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Tag Archives: patio

Billiam’s Backyard and Patio Reveal!

01 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by Jean in General Farm Stuff, Grief, Home and other Repairs, Rural life, Uncategorized, Wood Crafts

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DIY, diy chair, do it yourself, garden, garden bed, hanging bed, home decor, home furniture, homemade furniture, how to handle grief, landscaping, outdoor furniture, pallet, patio, patio chair, patio furniture, storage bench, swinging bed, wood chair, wood craft, wood furniture, yard

First of all, I need to thank John. Without his help some of these things could never have been accomplished and the rest would have taken me two years instead of 6 months. Secondly, I want to thank Ana White for the inspiration to Do It Ourselves, and the little family at More Like Home for adjusting some of the plans on Ana’s page so that the projects could be built with 2x4s and for their other 2×4 projects. Thank you to the Apartment Therapy and Houzz sites for their daily decorating inspirations. Thank you to the guys at Articulate Motion for keeping us in pallets, donating a chunk of fabric, and adjusting the metal fire inserts so that they could be used in the dining table. I want to thank the DIYers out there who showed us how to make Beer Bottle Tiki Torches and inspired our hanging bed. Speaking of that hanging bed, I want to thank the wood gurus at Home Depot for putting us on a safe path on that journey. Finally, thanks to all the friends and family who cheered us on and helped us through this traumatic year.

So, here we go! This is what the patio looked like before when we were in the first week of the redo:

patiosouthendbeforepationorthendbeforeBleak wasn’t it?

INSERT FANFARE HERE!

patiotriumphpatioreflectionpatioatnightpatiodiningareapatiogardenconversationareabeerbottletorchespatiobeerbottletorches1patiotablefireinsertshangingbeddressedup

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Tie-dye (sort of) Patio Curtain, semi-fail.

15 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Jean in Home and other Repairs, Uncategorized

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DIY, do it yourself, garden, home decor, landscaping, outdoor furniture, patio, yard

It has been brought to my attention that I haven’t posted to the blog in a while and that observation would be correct. I live in the desert. It’s summer. The only place I have to build the furniture is on the large, west facing patio (aka the oven) that collects heat from noon onward. When it’s 110 degrees, that patio hits 130, bacon, eggs and pancakes can be made on the cement slab. Not even constant dunks in the pool and 80 spf sunscreen can prevent heat exhaustion and burns. So, yeah, not much to blog about here, but we did suffer through two projects, three if you count one monumental fail.

John and I began dabbling with tie-dye to make ourselves some shirts. While I was Googling tie-dye patterns, I came across a multitude of other tie-dye, dip dye, sponge dye and every other kind of dye method you can imagine. They all made the process sound so easy and the results were wonderful. One project for dip dying curtains really attracted my attention.

Because that gigantic patio faces west and collects enough heat to bake pottery, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to add shade. With my need for cheap project materials I’d decided to use the large cotton drop cloths that can be found in the painting supply sections everywhere. I’d had this idea many years ago and should have acted on it then. Several years ago there was such a thing as a cheap WHITE cotton drop cloth. By white, I mean WHITE. I should have stocked up. I should have filled closet shelves with them. The lesson learned here is that if you find well made materials (or anything else) that you have a use for or may have a use for in the next few years, get them. The one thing that we can apparently count on is that what is well made and inexpensive today, will not be as soon as someone figures out how to make it cheaper and charge more for it. There are no more plain white cotton drop cloths any more, anywhere. They’re all a drab oatmeal color. I can only assume that manufacturers have stopped bleaching the fibers to save time and cost. At the same time, however, these drop cloths have doubled in price. Gee thanks.

I bought enough oatmeal colored drop cloths to cover each of the 12 foot spaces between the columns on my patio. I then proceeded to bleach the heck out of two of them. They require fairly large buckets of which I only had two to spare. I let them both soak in a half gallon of bleach mixed with 10 gallons of water, for two days, in the sun. Are they white now? Heck no. The best of the two turned a very pale oatmeal. The worst, a light shade of gray, even after washing and rinsing several times to remove the bleach before dying.

Using the very pale oatmeal cloth, and following the instructions for Rit dyes, I set up buckets with my dye colors and dunked a section of the cloth in each color. Stretching the cloth out like a scrunchy cloth snake, over a line of buckets, and pushing each section down into the dyes allowed for several inches of space between colors so the dyes could spread up a bit between colors but not mix together.  I let the cloth soak in the dyes for an hour or so while I tie-dyed some kiddie clothes and some little white 5.00 sneakers I’d found. I then squeezed out each section of the cloth and left it over night. The colors were vivid, a bit too vivid. I made the mistake of hoping it would fade a bit in the wash. I hosed off the extra dye and then put the cloth through the washer and dryer. Boy did it fade. What were once true colors when they came out of the dye, faded and muted to the point that they were unrecognizable as the original dye colors. Completely unsatisfactory for cheerful breezy patio curtains.

