I successfully chiseled off a lot of it when I painted the garage door last summer, but that doesn’t mean that it’s inching it’s way back into place.

In this week’s post on DIY Network, I corralled the wild beast with a unique contemporary trellis. Check it out for yourself, and then go make one for less than $5.

To see more of my posts on DIY Network, browse here.

The yard is entirely fenced in, which as a dog-owner, is a great thing. I never thought Cody would try and escape through this little hole beneath the kitchen overhang in the backyard, but we have visiting dog friends over routinely enough that I’ve kept these cinder blocks from the previous homeowners in place to plug the gap between the steel frame fence and the house foundation. I suppose it helps to keep out other people’s wandering pets and wandering wild animals too.

Funny thing is, as soon as I removed the cinder blocks in preparation for this project, Pete came outside to find Cody exploring the unfenced front yard. So much for thinking my big dog wouldn’t try to shimmy through that little hole. Curious peanut.

The simple solution that I’ve been planning for some time involved making a little fence, almost like a picket fence, to cover the space subtly, but look more finished than a stack of cement.

After spending Sunday re-familiarizing myself with all of the scrap wood during the springtime garage clean-out, I picked out a few pressure-treated pieces of 5/4 lumber that we had saved from when we built the deck. Measuring only 18″Wx15″H, it was a small space to be building for and wouldn’t require that much wood, so the plentiful amount on hand was more than enough.

We even had a few narrower 1x boards that would serve well as cross braces. And as much as I wanted the new fence to look like the front porch and pergola railings, it made more sense to align the lumber to stand vertically and blend in more with the steel-framed gate over time. With a few quick chop-chops from the chop saw, I had them sized to perfection.

Oh. The Gennifer Choldenko novel? Just something from the shelf that helped me evenly separate the boards while I secured the pieces together with the nail gun. Sometimes I’m really high-tech like that. I haven’t actually read the book yet, but I picked it up from a garage sale because I thought it might be funny. Yay or nay?

Material investments for this project were of minimal expense. Because let’s face it, it’s a tiny gate. I bought:

• Two 2-3/8″ brace bands used in chain link fence construction. Priced at $1.22 each, they didn’t break the bank.
• A new set of 1/4″x5″ galvanized bolts, washers, and nuts for $2.50 (those shown in this picture are actually 3/8ths and ended up being just barely too thick to fit in the holes on the brace bands but I had to try them anyways since they were leftovers in the basement. The 1/4″ diameter was perfect.)
• The lumber was free-zilla since it was pulled from my scrap pile, and the nail gun, 1-3/8″ brads, and air compressor were pulled straight from the basement.
• Total cost: less than $5.00

The brace bands themselves were the perfect find. They clamped right onto the steel bar that the real gate hinges to, and because they grip so well, it takes a lot of force to move them around. This was good, because I didn’t want a doggie-door style gate that could be pushed open.

Side note: See how the band actually wants to splay a little bit? That’s an easy fix with a little tap-tap of the hammer to force the tabs closer together.

By pre-drilling through the assembled fence, I was able to install the carriage bolts easily through the braces and secure them tightly. Buying 5″ bolts was clearly overkill so I had to trim the long ends down a little bit with a hack saw to make them less of a dog-poking hazard.

The resulting piece is so fresh and clean in the space. Eventually, given time and weather it’ll age to look more like the gate it’s beside.

And as I’ve said, the braces make it stay really strong in position. Even though it’s not anchored to the house itself, It doesn’t want to twist or swing like a normal gate would, so “fully fenced-in” still holds true.

With the beautiful weather this week, I was also able to finish two other outdoor projects this week. I’m feelin’ all muscle-y and power-tool-pumped. More to come tomorrow!

Three years ago this morning I still didn’t know what I’d owe at closing that same day (poor girl, bank-panic, high blood pressure). Three years ago by noon I was scared that the old homeowners would take it back (there were issues all around, and luckily they didn’t). Three years ago at 2PM they told me they lost the house keys (and then found them moments before I went into hysterics). And three years ago by nightfall, I had already removed every last piece of carpet in the living room, on the stairs, and in all three bedrooms (and I love those hardwoods every day). Take a moment to speed through the before + afters page today in celebration.

