Storage under the bed

I've been looking at bed frames that have storage underneath them. Since we have neither an attic nor a basement, places to store stuff need to be creative and created. IKEA has some nifty examples but I was hesitant to spend the money - especially as Chris could build us whatever we needed. But building stuff takes time and materials and he is short on both (the darn lumber won't be dry until next summer and he has many other projects that have a higher priority).

Family to the rescue! We were offered a storage bed frame to a waterbed that was no longer wanted. Woot! I, of course, had to make it more my own - so I sanded it down and painted it dark purple.

Sanded and waiting for paint 

Storage!

The drawers had finger slots instead of knobs. I definitely wanted to change that and found some incredibly ugly drawer pulls that we got in an auction odd-lot box of hardware.

Ugly knobs

A bit of bright red spray paint solved that problem.

Much better

In process

Almost done with painting

I was comfortable painting it such a crazy color partly because so little of the frame would actually show. After you put on the mattress and bedding only a bit of the wood is actually visible. But I know it's there and it makes me smile every time I go into the drawers.

Assembling the frame system (and someday the floor will be done too)

I want the upstairs of the house to have a creative, fun vibe. It's where we do art, play music, and watch movies. It's brighter and more eclectic than the downstairs so I've picked a coordinating color scheme based on a quilt my sister made (hmmm, have to do a post on that). The quilt is an amazing mix of red, purple, yellow, and green. So far I've got the stained purple closet and the painted dark purple bed. I'll start mixing in the other colors as the rooms develop. The walls are neutral so all this color comes from accessories and furniture - fun to play with and easy to change.

End of year garden notes

Thank goodness I had the CSA share this year. My little garden didn't do very well. Not that I actually expected it to - I was mainly using this year to figure out where stuff should go. 

This bed in the middle of the East yard did very well. It contained Chadwick cherry tomatoes (failure for me, the plant was gorgeous and prolific but the fruit was mealy and gross), basil (did okay but had a hard time keeping up with my cutting), yellow wax beans (great), lemon thyme (wonderful!), and nasturtiums (great). I also put herbs in two planter boxes at either end and all but the cilantro and parsley did great.

Photo at 10AM. Out of shade by 11 and sun all day.

The little flower beds at the far edge of the East yard struggled since they had poor soil and shade all morning. However, they did grow, so I'll work to amend the soil and put in flowers that actually like partial shade.

Morning glories and assorted sun flowers

The cucumber and squash bed did okay. I got enough cukes to supplement my other canning sources and a few good zucchini. I had many, many zuke flowers and should have just collected them for cooking rather than waiting for fruit. Next summer I'll do that. The butternut squash did not come in at all. The acorn squash, well, you'll see a few photos from now. Sad, so sad.

Squash bed in front, tomato raised bed behind

This is another bed that just didn't get enough sunlight. I'll move it further west to get it out of the morning tree shade. The soaker hose worked great and the hose pins that I made from an old hanger were perfect. They kept the hose in place and didn't rust at all.

Odd, round, cucumbers

Okay, so this is my acorn squash. Two planted, one produced squash - two to be exact. They got this big (about tennis ball size) and stopped right there. Never gained any size. I picked them at end of season and I'm going to see what they look like inside. I'm predicting they'll be mostly rind.

Sad acorn squash

My Big Beef tomato plants also didn't get enough sun, but they still managed to turn out some really good tomatoes. If they'd actually been in the right spot I think they would have been prolific.

Good despite the location

The herbs I planted in that bed did do well - basil, oregano (really, really well), and garlic chives.

Got enough oregano to dry and fill two pint jars. Nice!

So the yard is coming along. I'll move the beds around next year and (hopefully) start laying out the patio stone.

Gorgeous sun

I think it'll be so very nice when it's all done.

Installing the porch ceiling

So. The porch ceiling was not on the official 2014 project list. It wasn't even on the "it might be nice to do this year" list. But once we finished the board and batten, it looked so nice that we just couldn't leave the porch undone.

There is 12 x 64 feet of this to cover

We decided to use sheet goods and then cover the seams with rough cut pine. We painted the plywood in a 50% Sandtone color so they would be a bit lighter shade than the window and door facings.

It's begun!

Cutting out the holes for the lights was a bit tricky, but Chris did a great job figuring out where they were to go. I used the jigsaw to cut out the 4" circles.

Careful...