As I was screeching about the monumental waste of time and money with Rit dyes, a couple of friends suggested using Procion mx dye with soda ash. Guaranteed to give vibrant color that stays that way. I ordered some. Not only is it more expensive than Rit, it also comes in tiny jars with no more than a few teaspoons of dye powder in them. I used several jars of each color just for one curtain. The amounts were so small, that there was no way to dip dye. We soaked a cloth in the soda ash water, hauled it to the barn, spread it on the rubber mat aisle between stalls and painted each color on with paint brushes. Carefully folding the cloth in 4ths so that only like colors touched, and then placing garbage bags between folds to prevent different colors from bleeding onto each other, we folded it up and shoved it into a garbage bag to let it sit for a day and a half.  We then hung it over a stall fence and proceeded to rinse it with hoses until the water ran clear, before we washed and dried it. It was bright after we dyed it, bright after we rinsed it and holy merde is it bright now.

I can only count the second curtain as a semi-success. I’d been going for a water color sunset effect, but got something that looks more like a vibrant, rainbow beach towel. I will not be making one to match. The others will be dyed a solid color as soon as I can pick a color and get enough of it to dye 3 more curtains.

patiocurtainpaintingI’d managed to wallow around on the ground for two stripes before I got too coated with dye, too hot and was in too much pain to continue. John finished up my stripes and his. I’d not suggest you try this if you have bad hips, bad knees, bad shoulders and a bad back.

patiocurtainrinseAfter letting it sit for a day and a half, we hung it over the pony wash rack fence to rinse it. This is AFTER the rinse.

patiocurtainup3This is how it looks from the covered patio side with the sun shining through it. Definitely cheerful and it does indeed provide shade.

patiocurtainup2But from the outside, we have the world’s largest beach towel. I suppose it’s sort of appropriate since this is the pool side view, but not what I was looking for.

patiocurtanfrominsideThis is my view from inside the house. Umm, yeah, the others will be solids. This may one day become a colorful shade for horse stalls.

The end results of these two efforts in outdoor curtain dying are:

One giant beach towel which may end up as a barn shade, one very muted curtain that will definitely hang as a barn shade, and a large blue splotch on the parking pad that looks as if a Smurf met it’s doom (the tarp we were using apparently had a hole. This is why the operation was moved to the barn aisle).

 

 

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Wood Patio Table/Work Table DIY

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by Jean in Home and other Repairs, Uncategorized, Wood Crafts

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DIY, do it yourself, home decor, home furniture, homemade furniture, outdoor furniture, patio, patio furniture, wood craft, wood furniture

Our back patio is approximately 48 feet long by 12 feet wide. One end is open and the other end adjoins a wall. Having such a large patio is great on one hand because of the outdoor space it provides. On the other hand, however, that’s a long space to fill up! Our back door leads down onto the patio at about the halfway point. Being an entry way to the outdoor room the patio will eventually be, the steps will naturally bisect the space into two halves. Rather than trying to tie the entire long patio together like some sort of banquet hall, it seems natural to me to make two areas.

The grilling  and main dining area will be on the north, open ended side. The sitting, socializing, and sipping tea or cocktails side will be the southern end with the wall. I thought this a natural set up because aftah all, that’s what we do in the south, we sip sweet tea or cocktails and socialize. Actually, my real reason is that the grill should, of course, go on the open ended side of the patio so that the smoke can waft out and away from the patio, and go up the street to make my neighbors drool.

pationorthACK! Don’t look at the mess. This is why people never see pictures of the north end of the patio when I’m out there taking pictures of the pretty plants. This is the end with the big grey plastic monstrosity holding the pool tools and toys, the grill, and a table where we pot plants. Consider this the before picture and try to imagine an outdoor kitchen and dining area here instead of the current clutter.

patiosouthThis is the south side of the patio, with all the pretty plants, and Belle the barn dog who is currently being employed to keep the rabbits and squirrels from devouring the pretty plants. She’s a bit of a micro-manager when it comes to supervising the projects though. This area and the garage are being used as work spaces for our projects. This patio is closed due to construction

The southern end of the patio has that big blank beige wall, and a tiny door to the master bedroom in the corner. I have planned to build a seating area with two storage benches and two chairs, but I hadn’t decided what to do with the big blank wall. Briefly, I considered painting a mural. Then I remembered that I would have to live with whatever I painted. That caused a cringe. As I was surfing through decorating and DIY websites, I came across the use of mirrors outdoors.