Not intentionally aligned with the 3rd home-a-versary festivities, Pete and I spent all day Sunday doing something that I’ve been talking about doing since I moved in: Getting the garage seriously organized.

For the first year I lived here, I didn’t have much and only opened the garage door in order to move the garbage can in and out. One year later, Pete and I were dating and became the proud owners of a pair of scooters which lived in the garage for most of the year. We also rebuilt the deck, a task which left us with a garage full of tools and materials. Last spring, he moved in and the garage became home to more stuff. Car stuff. Motorcycle stuff. Heavy-duty home repair stuff.

And as recently as Saturday, it looked like this:

Our first order of business was to clear the entire space out and sweep it clean. I can’t even explain how it ends up getting so dirty when it’s closed 99% of the time and trafficked mostly by foot, it’s like a magical forcefield for dirt and pinecones.

Quickly cleaned out and swept, it looked good. We need to keep it looking this good. I was downright close to repainting the walls while we had it emptied, but I left it for another time.

The contents, on the other hand, filled the driveway. And part of the neighbor’s driveway. And the backyard.

Pete’s big goal was to install shelving into the cinder block frame, a task I hadn’t bothered tackling myself because it seemed more intimidating than installing shelves into common wall studs.

We had a set of three white shelves with brackets still attached the day three years ago when I moved in and removed them from the inset cove in the dining room that’s now home to my built-in shelves. Living in the basement ever since, it was nice to have decent shelving on hand that we could reinstall in a pinch. Fo’ free. Well, almost free.

Our only splurge for this endeavor was a set of heavy-duty wall anchors. This kit at Home Depot only cost $11 yet gave us more than 10x the amount that we actually needed for the job. Always nice to have some extra anchors on hand, right? And these are “for all materials” cinder block included, so it’ll be nice to have for the basement whenever we get around to reorganizing that space.

Installing anything securely into something as robust as cinder block is something I’ve been curious about, but it went really smoothly. We predrilled each hole with a masonry bit, and then easily tapped the anchor into position. (the $25 set that Pete has actually has a whole selection of these heavy-duty-toothy bits, score, and our set of anchors came with one too, double-score).

It’s times like this when we’re cement-drilling and pounding and shop-vac’ing that I wonder why the dog can be so calm and sleepy, when anytime he’s in the same room as the Dyson, even when it’s not running, he’s looks like he’s about to pass out cold from fear.

This particular bracket that he was installing above has to do with a little wood storage area we built in the back of the garage. By anchoring two brackets opposite each other, we were able to run a 9’4″ 2×4 across them to create a little barrier. Just before the barrier was installed, we hauled a bunch of flat cement blocks from the back storage shed built onto the garage and lined the floor with them, partially to help keep the scrap wood from sitting directly on the sometimes-wet cement floor, but also to get them out of the back room and let them serve some purpose until we actually need them. We’re wood hoarders and cement block hoarders over here. (Side note: The latter, I have to attribute to always having to buy cinder blocks to hoist my dorm bed during college, which was a total waste of money and a pain in the you-know-what. Are you with me?)

While Pete worked on installing the white shelves on the left wall of the garage, I reloaded and organized our scrap lumber into the back 18″ of the garage. The scraps consist of reclaimed barnwood and trim pieces, a bit of common lumber (some pressure-treated, some not), a bin of short-pieces that still big enough to be considered useful for something, and plywood pieces. And the dog still slept.

The shelves that Pete hung on the left side of the garage are the ones I mentioned being repurposed from the dining room. In solid condition, they’re deep, and since the anchors can allegedly each support 51-lbs. and six are supporting the horizontal weight of each shelf, they should be able to hold quite a bit once we get them loaded.

For now, it’s just a nice place to hold our bike helmets and riding gloves.

We did purposefully hang them at our own eye-level (about 5’5″ off the ground) so that it would be:
1) easy to see so you don’t whack your eyeball into them,
2) high enough to not disrupt the average car that’s pulling into the driveway (we don’t use it for our cars, but you know, someday maybe),
3) we could still see on top of them without a step stool

The third shelf was added in the back beyond the window and is already packed with “stuff we need but don’t need often” like Pete’s bike cover and back support for the Harley, and an extra couple of chargers. We also saved Julia’s 3-wheeler and all of our yard sale signs for future play. The wine bottles on the floor in the corner? Don’t point fingers at me, I pulled them from the curb of a restaurant (odd, I know) and have been planning to do something with them. You know, someday.

