Patio Furniture for the Backyard

This BBQ party had better be pretty fabulous. I've put enough work into my yard and other projects.

I am sunburned. I don't know why, after having worked in the backyard for three weekends in a row, this time I got sunburned. It was a bit warmer than it has been. Apparently the sun is stronger when it is warmer??

I cleared the area around the citrus trees of weeds. I pointed it out to Jacob this weekend. He didn't notice a difference. Such is life.

Of course, there were quite a few times Jacob put something down just to lose it, and I would find it for him...right under his face. 

But to be fair, this is the part of the yard we're hoping people don't pay attention to. 

We went back to Singh Farms and for the third Saturday in a row, got a truck full of compost. The guy who runs the large loader recognized us. (I just googled different tractors to figure out it was a loader. Now I'm sure I'll get ads on Facebook trying to sell me one.)

It's not even hard shoveling ten wheelbarrows of compost anymore.

We were also recognized at Lowes.

Can't really blame the workers for noticing this stud. (The man, not the wood.)

Now that we have our nice patio, what do we need? Patio furniture.

My only issue is the intense Phoenix sun. I left a plastic tupperware outside for a while once, and when I tried to pick it up it just crumbled. Plus I got rid of my chairs that had fabric cushions, because a few years in the sun destroyed those. (Blog about the little front patio set I replaced it with here.) After my fruitless search of trying to find cushions that fit, I decided I didn't want a patio set with cushions. I wanted wood.

I found a perfectly nice wood table and chair set on Craigslist for $80. J informed me it was ugly and he didn't want that. (It was not ugly.) He had found this tutorial online for burning wood. He set his mind that that is what we were going to do.

It's not very often that J sets his mind to something, so he usually gets his way when he does. I thought burning wood was a little weird, but it turned out pretty interesting.

The grain really becomes apparent.

The Svancaras were in our area while we were working, so they came over so we could give little Lily her bday present.

We put that kid to work.

Don't worry, she's wearing eye protection. 

We finished the table first.

Don't let the photos of J and his brother fool you; I was hard at work. I mostly concentrated on the bench.

And that's about as far as we got. For the party I'm planning on renting a couple more tables and folding chairs. Let's hope it's not a repeat of my sister's baby shower. I picked up the table and chairs just in time for it to pour...and pour...and pour. Very unusual weather for my beloved sunny, traitorous Phoenix.

We'll get around the building some chairs.
Eventually.
J and I have agreed that after our party, we're not doing anything for awhile.

Grapevine Trellis and Outside Lights

A few years ago, I found this blog post about outside lighting:
http://brightjuly.blogspot.com/2012/09/diy-outdoor-string-lights.html

We don't have a covered patio, so it sounded brilliant to me. Now that we had our extended patio installed (with pavers) and the outdoor kitchen (still needs to be painted and touched up) we want to have a big BBQ party. So even though we did hang some outside lights (blog here), we need something that extends over to the new seating area and outdoor kitchen.

About this same time J informed me he needed a new grapevine trellis. He had been using one of those wooden trellises and it is falling apart. Not very durable.

After about the third time he told me he needed a new grapevine trellis, I realized he expected me to come up with something. I asked what he wanted. He told me he didn't care as long as it worked.

Well. Alrighty then.

I looked into some different options and researched a few things on the internet.

I really, really wanted to do a copper trellis. It would have looked so neat. But when we priced the pipe and all the fittings, it was pricey. Then we looked at black iron pipe, which was less expensive but still pricey. So we decided that, like the poles for the outdoor lights, we would just use electrical conduit. I also scrapped the idea of doing something fancy because a) I'm not getting my fancy copper anyway and b) J said it's going to be covered by a vine.

So we went to Lowe's, spent two hours picking up our supplies and buying some flowers, made a few friends, petted some dogs, had to ask the guy to cut the conduit twice because I realized I needed a long piece cut down or my join would be off to the side, and then went home to paint.

One thing that didn't work that the blog suggested were the knock-outs for the top.

That crap was not going in. We just skipped that part. The poles are going to be so high up in the air no one is going to see them. And if it rains it will just soak into the ground.

So how were we going to secure these large poles in the ground? We thought about cementing the pipe into the ground. The blog suggested rebar. We found some that came in a stake. Very handy.

We had a bit of a problem with things leaning. But I came up with a solution. In the form of a dog toy.

I would tug on the rope as J pounded in the rebar stake. I asked J to model here. I try not to be in photos when I am in my crusty work clothes and my hair is a mess.

We couldn't leave the rope toy on the ground. Osa stole it twice and I had to go hunt it down. She doesn't share very well.

The light poles weren't a problem. The poles just stuck right on the rebar stake. For the grapevine I had to figure out how to join things up. The trick with the conduit is that they don't "technically" have elbow and T joints, because it's not to code. So we got some PVC, painted it the same color, and glued it all together.

I was supposed to use 12 gauge wire (according to the internet) but they only sell 14 in the large spools. Which is a thinner wire (but a larger number, not confusing at all). I tried to twist it and secure it in a way so that when the grapevines are going to be putting a lot of weight on it, hopefully it is stable. Time will tell if it is adequate. J thinks it will take a year to re-train the vines.