Several years ago a friend gave me a large framed mirror that she could no longer use. I knew I could use it, I just didn’t know where to hang it so that it would reflect anything in my house that I wanted to see twice every time I came in the room. When I saw the patio mirrors on the internet, I knew just what to do with the big blank wall. I can’t just have a big mirror on the wall, so we’re building a small table that I can use to work on the patio projects. Once the patio projects are finished, I will paint the table and place it under the big mirror, and fill it with plants, candles, and whatever pretty stuff I think might be safe there.

patiotablejoiningWe decided on this simple project not only because it is functional and I needed a table, but also because we wanted to practice our pocket hole joinery technique before moving on to more complicated projects. We first pre-drilled all of the necessary pocket holes for the frame boards. After that, joining the pieces went faster than assembling any furniture I’ve ever bought in a box.

patiotableframeThe completed table frame is also much sturdier with our pocket holes than anything I’ve ever put together out of a box. The screws hold fast without using glue!

patiotableWe were going to use pocket holes to attach the table top and the only thing that stopped us, as usual, was that we didn’t have enough screws. Instead, we drilled in from the top to attach the boards. If this had been a project I planned to stain, I’d have probably waited and bought more screws, but because we’re leaving it unfinished to use as a work table and, in the end, will be painted, I’ll just fill the shallow holes around the screws before I sand and paint.

You can find the plans for this project, along with 30 more things to do with 2x4s here: http://www.morelikehome.net/2012/10/day-30-build-2×4-craft-table.html

 

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The Patio Storage Bench DIY from Billiam’s To-Do List

17 Saturday May 2014

Posted by Jean in Uncategorized, Wood Crafts

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DIY, outoor furniture, patio, patio furniture, storage bench, wood furniture

Work continues on the patio in fits and starts and something always seems to pop up as a road block to completion of projects. Tools break, we run out of screws (for my birthday I’m asking for at least two boxes of screws in every size known to hardware stores), we don’t have the right tool, a project has to be completely rethought (the hanging bed) and we don’t have the right lumber, we run out of time, high winds, other chores have to be done, boy you name it and it can, and will, get in the way of the fun patio projects. When working on a budget as tight as mine is, however, the problem that crops up most often is how to find less expensive alternatives to what we need.

We had started this storage bench two months ago. My son got the frame built, I sanded the reclaimed cabinet doors and, once they were attached to the frame, I painted the bench with one coat of yellow and one coat of green, re-sanded it all, then stained and then applied 3 coats of spar urethane. It was time to upholster the lid. That’s where the project ground to a halt.

storagebenchBecause this bench will be on the patio and exposed to the Arizona heat, sun, and desert dirt, I had to be careful what I used to upholster the lid to provide comfortable, attractive and functional seating. If you have an unlimited or at least a decent budget you can find outdoor upholstery materials, but my budget is such that I need to find seriously inexpensive or free materials. The project ground to a halt because foam sheets and fabric marketed for outdoor furniture use is too expensive for my close to zero budget.

After a good bit of research and a lucky insight provided by my son who makes ragtops for cars, I discovered much about foam and alternative upholstery fabrics. I learned that polyurethane foam is naturally mildew resistant and it is marketed for a number of uses. The uses it is marketed for seem to be the driving force behind the prices, even more so than the dimensions. I have discovered this phenomenon before when a 20 gallon plastic bucket at the feed store cost me almost 20.00 and I subsequently found the same type and size bucket at Lowes for 8.00. The only difference in the buckets were that one was marketed for use with pampered horses and one was marketed for use in household cleaning.

Armed with my new knowledge, I went to Walmart and found polyurethane foam bed toppers. They’re only an inch thick, they have a molded pattern on one side but are completely smooth on the other side. While the thickness and the molded pattern were unsuitable for my needs, the sheets of foam were the size of a full sized bed and only 11.00 each. I could work around the thickness problem and the pattern for that price! I walked out of the store with two of the full sized foam bed toppers. All I needed to find was the weather resistant fabric.

Enter my son who makes ragtops for cars at a local fabrication business. I was showing him the projects we had going and explained the problem with this bench when he told me of the properties of the canvas cloth used for convertible tops and sliding ragtops. The material is highly flexible, has to be extremely durable and it also, of course, can’t let water in to the interior of the cars. BINGO. The choice of colors is pretty limited, although I suspect you can find it online in almost any popular car color. The colors most often used, however, are black, tan and grey. Grey wouldn’t go well with the bench color and I am trying to move away from desert beige, so I chose the black. The fellows at the fabrication shop graciously donated a piece of their canvas cloth that was large enough to cover the bench top with enough left over to upholster a couple of ottomans.

benchupholstery1First, I cut the mattress toppers in half, then stacked three of those halves to make a 3 inch thick foam pad, with a smooth side facing up as well as smooth against the lid. Then I laid the lid on top and trimmed around the edges, leaving just enough overhang to prevent anyone feeling the edge of the plywood while seated. This doesn’t have to be a perfectly straight edge, just as near as you can manage. Once the fabric is pulled taught around it, the foam will, to a fair degree, conform.