Stepping back, the room as a whole looks pretty charming.

What do I like most of all? How Pete lined our bikes up in a very showroom-esque way. It’ll be so easy to get them in and out of there now if we keep the other half of the garage cleared.

On the other wall, Pete hung two brackets to support the extension ladder (it was previously just on the floor, so it’s nice to get it up and out of the way since it isn’t used all that often). He also screwed some cement screws into the wall on which we could hang the sawhorses. The plywood along the wall is something we’re about to take away, Pete has big plans for it in his parent’s kitchen. More to come on that at dadand.com.

And if you’re wondering, celebrated with my Mom on Saturday, which is why our whole Sunday was free to tackle crazy things like this. There was no Mom-neglect. And Mom thought the garage was damn messy anyways. How was your weekend?

The easy solution was to design and build a little step stool, mostly with Pete’s daughter Julia in mind, but really to service any kids that were over and needing to use the bathroom sink. I finally built it easily in an afternoon and am really thrilled with it as a utilitarian piece, but also love how it turned out as a whole. Best of all? It was f-r-e-e using scrap wood, and extra screws and bolts.

I started with a single piece of leftover 2x10x4′ pine board, from which I planned to make a chunky wooden model that would be small enough to tuck aside in the bathroom, but tall and sturdy enough to do what it was intended to do, hoist kids closer to the faucet. I got to work.

Side note: We used this scrap back in the bathroom tiling days as a place to set our mortar bucket and  tools. Consequently, it still had lots of mortar stuck to it, but it all sanded right off.

Picking measurements for this step stool, I went based on what “felt right” for my bathroom. I ended up with a top surface measuring 15″ in length, two legs measuring 6″ in height, and two center support pieces measuring 10″x3″.

Loosely assembled (upside down), this is how it was designed to come together:

I even took an extra step to cut a series of 1-3/4″ circles in the top to serve two purposes: 1) they give adults something quick to grab to pick up and move the step stool out of the way and 2) give the kids feet something to grip to, lessening the chance of accidental slips. No, the holes aren’t big enough for a kid’s foot to accidentally fall through.

With the placement of all four circles marked in pencil (evenly spaced apart horizontally and along the same plane vertically) I used a common drill bit to pre-drill through the board itself, and followed up with the hole saw drill bit to create my 1-3/4″ holes.

Pre-drilling isn’t always necessary with the hole saw bit, but these 2x boards are thicker than the hole saw bit is, meaning that I had to cut part way through on the board one way, and then flip it and drill through from the other side. The predrilled hole keeps everything aligned really nicely, so there was no mis-drilling on any of the four holes.

With the top step of the stool done, I moved on to the base and assembled the frame using 2.5″ wood screws and several sized drill bits to create a counter-sunken effect. We don’t own a Kreg jig, but by pre-drilling with a small bit and then following up by drilling about 1/4″-1/2″ with a bit larger than the head of the screw, you can achieve the same finished effect by sinking the screws out of sight but still at the necessary angle.

Getting the base fully assembled was an effort, because the drill itself is only so tiny to get into the small area between each reinforcements. I wanted all eight screws hidden within the frame, not visible from the outside, so I made do by using Pete’s impact driver which is a bit shorter and narrower than the rest of our cordless and corded drills. Still a tighter fit than if the entire stool was 18″ long instead of 15″, but it worked well.

By attaching the step stool top to the frame from beneath using four 4″ lag bolts, I was able to achieve a finished look that was clean-lined without protruding bolts and screws, and really, really sturdy.

The finished piece is sanded smooth but still raw wood and heavy; I’m planning on eventually giving it a coat of stain to finish it off although I’m kind of digging how nice the light wood looks beside the IKEA veneer. It’s a charming little addition to the bathroom.

It fits perfectly beside the sink and is easily accessed, but is completely out of the line of traffic when you’re walking into and out of the bathroom. Easy enough to slide out of the way with your foot, and thanks to the holes in the top, it’s a pinch to pick up as well.

