Benches

Our heat finally broke over the weekend!  Cooler days and nights lent a giddy atmosphere to the most mundane of tasks.  Stepping outside was no longer similar to opening your oven door.  Ahhh.  It is just bliss.  I did yoga in my backyard every day over the long weekend -- some days twice.  And more than once I laid out back and read my book under the trees.  Just me, Greta and the birds.  It really goes a long ways towards getting re-grounded and back to basics.

The idea of Fall and being able to spend time outdoors gave me motivation to finish up retro-fitting the benches from my neighbors' deck to accompany my cedar dining table in the backyard.  Red came over to help.  It was a fun project to fool around with -- not difficult aside from some crazy saw angles -- but having another set of hands sure made manuevering the long benches easier.

Here is the end product -- so nice to have the cement blocks out from under the benches...

They rest a bit unevenly because the ground is uneven -- once again, welcome to my sloped yard.  I'll try the benches out a few times, and if they seem too unsteady I'll even out the ground some.  I'm also going to re-apply the mahoghany stain to the table top, and apply it for the first time to the benches.  If you look at the table base in the top photo you can see the color of the stain before the sun faded it.  It's a deep, rich brown that will match my backsteps.

I'm looking forward to finally hosting a neighbor dinner party as the nights cool off!  My nearby potting table can serve as a buffet, and I'll get the copper bowl fire pit out.  I'd like to get the car port wall treatment done too, as a backdrop, but we'll see how fast that happens.

I did a bit of work on my interior door frame this weekend as well, but neglected to snap photos.  I'll try to remember to do that tonight.

Visual Separation

When I had my back steps designed and built, I asked for 2 hooks to be installed at each end.  I didn't know what I would use them for, but I figured I'd want to hang something from there at some point. 

As I step out my backdoor and look to the right, because my house is uphill from the neighbors house I can see right over the 6 foot fence and into their backyard.  Likewise, I am in full view of them when I step out.  They are very nice, and it's not as though I spend a ton of time hanging out on the landing outside my door, but nonetheless, I want a bit of a visual barrier there.

I saw this photo in a book some time back and liked it...I saved it in my Outdoor Project Idea file....

And when thinking about what to hang in the landing opening I decided to modify it from a table light to just a hanging design:

I am also going to build a second frame to hang on the other side -- you can see the hooks on the end on the right.

And here's the other side - bonus that it matches the brick...

This is again lumber re-purposed from my neighbor's deck -- (ironically the deck that I used to look over the fence and see; now they've built a new one.  They recently finished demolition and had more lumber, but oddly they didn't offer it to me -- I think because I showed them the potting table I built from the first batch they realized the potential of re-purposed lumber.  Drat.)  Anyway I digress... so the side of the lumber that was under the deck isn't weathered, so it's still a light color shown here.

What remains?  Well, first I need to take the price tags off the silver hooks, and I plan to spray paint the hooks brown to blend in.  And then I am scheming on what, if anything, to put inside the frame.  I have several ideas churning around in my head... so I'll take a few days and let them simmer and see what feels right.

Guess Who's Back?

When I got up yesterday morning and let the dee-oh-gee out, I heard some commotion in the alley.  I couldn't see anything because the noise was from a little bit down the alley from me, but I had a pretty good idea of what was going on.  By the time I left for work, I saw that my "friends" were back.

I couldn't tell their purpose, but they were definitely moving dirt for the umpteenth time. 

After work that afternoon I went to get the dog from boarding, and when I came home (my eye on a shower --) I heard, "Excuse me -- ma'am?  Ma'am?  Excuse me --" and realized it was the construction crew calling to me. 

"[unintelligible] problems with the water."  ?  He said it twice and I still was confused.  Was he asking me if I am having trouble with water, or telling me that he has trouble with my water....?  Turns out, he was having trouble with my water, which of course in turn meant that I was going to have trouble.  It was nearly 5 p.m. -- e.g. quittin' time.  Uh-oh.  He advised that they were going to turn it off, and that he hoped it would be back on in about an hour.  Extreme skepticism but -- I agreed.  Did I really have a choice?

An hour came and went.  Since I was already hot and sweaty from dog walking and errand running I figured I may as well really get my sweat on (what was it yesterday -- 101?  102?) and stay outdoors since I couldn't go in and shower.  Dog begged to go inside -- she hates the heat -- so in she went. 

Back story:  Last week I put most of the furniture from my guest room up into the attic.  Suddenly I just needed some wide open spaces in there.  Up went the low round table.  Up went the little iron and ceramic tile end table.  UP went the four huge floor pillows.  Out to the dining room went the loveseat.  All that remains is my tiny little rocking chair and some bookcases.  Ahhhh.  And, well, a heap of electronics and my wooden box of house files. 

Back back story:  Up until a couple of months ago when I finally got my wireless internet to work at home (no thanks to AT&T; hel-lo Time Warner!) my laptop was tethered to my ethernet cable, and my modem to a phone jack -- my laptop location options were rather... limited.  Now I can go anywhere -- porch -- livingroom -- oh the surfing bliss -- so I can finally think about where I want my computer and printer to live.  For lack of a better idea I've had them in the guest room.  Truth be told I rarely use my printer, and my laptop has been living under the livingroom couch -- but I can recognize that some type of desk set up would be handy.  Sometime.  Somewhere.  But for now?  A heap in the guest room.

So back to the heat and lack of shower... I spied one of the three benches from my neighbor's deck demolition and decided to re-purpose the shortest one for a bench in the guest room.  I got out the Skil saw and remembered it needed the blade replaced.  I jiggered with it for a while trying to figure out how in the heck to get the old blade off before I gave in and called Red for counsel.  Got that switched out -- got 2 of the 3 cuts done that I needed to do -- but I needed an extra set of hands for the third one.  I mean, I probably could have done it, but I really wanted to keep all of my limbs and appendages.  I texted a neighbor who has repeatedly offered to help with projects because she wants to learn about power tools -- and she came over to help.  Zip zip and it was done and she helped me carry in inside.

Handily, she also speaks Spanish so I asked her if she minded going to chat with the construction crew to see if I could really count on water coming back on... she was glad for the excuse to keep her Spanish fresh.  I thought the guys were going to break their necks when she started speaking to them -- so surprised to hear Spanish coming from my yard (they were now half a crew inside my fence and half a work crew in the alley with shovels) -- but they said they were just about done -- and by 8 p.m. I did have water.  Not exactly an hour, but I'm sporting some new copper pipe junctions for my water connection.  I'm really wishing I'd taken a photo when I peered down into the hole before they totally covered it with dirt.  Drat.

And, speaking of photos -- I also neglected to take one of the bench.  I'll do that tonight and update this (very long rambling) post.  I guess I'm out of blogging practice ...  Now that it's so hot out, I suspect the outdoor project will wane and the indoor projects will fire back up.  More house posts and fewer garden posts coming up!

UPDATE:

I need to add trim to the left end to finish it -- but I wanted to see if I even liked it in here before that effort.  It's sort of a mish-mash of stuff just thrown on it at this point, but it's better than having all the stuff on the floor.  That's my worm farm on the left -- that burgundy box looking thing.  Things are happenin' in there!  : )