Aug 4th 2010

Today a few things happened - I had my second full day off from both jobs since Memorial day - that was nice. I snapped this picture of Lydia watering the fruit trees (if you look REAL close you can see our first red apple on the left!) - she is listening to Homer's Odyssey on her headphones.

And Jill had her eye exam. Looks like her eyesight is still good enough! So she keeps driving for a couple more years.

We bought a new bunk bed. I was originally going to build, but just don't have the time. Will pick up on Friday. I also got M.I.A.'s new album which I'm thrilled about :)

I finished staining the deck. Tomorrow I start the long gazebo process. I can only afford half the panel wood. The wood for the "walls" or panels of the gazebo will be between $800 and $850 it turns out. Cedar is EXPENSIVE! And that's with a 10% off coupon. Dang.

Aug 3rd 2010

I went through three sheets on the belt sander working on the table. I was covered in sawdust. I actually took this picture AFTER I had taken the leaf blower to myself and gotten most of it off. Then I stained the table.

August 2nd 2010

Today I used the hammer drill to finally attach most of the outlying lighter toned boards to the concrete blocks underneath. Then I put a coat of semi-transparent cedar-toned stain down. It's a lot of work! This picture was taken when I was half done. Tomorrow night, if it's dry enough, I'll put coat #2 on.

July 31st 2010

When I built the deck, I saved some scrap boards. I'm sure some of my neighbors wondered why I had a small stack of wood on my front porch, but I needed them to be outside but not get rained on, since I didn't waste any finish on it. I took those boards and drilled holes in them. Then laid them across the gaps and centered the anchor bolts with them. Poured the concrete underneath and so those scrap boards held the bolts at the proper height.

I also used a belt sander to round off the corners of the table. I found that my perfect little 45 degree angles caught peoples pants legs as they were sitting down. So round off they were - this is stage one. After Jill inspects it all, I'll put on finer sandpaper and finish it.


I also poured concrete in the center portion of the deck finally. I had gotten Jill some beads ( went with Christmas colors that also remind me of M&M's) and she made our "J-P" logo into the concrete. Jill came up with this symbol when she was just a sophomore in high school, so it's been part of our relationship for almost as long as we've been together!

July 30th 2010

Worked on the deck tonight. Removed the edge boards and excavated post holes. Will pour concrete tomorrow and set anchor bolts. Metal "L" straps will then attach to the anchor bolts. The upper part of the "L" strap will go up the outside of each corner of the gazebo's support corners.

By the way, the gazebo I'm building is based on this one, minus the seats (since my table will be in the middle):
http://www.woodsmith.com/plans/gazebo/exploded/

July 24th 2010

I moved the table off the deck and pressure washed them today. This Thursday-Friday I'll refinish the deck and sand down the table for it's completion - all in preparation to build the gazebo on top.

July 21st 2010

My wife looking awesome. But she always looks awesome.

July 17th 2010

Sophia's birthday party! She had a lot of fun.

July 15th 2010

The kitties like to snuggle in a Yin-Yang style curled around each other.

July 7th 2010

Alexander and I built this scratching post for the kitties today. Xander did all the rope work and nailed it to the 4x4. And he helped me attach it to the base. A wee bit blurry because it's an iPhone pic and the light wasn't super.