Make anything handy this weekend?

In celebration of Mayo, we’ve been pigging out on tacos and guacamole, and did a few little projects to boot.

1. I raised the roof.

Not really, I raised the curtains in the sunroom. It was a subtle change, but it raises the height of the room which translates to “I’ve raised the roof”. Last fall when I installed muslin curtains I must have had on my super-flat shoes. They were installed to be level with the top of the window, but after gawking at them for the last few weeks while I work at the new sunroom table, I decided they weren’t hung close enough to the ceiling, making the whole room look squatty. There was an easy fix to cure their weird positioning: raise them up 6 inches. Fortunately, there was plenty of extra length to the curtains, and they were adjusted without a hitch.

2. I passed it on.

Big thanks to The Better Half for choosing me to participate in Karah’s Pass It On Project; what a sweet surprise it was to find these tile coasters in the mail!

In exchange, I happily picked a few friends and fellow bloggers to “pass it on” to, Cait of Hernando House and Erin of Erin B. Inspired. Both funny and talented ladies have been long time supporters of my little blog, and I wanted to give them a little love in return, so I sent off two handmade wooden picture frames with windows just a little bigger than 3″x3″. Made with reclaimed real 2″x4″ boards from local salvage, the wood is warm and rich and still very lightweight from being dried out for the last 80 years. Mailed with plexiglass and wire, they’re both perfectly imperfect but have a great history and natural charm.

3. I destroyed Pete’s Harley. And I need your help.

OK, not really destroyed, but I did get a terrible amount of oil-based stain on the fender over the winter during one of my little outdoor staining projects. The good news is that he isn’t angry with me. The bad news is that nothing I’ve tried has worked to remove it (I’ve been testing products on the plastic tail light splatters, not yet on the delicate finish of the actual fender). Not acetone, not car cleaner, not car wax, not soap. I guess I still need to try mineral spirits, which is what I normally use to clean up my paint brushes, and I might try WD-40 as a final effort, but I’m thinking it’ll have to go to the shop for a buffer. Any other tips (I’m lookin’ at you, Rust-Oleum)? And how much does it cost to get a motorcycle refinished?

4. I’ve been doing research.

There are only two doors in my home that appears to be original to the house. The rest, the bedroom doors, bathroom door,  and basement door are 4 styles of mismatched hollow economy-style models. And what’s there now is dinged, cracked, and stained at that. Two of the closet doors are totally removed and MIA. Replacing all of them has been on my list for awhile, and the planning intensified recently when I realized that the office door doesn’t even close (right, I haven’t even tried to shut it in 3 years).

Instead of buying new, I’m looking to find salvaged doors that match the original charm of the house. I’ve started my search, hoping to find bargain-priced originals sized to match my door frames. $15 each would do, if I could possibly get so lucky. This one here would actually fit the office doorframe perfectly.

We shall see how easy this proves.

5. I finally made a decision. And I’m happy with it.

I don’t usually splurge on a Groupon/Living Social deal unless I know with certainty that I can use it and make it worth my investment. We’ve eaten a lot of Sushi over the last year this way which has been fun, but California Rollin’ seems to have finally caught onto our clever way of getting 8 rolls for a $15 Groupon and changed all its rules pertaining to the deal. Shucks.

When I bought one for Overstock.com during the winter, I considered it an insta-win. Priced at $10 to get $20 in merchandise, I figured there’d be plenty of items for me to pick from. Fast-forward 3 months, and I had spent hours scouring for anything that I could buy that wasn’t a total investment piece (I wanted to keep my purchase close to the $20 store credit) but there was nothing I needed or wanted for the value. In the end I landed on a $29.99 woven basket which came in the mail yesterday. Good news: It’s darling. And I’ll keep it. I take back all of those frustrated comments about the site.

I hadn’t done much research on the product or its brand pre-purchase, because I was in a Living Social redemption panic 2 hours before it expired, but when it arrived I was excited to see that it was a legit nkuku product, which according to the website retails for £39.95, a figure that converts to about $64.50USD based on today’s currency exchange.

Sitting within my CB2 bedside table, it’ll be good for holding an extra blanket and a few books.

