garden bed[s].

I've been promising my wife garden beds for a while now. So after spending last weekend in on-again-off-again weather in the mountains - knowing this weekend called for rain - we stayed home to be productive, wiring the garage lights and then - building garden beds.

It started a few weeks ago when we scoped out the southside yard that we knew would be a perfect spot for beds - a) cos the grass pretty much fried last summer and we didn't feel like keeping it and b) cos it gets lots of sun. Oh, and I had a bunch of cedar leftover because I had miscalculated when I built the fence - but it came in handy for these beds. I threw together a quick design, then went to work notching all the ends on the table saw - enough for four beds.

A quick test for squareness and to see if this design would work -

(The 4x4 posts were from back behind the garage - they've been there since I moved in, so I finally found a use for them... )

Then we borrowed my father-in-law's rototiller to dig up half the side yard - the thing just loved to dig, it was like a pup on steroids. Oh, and his posthole digger. Father-in-laws can be a good thing to have around, particularly the handy variety like mine happens to be. K turned the dirt, and I got to work building the thing.

Had to make sure it was level...

It went together really easily. The part that almost took longer was digging dirt from our dirtpile that we made when we cleared the space for the patio. We also sifted dirt from our compost pile using an old screen -

Finally, as it started to rain, K did what she's probably been dying to do... plant the seedlings we picked up at the Farmer's Market in town the day before...

And boom. Done. I just need more of those little plastic 4" caps, and I'll also likely stain it to match the fence (the skinny plank dark, the fat plank light).

crazy light.

We were out working in the yard a couple of Sundays ago, trimming the trees, when something miraculous - which I had never witnessed in ten years - happened...

A low layer of grey clouds hung in the east, while dark storm clouds moved in from the west. But, for a few moments, the sun dipped below them and above the horizon - bouncing its last-day light off those low clouds in the east, reflecting back to the house, lighting up the front (which faces east) at sunset. Spectacular.

In a few minutes it was over, and the rain started to fall in earnest - soaking us as we hurried to get what we could fit in the yard waste bin to be recycled...

a patio.

So... a long time ago (when I first bought the house) in the backyard, there sat... a gazebo.

Made (of course) from lattice. Someone who lived here loved lattice. A lot. If you look closely, that photo is of myself and my dad, well, tearing that business down.

And then my mom and I sweeping up the mess...

In between then and now, I completely regraded and replanted the lawn - whilst having the foresight to plan out where a patio (complete with cedar cover, Christmas mood lights, a BBQ, furniture, and such) would go -

And there it sat. More or less like that. Sure, every so often the weeds would grow too high and need to be pulled. It was a trash collection center before taking stuff to the dump. It was a place to clean tools, and such. It was handy, I'll admit. But it wasn't a patio. And we want a patio.

So it was time to get to work.

This is where having something like InDesign is good. Once the pavers were picked out (same ones as the sidewalk), I was able to easily (read: step and repeat) create a bunch of different patterns as options - eventually going with this one -

Once I knew the size (based off the InDesign layout, which was built to scale), it was time to clear and level the dirt (K had already diligently pulled all the weeds, so this was relatively easy). Then, get a truckload of sand from the landscaping place for $28 (Stuart - you. are. awesome!) and spread it out -

Then, try not to walk in it much (and keep the pup out)...

To level it, K and I took a 2x6 I cut to the width of the space and just pulled it lengthwise. Boom. Then it was time to get (took three trips) and start laying out... pavers. Lots of pavers.

But it went surprisingly well, and quick. I had to adjust the edges I had laid, but no big deal. As I went, I kept checking the levelness of it all...

Perfect! And after more of the same, row after row, some tackled in the evenings after work, then finally completed while K was off on her backpacking bachelorette adventure, it was done!

I rather liked it...

The last step was to fill in all the cracks (and solidify the pavers) with sand -

And (really) done! Now I am working on drawing up plans for a patio cover - half of it will be covered, and half will be left open (the half where we'll build a firepit). And there will be more planters to build around it, and raised walls, that we'll fill with landscaping. Oh, and the final touch... mood lighting, like I originally envisioned all those years ago after tearing down that lattice monstrosity...

a proper Easter.

Spent digging in the dirt, as should be done in Springtime...

I dug out new flower beds along the fence and side of the yard while K planted - some heather, roses, Azaleas...

Before a proper Springtime storm rolled in...

We'll lay down the weed fabric, install the edging, and then make a truck run to the landscaping place in town to get a half yard of mulch and some pea gravel for the border... then hope none of the new plants wither away this summer...

time for a fence.

So after we lost Whisper to the neighbor's dog, I took it upon myself to (maybe, at long last) build a fence. This temporary chicken wire one just wouldn't do -

Nor would the six-foot-tall behemoth fence Trevor built a few years ago -

I guess I was looking for something that would fit more with the style of the house... So I drafted up some plans in my trusty sketch book -

I was going for a gate header that was notched just like the architectural beams on the house (and the ones I similarly replicated back on the garage)...

Then figured out supplies. I wanted to do this pattern of a 1x6 with three 1x2s in between, but holy cow were cedar 1x2s expensive. So... enter table saw. Its first real project! The beauty is that 1x4s were ridiculously cheap (I think they were something like $0.60 for a 1x4x5' #3). So with the table saw -

a pile of 1x4s -

and a Julian helper I set out to rip a bunch of them in half -

A half hour later... wallah - a stack of 1x2s -

That was the easy part, and the table saw was seriously a thing of beauty to use, if that phrase even makes sense (which I'm not entirely sure it works in this case). Anyway, I discovered at some point that cedar is not measured the same as other dimensional lumber... in that, a 1x6 is actually 6" wide (instead of 5-1/2"). It's kind of a good thing I discovered this before I started stapling the cedar to the frame - as it happened, it was just a matter of redoing my math (and then realizing of course that I had too much lumber... ).

But up went the 4x4 posts in quick order -

And then the 2x4 joists -

Making sure they were level -

That was actually kind of fun, I have to admit. And relatively easy. Measure 8' in between the posts, dig a post hole, plop a 4x4 post in the hole, level, and fill with concrete. And then I stained them...

Then it was time to start stapling the cedar boards. The math worked out perfectly - with a 3/4" gap in between each board (I intentionally had a maybe-larger-than-typical gap for the style I was after). But that meant I could just use a scrap piece of 1x lumber to set the gap - and so it moved along pretty quickly -

I won't go into the details of the nearly two months the fence sat with half a section in place because of my stapler that sprung a leak, my frustration of ordering a couple different parts kits but not being able to seal every leak, and the repair place in Seattle that then took another month-and-a-half to fix it. Needless to say, it will be a cold day in H-E-double-hockey-sticks before I take a tool there again to be fixed.

Anyway... then I had to build the header I had in mind from 2x6s and 2x4s. This required a jig saw to cut the 2x6 cross joist (and a wood file to smooth the cuts) -

And then a hack saw (to cut the 1/2" threaded pipe that was a little detail I was including to attach the 2x6s to the posts) -

Then attach the six 2x4s (similarly notched) and the header was finished -

Then... the gate, which I built from 2x4s -

K stained it, and I hung it -

And finally, the last little detail I planned was to stain the 1x2 boards the same dark stain as the cedar shakes above the house (and garage), and the wider 1x6 boards a much lighter stain. And then it was finished -

I have to admit - I like it. And I kind of like having a fence. Now I just need to build something between the back of the house and the garage to completely secure those three little chickens...