Garage

November 2010: When we moved into our new home just about everything went into our garage. We had to park out side. We needed to get the boxes emptied and cleared out so we could get the cars in the garage. After looking at all of our lawnmowers, tillers, wheelbarrows, and such, we decided that 1/2 the garage would need to remain storage until we get a chance to build a shed. Lori likes the clean look of sheet rock and white paint. It does make it look clean and finished. The only wall that was finished was the wall between the garage and house. I was a little slow in taking pictures on this project so the first part was completed before I took them. Here are a couple of pictures that show one side that we had not sheet rocked. It has the insulation in part of it. The rest of the garage would have to be finished on the second round after we clear some of our boxes out of the way. There is just limited space to manuver around in the garage. The picture on the right was after we started to dry wall. I was suppose to hurry on this one so Lori could park in the garage during the winter. We didn't quite make it.

We got the drywall up and the weather turn cold. It was so cold that we just didn't go out to the garage to finish up. Well hopefully by next winter Lori will get to park inside. In February 2011 it finally started to warm up a little out side and I went and purchased a small heater so we could get back in to work. I would turn the heater on and when it got to the mid 30's I would go out and put up some sheet rock. I finally started the mudding process. I am either really anal or just slow. It took quite awhile to get the mud up and sanded. Once that was done the painting needed to be completed. I asked a couple of the Young Women in the ward to see if they wanted to earn some money and help me out. I figured I could get the help and then I could finish up faster. A couple of them came to assist me in painting the primer. They were a great help! Thanks Carley and Yuneri!

The painting took a lot longer than I anticipated. We were then able to unpack some of our boxes and found a lot of our tools like rakes, hoes, and shovels. Lori went to Home Depot and purchaed a tool bar to hang them all. We also had painted some shelves that the previous owner had left and mounted them back up. Lori is the expert organizer and garage was whipped together in a day or so. It would never look as good as it does without her stepping up and taking over that part of the project.

This garage is much smaller than the one we had in Utah. The truck will just barely fit if I can pull it clear up to the front wall. The door into the house is just a little off set so Lori will have to park on that side of the garage. The car is short enough that it will allow me to put my tool box on the wall in front of it. I also built some shelves around it for storage.

We sorted through the garage and cleared the last walls that needed to be finished. It is just February and Lori is still parking out in the snow. The temperature has been really cold and and we have had to run the small space heater in the garage to warm it up enough to go out and hang the insulation. On President's day weekend we decided to make a big push and effort to finish the garage. A friend of ours, from the ward, does drywalling for a living and came to assist. Curt can do this in about 1/2 the time it takes me. I had to hurry to get the insulation up so we could finish putting up the sheet rock.

Curt came back a couple of times to sand and mud. It took a few days between times in putting up a new coat of mud because of the cold, rain and humidity. We had to run the space heater day and night so the mud would dry.

Finished the mudding and sanding. Cleaned up a little and now it is time to paint. It did take me a couple of days to put on a primer and finish coat. The picture below is me rolling on the final coat. Now just a final cleaning of the garage and we will be able to finish organizing.

April 4th, 2011: The final picture is of a peg board I put up and notice the car in the garage. Lori did get to park in the garage during a couple of storms. On to a new project now.

My Tree house deck!

August 2010: We have a 2nd deck in our yard. It sits at the end of the yard just as the property slopes down into a ravine. It floats out over the ravine with trees coming up through the deck. After going out there a few times it seemed we did not have much room as there were 3 trees coming up in through it. A couple of trees did not look very good. I decided to remove a couple of them and give it a bigger deck area. I cut the trees out and then filled in the holes with new decking.
As you can see below on the left the trees in the deck. The picture on the right shows the boards that I have replaced. Next for this deck will be a Pergola to cover the open space we have now.

A second project that I started at the same time was to build a block patio down in the ravine. I just started to dig the area flat so we can put the block on it. That will be something that we work on once in awhile, when we have time, since it is in the ravine and no one will really see it. It will be nice when it is done and functional. We can sit down there in the heat of the day in the shade and it is much cooler.

Left picture is looking down on the site and the right picture is below the site looking back up to the deck and house.

House Deck

August 2010: We have a 10 x 12 foot deck on the back of the house that is out of the kitchen. It is up on the second level and there are no stairs down to the backyard. This deck is just big enough that we can have a small grill and table and chairs on it, but will only be used when we want some quiet time or when we want to barbeque. We decided the deck looked pretty shabby so before we got out our patio set we spent a week or so staining the deck and getting it to look better. It is amazing what stain can do for older looking wood. I use a brand called Super Duck. It is a clear oil based stain. I like how it makes the wood look after a good staining. Once we got the entire deck stained Lori found a 10 x 10 pop up shade tent. When we set it up it covered the entire deck except the very edge where we have the grill. It makes it nice to have a shade cover and not have to worry about the grill under it. We tied the tent down so the wind would not blow it away. It didn't even move though we had many hard winds that blew through our area.

A poor attempt at a fall garden

August 2010: We were late in moving in and had so many other things going on we did not even try to get a garden going for the summer. I did decide where it should go, so I sprayed the lawn with Roundup to kill the grass. It will be a lot smaller garden than ours in Utah but should be big enough for me and Lori. As it got towards fall I thought I might like to try some fall peas so I tilled the garden and planted the seeds. The peas came up pretty fast and looked really good. I thought, "This is going to work out great". One morning I went out to water the peas. When I went out 1/2 the garden had been eaten down to nothing. I tried to watch to see what was eating the garden but it must have been coming during the middle of the night. Within a day or two the entire garden was completely gone. As you can see from the picture on the right we have deer all around. This is from our deck looking into our neighbors yard. I have also seen rabbits. We will have to figure out what we need to do to keep the animals out of the garden.

Sprucing up the flower gardens.

We moved into our new home May 25th, 2010. In June we decided that the first thing we needed to do was add a little color to our home. Our first project was to clear out the front flower bed and create a new one across the front of our home. Here are the pre-pictures:

 
Lori and I spent a few days working in the flower beds trying to get them turned up and workable. We have the good old clay, just like in Utah. The ground was pretty hard but with some time we were able to get it semi broke up. We then dug out the grass across the front of the house so we could plant some flowers around the bushes that are already there. The term bush is relative as you can see they are not very big and are just getting started. They are Hydrangea's and have big white balls of flowers on them. Hopefully in a few years they will be big enough to hide the porch somewhat.

June 2011: It looks pretty much the same except there is a new flower bed around the bushes across the front of the house:

Since this is an on going project we will update them in 2011 once we get new plants.