Garage Dreaming

Sharon has been having fun playing with garage designs in SketchUp. Jeff designed the roof bracket, which made the process much easier. (He actually crawled out onto the roof and took measurements off the bracket by our bedroom windows so he could scale the new ones closely.) This is getting close to what we'd like to build!

We had surprisingly nice weather today, so we managed to get the second coat of stain up in the master bedroom. It was quite a chore, but we're getting there!

We still have to shellac. And we still have to repeat the whole process over again for the doors and shoe moulding.

Playing With SketchUp

Our garage is a disaster. It seems like it has more rotted boards than good boards. You can see light through the walls and it leaks. There has been a squirrel living out there the last couple of winters and it does no good to keep the doors closed up, because the squirrel fits through the gaps in the siding (and Sharon is too much of a softy to kill it). Finally, the garage has no electrical outlets so no power tools can be plugged in, making it a lot less useful as a workshop space. Right now, we're mostly using it to store salvage and garden supplies.

We've been putting off dealing with remodeling it because of the expense, but we ran across an under-employed carpenter who can help us. We're a little hazy on what permits we need to remodel our garage; we think only electrical. However, besides fixing the bad wood, we're also planning to add a gable roof to replace the flat roof. So today we spent several hours trying to learn how to use SketchUp so we can go to the city and see what permits we need to pull. This is Sharon's first attempt at drawing out the existing garage.

Sharon is still working on drawing the post-remodel garage design. It's nearly done, but we're still trying to add all the fidgety details like roof brackets and door and window trim. SketchUp is a pretty fun tool.

We are rather overwhelmed with projects right now, so we aren't going to rush this one, but we did want to get the permit process started, if there is one. And our weather has not been cooperating with our plans to finish the staining. We've got another storm front coming in and possibly more snow tomorrow. It's too cold to pull the windows—rain or not!

Rain Gardens Planted

Last weekend, Jeff picked up another native plant order; this time from the East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District. He spent several hours planting these plants in three of our four rain gardens. We got quite a lot of ferns this time...

Most of the plants from this order were for the backyard rain garden. That rain garden is tough because it's mostly in the shade so we have to be fairly careful about the plants we select; they have to be able to tolerate wet roots and full shade.

The shrubs are still mostly sticks, but they'll look a bit better when they leaf out again in a month or two.

As an aside, for folks in the Portland, Oregon area who are looking for edible plant starts for this coming year, the Multnomah Master Gardeners are having an Incredible Edibles Plant Sale. Though the pre-orders closes today, you can also purchase plants on the day of pick up—May 5th. Jeff is helping out with the sale this year.

And because we seem to be keeping track of a number of spring sales, there's one in Marion County on March 9 and 10 in Gervais, Oregon by Marion Soil & Water Conservation District. They have an impressive list of natives for excellent prices.

The Friends of Tryon Creek is having a Native & Hardy Plant Sale on March 31 through April 1, 2012.

Finally, Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District is having a Green Gardening Fair and Spring Native Plant Sale on April 28, 2012.

On that same weekend (April 28 & 29), the Audubon Society is also having a Native Plants for Native Birds Sale along with three education sessions on the use, design and care of native plants.

Small Projects

Sharon seems to have gotten her act together this week and is finally managing to work on more home projects during her days.

This morning she finished recoating the smaller master bedroom closet. We hadn't really been planning to recoat the whole closet, but we had an extra tub of joint compound and the walls were very rough. Sharon thought the paint job would look much better once the walls were smoother. It is an interesting joint compound that goes on pink and then turns white when it dries.

Then this afternoon, since the weather has been so unpredictable, Sharon decided she may as well start a new paint stripping project that could be done outside under cover. Right after we finish our master bedroom, we're planning to strip paint in the bedroom we plan to set up as a guest bedroom. We usually have the doors dipped, but it costs around $140 each, and we have more time than money at this point. So we've decided to strip the doors ourselves for this last room.

This paint has been particularly tough to remove with the heat gun; perhaps it's the cold air outside. In our earlier attempts, paint has stripped off a bit faster. After 5 or 6 hours of effort, she got only one side of the door mostly stripped. There is still several hours of chemical stripping needed to clean up this one side of the door.

Our ultimate goal for this door is to stain it, so we'll be spending many hours cleaning it up over the next week.

Update on Saturday: After another half-day of work, side two looks the same.

Sunbreak!

Despite the bad weather forecast, when Sharon spied a sunbreak she rushed upstairs to continue the staining project! The weather was a little scary when at one point there was a few sprinkles, but luckily the sun stuck around for the three hours this project required.

Though, now we need another sunny day to apply the second stain coat. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky in the next several days.

Staining Progress Delayed

Our rainy weather has called a halt to our staining progress. We stained all the woodwork in the master bedroom but the windows.

We need to remove the window sashes to stain them; luckily they pop out fairly easy which is a nice feature. But we can't remove the window sashes if it's raining. The roof angles down right outside those windows, and the rain is likely to splash onto the freshly-stained woodwork and damage the finish while the windows sashes are removed and drying. Here's hoping for one day of sun — soon please!!

In other projects, Sharon decided to do a pieced backing on her quilt. She put this design together and if the skies continue to drip, she'll go ahead and work on this project this week. She found these alphabet blocks dating from 1906, so she decided it would be fun to put our name on the back. Jeff likes the letters set on the diagonal so that's what she's going to do!

Sneak Peak

It has begun...

This first can of stain is awful! It is thin and runny and keeps dripping and making huge messes. We were planning to repaint, but now repainting is a sure thing!

Also, our disposable gloves that claimed they were for staining, kept "melting" when we got stain on them. They, needless to say, were not terribly helpful.