a frame cedar garden trellis

I'm trying this new design for a trellis for my garden this year to see if it can withstand the wind we typically get around our house. My thought was to build something I could take down and store during the winter. I made it collapsible for easy stow away.

Here's last years design. We put up a couple of pieces of lattice and bolted it in. It took almost a year before the wind took it down.

I bought a couple of packs of hinges.

And some cedar. Since this is a garden, I stayed away from the cheaper pressure treated wood. I started out with way more cedar than I needed. I only needed 6 pieces of cedar and one 1x4 piece for the header.

I wanted the trellis to be 6 feet tall so Burke could still get inside to whack the weeds down between the beds. I'll use the extra cut offs for stakes to use in my garden.

Once cut, I screwed them to the hinges and then to the header piece.

Then I cut some framing pieces to make it nice and sturdy.

Added some chicken wire and nailed it to the inside of my boxes.

So far it looks great. Nice and sturdy. All together I spent $40 between the cedar and chicken wire. I did see a similar version in the big box store for about $150, so not bad. Now at the end of the season, I'll unscrew them from the garden box, collapse it and store it away.

Tonight .... we plant!

butterick B6280

Matthew and Ashley's wedding and I needed a new dress. After a false start on another dress, I settled on this pattern. 

I chose this light linen fabric that has a great drape.  Thought I would embroider something cool on it. Well ... it was a good thought.

Time was getting down to the wire. I downloaded a rose to embroider, but it's not exactly the coolest.

But hey .... we left coolsville quite a while ago.

The pattern was super easy to make - and I had no issues with understanding the instructions.

It took just a few hours.

The sleeves I modified. The pattern had a long sleeve, but I wanted something to cover a little of my flabby arms.  Not hard at all - just shortened the pattern.

Haha - aren't we a pair. I do love the dress..... and that handsome guy too.

girls who code graduation

The Saline Girls Who Code had our final meeting last week. We had the girls parents come in the last hour and had a presentation of our final projects. We had a lot of fun and I snapped some pictures of the girls. Sure will miss these guys!

beadboard drop ceiling in my basement

I reviewed all my options for putting in the ceiling in our remodeled basement. At first I had my heart set on a drop ceiling tile from Armstrong that was very cool. When the cost added up to ovr $1,000, I decided to look at a different option. Some of the basement ceiling is drywall, but there's about 500 square feet that still needs covered.

I googled basement drop ceiling to get some ideas and discovered that I really liked the beadboard look. I came across this video where they remade an existing drop ceiling using beadboard.

It was really cool for using an existing drop ceiling, but we didn't have anything. At first I considered getting a drop ceiling grid system and adding beadboard to it, like the video.

Then, talk turned to creating our own grid system using wood. So off to the big box store we went for some 1x2's, beadboards and trim.

We figured we wanted our ceiling to hang down 10 inches from the joists. We put in a 9 foot ceiling and wanted to keep as much height as possible. The 10 inches would just cover the beams and everything above it.

So we made ladders that were a total of 10 inches wide.

They were hung to the joists around the walls and in the middle of the room.

We used nails to put together the ladders and then screwed them to the joists. I wanted something module that I could take a part if I needed to expose the ceiling.

I made those handy poles to help hold the beadboard panels up while Burke nailed them to the ladders.

Then we trimmed out the whole thing using the same trim as the doors.

I really love the look.

Altogether I spent $60 in 1x2's, $60 on beadboard and another $50 in trim.

I still have the rest of the basement to do, but my photography room is done - minus filling some nail holes and trimming out the windows. Can't wait to have a ceiling in the basement finished!

clearwater

On our recent trip to Florida, we drove to Pier 60 to enjoy the Gulf of Mexico.

Sunset was amazing.

We all enjoyed the sun.

I even got Grumpy to pose for me.

It was a beautiful sunny day.

We were so glad to get away from the Michigan cold.

The pier came alive before sunset with a festival.

Cool place to be.

Building sandcastles.

Watching sea gulls.

Cabanas and umbrellas filled the beach.

The pier

Eileen found a good book.

Our lunch cruise along the shoreline.

Bobby in his usual good mood.

Practicing my selfies!

25 Million dollar homes

The beach was amazing and we spent the entire day exploring the pier and enjoying the sun. 

Best day ever!