Gate: part 2

After the steel framing and posts were all in place, C fit pieces of wood to the interior of the steel framing using scraps from leftover redwood boards from our previous projects.

He found the boards we used for the fence via Craigslist. They're old-growth redwood floor boards that had been removed from an old home. He planed the boards, sanded them and treated them with rosewood oil (the same treatment we used on our front porch and platform).

The boards are tongue and groove and fit together seamlessly. We had a really hard time trying to decide if we should use them for the gate/fence project or save them for future interior projects. The grain and color of the boards is really amazing. Obviously we went with the gate/fence but it was a tough choice....

And while C slaved away on the gate/fence I spent time on our other big summer project...

Gate: part 1

Just a little hiatus...

One of the most involved projects of the past 3.5 years is nearly complete...and I didn't have a single thing to do with it. 

Salvage wood atop our "transporter"

before

first gate-post in

C dreamed up, designed, collected materials and built our new gate. It's built nearly entirely from salvaged materials (save for the custom welded frames and the electrical components) and every detail is customized to fit our wonky driveway and old house. 

There are many, many photos so I'll break it up into parts.

It started in the summer when our pint-sized assistant was here to help us get the project started.

Of course the minute you mess with something, the entire house seems to fall apart. In our case, it was the retaining wall at the side of our house. We ended up pouring an entirely new wall and added a new walkway and a few stairs.

Steel gate and walkway framing up, new walkway and retaining wall in place. Up next is the wood...

Office Nook Clean-Up, Part 1

the contents of our office nook, yikes...

For the past few months we've had a sad, sad Ikea bookcase (junky and made from paper, gotta love the cheap Ikea stuff...) sitting in the "office" nook of our kitchen. Honestly, it was so bad that I couldn't even bring myself to take a photo. I was too embarrassed.

It was first in our living room and took up the entire room. Then we moved it to the office nook and shortly after the move, the shelves collapsed under the weight of the books. When we brought home our sweet pup and her crate blocked access to the rest of the shelves. It sat that way for a few months.

Until C bought us a beautiful and simple bookcase off of ebay. My brother brought it up from LA to our little cabin and it looks like it was made for our home.

(this is the ebay photo) photos of the bookcase in our home to follow shortly

In honor of the move, we decided to clean out the office nook. And then we decided to recaulk, repaint, build a shelf and install said shelf all in one day.

The best part of the project? It was absolutely free. We had all of the supplies on hand and C made our new office shelf out of a leftover piece of redwood from our porch rebuild. We treated it with the rosewood oil and it's good to go.

We still have more work to do in the nook...pictures to hang, shoe racks to build, etc but it's such a relief to walk through the kitchen and not see the disaster shelf anymore.

Around the Garden and More Windows

The tiny flowers on our almond trees smell like honey.

We snapped some cuttings from a renegade neighborhood plant (aloe?) about two years ago. The flower is new this year.

Rosemary that I clip to make winter roast chicken and summertime rosemary lemonade.

 New (salvaged) windows that C found for my studio.

***Karey couldn't be sweeter and said some ridiculously kind words over here today. Thank you, lady.***

***Joslyn whipped up a batch of these cookies over her lunch break yesterday and posted some excellent notes about the recipe on her food blog***

Another fantastic craigslist score; nearly 750 bricks for free. It took us 2 trips with both of our cars to bring all them back home. Our cars hated us but it was worth the haul.We're not exactly sure what we'll do with them. Maybe rebuild our much beloved/used but crumbling outdoor fireplace?

image: maybe elle decor, france? i can't remember...

One of the larger projects we have on our list for the (nearish) future is a small art studio space/guest house where I can spread out my paints again and where we can stash our out-of-town guests. We'll be reusing a lot of materials that we've salvaged from previous projects but we always have our eyes out for good deals on wood, windows, doors, cabinets...pretty much anything we can find. (which reminds me: if anyone bay area local has materials that fall in that category, by all means please contact us!)

I love the above photo. We're not planning on building the studio as a log cabin but wouldn't it be fun?! It's so rustic and casual without being funky. We plan on including an outdoor shower and a lovely platform with enough room for me to draw or hang out and read.