Woodworking in the chillyness

Brrr.... it is cold woodworking in an unheated garage in below-freezing temperatures! Little M's play kitchen is temporarily on pause because I managed to install the middle foot a little lower than I should have (something about screw heads snapping off got me a little frustrated and not quite as focused on my assembly sketches as I should have...), so I need to recut the middle divider between the cabinet half and the stove half... and I've been putting off doing that because it has been freezing here lately!

The first day I powered through the cold temps, but since then, I know what cold is, and don't wanna go back there! (Also it could be due to the fact that the mister just changed from dayshift to swing shift, on different days, which meant that he worked every day but one this past week, and for the first time in over 6 months is working through our supper and bedtime & sleeping well through our wake-up time, which means a total shift in how Little M and I operate around the house!) However I'm hopeful that either this afternoon before supper or tomorrow afternoon while Little M is napping I can get that last piece cut and at least have her play kitchen all assembled for her birthday morning, even if it isn't all painted yet. (And I'm glad that we've been through this adjustment period of shift-changes many times before and so although it never gets easier adjusting to change, by now I at least know that we need to give each other time and grace to allow us to adjust, and I know that the new schedule will get easier with time!) Play kitchen pictures to come!

My 2012 Household Notebok

I've mentioned that I've been working on it several times in the past couple weeks, but finally I have finished my household notebook! I'm lucky enough to work across the street from a little local business supply store, and they do wonderful things like laminating and binding. What I couldn't just do by myself for this notebook, they could do for me!

Over the past year of blogging, I've seen lots of other bloggers share their household binders. I always thought the principle of having all those important lists, numbers, goals, and recipes in one spot made so much sense, but I wasn't all that keen on using a 3 ring binder. I liked the idea I've seen some people use of having the pages bound, but I was worried I would want to add pages as my home needs changed. What I did to try and work around that is have a couple blank pages at the end of key sections. For example, after my Garden planning page I have a couple extra sheets for extra planning. Likewise after my Chicken info page I have a blank sheet or two so that I can plan another coop, or brainstorm new breeds if I feel the need this year. All told my notebook ended up being almost 120 pages, but since I double sided it that only worked out to about 60 sheets of paper - not too thick & not too thin!

I tried to organize it in an order that made sense to me. Going through the notebook, I've got the following sections:

• Daily to do list
• Weekly schedule
• Cleaning & maintenance checklists
• Yearly goals
• Rowing challenges and a table to record my workouts
• My book list for 2012
• Monthly & season goal worksheets
• Sheets for filling out our house projects - room by room
• Vacation & trip ideas
• Garden Planning
• Chicken Info
• Blogging planning
• Finance worksheets
• Daycare & car trip checklists
• Vehicle maintenance logs
• 2012 yearly & monthly calendars
• Meal planning worksheets
• Preparedness lists
• Emergency numbers
• Important contact numbers
• List of addresses
• List of birthdays
• Gift giving records & ideas tables

It's a long list, and in fact I've got a bunch more single sheets that fall under some of these sections that I didn't even mention, but it is an information-packed notebook that I think is really going to be a time saver! I can't count the number of times I've searched high and low for my address list, or forgotten to add an address from one year to the next and had to ask for it again! I'm very hopeful that I'll use this notebook and have all those important bits of information right at my fingertips!

If you look closely at my photos, you might realize that I didn't laminate all of the pages. Laminating was the most expensive part of making this notebook, and while at $1 a page it isn't too expensive, laminating all 60 sheets would been crazy expensive! I chose to laminate the 11 sheets that I would need to reuse over and over and over. I think next time I will take the laminating process a bit slower. If I had cut the sheets to be laminated down a little bit on all sides, then after laminating I could have cut the laminated part down a bit to make the laminated sheets the same 8.5 x 11 size as the rest of the sheets, without messing up the lamination. As it is, this time I will just have to deal with 11 sheets that are slightly larger than the rest. I'll let you know if I can deal with that or if I end up breaking down and redoing those sheets!