The sheets went up much easier when you had an extra pair of hands to hold them up. I was supposed to be up there too, but I had to take a picture, right?

Hold it right there!

Since we knew we'd be covering the seams, we didn't have to worry about fitting the sheets tightly together.

Ugly temporarily visible seams

The rough cut pine boards are 1/2 inch thick and 8 inches wide; I painted them full Sandtone and I like the contrast with the lighter sheet goods. It only took a few days to get everything up and then I stained the porch pillars and trim black. Arranged the furniture, build a quick pallet daybed, and got to enjoy a couple of fall days on the porch before cold temperatures hit.

Look! The car actually fits now!

I'll spend time next summer finishing the daybed, installing the seat cushions on the barber chair, and figuring out how I want to decorate. For now though, I love having it cleaned off and usable.

Firewood!

I'm jumping around in time lately. Posts are a bit out of sequence as I catch up on what we did all summer. Still, the pictures are pretty.

I already said we put up 162 feet of wood. That's a lot of wood!

We borrowed our friend's splitter so that we didn't have to rent one. It's an awesome splitter! Homemade from an I-beam, a bit of tank (yes, I said tank), an old truck seat, a car frame and axle, dump truck hydraulics, and the motor from a commercial power washer. It ran great and let us work at a slower pace since we didn't have to adhere to a rental schedule.

The last pile to split. And the homemade splitter.

That darn pile was over a ditch. We kept thinking we were almost done and there would just be more wood.

Bug hats were a must this year. All year.

We put down pallets to help with air flow and did our best to stack carefully. All of this pile is now gone. Whew!

Neat ends

While we were at it, we decided to build a kindling crib. Chris used some of the slab wood and put this by the back door to the house.

The gaps may be a bit wide. We'll see.

It has angled slats for the front so I can fill it all the way to the top. Unlike the photo, it also has a complete roof. Apparently I took an in-progress shot but no completed one.

Nearly done.

I've been working on splitting the slab wood left over from our milling - I'm up to the second level already!

Double rainbow

My brother took a gorgeous picture yesterday. A double rainbow hitting the fall foliage and reflected in the Hudson River. Wow. 

Especially nice when you consider he snapped the photo with a cell phone while in a moving car. At least he wasn't driving.

Cleaning off the porch - again

It feels like we've cleaned off the porch many, many times over the last year or so. And that's because we have. It's a wonderful space - long, deep, and covered - which means it accumulates stuff. These pictures were from before we worked on the board & batten. Before we could get boards on the walls, we had to get crap off the porch.

Full of stuff. Again.

 Some of it was needed for the siding work, including an entire stack of stained boards and battens.

Stuff on top of the required work materials.

My Dad likes to call it FSS - flat surface syndrome. If you've got a flat spot, crap will end up on top of it.

We decided to empty out the Nest (which is supposed to be a cute camp type spot) and make it a temporary storage unit. Temporary! Most of what is in here will properly go in Chris's workshop when it's done; the rest will go back into the garage.

Empty shelves waiting for stuff

Cleaning out the porch and garage made us realize that we have usable wall space.

A blank slate

So we built a high (around the 10 foot mark) storage shelf for those rarely used items like camping gear, moving blankets, painting cloths, and coolers.

Soon to be filled!

By the time we got done, the working materials were at the far end (in the car port) and the porch furniture was actually usable.

Better...

I'll be posting a true "after" picture soon - we got the porch ceiling done!

Board and batten finally done

When last we left the exterior of the house (last fall) it had boards but no battens. At least no battens on the first floor anyway. We made good use of the manlift while we had it and got the second floor gable ends done in October. It was now time to get the darn first floor done. 

We chose to put black trim around the doors and windows and to paint the doors the same color as the window trim and garage doors. It looks quite coordinated now.

Cutting around light and door trim

Garage done, heading to the main house 

 Chris is still working in the garage as we haven't yet built his workshop.

Working in the garage

So safe

We had to cut the battens from around the second floor windows as we wanted to install matching trim.

Love the ladder outriggers. Great stability.

First floor finished! Now it was time to put the trim, boards, and battens on the sides of the second floor.

Installing top and bottom trim boards

This went pretty quick as we simplified the design quite bit. Trim board on top of windows, trim board under windows, and evenly cut boards/battens to sandwich in between.

Ta da!

That finished the exterior skin on the building. Woot!