Wow. We just had a 10 day blog hiatus. All because lately our evenings have been shared (torn really) between Breaking Bad (which we started watching back when Ry was born, but things just got busy…) and Playoff Hockey now that we’ve got decent internet and cable back again following our trip.

So, in the last post I’d promised some photos of our DIY projects. First was the photo wall, second was the veggie garden.

Here’s the simple steps:

Photo Wall….

The finished product sans pictures.

Iron fitting now attached to wall.

Iron plumbing fittings, soon to be shelves.

Ry hard a work levelling the future shelves.

Scour Pinterest for the most awesome idea for a photo wall.
Have tech savvy husband spend a few hours to lay things out on sketchup.
Find black iron plumbing fixtures at Home Depot, shelves from reclaimed lumber at the Reclaimed Trading Company, and photo frames from Pottery Barn.
Help (watch) handy husband to laser level the shelf dimension points onto the wall (where the shelf tops sit) and mark them with green painters tape along the length of each shelf.
Assemble plumbing fixtures and bolt to the wall (measure distance down from painters tape, and use wall plugs as necessary. We also coloured the screw tips black to look aged.
Cut the lumber to desired thickness (I think we did 3 inches), and screw shelves onto the plumbing fixtures that have already been fastened to the wall.
Arrange photo frames as per drawing, and hmm and haw for a week before ordering your favourite prints now that you know what frame size goes where.
Admire your handy work.

RY Interlude:

Why not stomp in the puddle.

I found a puddle.

Garden Boxes….

Josh starting project #2. Two vegetable boxes.

One complete vegetable box.

Josh installing fabric to the vegetable box.

Scour Pinterest.. just kidding. Look on Google for pictures of your desired box.
Figure out how much lumber you need.
Head to small town hardware store and spend way more time than necessary to retrieve it.
Play with toddler while husband uses saw in garage, and builds two beautiful rectangular boxes that measure 5 ft by 20 inches using 2×4’s creatively stacked 4 rows tall.
Place them on your hot tub pad because you don’t have one, and this makes the space look planned and useful.
Head to the garden centre where you require the expertise of anyone else to tell you what kind of dirt to use for your first veggie garden. Fill up the back of your pickup truck.
Shovel it into the boxes up to the brim, using the excellent and efficient toddler assistance program.
Sweep up the remains and wait for warmer weather so you can plant the seeds.
Think long and hard about whether you think you can actually grow anything in these pretty boxes.

Ry and Nixon Interlude:

Nixon. That’s it.

What’s this. Another puddle.

Ry, showing off her new boots.

That’s about it. We filled our time over the last 10 days with house projects, yard maintenance, and various errands as per usual, so I’m sure a few Rylie photos will join this blog as a filler, because we always have lots of those!