For those of you thinking about making a notebook of your own, there are just so many great ideas out there online, and if I had one suggestion of where to start, it would be on Pinterest - do a search for homemaking/homekeeping/etc binder/notebook, and all these great printables will come up, some free, some customizable. I got a lot of my inspiration from Pinterest while I was making up my templates and filling in all the little details that make my notebook so perfect for me :) Happy searching!

Bookshelves at the end of the hall

So I was feeling a bit sluggish this weekend, and by the end of Saturday I had identified a possible reason: I really didn't have a good to-do list going. So Sunday morning rolled around, and I reluctantly sat down and ordered my to-do list and made sure to keep only 10 things on it, as I've been trying to do lately. I was doing pretty well on the list by around mid-day, too early for Little M's nap, but shortly after lunch and a very short walk attempt (Little M and I don't walk well lately, luckily a beautiful Harrier swooped along the hills beside us so her typical screaming breakdown on the way home was averted!).

But I still just felt off. I had started thinking earlier about what my next project would be, first trying to identify either the most problematic area or the area where improvements would make the most positive impact on me. So after I put Little M down for her nap (and sneakily turned a fan on across the hall from her door), I started measuring the space at the end of the hall for shelves!

When we first moved in and started decorating, the end of the hall was where we put the little shelves that my husband had had mounted in the entryway of our previous home when I met him. They were nice and all, but not really my taste back then, and as our decorating style has evolved over the last couple years,  not our style now. At first we thought a coat of paint over their plain white-ness would liven them up. But the more I thought about it, the more I fell in love with having a bookcase at the end of the hall.

Some more thinking and sketching out ideas led me to realize that unless I mounted full uprights to the existing side walls, so that shelves could be adjustable, there was no way I was going to get the built-in look I was going for with an actual bookshelf unit, based on the conflict with the trim of the adjacent doors. So I had put the idea on the back burner until the weekend, when I finally decided that just mounting little blocks of wood as supports on the side walls would be ok just mounted in the drywall (no studs to be found other than the ones covered by the door trim!).

After all, it wasn't like I was planning to put too many books or other heavy items up there, they were more meant to be decorative shelves with some books.

So in I dove.

First I measured the opening and decided that at the most I would want 5 shelves in the space. I went out to the garage and only had enough wood for 2 shelves, but I thought that was likely a good starting point, especially as I hadn't yet run the idea past my husband! I cut the 2 shelves to length from the 6x2 pine board I was going to use, and cut an additional 4 smaller chunks from the same board to be the supports.

I brought all the pieces of wood back to the house, checked that Little M was still sleeping soundly, and went to work on the sunporch sanding those boards down. I didn't want any sharp corners or edges. Once they were all smooth, I poked through my stash of screws and wall anchors and selected the right drill bit to pre-drill the support pieces. Around then Little M woke up, so she helped me with the rest of the project.

I decided based on the existing shelves where I wanted my lower shelf to go, and got that one set up. I was careful to keep checking that I was level, both front to back and side to side, as I installed that shelf.

I put some books and other items up on the shelf to see how it would look, and to get a feel for how much higher up the next shelf should go. Once I decided on about where I thought it should go, I put some other books up there to prop the next shelf up. That way I could step back a distance and see how it looked at that level. I then played around with the number of books until I got the right spot.

Then I installed the second shelf, again being very careful to install it level. I still will likely end up painting the shelves, and in fact have already tweaked the staging a bit since taking these pictures, so it will likely be a work in progress for a while. I also think I'll add one or two more shelves below these ones, to give more storage space and to make it look a bit more balanced. I'm really loving it, and no longer feeling 'off'! Next time I'll try to remember to do something creative that is small and simple enough to be done in the time I have :)

And even better - my husband likes it too!

Building chicken nesting boxes

As the time to when my little chickens would be all grown up approached, I started thinking more and more about the nest boxes I really needed to build for them. Luckily over the weekend before Thanksgiving I had enough time to build 4 boxes from plywood and scraps we had laying around the garage.

I did a bit of browsing around online for dimensions, and decided to build them approximately 11 inches deep & wide, and a bit taller - around 13 inches. Luckily I had just enough wood to build 2 nest box units, each having 2 nest boxes stacked on top of each other, with a deeper roof to provide a bit of an overhang. I cut the boards to the right dimensions on the table saw, then brought them in to the sunporch to assemble the boxes.

