Clear out the garage

August has really gotten away from me. I have another project on the agenda, but before I get started I wanted to clear out the garage. Time for a garage sale!

We've spent the 2 1/2 years in the new house dropping off a truly copious number bags at goodwill. They make it so easy with the drive up window. But I have some larger items I want to get rid of, including the wine butler I just copied the t-racks from and a few bikes I no longer see myself riding. The wife has her doubts, but she's given me the go-ahead to throw a sale the weekend after Labor Day. Woo hoo!

Cleaned and lubed. Time to find her a good home. 

Goodbye, artifact of our 20's. 

Name your price!

So between now and then I have to clean up some of the other stuff we're going to put out, like getting all the stickers off the kids' old toddler bed. Then I get to scour the house for other stuff to round out the sale, and the boy is even thinking of putting his Thomas trains in. We'll have to negotiate on who gets those funds, it's never too early to talk about the value of a dollar.

Doing this on top of wrapping up two more classes, including two 10+ page papers and a narrated presentation, it feels like we have a lot going on right now. But I don't see much harm in adding one more thing. Especially if it gives me an excuse to drink outside while we have it.

Pumpkin update

Turns out they make those garden tags for a reason.

Yes, those are apparently heirloom jack-o-latern pumpkins, and should be getting much bigger. I have my doubts but they're already sugar pumpkin size and should not be that shade of green if they are, so we'll see.

It's fun seeing them get bigger though! Now they just need to get some sun and turn orange. Based on how quickly this summer went it'll be October before we know it so hopefully we have some home grown pumpkins to carve after all our other fall stuff.

We've got pumpkins?

I haven't posted any gardening updates this summer, in part b/c we haven't had much success. Our pumpkin vines kind of took over the entirety of the garden box, to the point of the carrots didn't get enough sun, only two cucumbers made it to the trellis, and even the tomatoes and peppers seemed to struggle in their racks. But it might all be worth it based on what I noticed out grilling last night and checked out this morning...

Everything is out of control in our yard this summer. 

 Yup, I believe that's a pumpkin.

That should be one too.

Woo hoo!

The wife is taking credit for that one at the top, having tried to hand pollinate that vine herself. I didn't really track who was pollinating what, and at this point I don't really care. But there were a bunch of bees out when I took these this morning, so they probably get some of the credit. I'm just hoping these last the next few months and I can make a pie out of them. I think we planted sugar pumpkins, fingers crossed.

This might make more work for me next summer; it's clear that pumpkins are a little much for our single gardening box. There were even some more cucumbers out that we had missed, under all the pumpkin leaves.

Gives "hide the cucumber" a whole new meaning. 

It might be time to make more boxes and space them out a little bit. Good, I'll add it to my list for next year.

Staining and the finishing touches

Is that a pun? I think it's a pun.

Getting some time to work this week, I stopped taking photos and just got going. Finished sanding everything, got the legs and door on, and stained. After thinking, I probably should have stained the door and then put it on, but live and learn.

I left the door two-tone to create some visual interest. I'm not sure how I like it but at this point it's done and I'm moving on. Hopefully it takes attention away from some imperfections in how it fits at least.

What I did really like was the legs. The wife isn't a huge fan of hairpin legs but I am, and thought if I went small enough they wouldn't get overruled. They're only 4", which were hard to find cheap enough to fit my budget, but I think they make it look more finished. And the whole thing is so much lighter than anything else I've made, I guess that's what happens when you figure out what to actually do.

Decent looking miter at least. I seem to be learning.

This is a dark walnut stain, which duh, but I ended up thinking it's a little dark for my liking. But it's going behind a black couch so it should match pretty well. I think there's about 5 coats of poly on at this point. Can't do too much to try and protect something from abusive wiener kids.

Put two hardboards on the back and viola, one behind the couch console table with wine glass storage. Two years ago when I built the first one I was so excited I brought it in and set it up by myself as a surprise. My enthusiasm is a little tempered at this point, it waited in the garage until I could get help. But it's getting high marks from everyone in the house so far.

It certainly got junked-up quickly enough. There's just enough room for all the movies we have and a rack of shoes both on the shelf and below it; you'd think I planned it that way (I did not). But I guess a behind-the-couch table has become pretty critical to our storage and space usage.

Whew! You'd almost think I planned that (I did NOT). 

My favorite part is the bar cabinet for sure; not only do the t-racks work perfectly, there was room to get my whiskey into a more sensible area. Now I just have to put a magnet clasp on it and hope the kids will listen to me and leave it alone.

The old one's going downstairs for now under the tv until we decide if it's too big for the space or not. But man is it ugly to look at versus this one! For now, I'm basking in the glow of really liking how this turned out. At least until I get my next project started, or better yet, until I clean up beforehand.