Best of all: If we have the same decor taste, I think you’re going to really like everything that nkuku sells. Inspired by African and Indian artists, its contemporary designs are super-eco, made from natural materials, there’s some really great stuff to swoon over. I’m going ga-ga for these Franjipani Floral Cups, the Ishara Basket, and the Oni Glass Collections Box. And everything else. You?

Have a fun weekend (and Happy Mothers Day)!

In today’s post on DIY Network, I explore an amazing Rochester, NY shop and come home with beautiful blossoms to display. And then I make something pretty. Check out all the details for yourself!

Preferred Plants rules, Rochestarians. You’ll want to make a special trip to see the store yourself. It’s located at 1300 University Ave., right in front of Pomodoro, so you can have dinner and drinks after browsing and buying too, OK? OK.

If you’re looking for more info on the store, my friend Danielle posted about it yesterday. She gets a one-up though, she caught wind that they were having a Mothers Day sale and shared a coupon with her readers. Go steal it for yourself.

And to fans in Charlotte, NC, word on the website is that you just got your own shop too. I want you to go be there. (See location info here.)

Serious note-to-self: Remove that paint that somehow schmeared on the trim when I painted the ceiling in the summer of 2009. OK.

The door that’s there does have a function. It hides all my decor junk and lots of cheap candles just waiting to be burned. I liken it to a neatly stacked pile of firewood on in the backyard, and I likey that all together that whole stack probably only cost $15 thanks to being yard sale finds.

Aside from what it’s concealing, the door’s design doesn’t immediately appear to be a phony; it’s not a transparent applique that’s pasted on, it actually looks and feels like leaded stained glass thanks to defined leaded lines between each pane of plastic. Whether they’re actually holding the construct together or were just squirted on for extra detail is still beyond me, I haven’t done enough damage yet to find out. It looks pretty dingy in this picture, another sign that it’s dinky plastic and not real glass.

I’m bringing this up because I’ve always thought about removing the fake pane and replacing it with a similarly-sized salvaged pane, or a different pane of glass all together. My objective is still to keep the contents of the decor store hidden or at least blurred, but the green and fuchsia tones in the window never really did flow with the rest of the colors in the living and dining room, which remain olive/gold/yellow/dark wood infused.

Questions for you:

• Has anyone else encountered panes like this?
• I have some sources for reclaimed leaded glass, but is it a tricky install? This just appears to be pinned in place with trim.
• Or should I leave it as-is?

In previous years, we lined the garage wall with tomato plants, and shortly after I moved in, I dropped three transplanted trees into my backyard, but these days, especially in the wee beginning of springtime, it looks desolate. Doesn’t help that the dog generally eats in the backyard wearing down patches in the lawn. Oh, and can you tell where the old above ground pool sat thanks to the very sandy soil yielding different color grass? On some days when the grass is longer, I can still see the shadow of a full circle.

Right. To try something new this year, I channeled something I saw on TV and decided to make some planter boxes in which to house my seasonal veggies and assorted flowers. (Get it, the title of this post, boxing? Jabs?)

The interlocking design shown on an episode of Desperate Landscapes on DIY Network was both pretty and a little different, appealing to me because it meant that the exposed edges would be free of bolts and screws holding the assemblage whole. By bolting downwards through the corners, Jason Cameron achieved a clean-lined look, and that, I liked. Real snapshot from the TV on my iPhone for future reference? Sure:

Pete and I brainstormed a little bit recently, deciding that using pieces of 1/2″ x 18″ rebar straight through the wood into the ground might be a less-expensive alternative, and also help to anchor the planters into the ground a little bit. This sweet little artwork was designed on Paper (our newest favorite f-r-e-e iPad app).

Having priced out some of these planter options at a range of places from hardware stores to places like Williams-Sonoma, I knew they could run upwards in price really quickly, especially with a name brand or specific high-quality lumber attached to it. I considered making mine out of cedar to withstand the test of time a little longer than pine, but pricing is always a consideration and for the amount of lumber I decidedly wanted, I still hoped to keep the whole construction under $50. I used a 10% off coupon and saved a whopping $4.92 but it was still just under $50 all-in even without the added savings.