I used several clamps to hold the boxes square as I pre-drilled and then screwed the side boards on to the platform boards, and then carefully placed the nest area fronts on and pre-drilled and then screwed them onto the units too.

Right before we left for Thanksgiving weekend I ran out to the coop and installed one of the nest boxes, by pre-drilling through the side of the nest box and into a wall 2 by 4 and then putting a screw through. That way the plywood exterior wall of the coop would serve dual purpose as the back of the next box too! Just in case those sneaky little hens were waiting for a nice nest box to lay me some cute little eggs, they might be tempted to start while I was gone. No such luck, and still no eggs yet, but I'm ever hopeful :)

Making progress slowly but surely

So my time until my self-imposed end-of-the-month deadline to have the rental house back ready for viewings is fast approaching, and although we're crossing things off the list, our progress might not be as good as I might have liked. However, I have gotten an extraordinary amount of painting done in the last 5 days!

Let's see, I had already painted 2 walls in the kitchen, and now adding both spare bedrooms and the bathroom, plus every inch or trim in the house and every door in the house (and garage), that is a lot of painting! I do still have a second coat to do on several of the doors, since I ran out of paint (oops!) and will have to run across to Home Depot to get more of the low VOC stuff that we have been using. The local Ace Hardware doesn't carry any low VOC paints and I've never been that happy with their color matching abilities, so we don't bother go there for paint any more.

I also still have to paint the bathroom walls in color, to go over top of the kilz odor blocking primer I put down in there over the weekend. I'm not so sure about my color choice on that one, what do you think? I'm worried the color might be a bit dark. But it's hard to tell since we haven't gotten the light fixture completely installed yet, so we don't have very good lighting in there.

Oh, and here are the after pictures of the spare bedroom (light grey/purple) and office/spare bedroom (light grey/blue). I'm finding that photo's of the rooms make them read a lot more grey than they actually are in real life. In real life the purple room looks amazing. I think I might need to paint Little M's room in that color I love it so much! And the Blue room looks really great too. These new colors really bring the whole house together - they match nicely with the grey/green of the master bedroom and the tan of the main hallway and living room. Before the 2 spare rooms really didn't match well at all, and the colors weren't that great even on their own. I really hope these are some of the extra touches that help someone fall in love with the house and make them want to buy it! So here are a couple pictures of the new bedroom colors:

Closet organizing at Grammy's house

Last weekend, and the weekend 2 weeks before that, was spent at my mother-in-law's house outside of Spokane. She lives on a lake, so we had a lot of fun playing on the beach, walking the boardwalk along the lake, and playing in the water. Little M had fun with her Grammy, and I had fun organizing the closet in Grammy's spare room! It was basically a win-win-win-win situation. I knew Little M was being well taken care of & loved on (and spoiled!) by Grammy (and G-daddy as her husband likes to be called!), I got a good break from her while being able to do one of my favorite things - organize, and Grammy of course got quality time with her granddaughter!

So back to the closet. Grammy's house is a two level home with a two bedroom main floor with an open floor plan living space & kitchen, and a walkout basement that is rented out as an apartment right now, so her space is limited to the upstairs. When her husband retires (he still lives over on the west side in the home my husband grew up) and moves over to live there too, the renter will go and they will do some renovating to have full use of the downstairs as well. For now though, her space is a bit tight for all of the stuff she has.

You see, she buys things at yard sales or thrift stores for cheap, and then sells them on eBay. She does really well since she is great at spotting salable items! Last year she started buying Halloween costumes when she saw good quality ones for cheap throughout the year, and then she sold them online before Halloween. She quickly realized it was well worth buying them up and storing them. But that meant she had even more things to store around her house, and this year the bins of costumes were taking over!

So that is how I came to be organizing her closet. The spare bedroom has a nice sized closet, but it was full (literally) to the brim with quilting supplies in boxes and bins and bags. It was quite a mess, and as Grammy had just retired and is now hoping to do more quilting, we thought having the quilting fabrics more accessible and less of a mess would help her be better able to relax and quilt! So we decided that the quilting supplies would be moved out of the closet, likely to end up in a storage system like an Ikea Expedit bookshelf system, or something similar.

