The boys had fun with Pappie today making cornhole sets. The kids love to play this. It was a fun day of male bonding!
Watch the video of Jennifer's family visiting us in Bend.
What a FUN week we all had. Memories were made and cousins bonded. We had a special time together.
After our move in December and a very long winter, we were finally able to get some front landscaping down at our place. We love it. Besides not having our front step look like a construction site, it now also gives us a space to sit or play in the front. As part of this we also added a second driveway entrance with some fresh gravel.
Here is the before shot:
Here is the after shot
Couple more shots of the new second driveway (on the right side of the picture), and the lawn from the bottom of the driveway looking up towards the house as you drive in.
The kids have always wanted a tree-house so now that we have some space and some trees, we decided to build one this spring! The hard thing about trees is that you can't move the tree... but the great thing is that if the house isn't exactly square... oh well... its a treehouse right? We finished painting it this weekend with some extra paint from the house. They have been asking when the second story will be installed...
Here is a video that Abbie helped me put together that gives a tour.
Kelly shared her birthday with Mother's day this year! A double celebration for a great mother and a great person!
Today was Good Friday and we had our good friends the Warricks, their grandparents and the Dittmans over. It was a wonderful evening celebrating Easter. The kids played outside, painted bird houses and decorate cookies while the adults visited and had lots of laughs. We couldn't have asked for a better evening. When you live far from family your friends become like family. So thankful for the rich friendships God has provided.
After a great week with family in CA we returned home to a nice sunset with storm clouds over the mountains.
Today we built shelves in Noah's room. Barn wood stained the same color as our trim, with pipes holding up the shelves. Noah was a great helper.
I wanted to give my home office a slight industrial feel so I decided to build myself a desk using metal piping as the framing material. I browsed around on the internet and found some ideas and then sketched out my design. It would have two shelves on one side and a single shelf on the other. Here is my initial design sketch.
First, I went onto Zoro.com to order black metal 1" piping. Because I had different structures on each side (2 shelves vs 1) I guessed at my pipe lengths to make the entire puzzle go together. I wasn't quite sure how the fittings and threads would match up to the pipe lengths, but figured I would give it a go.
Once the pipe and fittings arrived, I cleaned them with a de-greaser so that my hands would not get as dirty but also mainly so that when it came time to paint that the paint would adhere to the metal better. Here are all my ordered parts based on my plan above.
Next I started putting the parts all together. My part count requirements were dead on, however my fear about the fitting design on one side possibly not matching the other were realized, and one portion of my desk ended up being about 2 inches too long.
So I went back onto zoro.com and bought a couple of 4" pieces instead of the current 6" pieces to hopefully correct and make everything match. This time I got it right!
Next I needed to build the top. My goal was to build the top and the shelves from reclaimed barn wood. I found a place south of Bend in La Pine and went down and picked out some awesome old 2x8's for the top and 1x12's for the 3 shelves. Here are the 4 2x8's after some sanding. One of the pieces was actually the edge of a tree so decided to use that for the front edge of the desk. Note the great old cut marks from a large circular saw when they were originally cut. Next I put clear polyurethane on them to harden the surface and bring out the grain/color better. I ended up putting 3 coats on the top.
Meanwhile I took the pipe frame and painted it a hammered brown by Rust-oleum.
Now with the frame and the top both complete, I put them together! I used some 1x6's to tie the desk top pieces together and also attach the metal pipe flanges to the desk top.
Lastly I took the old reclaimed 1/x12's, and did some minimal sanding just to get the burs off the wood. Since they are shelves only and not a work surface, wasn't as worried about getting them smooth. I cut them to length to rest on the pipe framing and gave them a couple coats of clear polyurethane. They turned out really nice with a very rustic look.
Here is the finished Product in my office!
