Curtain Rods

I love that industrial feel to interior decorations.  My wife on the other hand needs to be sold a bit.  Luckily, in this case I was a good sales person.
My wife wanted a curtain in his room to replace the dimensional blind we put up initially.  Having picked out a grey curtain, I pushed for a "different" kind of curtain rod. 
I like it and now I will make some basic shelves using pipe for the brackets.  Pictures to follow.

Not the greatest pics, but you get it.  What you don't see is the pipe "pull-back" on the side that allows my son to pull the curtain to the right side. 

No firepit, no worries

Of course, I plan to get a firepit before the temps start dropping for evenings in the driveway.  Until then, what to do.  With my niece and nephew visiting and a personal desire to impress them in my imagined awesomeness, I decided we should do smore's.  What to do?  Pinterest saves the day. 
Did you know you can toast marshmallows (or kebobs for that matter) over a 10" terracotta pot lined with foil and filled with charcoal briquettes?

you can.  and it works great. 

Deck Sectional DONE!

So as promised, here is a completed pic with a bonus....me enjoying a cup of coffee.

The little inserts are my creation.  I may build two more as they work great for end tables, mid tables, coffee tables, foot rests, or another place to sit.

And they are working out great.  My wife's parents are in town and we are finding ourselves hanging out on the deck.

Again, construction is super simple and I can provide plans for the small inserts.

Deck Sectional update

Last night I finished the 5th section and built a end table to match.
Leah made a great point that the cushions look like they would fall through. They do.  So I built in two vertical pieces to combat this.
I have to add these vertical pieces to the other four, and build one more endtable.

Bonus, the end table can be used as a foot rest or another place to sit.

For those that are interested.  These are super simple to build.  Start to finish, it takes me about 2 hours.  A drill and a miter saw is all you need.  

the photo is a little grainy.  I took it this morning and then lightened it a bit in Photoshop.

Deck Sectional; Phase 1

As you may or may not know, Ryan built us a 14' x 12' deck off the morning room.  Until now, only a grill has occupied the space.  I have been wanting something...anything out there.  The deck is shaded until early afternoon and would be a great place to enjoy a morning cup of coffee.  But where to sit.
So with kudos to AnnaWhite.com, I am almost done building my deck sectional.  AnnaWhite has plans for the armless and armed sections.
Behold,

Here's a pic of two of them together.  What the photos or rendering below doesn't show are the back supports I still have to add to help keep the back cushion from falling through.

I built this out of Red Cedar found at the closest Menards for $4.60 per 8' stick of 1x4.  I had to modify Anna's plans as it called treated pine 1"x (which is actually 3/4").  I used Cedar 1"x (which is actually 7/8").  My wife found the cushions at Improvements.com.

So I said phase 1.  Here's why.  We have one more cushion set to use and I am almost done building the 5th section piece.  Then I have modified and made my own design for a end table/stool to use in the set. 

 You can see the smaller piece inserted between the sections and then used back to back as a coffee table.  I have the wood to build those and will have them done by the time my In-Laws fly in this Saturday.

Stay tuned for more pics. 

Adirondeck Chair

It's been awhile since my last post.  It's not that I don't have time; rather I lack content pertaining to my house to post. 
But now I have something. 
a CHAIR!

We bought some cheapo plastic adirondack chairs for the front porch.  Now while they work, I would prefer something I built.  I searched and found some plans on FamilyHandyman.com

The plans called for pressure treated lumber, but since it would live it's life on the front porch I used common pine and sealed/stained it with deck seal.  

Note: I used Behr Deck Stain for this.  Just bought a quart.  Having now experience with ReadySeal for my deck and Behr for the chair....hands down ReadySeal is the champ.  The Behr was harder to keep drips and excessive brush fulls from splotching or leaving marks.  So if you have to stain a deck, get ReadySeal. 

The Great State of PA (even if their football fans are jackholes)

So I have spent the last 7 days on a Harley touring around Pennsylvania with a few other great friends. I have perused enough blogs to know that many of you are building in Pennsylvania.  My cousin lives just North-East of Pittsburgh.  I rode up Friday night and spent the night at her place.  We visited a local pub where I caught (and gave) a fair amount of shit (the curse of a Bengal's fan).
From there I toured up through Debois and found hwy666 (for the hell of it).  We rented a little house in Aaronsburg, making that our "home base".  We visited Gettysburg for a great burger at the "Blue and Grey" and spent some time at the battlefield.  We toured the Harley factory in York and then made another trip back to Gettysburg for another burger.
Dodging horse poop turned out to be a sport as we meandered up and down the roads.
It was a great trip even if we lacked the time and gas to get everywhere we wanted to go.  For you PA natives, you have a beautiful state....even given the fact the Shitsburg fans are Jackholes.  haha.