I realized that I forgot to take a true before picture of all the quilting supplies in the closet, and of the bins and bins of costumes (bad blogger!). But here is the stack of quilting supplies after we took almost everything out of the closet (and when I remembered to take a photo), and below that is what was still in the closet when I remembered. That tower with drawers below was in the closet too. Yup, that closet was literally packed full!

That left the closet empty to fill with all those Halloween costumes! Although Grammy claims that she really doesn't need to easily see the stuff she sells online, since once she brings it home she takes a photo of it to list it with, and then until it sells she just needs it stored someplace, I thought that by having the costumes sorted she wouldn't have to dig through multiple bins to find the specific one she was looking to package up and mail out. So that led us to design a closet with multiple levels of rods for hanging costumes, along with some shelves for storing those miscellaneous costume accessories like wigs, witch hats, and crowns.

We ended up picking up a system at Home Depot that she can rearrange if in the future she stops selling Halloween costumes and decides she wants something else in that closet. It was fairly easy to install and now can be adjusted in minutes if she decides she wants a rod higher or lower, or wants to add a shelf. Here is the closet all empty and waiting to be filled with costumes!

And here it is again once we packed all those costumes in there! Great, right?! I think Grammy was pleased that we did all this organizing, and hopefully she lets me come back and visit again :)

Rental update at 2 weeks

So it has been (almost) 2 weeks since we took possession back on our rental house, and while it isn't quite ready to be staged, it is coming along. Some parts (the main bathroom) are definitely worse than we thought, and definitely not at the stage I wanted them to be at, but other parts (the doorbell, back doors, front yard in-ground irrigation, and many more) are doing much better than I anticipated or could have dreamed 2 weeks ago. Last week I shared a bit of what we had been up to, but I thought this week, as we head into the weekend, I would share more details with you, in the form of some picture-interspersed lists. So then, here is the list breakdown, with things that we've done crossed off:

Master Bedroom
replace cable outlet
wipe baseboard, door & window trim
install new door & hardware
clean window glass
clean closet mirror door
scrub walls
scrub floor vent
dust/wipe off light fixture
paint baseboard, door, & window trim
touch up wall paint
paint closet (white/color?)

Master Bathroom
scrub walls
 scrub shower & tub
clean toilet in & out
clean mirror
clean counter & sink
wipe baseboard, door & window trim
clean window glass
dust/wipe light fixture
use soap on door
hammer nails in flush in door trim
paint door
paint baseboard, door, & window trim
touch up wall paint
paint ceiling white with ceiling paint
scrub floor vent
strip wax off floor with ammonia
rewax floor

Spare Bedroom
scrub walls
spackle walls
sand spackle
wipe baseboard, window & door trim
clean window glass
rehang curtain
replace door
paint door
paint baseboard, window & door trim
touch up wall paint (repaint?)
paint closet door (?)
paint in closet (?)
scrub floor vent cover

Office Bedroom
fix closet door
scrub walls
spackle walls
sand spackle
touch up wall paint (repaint?)
wipe baseboard, door & window trim
paint baseboard, door & window trim
clean window glass
scrub floor vent

Living Room/Hallway/Closet/Dining Area
remove trim
clean behind trim
level behind trim
scrub walls
cut trim
paint trim
install trim
caulk trim
touch up paint on trim
spackle walls
repaint hallway wall
touch up wall paint
clean ceiling spots
scrub down ceiling vent
scrub 3 floor vents
clean window & door trim
paint front door trim
replace back door
put trim back up on back door
paint back door & trim
replace front door knob
replace back door knob
wipe off dining room light fixture
replace fan in living room
wipe dining room floor down
ammonia floor
rewax floor
scrub door to garage
paint door to garage
clean window glass
fix doorbell
clean entryhall floor
hang curtains
trim curtain tassels flush

