Mum and Dad came up today and helped me finish up two of my ongoing projects... mounting the stringers on my pergola was the first part of our work. I previously wrote about reclaiming the 2" x 6" beams from the ceiling renovation and subsequently staining an mounting them as posts (along with two ten foot cedar beams) and building the pergola frame. A few weeks ago I took the best of the left-over lengths of fir down to my Dad and he planed them, ripped them and then rounded the edges and angled the ends off to make me a whole bunch of stringers.
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| 10 of the stringers |
Last weekend we celebrated Dad's birthday and Dad brought me the finished stringers... This past week I picked out the nine best ones and stained them. Then, with the help of some calculations made by my Dad, I used one of my handy-dandy Lee Valley purchases (a marking tool) I marked off the ends to show where the overhangs would be.
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| Stained and ready for marking |
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| All marked up and someplace to go! |
When my parents got here this morning we had coffee and then got right to it! We mounted the centre stringer and then using a couple of 12" pieces as spacers, we quickly laid out, drilled and screwed in the stringers - the finished product looks absolutely amazing, and with the left-over stringers I'm thinking I may mount some to the sides of the pergola to add additional privacy and support for the grapes.
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| How glorious is this??!! |
Next project to be completed was hanging an overhead drying rack in my bathroom... My grandparents had one of these in their house and I thought it was just about the best thing ever - you could let it down in order to hang stuff over it and then haul it up out of the way while things dried... best way to dry dedicates in the winter, in my humble opinion.
Needless to say, I have wanted one for a very long time - I'd looked at various plans online, and while they have loads of prefabricated kinds that could be wall mounted, they just weren't what I really wanted. My Dad came through and built one for me!
This project was a little while in the completion... once Dad finished building it, he and my brother consulted on the pulley system. Dad went so far as to actually hook it all up in his workshop in order to ensure it worked, and then, pulleys, ropes and all, he transported it up here.
A couple of months ago I picked up some 1" x 4" oak planks. Since our spring was so wet, I ended up setting up the saw horses in the house and staining them inside.
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| Getting ready... |
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| Wow. That brown is REALLY brown! |
I have to admit, I was actually really nervous about staining the oak - it is such gorgeous wood and I didn't want to wreck it...
Thankfully it turned out gorgeously!
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| Not bad,.. |
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| Not bad at all! |
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| Stain cured a little darker and it is actually perfect for the bathroom! |
Once fully cured, I cut it into the lengths I needed and then I climbed up in my bathroom with my stud-finder and located the studs in the ceiling where the boards would be mounted.
I also bought double sided tape to hold the boards in place, but the tape was just not strong enough to do that job had I been trying to compete this on my own I would have run into some serious issues!
How glorious is this???
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| I am LOVING this drying rack!! |
I'm now at the end of two major projects and once I finish my Financial Planning 2 exam, I'll start the next project... I'm just not certain exactly which one... the Murphy Door into the pantry, or the Murphy Bed/Desk...
With love across the waters...
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