Live, Love, Learn, Laugh: October 2012

So I have this tendency of starting projects and not always finishing them right away. I know it's very uncommon to do that sort of thing... Anyway, I wanted to finish some of them up recently so this is what I've been up to:

Probably my largest project since we've moved in almost two years ago has been my wall in the backyard. Before we can finish our basement, we need to have a little more storage space so I thought I would be resourceful and clear out some of our crawl space and make it a bit more usable. In order to do that, I needed somewhere to put all the dirt. I thought about trying to do a "The Great Escape" thing but didn't want to alter all my pants. Instead, I took a look at our back yard. It was big and empty and in need of some character, see:

Insert character here:

You'll notice there is a long wall there now. We did that! You will also notice the grass is a lot greener. It adds to the before and after pictures. Once the other plants grow a little, it will look even better (they're in there, it's just hard to see them). To add some more fun to the backyard, I improved the look and attitude of the old barbecue. Implementing a childhood favorite is sure to always bring a smile.

As for the crawl space, commonly referred to as "Dad's hole" or the "dirty place," it is much more usable now, but I am probably not finished yet so it's not counted in the September of completed projects. I would like to say I have a lot more respect for the old time miners that had to dig in tight spaces all day long. It's not easy and not how I like to spend my time.

I can't really take credit for the Lego head idea; it came from Pinterest. Yes, I joined. It's not that bad and it even has a lot of great ideas for guys; especially if you can get past all the hair styling, fashion, and make-up stuff. I know I probably need more help there than anyone (especially with three girls), but I'll tackle that challenge later. I found a different project on there that was more appealing to me. I saw this wall mounted art desk thing and thought it looked like the perfect idea for Katelyn and Sadie's room. It doesn't take up much space when folded up and encourages that wonderful creative side. I think it turned out pretty well.

I took some liberties and changed the style a little to fit more what I wanted it to be. I didn't want chains or anything hanging on the sides to encumber whatever artsy projects develop so hopefully it will still be strong enough. I'm actually taking bets on how long it will last before it breaks and I have to put a new, heavy duty shelf on there. I'm guessing it will happen when Juliette tries to climb up on it some day. For now, the girls are happy with it and I generally am too. I did learn a lot about how to do it differently in the future though in case anyone else needs some advice on making their own.

This last one doesn't look like it would be that difficult, but the logistics made me think a little. We wanted to replace the towel bar in the kid’s bathroom so when we came across two white shelves for the amazing price of free, we thought we could make something work. Anjanette picked up some hooks and I set about trying to figure the rest out. The shelves are really easy to use when you use them the way they were intended, but I wanted to cut them apart and put them back together in a different, unintended fashion. I wanted something a little fancier. More importantly, I wanted to make sure it didn't look like a hack-and-slash job. I wanted uniformity, no gaps or cracks, and no visible mounting holes. It was a bit trickier than I originally expected because of the “wood.” It’s that pressed stuff that splits and falls apart easily. The final product turned out pretty well, mainly because I had a couple of spare supports.