Kitchen
remove appliances & clean floor under them
scrub walls
spackle walls
paint tan on east & south walls
touch up paint
replace outlet covers
ammonia floor under appliances
rewax floor under appliances
scrub appliance sides
move appliances back in
replace stove fan filter
wipe out inside all cabinets
wipe down all cabinet & door faces
wipe down fridge
wipe down stove
clean kitchen counters thoroughly
clean sink
clean window glass
fix garbage disposal 
fix plumbing under sink
replace faucet
clean up behind sink
touch up paint behind sink
clean ceiling spots
replace light bulbs with the right bulbs

Main Bathroom
thoroughly clean under laundry & dryer 
trap mice out of dryer vent hose
fix dryer vent hose exit outside
move laundry & dryer out
clean laundry & dryer
move laundry & dryer back in
replace dryer cord
replace dryer vent hose
scrub walls
 remove trim

cut new trim
paint trim
put trim up
caulk trim holes
touch up trim paint
mud around tub
sand mud around tub
finish mud around tub
caulk around tub
spackle walls
sand wall spackle
paint kilz odorblock on lower walls
paint walls (color?)
replace vanity/doors
clean door trim
repaint door trim
clean door
repaint/replace door
scrub floor vent cover
thoroughly clean vent parts in subfloor
replace towel bar
replace toilet paper holder
wire in new light fixture
ammonia floor
rewax floor
hang curtain blocking hot water tank
clean counter & sink
clean tub

Front Yard
weed garden
finish weeding the teensy weeds in the garden
replace garden wood barricade
tidy up the garden space
weed the corner garden
trim lilac in corner
trim rose bush in front
remulch strip beside driveway
get rid of wasps nest above front walk
replace outdoor faucet
shim & screw in outdoor faucet trim
put in-ground sprinklers in
cover sprinklers & pipe up
clean up the yard from piping
set sprinkler coverage up
reseed disturbed areas
put timer on sprinklers
finish the start of the irrigation
replace wood beams
paint new beams green
sand sun down
paint sun green
reattach trellis to new beam
clean front door outside well
sand/scrape wood trim on front door
repaint front door & trim
touch up tan paint on spots beside door
sweep cement walkways
sweep cement driveway pad
clean 4 window/door glass
clean 4 window screens

Back Yard
caulk garage window
touch up green trim paint on garage window
touch up exterior tan paint
get rid of large wasps nest above back door
wire in replacement back porch lights
remove piles of old boards under deck from destroyed planter boxes
replace some boards in deck
clean deck off thoroughly
paint deck guard on deck
pick up dog poop
rake rocks out of yard
get rid of rock & grass piles in yard
clean dirt level in yard up
replace outdoor faucet
screw in outdoor faucet trim

put underground sprinklers in
set sprinkler coverage up
set sprinkler timer up
reseed grass
get rid of pee smell in backyard
hose/scrub off house siding
build new garden gate
hang garden gate
put fencing on garden gate
weed in garden
remove pile of compost & planter boards in garden
hack out all the hops vine coming over the back fence
trim the low branches of the apple tree out of the way
fix side gate latch & hinge

Garage
replace furnace air filter
spackle dog scratches on wall by back door
replace back door
install door knob
install dead bolt
replace trim around door
paint door & trim outside
paint door & trim inside
measure broken garage door spring
order garage door spring
install new garage door spring
wipe down door & trim to inside
repaint door & trim to inside
remove garbage compactor
remove all trash & tools
thoroughly sweep
get rid of cobwebs on ceiling & in corners

The list of what we still have to do is sometimes overwhelming me, perhaps especially since I at first wanted to have everything done and the house staged by today... At home I've recently started making my daily to-do lists only ten items long, and if there are more than ten items then I make a note of them at the bottom of my whiteboard. I got the idea from a book I've been reading - Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider (and if you haven't read Tsh's blog - Simple Mom, I would recommend a visit!). I've been really enjoying the book and all the great tips I've been getting from it, and this ten item to-do list is one of the ideas I've been using that has really been helping me feel like I'm on top of things and productive but not overwhelmed. So that's why this whole having a to-do list that is many tens of items long is getting to me!