Here’s what I picked up:

• Four 2x8x8′ pine boards ($2.90/each)
• Four 2x4x8′ pine boards ($6.44/each)
• 8 pieces of 1/2″x18″ rebar ($1.57/each)

A few notes:

• I considered going low-rise with just one 2×8 height board, but I worried about the dog overstepping his boundaries. And a dog who oversteps boundaries will be peeing in my tomatoes.
• Two 8″ boards felt a little tall when I stacked them as a visual in Lowe’s. And would have cost me an extra $15.
• One 2×12 board felt thick and heavy and just too monstrous. You know how those boards just look like they’re designed with withstand 10,000 pounds of pressure and will require you to find two extra sets of hands to load them into your Jeep? That’s too much weight for something light and veggie-filled in the backyard.
• The combination of a sturdy 2×8 combined with a lighter 2×4 for accent and a slight rise in wall height felt like the right balance in the end, less heavy than if it were a solid 12″ board.
• And of course if you’re doing this at home, do what’s right for your situation. Not everyone has mammoth dogs to be considering.

I cut the boards in half into 48″ pieces, because to keep things simple, developing a set of 4′x4′ boxes would be easy and efficient. In sets of four (representing each box) I clamped the wood together tightly, and marked off where it would need to be cut on each end to fit in an interlocked pattern. Binding the pieces together just made my cuts happen a little more efficiently than if I were doing singular cuts on the deck with the circular saw.

For the 2×8 boards, I used a speed square to measure and mark the notches at 1-1/2″ x 3-1/2″. That’s exactly the board width x half of the real board height.

When it comes to making these cuts, pay attention to the depth of your circular saw blade. For the shallow cuts, I was able to set the circular saw to 1.5″ deep, but with the deeper cut I was only able to go up to 2.5″ deep.

Which is why I was left to cut through the rest of the way by handsaw and multitool with a cutter attachment. Pete promptly reminded me this morning that we have a sawzall for jobs like this, I forgot, and my triceps are making me pay for it.

My cuts were nowhere near as smooth as what I saw on TV. And that’s why I’m not on TV.

Just to note: In notching both ends of each board, both the 2×8′s and the 2×4′s, I notched on the same side of each board, so the notches when facing upward were all facing the sun, not one side facing the sun and one side facing the ground. Know what I’m trying to say? Probably not. They fit together as a puzzle easily as you’ll see, but an easy puzzle. An ages 3+ puzzle.

Assembling the puzzle was easy enough too. I started by predrilling the holes for the rebar to extend through in each corner, using some cinder blocks as convenient anchors. Using the electric drill gave me a lot of power consistently through all of the boards, and a 5/8″ paddle bit widened a path for the 1/2″ rebar to glide through with not-too-much-and-just-enough friction.

By then hauling them out into the lawn, the 4 sides came together quite easily; once one piece of rebar was in, the structure stayed upright and made configuring the other three corners a snap.

When the planters are positioned, each piece of rebar will receive some clean thwaps to hammer them into the soft ground. When they’re level with the top piece of wood, there’ll be no chance of dog and kid injuries while we play and romp in the backyard.

Stepping back and looking at the set wholly, they’re pretty cool. And bigger than I expected 16-sq.ft. pieces to be. Not as nice as the ones I saw crafted on TV, mostly because I’m no first-rate craftsman, but they’ll be great to house tomatoes and flowers in the backyard this summer.

There’s still more work to be done, mostly digging a bed for them to sit over, bringing in potting soil and fertilizer, and creating a nice little environment in the backyard.

Side note: We did the same wood chipping drill about a year ago, cleaning accumulated brush at Pete’s parent’s house with their industrial-strength chipper. I’d wood chip my heart out and host a wood burning party all day long if I put my mind towards designing a business plan. Who’s with me?

As a lighter, less splinter-and-scratchy activity, we also hit up one of the great big neighborhood sales in Rochester. With easily 30+ homes participating, it was great to roam around and admire homeowner’s gardens and landscaping and also explore through their clearance-priced belongings. I didn’t actually take too many photos during our afternoon walk, but I picked up a few select items that’ll be either useful, or just fun to have around the house as my own.

