Another baby step, but that’s more than I usually accomplish on a weeknight.  Last night Chloe was all pumped about “working on the playhouse,” so I agreed to head outside with her and Ginger.  I managed to add in the final piece of the perimeter structure…the 4×6 pressure treated beam that we dug out of the yard back in 2005.  If you look closely in this post, you can see the 4×6 terracing the side yard before we regraded it.   The hunk of wood is now acting as the rear joist in their playhouse.

Inching closer

Last night I had a little time and was able to set the 4th post.  Chloe helped me get everything lined up by holding the tape measure and the square.  We got the diagonal measurements within 1/4″, so I’m quite happy about that.  Later today I’ll dump some concrete around the pier block so that we can build the rest of the structure next weekend.

Looks just like a poster bed

A little.  Most exciting is that our neighbors (thanks, Brooks & Marcia!) did give us all their old cedar, so we’ve got a huge stash of 10′ pieces.  While some are in really bad shape, most are salvageable.  I have a little electric hand planer, and you can see how great the cedar looks after I removed the weathered layers.

I’ve got 3 posts installed, as well as two of the joists.  As always, I’m slightly unsatisfied with the way I decided to build it.  I thought the pier blocks would save some time and allow for easier positioning, but they kind of end up being a pain in the butt as I need to fine-tune their positions.  Next time I will put the time in up front to lay out precise string lines and use a plumb bob to pour footings and set my own anchors.  Of course, then I’m sure I’ll be cursing that method and wishing I had used pier blocks

One funny thing happened along the way…on Sunday night I noticed that two of my bags of concrete were too close to one of the leaks in our patio roof, and the torrential rain was getting them wet.  Not wanting to waste them, I went out in the rain to do an emergency mix and add the concrete to one of my pier blocks.   Also, I had had to temporarily disconnect the pipe that diverts our patio roof runoff, so it had dumped a ton of water into my footing hole.  I was actually displacing the water as I added concrete to the hole.  I can’t remember being in a wetter of muddier situation, but I just couldn’t let $5 worth of concrete go to waste, could I?

View from the patio

View if hanging out the dining room window

Our stash

Good as new!

Yesterday I dug holes and placed the pier block footings.  I think I got them all placed well, but I always find this kind of work challenging.  Not only is there no existing point-of- reference, but it’s on ground that slopes in two dimensions.  I will add concrete around the pier blocks once I’ve added the posts and ensure that my footings are set correctly.  I also had to relocate some plants to make room for the playhouse, but the great thing is that our landscaping  now looks much more complete!

Pier blocks set into holes

Arrows showing footing locations

We’ve been promising to build the kids a playhouse for a couple of years now, so we decided that we’d better get to it before they are old enough to move out of the house!  We have been working on the design for awhile now, and we think that we’re going for a modern look (horizontal cedar screening) combined with the post and beam structure of our front porch.

Initially, we are going to build just the roof and the floor.  This will essentially be a wall-less gazebo, which we can flesh out later.  After pricing out the clear cedar strips, we realized that it will be pretty expensive to complete our design, so we may go with plywood walls with shakes.   But by getting something started, we can at least get the girls a place of their own* pretty quickly.

*we are being sneaky and trying to design a structure that will work as a playhouse, yet be able to serve a future life as an entertainment area once they’ve gotten too old.

Our neighbor has been removing his old cedar decking and replacing it with Trex, so it looks like we will be able to finish the entire floor of the playhouse for free!

Keep in mind that this design is pretty conceptual at this point, and we’ve been playing with a lot of different ideas.  If you have any suggestions, thr0w ‘em our way!

Playhouse Concept #1

I got the  bug to pick back up where we left off on the downstairs hall closet (abandoned stairwell).  Back in 2007, we started converting the steps into proper shelves, but we’ve done nothing but pile more crap into the closet since then.  Over the last week, I finally brought some power (including a light) and some network cables for our wireless router into the formerly uncivilized space.  I’ve been wanting to move the router to the ground floor for a long time, because it performed pretty poorly in the basement utility room, being blocked by the ductwork and the furnace.

While I was at it, I relocated our phone’s base station here, too, since it suffered from the same problems as the wi-fi.  Both are working much better than they were before.  And if you’re wondering why I did such an overkill, industrial job with the electric conduit, it’s because I scavenged about 200′ of conduit and dozens of handy boxes when my company’s office was being remodeled a few years ago.  The contractor was going to send it all of for scrap, so I grabbed as much of it as I could.  It’s been taking up space in the garage for over 3 years, so I get all excited any chance I get to pull out the conduit bender and actually get to use some of it!

Conduit and cat5, oh my!

A few weeks ago we found our porch light in the Rejuvenation scratch-n-dent room.  Over the years we’ve found many fixtures in there.  It’s hit-or-miss, but this time we think we really lucked out!

Night shot

Day shot

Well, sort of…  I was recently interviewed for an article about homes with ”Wow Factor.”  Unfortunately, while the story of the discovery of our bungalow was published, there was no mention of our little blog.  I can’t really complain though.  The interview was a lot of fun!

If you’re curious about the WSJ piece, it’s posted here: http://online.wsj.com/ad/article/sir-insights?WC=HPInsThumb

Another moderate weekend of work, but the end is definitely close enough to taste now!  The biggest indicator of progress is that the scaffold has been broken down and won’t be set up again for this project.  The only things left on the punch list are:

• strip and re-finish front door
• finish sidelights and trim around front door
• touch up the trim around 6 windows with bronze paint
• paint and install 2 more storm windows
• paint exposed trim on back dormer
• add trim around back dormer windows
• rebuild rotted posts and railings in front of porch

Considering where we started, that is a teeny little list.  It may or may not all get done this fall, but we are at least weather-tight and ready for the rain now.

Sidelights look much more distinguised with their new bronze paint

Bronze-painted storm windows re-installed

All rafters painted!

The lazy (but fast) way out of the mess of a back dormer...covering it with metal!

Looks done from this angle (except for the plywood, of course)

Considering it was a weekend of mediocre productivity (my helper couldn’t make it on Saturday, and I only worked two shorter days), we still accomplished quite a bit.  The key is that we have so many different little projects and areas going at once that it feels like we’re constantly knocking things out. Here is a shot of the side yard, with the scaffolding now in it’s 8th position.  If I were starting all over, I think I would have dumped another $60 into the thing and extended it enough to cover a full side of the house.  I’m always having to manage around the scaffold’s position, so at times it can get inefficient.  Such as when it has to get left in place while we’re waiting for paint to dry for touch-ups.  But regardless, we’re actually done now with all the walls (yes!), so it’s only purpose in life is to serve as a platform for the straggler rafter tails and accompanying gutter.

And what do you do when a windowsill is too messed up to save?  Well, if it’s on a dormer that’s tucked way up in the back of your house where no one can see it, you just cover it with sheet metal!  I couldn’t figure out any way to salvage the chewed up thing, so I found flashing in the perfect size and just encased it.  I will paint it to match the rest of the trim, just in case anyone goes to the back corner of the yard and looks up, but I can pretty much guarantee that nobody will see my “cheat.”  This worked so well that I am also going to cover the gable ends with metal.  These areas just aren’t worth spending the hours and hours they’d require to do it right, and I’m in a rush to at least get this area good enough to make it through winter intact.

Galvanized sill