I've been trying to pick cross 5 things off everytime I'm up there, but there are times when I put more than 5 new things on the list even while I'm crossing some off... It's hard being at the point of still not making noticeable forward momentum on my list! I guess that just means my list wasn't all that complete though! :(

Right before we took possession back we spent a weekend at my mother in law's place near Spokane. She is right on the lake, and so we spent the weekend playing in the water with the dogs, playing in the sand & grass with Little M, going out on the water in the boat or jet-ski's, and just generally enjoying a weekend off. It was a really great break, and we got some great pictures that I should have shared, but I haven't sorted through them yet since the rental house has been keeping me so busy. The good news is that Little M and I are going back this weekend!

I started a closet organizing project there 2 weekends ago but we ran out of time to finish, so I promised to come back, and since this weekend my husband is working 2 nighttime overtime shifts for another department and will be needing to sleep during the day, it worked out perfect to be away from the house for him to get that sleep in. I'll take one of the dogs with me, that way he only has to worry about the older 2 dogs who are pretty good about being let out only infrequently and at odd hours and my chickens, who he will be able to tend to when he gets home at around 7 in the morning before he heads to bed.

So I'll get a good break this weekend, and am really looking forward to organizing all of her quilt fabric and halloween costumes (she buys costumes at thrift stores during the year and then sells them before halloween on ebay and makes pretty good money doing it!). I'm not looking forward to the four hour drive there, or back, with just Little M and I, but she has done ok on that drive in the past. And hopefully she sleeps better than the other night, where she kept herself up until what must have been midnight or later... makes for one tired mama! Here's hoping I come back refreshed and relaxed and ready to dive back into the rental-fixing next week :)

Easy memo board rehanging

My husband and I have had this memo magnetic whiteboard basically since we started dating. Initially it hung at his house in the bedroom and we would keep notes on it, pictures, tallies, or to-do lists. It was initially hung with double sided sticky foam on all 4 corners. It stayed in that same spot until after I moved in with him, although it was removed once or twice for painting projects in the room. I think the first time it came off the wall it took some paint and perhaps even some of the drywall coating with it, which didn't make me happy, and obviously the stickiness of several of the foam pads was seriously reduced. After that it likely fell off the wall a couple times, and so when we moved into our current house it never got put back up on the wall.

 Instead for the past 2 years it has floated around, sometimes being used, sometimes being stuffed into a closet somewhere. It always annoyed me when it was floating around on the table, or in the entry way on a shelf, because it took up space and just looked sort of junky since it definitely didn't belong there. So last weekend (after it had been brought back out and was being used for to-do lists again while surfing around the table) I decided to do something permanent about it.

First I tried to use some string or elastics pinned to the back of the board, and then thumb tacked to the wall. Didn't work. So then I got more creative and went looking for something sturdier. I was initially thinking plain paper clips, but all I could find was those larger paper clips, alligator clips I think they are called. I cut one in half, bent it around to the shape I was looking for, and used epoxy glue to glue the clips onto the back of the board.

Then I waited for a couple of hours to let the glue set, and I hung it on the wall with thumb tacks spaced so that I could wedge markers up there. Perfect! Now I have a easily modifiable and visible to do list for myself where I can also put important notes up where my husband can see them too! Now I just have to get him to keep an eye on the board for those important notes...

It was simple and easy, and I'm amazed that I put off doing something like this for so long, because it makes my life so much easier, and my table so much cleaner!

Updates to our Entryway

I have been meaning to share what we've done to our entryway for a week or two now, and since Melissa at Houseography is doing a house tour and today is Mudrooms, I thought this would be a perfect time to share what we have done to make a better landing area in our entryway, making it function more like the mudroom we dream of in the future (for more of my dreams for the entryway you can check out my entryway board on pinterest!). Here is a sneak peak at what it now looks like:

When we moved in, our entryway was looking pretty rough. There was worn down wood paneling on the floor that may have once been intended to be on wall, it was hard to tell. The coat closet was as it is today, minus the coat of white paint, and the other closet was wall to wall wood plank shelves with stains and lots of dust bunnies. It was rather disgusting! Sorry I don't have any pictures of it in its glory :(

Before we moved in we cleaned off all the surfaces and gave everything a coat of kilz primer. We ripped up the floor boards/paneling, and even put a coat of primer down on the floor to cover the patchy stained plywood. We put a length of indoor outdoor carpet down to catch some of the dirt that builds up in an entryway, and we moved in. Eventually I painted the walls the same tan color as the living room/dining room area, and we called it good enough. A month or so ago I rewired the front porch light, installing a timer switch so the light would turn on and off automatically. That is when this picture was taken, where you can sort of see the mess to the right on the shelves.

