A little re-framing

The trampoline floor at the entryway [see post from May] finally had to go. 2x4s on-the-flat became on-edge, and the office moved to a larger space and has become more studio-like. And Sofie has a new favorite hideyhole. Much better!

FALL

It's fall.
we have pumpkins.

decor

As the wedding day drew closer, we enlisted an army of friends to help us with the final push. Extra thanks to all those who donated their time.

I have a good idea

...we'll BUILD our own tent! It actually turned out to be a pretty good idea, and a fun time. Of course we wish we had more time to finesse the details, but what the hay, the next will be twice as cool! It was a simple construction of 2x4s, cable, and a fiber-reinforced polyethylene sheeting [often seen wrapped around the scaffolding of buildings under construction or repair]. It was semi-transparent and had an interesting diamond grid of nylon strings making it virtually tear-proof!

A nice big deck

..what every bride wants.
We were able to use 95% recycled materials for our new deck/wedding-platform/dance-floor. For the source of material, see blog posts from June... We even buried the remainder of our concrete rubble. For all you archi-dorks out there, I think that's 2 LEED points for on-site reuse of waste material!

We also scored some free cedar fencing from a neighbor, that with a little [okay, a lot] of milling, became a wood screen woven into our chain link fence. Thanks to the family for all their hard work!

In case you're wondering, we spread all the cedar sawdust in a layer below deck, to help protect us from the hymenoptera, and their allies.

Facelift

Some old cedar deck boards recycled into a new railing, courtesy of nicole, jake's planer, and danielle.

BACK IN ACTION!

okay, so it's been awhile. We had things to do, like get married. This will be the first post of many to come [hopefully in rapid succession] to bring y'all up to speed on the tranformation. Stay tuned!

rainscreen

instead of trying to patch in siding to match, we decided to do something else; a Durock rainscreen. Durock is essentially a 3'x5' panel of cement reinforced both sides with fiberglass mesh fabric. It is commonly used as a backer board for tile in floors, countertops and showers, so why not as siding? We cut it into more pleasing sizes [dusty project] and attached it to 1" treated wood nailers over tar paper. The rainscreen theory is that the outer layer [cement board] deflects the majority of the wind and rain from the waterproof inner layer [tar paper], while some water gets in, the cavity [1" airspace] is well ventilated and any water can drain out. We'll see about that. It's not a very stringent test, however, as it's on the north side, but hey, it was fun. And thanks to the team: Tom, Marie and Sofie.