 It ended up being pretty simple. During the research and design I agonized and kept changing my mind, but in the end, I'm happy with the solution. With the grapevine finished, we went back to the lights.

I feel like this blog post is all over the place. But that's how my day was. We literally worked the entire day. We had a truck full of compost, so we would shovel out a wheelbarrow, J would dump it somewhere, then we'd move some rock around, some dirt, cut down some weeds with the weedwacker, decided we needed a path, work on the grapevine, hammer in the rebar stakes, work on the light posts....it was all over the place.

We also had 300 leftover pavers to return to Lowe's.

We got to load them, one by one, into the wheelbarrow, into my truck, then once my truck was weighted down, into J's car.

Got $300 back. But my arms are killing me.

That's only half my backyard. We're just going to have to party with it half finished.

We are going to party hard.

Backyard Work

Today (a lovely Saturday with slightly chilly weather and an overcast) we got up around 8:00. I was ready to relax a little bit but J wanted to go to Singh Farms to get a truckload of compost.

We did that last weekend too. Apparently J does not have enough compost.

So today we took on more backyard projects.

Shoveled 10 wheelbarrows of compost out of the back of my truck.

Created a rock path.

Created the poles to hang our outside lights since we don't have a patio. Hammered in the rebar to hold the poles. Bought lights. Did not hang the lights because the poles need touch up paint.

Created the poles for the grapevine trellis since the old wooden one is broken. Hammered in the rebar to hold the poles. Discussed the strategy for hanging the wire, but decided to wait for the glue to dry.

Attacked the weeds with the weedwacker.

Wondered why the baby dog Osa is afraid of the vacuum but isn't afraid of the weedwacker.

Cleaned up the incredible mess from the projects.

Went to dinner to celebrate all of the amazing work we did.

I am so tired. And I am hobbling around like a 90 year old because my lower back hurts.

Photos of the above projects will be coming once they're finished.

Giraffe Outfit

My friend Asmahan is having a baby. This is her second child. She took some adorable newborn photos of her first, so I asked if she needed any photo props for the second.

She sent me an Etsy listing to a dang cute hat:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/338544096962945853?fb_ref=338544234397176313%3AvVow3HPxVr1vUcHjgNit

In case you are too lazy to click the link, here is a picture:

I modified a couple patterns I found on the internet and made this:

Valentine's Day Weekend

We're having some work done in the backyard. We needed to order quarter minus to have pavers laid. Since we needed six tons of that and would have to get it delivered, we figured we may as well get four tons of rock to supplement the thinning areas in the front yard.

Because we're crazy.

We asked for it to be delivered on Saturday. I definitely did not consider that Saturday is Valentine's Day. Did I really want to be hauling four tons of rock around?

Oh but we did. The pile above is after we loaded two wheelbarrows.

Above: After ten wheelbarrows.

Below: After twenty wheelbarrows. 

After thirty wheelbarrows.

It took 36 wheelbarrows and four hours. And then we had to rake the wheelbarrow piles that were dumped.

We didn't do it all at once; we definitely had to take breaks. So in between I decided it was about time to wash the draperies again. J has allergies so I wash them every so often. So in between shoveling rock, I was also taking down, washing, drying, and putting back up curtains.

Because I'm crazy.

I am a tad nervous that our HOA is going to say the rock doesn't match. The HOA could make us remove it. I don't know why it looks slightly different. We took a large sample to the rock place and matched it.

I'm really hoping the new stuff is just dusty and that a cleansing rain will do some good. Time will tell.

Valentine's Day is also Osa's birthday. Our baby dog is a year old. I had my heart set on taking her to the dog park. She is spayed now, so she shouldn't be returning with any little surprises. So we took showers, loaded up the dogs, and ran out the door.

We took Micah, our old man dog. He likes to roam around and pee on things. I think he had a better time than Osa did.

Osa mostly stayed close.

Except for when Micah was making friends. When she saw her brother getting attention, she decided she needed some too.

Because our fur children are crazy.

Then we went home, changed clothes, and ran out the door to make our reservations at White Chocolate Grill.

They were very efficient. We had four different waiters come over and fill our water glasses, take away empty dishes, and bring me a box for my leftovers. I'm sure they just wanted us out of there because it was Valentine's Day, but I liked it. I hate sitting there wondering when someone is going to bring my check, or craning my neck looking for someone because my water glass is empty.

After dinner we went to Lowe's so J could buy me flowers, and then shopping because my family was coming over for dinner the next day.

These are my favorite Valentine's flowers.

Then later that night I realized J had drawn me a heart on my mirror. He is such a sweetie pie.

My Valentine's Day was great, but hectic. But the weekend wasn't over yet.

My sister has a ten month old baby and she finds these really cute ideas on Pinterest. I like to take photos, so I am happy to help her visions come to life.

This kid. He makes my heart squeaky.

My sister's house has a window that gets great natural light in the morning, so that's when I went over to her house. I went home, spent a couple hours editing the photos because Valentine's Day was the day before and I wanted her to have the kiss and Cupid ones ASAP. Then my family came over for dinner. Then we had to kick them out to drive to the Mesa airport (an hour away) to pick up my Dad and drop him off home. By the time we got home it was 10:00 at night.

It was a fun, hectic, non-stop, crazy weekend.