The thing was, the deep (double planked) shelves were great at catching stuff. All sorts of stuff. Miscelanous stuff. Stuff on its way into the house. Stuff on its way out of the house. Stuff I didn't even know was in the house. Stuff I didn't want in the house. Stuff I was looking for and could never find. You know how those spots work... Or don't work...

So a couple weeks ago I got sick of it, and was dreaming of the day we could tear both closets out and put in some builtin locker-type units like I've been pinning. I suddenly realized that by taking out the outer plank of wood from each of the shelves, that I could use some recycled cardboard boxes to get the same effect, albeit not nearly as nice looking. And so that's what I did, and boy does it ever make the space work so much better for us! Sure it isn't pretty, but it is functioning, and sometimes that is much more important. Also, now we can have one (or maybe two) chairs in that spot, so that we can sit down to put on or take off our shoes, which is great for guests with limited mobility. I can also sit Little M on it to put her shoes on, so I don't have to bend all the way over! Isn't it crazy how such a small thing (like a chair or cardboard boxes) makes such a big difference?

I figure that eventually we will get real boxes or bins or some sort, or at least paint or paper over the cardboard we have now, but since right now I am still shifting things around in the house so that the important mudroom/entryway-type things are actually in boxes there, I figure I'll wait a bit longer until the system gets a bit more like perfect :) I also don't know that I want to spend money on bins or boxes until we know what sizes are needed once we rip the closets out and put in a new system in there. So perhaps cardboard boxes it will be! I know it doesn't look pretty, but right now for us that is just fine.

Finishing the deck - new stairs

A bit over a year ago my husband and I cut the old falling apart deck off the side of the house. Rather, he cut the deck off. With his chainsaw. And then towed it away from the house with his Jeep. Yeah. Cause he's high tech like that.

We then started the new deck. It was our first big project together, and neither of us had any experience building decks. It was often a difficult project, let's just leave it at that. But we persevered, and even wound up with a (mostly) square, level deck. We're pretty proud of it in fact :)  We built stairs off one end, but the other end we just left a small section of the old deck as a lower level, to tide us over until we had time to build another set of stairs.

That brings us to last weekend. While my parents were here, my dad and I cut our own stair risers, and then over the last week I slowly got them attached to the deck, leveled out, cut the leftover trex bits down to the right length, and nailed them on to the risers.

That made it sound really easy. It wasn't. Cutting your own risers is a pain! I thought I was saving money by not buying the premade risers, but was I ever wrong! It took us most of an afternoon to get the boards measured to match the existing stair risers, and get them cut, and then I still had to dab the cut ends with pressure treating goo so that they wouldn't rot. Not that it was a task that was difficult, it was just way more time consuming than it was worth considering the few dollars we saved!

But oh well, lesson learned I guess! Here is my picture step-by-step how-to to building new deck stairs from scratch.

Measure existing steps to match the rise & run of the stair riser

Measure the height the new steps need to be

Match the angle of the existing steps & make sure the steps will be level

make sure you have power tools capable of making all the cuts

talk about every step in detail so you don't make a wrong cut

level the area for the new steps & dab sealant on the cuts in the pressure treated wood

Use a level to make sure the riser is correctly placed

Lay the bricks parallel with the deck

Get cute help to make your day better

Try not to let the cute help eat your nails

Measure correctly & put up all the risers

cut the step boards & nail them in place, leaving the rest of the patio stones for later!

You may not hear from me much for a couple weeks, we fly out tomorrow to Alaska to meet up with my husband's dad & stepmom on their boat & tour around the coast of Alaska between Juneau & Ketchikan. I've never been to Alaska before, so I'm pretty excited! I am hoping to see lots of whales & fish, not have anyone fall overboard, and not get seasick! Oh, and hopefully Little M gets used to her lifejacket really fast... :)