better.

This was our view from the house to the yard before.


And here it is now! It still will be fenced it the fence will be here ---->
rather than <--- there :)

Knock Off #1: Outdoor Dining Table

So, I'm ready to reveal the project I've been working on the last couple days. My new favorite site (ok one of them) is called Knock Off Wood and it's by a woman named Ana who builds things. And not only does she build things, but she builds things that are really awesome copies of furniture from some pretty expensive or well known companies aka knock offs. And besides that she empowers other people, especially women, to build their own furniture by providing the plans for them! The first time I saw her site I had a list in my head of about 20 things I wanted to try to build! I narrowed it down to start out with an outdoor dining table since we love to eat out on our patio, but we always squeeze at our tiny little hand-me-down table, with the intention of continuing with the entire set if the table goes well. And it did! The set is a knock off from this set from West Elm pictured below.

Pretty cool, right?! I love it. And I love my new dining table. And I can't wait to get started on the bench and chairs...and several other pieces but let's start here.

Building the frame

Added legs.

Laying out the slats (I cleaned the wood and stained the base and the slats separately before screwing them down to get a nice coverage with the stain.)

Testing it out with the umbrella! It's finished!

I think it's prettier in person, but you get the idea.

Oh yeah, did I mention this table goes for $400 from the retailer?! Yeah this cost me a bit less :).

Next up...the bench! And the chairs will follow!

P.S. I appreciate Ana's desire to empower others to try and do new things and I hope I do the same for you because, frankly, I am just an ordinary person. I am me. And if I can do it, so can you. :)

Can She Build It?

YES SHE CAN!



Oh just you wait. My newest project has begun and hopefully it will be the first in a series...Watch out cause momma has a new hobby. Stay tuned! :)

Once Upon an Evening in My Own Backyard

A beautiful princess

was being chased
by a ferocious dragon
and they ran
and they ran
and they decided to live happily ever after.

Then, they discovered
a zippy spaceship
and the brave space explorers took off
on a wild ride
and explored new worlds

while captivating the attention of an adorable spectator
The end.

Today's Joy

My pear tree in bloom

My children's love blossoming

Joy.

De-Clutter and Organize!

Now that I've finally stopped feeling sick every day, and am starting to get an appetite and some energy back, one of my main goals before this baby comes is to work on cleaning out and seriously organizing around here. A lot of that just involves making sure everything has a place and eliminating clutter. I like to be organized, but that doesn't mean it necessarily happens.

We completed one step towards that goal last week by enclosing the fridge with an extension of the upper cabinets and adding a bulletin board and magnetic strips to hold the kids' artwork. I should have taken a photo of the actual "before" of the side of my fridge...it was pretty cluttered with photos and drawings and such and no matter how often I'd clear it, it would end up back that way. Now, it may still hold a lot of "stuff" but at least it looks a bit neater.

Before: After:

We also have been doing some major clean up in our yard. Because we are on a huge corner lot, we have these gigantic privacy hedges that line the street side and part of the back of our yard. They are pretty massive not only height-wise, but girth-wise and end up needing trimming 3-4 times a season, which can be a 2-3 day job. Last week, we decided that we finally needed to take the time to hack them back significantly. They had reached about 10 ft in height and we cut them down to about 6 ft. We spent two days, and still have the third section left to do, but it already looks so much better, and improved our view of the water from our house as well. Below you can see the job half done, which shows how much we took off.

And speaking of our yard, check out part of our garden! We have really been enjoying all of the fresh veggies we've been getting. So fun to go out in the evening to pick a fresh salad before dinner!

I'll have living room/fireplace makeover photos to show very soon! Just putting the finishing touches on things and it will be ready for posting! :)

Project: Clubhouse In Motion

I mentioned earlier that with my father-in-law in town last week we were able to accomplish quite a lot around the house and yard, including a ton of work on Project: Clubhouse.

You may remember in order to transport the heavy beast, the guys had to cut off the tall leg posts and break it down a bit. I never posted what the clubhouse originally looked like, so here are a couple pictures to show you. In the final design, we ended up using ALL of the pieces we had! Talk about recycling!!! :)

BEFORE:

How it looked once it made it to our yard (with steps, landing, and slide remnants not pictured):

PROJECT UNDERWAY:

Removed the old roof, putting up new siding, with Riley overseeing the project, of course :)

New shingles and a fresh coat of paint and trim! Plus building a frame on the old landing for the slide.

Slide installed and ready to use!

You can see we reused the barrel that originally hung below the slide as a tunnel between the clubhouse and the slide landing (great idea Dad VH!)

Slide works great!

Added some paint to the rails:

And matching wood siding to the front of the slide platform:

And here is what we have today! I still have some work to do painting the rails on the landing and adding some fun details like a mailbox and welcome sign, but we are pretty happy with the transformation so far!

AFTER: