Private park

With the weather turning cooler in Texas it is actually quite pleasant to spend time outside. I do not mean to sound boastful, but I have done a lot of work on our yard since we bought the place. It was over grown with trash trees, brush, poison ivy/oak banana trees and bamboo. I had to cut down twenty or thirty trees, I forget exactly how many. Digging up the bananatrees proved to be a challenge. Spiders like to live in them and I got a bite on my leg. I was afraid it was a brown recluse but it healed up ok. Hurricane Ike took down most of our fence which was in pretty bad shape before the hurricane so it was kind of a good thing. At least we got reimbursed for half the cost of replacing it. I finally finished up the front facing fence. It only took two years! I have been documenting the gates I built for the front sides of the fence. I finally finished putting all the boards on and I have to say they turned out pretty well. I learned some things I would do differently but overall I am very happy with the final result. As I was working in the yard Saturday I was struck with how attractive it is. It is like our own little park. five years of working at it a little at a time has paid off. There is no pool, as Robin continually reminds me. There is an outhouse though. I am thinking of planting more fruit trees, possibly orange and grapefruit. It would be the perfect location for a casita (small guest type house) and a shop. I guess a person can dream.

 From the back looking toward the house

 With the gates blocking the view from the street I burned a pile of sticks and wood I had collected. I thought this would make a great spot for a fire pit. This part of the yard was completely overgrown with brush and weeds about 4 ft high and a bunch of trees when we moved in.

This is taken from the deck looking back.

 This is the North side of the house. When those two gates are both open it is wide enough to pull a mobile home through.

This door was added by the previous owner so their son could come and go from his bedroom. There was a fence around the concrete pad. That room houses the quilting studio and Robin wanted the fence gone to allow in more light. I think it looks good. There used to be a huge photinia bush in front of that window next to the door. That window is in the shower. Who would design/build a house like that?

More Gates

Ok, it may appear to the casual observer, if there are any, that I am obsessed with gates. That may be true, probably is true. Ever since we purchased this house I have had a vision of back yard access that would allow anything from a pick-up truck to a mobile home to be pulled into the back yard. My dream was to build a shop back there, but I doubt that will ever happen. But if it does I have created a way to drive back there with a semi load of building materials. I can't say this will be the last post on gates because I am not finished yet. I worked on these two Friday evening and all day Saturday. I am learning as I go. After I finished the first gate I tried to correct some of the problems and the second one went much faster and with better precision. Also better welds. Still after it was up I thought of things I could do that would make it better, which I incorporated into the design f the third and last gate. These two gates together span over 20ft. the center post is removable to create one huge opening to accommodate anything you could ever want to put into a back yard.

Finished Gate

I finished the first gate yesterday, and I am really happy with the results. It is very rigid and holds the weight well. This total span is 12 ft. It is 9.5 ft between the posts. I added a hinged end so that it will fold back and clear the higher part of the rise to the driveway as the gate is swung open. It will also serve as a small pass through. The added weight of the end caused a tiny bit more sag after I had set the latch.
Just don't look too closely at the quality of the welds. They don't look very pretty but they are strong enough.

Swinging Gates

I am in the process of building the gates for the side yard. When the fence blew down in Hurricane Ike the side gate went with it. I decided to add gates to the other side as well which would give access to the back yard for parking a trailer or what ever. One of the maintenance guys at the Salem RO taught me how to make this gate years ago. I used the design on the side yard in Olypia so I could keep the trailer hidden behind it thus keeping the neighborhood gestapo appeased. The side yard next to the garage has been my utility trailer parking spot and it will be again once the gate is completed. I need to weld on the metal pieces to attach the 2x4 to that I will nail the fence boards on. This gate will be much more rigid than the one I built in Olympia. Here are the results so far.

The gate(s) on the other side of the house, actually two of them will open the entire side yard with a nifty removable middle post that will allow any size vehicle to drive into the back yard. There will be a small gate that is big enough to drive the lawn tractor through. I have the posts in but have not built the gate yet. I will post pictures later.

Outhouse

I have been interested in old outhouses for several years. Actually, I am not the only one as it turns out if you google outhouse you can view quite a bit of information and photographs of old outhouses, including an explanation of the moon cut out you typically see on the door. You'll have to look it up if you want to know.

 On a recent trip to Denver I went out to inspect a claim and the homeowner had an outhouse made from old weathered wood siding and rusted metal roof. It looked so cool I  knew I had to build one. I didn't have access to any old barn wood or rusted metal for the roof so I had to settle for materials I had available.  I used some lumber I had accumulated to frame the floor and walls. I would like to have purchased rough cut lumber or cedar 1x boards for the siding, but I wanted to use something a little more budget friendly. I settled on pressure treated pine fencing. It has taken a while but today I finally built and installed the door. It is a little bigger than most outhouses, but it also serves as a storage shed for gasoline and garden tools.

In about 20 years it will have the aged look and character of this outhouse which was the "inspiration" for my outhouse.

Wall Texture

My favorite type of wall texture is heavy knock-down. I learned how to do it myself from a friend in Tumwater, Damon Stevens. After Damon taught me how to do it I bought my own spray rig and have textured many rooms. At the time this was the best DIY spray rig on the market and it works great. It has three sizes of tips for different textures, rather than the old style with a rotating disc with different size holes. I have also blended orange peel textures and acoustic ceiling texture with it with good results.

I use thinned joint compound and dial the pressure back to about 40 psi. I noticed early on that if I did not do a good job feathering out the joints that they would show in certain light. I naturally concluded that I needed to start with a smooth wall in order to achieve good results. After skim coating the walls of three rooms in this house I decided to try it without skim coating. The walls in this house have some kind of roller applied texture that is not very attractive and un-duplicatable as far as I am concerned. Skim coating is a LOT of work, messy and requires a lot of sanding. See my previous posts.

For the master bedroom and the office I sprayed the texture over the existing texture with no prep to speak of. I did take a 6" knife and hit some of the really high spots to knock them down a bit. the results were amazingly good. To me they don't look any different than the rooms I spent days skim coating.  Needless to say, I won't be doing any more skim coating.

This is an unpainted wall.

After painting. You can't tell that the knock down was sprayed over another texture.

Some Pretty Fine Shootin

I took Ben out shooting while he was here in Houston. Turns out he is a pretty good shot with a handgun. I don't get out to the range all that often but after a little practice I got so I could make a pretty good grouping with the Browning 22 Buckmark. This is my best target.