benchupholstery2The next step was to lay down the fabric and measure to see how much I would need to cover the lid and the foam. You will want to pull the fabric taught on each edge before you mark your cuts and have a firm, unwrinkled cushion when done. Using a staple gun, staple the edges first and save the corners for last. Corners take a little patience but there are a lot of techniques on YouTube to help you manage them. You’ll need to make several pleats to get around the corner and make it look neat. The number of pleats/folds you’ll need to make on your corners depends mainly upon the type of fabric and how much of that fabric has gathered at the corners while stapling down the straight edges. Staple each pleat down until you have a nice tailored corner.

benchupholstery3Turn it all over and admire your handiwork!

benchupholstery4Take it outside and attach the hinges. An exacto knife to cut through the fabric under the holes of the hinges helps here so that the material doesn’t pull and get tangled in the screws. Just lay the hinges over the material where they will be attached and make a few slices in the holes with the point of the knife. Don’t sit there trying to cut out a perfect little hole, an X sliced through works just fine. Then, have a seat on your lovely, comfortable new bench. Enjoy a glass of tea and try to pretend that there are no other building materials junking up your patio chi. Congratulate yourself on ticking one more project off the list that will end when you have a beautiful and relaxing, junkless patio one day.

 

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Surprise DIY project 3

04 Sunday May 2014

Posted by Jean in Home and other Repairs, Uncategorized, Wood Crafts

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DIY, do it yourself, homemade furniture, patio, wood craft

I suppose the suspense of waiting to find out more about this project does require a few posts just to keep it going. Unfortunately, when there’s been nothing to report, I can report nothing. It’s “spring” in the desert and I don’t have an enclosed work space for the wood projects. The wind has ground most projects to a complete halt.

Since our work is done in the garage or on the patio, anything requiring paint, stain or urethane is stacked up waiting for the wind to stop blowing half a ton of desert dirt and debris over everything. I have spent most days looking like one of the sand people from Star Wars, with my face mask, safety goggles, protective clothing and my iPod plugged into my ears and that’s just to feed hay to the ponies. The incessant roaring and buffeting of the wind blocked my ability to think of anything except the incessant roaring and buffeting of the wind, and made it impossible for us to do the thinking required to solve the problems we’ve faced on this project.

The wind has calmed, temporarily, for the past two days. Just long enough for me to figure out what we need to do to move ahead on the project again, get the materials, and get to work on Plan C.  Plan A had to be scrapped thanks to some less than professional work by the 12 pack a day builder. Plan B was scrapped because I couldn’t have lived with that alternative. Plan C., however, will not only solve the problems faced with the previous plans, but it has the added bonus of checking off another of the things on Billiam’s To-Do List.

Plan C. required digging through the hard packed, dry, rock filled desert dirt. Yesterday was our first 100 degree day of the year. We’re also pretty busy trying to get the house and property spruced up for an upcoming interview regarding my TankChair, Sherman. John was at work on the project while I ran around picking up everything blown about by the winds last week, pulled more weeds, and cleaned the swimming pool (in time for more winds to arrive this afternoon). We couldn’t use a post hole digger or even the pick axe to dig these holes because this area is home to the pipes for the leach field of the septic system.

johndiggingsurpriseprojectWe’d hoped to get an early start on the project yesterday morning. We were at Home Depot at 9:00am and thought we’d be home and working by 10.  Everything that could impede progress at the store, impeded our progress. A new pallet of the wood we needed had to be retrieved from the uppermost shelves, the fork lift ran out of gas before the driver was able to finish loading the wood stack onto the empty shelves and the tanks had to be switched out, a manager from another department came past, noticed the fork lift loaded with wood sitting there and felt compelled to harrass the fork lift driver for something clearly beyond his control (before I lost my cool and asked her to please get out of his butt long enough for me to get my wood and go home because I’d been waiting almost an hour already), and a line 6 customers deep in the lumber section that stayed 6 customers deep for 10 minutes before another line was opened. Our “quick trip” to Home Depot that should have taken 30 minutes, took three times that. I really must rant in another section about being in a manual wheelchair at Home Depot, or any crowded business, on a Saturday in another section, but suffice to say, those issues contributed to some pretty severe frustration by the time we were finally on our way to load the pickup, and were partly to blame for me losing my cool in the above mentioned event.

Here are the materials we will be using to execute Plan C.

plancmaterialssurpriseproject

I will be doing more house and yard chores in preparation for the TankChair interview, but hopefully we’ll get a little more done this evening and tomorrow to show. Once the interview has passed, and the next bout of winds have abated we’ll be able to pick up the pace again and get this thing completed!

 

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