Never one to turn down a big woven basket, this 12″x18″ basket was $1, which is exactly $28.99 less expensive than an even smaller basket I just bought last week on overstock.com (smack me please). As far as I’m concerned, there are endless uses for big ol’ baskets; maybe to hold books and magazines beneath one of my bedside tables, maybe to hold extra throw blankets since they won’t need to be draped over the couch all summer long. Maybe to hold Julia’s Beanie Babies. It won’t go unused.

Moving on through the neighborhood, I came across this phenomenal find from a man who priced his wife’s vintage fabrics well below what I would refer to as an “Etsy price.” For just $4, I hand selected 5 ginormous bolts of fabrics ranging in quality from cotton/linen to polyester to soft canvas. Each bolt is at least 3 yards, two of them easily 10. There’ll be plenty here for future slipcover/pillow/ottoman-covering adventures.

I pulled a rainbow of options, not being able to make up my mind. Very fitting, considering that my current house palette is much like a rainbow itself, although it would appear based on these purchases that bright pink and teal are going to be stamped in there at some point depending on how they get worked into projects.

One of my last stops yielded a few good finds. If you remember from previous garage saling posts like this one, you’ll recall that I go out of my way to collect good candles at yard sale discounts. This trio of 6-8″ candles (with ragged out but pretty candle holders included) cost 75-cents. Shown here pre-bath, the whites cleaned up to be flawless. Opaque whites are amongst my favorites visually, and the pumpkin-colored one smells lovely.

Finally, I never discount a roadside “free” bin despite risking looking like a bag lady. This time I was lucky, maybe, salvaging this wooden and plastic sailboat model which strongly demonstrates that whole “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure” mantra. Refinished and reinterpreted, it’ll be a great addition to the home’s decor that so subtly has a beach-vibe thanks to the arm loads of driftwood and gigantic bin of beach glass.

Also, in that moment of excitement about the sailboat, I also swiped up this free metal index card holder and shoved it in my shopping bag. Rusted unhappily but not to a point of disrepair so I’ll find a way to fix it up and make it useful one again.

It has these cute rubber feet on it too so it’s not going to be all scratchy against whatever surface it lives on. What’s not to like?

While we’re diving back into another busy work week, I also have some pretty great at-home projects on the agenda for when I can carve out some time to make them happen.

What were you up to this weekend?

(Reminder: If you’re on instagram, come find me. Easy to find, I’m merrypad!)

Can you believe I’ve been gathering a full cup of beach glass each time I walk on shores of Lake Ontario? This was just one trip. Two pockets. Half an hour.

Things are back to feeling springtime-ish again, it’s finally nice enough to enjoy the garden and the beach. I dismissed every old wives tale and most rational landscapers when I prepared the flowery, overflowing potted plants on my deck prior to May 1st. In nothing short of rebellion, it snowed the very next day, so I carried all of the plants, even the gigantic planter (now weighing at least half as much as me thanks to 1.5 cubic feet of wet potting soil) inside and allowed them to begin their planted life soaking sunlight through the window.

As May 1st came and went, the weather improved on cue, and all of those planters moved back into the deck. They’re thrilled. The strawberry tentacles reached outward another 10″ in 48 hours in an extreme celebratory feat.

Adding to the floral fun, I dropped the some yellow pansies into the tangerine hanging baskets that I painted last year, lined with some 14″ Coco liners that I picked up on the cheap at JoAnn’s with 50% off coupons (bringing them to just $2.99/each).

The baskets themselves are shaped more so like an abstract flower than other baskets I’ve seen and owned, and to add a little flair to the standard liners, I trimmed the edges with ordinary scissors to appear scalloped, each coco petal aligned with the orange metal petal.

They’ll still need to be hung from one of the pergolas, but I’ll get around to that soon.

The Bellis needed a new home too, anything really, it just needed to spread its roots. It fit nicely within a planter that I’ve had for years, but had forgotten about, a clean-lined IKEA find that looks nice against the deck and the other planters. Hopefully Bellis will grow into it a little bit before it stops blossoming.

I’ve also been seizing the short-lived opportunity to, uh, prune flowering branches in the neighborhood. Not from other homeowner lots or anything, just, publically accessible and within arm’s reach on dog walks. Worth it just to have some fresh blossoms over the kitchen sink for a few weeks.

Planting anything this weekend?