Enjoying the Yard

I have really been enjoying all the beautiful plants out in the yard. Flowers started quite early with the Hellebores blooming in winter.

Hellebore of an unknown variety. Planted by an earlier resident.

This is an Hellebore 'Apricot Blush'. The flowers are red on the outside,
but apricot on the inside. Very lovely.

The white hellebore is a 'Picotee Pearl.' It has grown really
fast so it must love that spot. The pink hellebore to the right was a
gifted plant I got from a neighborhood friend. 

Most of the crocuses came out right before our freak snow storm
but didn't last too well with all the weight of the snow on them.

Epimedium x warleyense

We have so many daffodils coming up in the yard. I tried to dig up
the clumps last year and spread them out, but I guess I missed a couple.

Corydalis solida ‘Purple Bird’. I thought this one died because
it's a summer deciduous plant but there it is! Yay!

Hyacinth 'Gipsy Queen'

The Red Flowering Currant is only days away from being absolutely stunning.

Douglas Fir Staining

I put the last coat of stain on the plywood pieces this morning. 

Then, this afternoon, Jeff and I spent a couple hours finalizing the right side shelf design and measured and cut out the rest of the douglas fir. It didn't make much of a dent in our douglas fir stash out in the garage.

Tomorrow morning I'll put on the second coat of stain. It is possible we could start installing them as early as tomorrow afternoon, though we may want to wait until Monday morning to make sure they're totally dry.

Closet Progress

The boxes are built and installed. The douglas fir plywood is cut and ready for staining.

I know how I get to spend the weekend.

Next Up: Closet Shelving

We got a new toy! We're going to have to get rid of more stuff from the garage to make room for this!

Last Friday we went and bought the plywood to make the cabinets for the bedroom closet so hopefully, progress will begin soon. As a reminder, this is the plan.

I haven't made much progress on the back stairs since my last post. I bought a can of paint for the balusters and we scrubbed it down to get off most of the dirt, but now we need it to dry out enough to sand it. I need at least a week of dry weather to refinish the wood. 

Front Porch is Finished

Jeff from Hand Made Home finished our front porch. It looks amazing. It took three coats to get a nice even finish.

This was the before.

He obviously removed the old decking and replaced it with new wood.

The cedar for the back stair railing has been cut out. We got some help with the cutting from a guy named Tracy Livingston who used to be a contractor and is trying to get back into the game.

They were removed after this photo so I can paint them before the final install. Since we're out of the paint, I'm basically waiting for the next paint sale then I'll go buy a gallon.

I'm also waiting for several days of nice weather so I can sand down the deck and apply a new finish. Given the current forecast, it could be a couple of weeks.

Railing Progress

I've planed down the cedar and our installer did a temporary install on these boards so we could get the spacing right. There will be additional pieces of wood installed at the top and bottom that will hide the ends of the slats.  

Once the lower portions are cut out, we'll mark the diamonds, take out all the wood and cut them out. We'd also like to route the edges of the top rail. Then I'll start finishing it. I've learned from my past mistakes; we'll be finishing before the final install.

I was planning to paint them, but we seem to be out of that white color paint. But we do have lots of the opaque white stain we used on the pergola and fence, so I'm considering staining instead. I really don't understand the difference in durability.

Stair Rail Demo'd

It's too late to turn back now. We have bought the materials for the new railing (and OMG it was not easy to find clear cedar 2x6s). This time we're going to paint it before it's installed. The newells seem to be in good shape so I think we'll leave them alone; we need to fill some nail holes and repaint them before we install the new rails.

The rails came out really easy because they were so rotted on the bottom. Demo only took about an hour.

I am also planning to clean and refinish the decking while we have the rails out. I'll need to wait for several days of good weather before I can get started so it will probably be a couple weeks. We're expecting rain for the rest of the week so I'll focus my efforts on painting the new lumber.