Life is a Pile of Dirty Socks

56 degrees and the first skeeters were out.

My wife has complained about my dirty socks and I try everything possible to keep the dirt from saturating the socks but nothing seems to help.  I'm not taking my shoes off and running around in the dirt but at the end of the day my socks are covered with dirt.

At least I turn them right-side-out.

I looked at the weather forecast last weekend and saw that there are storms headed our way.  Vacation time away from work was used yesterday and then again today to get some work done on the Pointed Playhouse even though I did a little work on a company project at home and also dialed into a teleconference at noon.  My goal was to try to get as much work done on the outside as possible before the rain so that I can work on the gardening when things clear up.  I put most of the tools that I stored in the playhouse back in the garage now that the construction phase has completed.

On Tuesday I removed the plywood sheets from the backs of the windows and cut some plexy glass to fit the opening.  Eight holes were drilled around the edges and then small stainless steel screws were used to attach the glass to the doors.  It looks really good but I know that it is somewhat temporary until I can set aside a couple weeks to do a complete restore of the doors.

I know...hard to tell but the plexy glass in installed on the inside of the opening.

One of the more important accomplishments was to clean up and return my neighbors ladder to him on Tuesday.  It was great to be able to use the ladder and I definitely owe Royden and nice bottle of wine.  Soon after he walked across the street to take a look at the progress and to checkout the finials.  While we were standing there I explained that I used paint remover to get rid of the white paint at the very bottom of the doors on the temporary piece of wood that I installed to cover the gap and to prevent the French Rats from coming in.  The color was not right after the paint was removed and Royden suggested that a stain could be used to get the color close to the aged wood of the doors.  It worked pretty well but another coat of stain will probably be needed.

Bottom of the doors now stained to match the aged wood.

As you can see from the above picture I have been working on the faux timbers again.  The downstairs corners are now wrapped in pressure treated 1x6 material.  Most of the day on Wednesday was spent laying out, cutting, gluing and nailing the many timber pieces to all four sides.  Some of the pieces are strait and require only a forty five degree cut to meet the adjoining timber but many others require a more complicated angle and even curves cut along the side to mimic how timbers would really appear.  At the very end of the day I installed and planted the flower hangers under the two downstairs windows along with a cedar "bed" that I made last year and now moved from the patio and planted the three remaining ivy Geraniums.

Installing the upper diagonal timbers.

Little house in the wood?

All of the timbers are installed.

A little like a jigsaw puzzle but there is a madness to the layout.  If you were a real timber where would you be?

Confusing corner of timber.

Six Geraniums in this one three foot window container.

The flower "bed" container was moved next to the chair.

Washed down the bricks and watered the plants.

Glad to be done.

This must be where Lauren will tie her horse up to the tree.

Fini!

Well, there you have it.  The construction is now done.  It is a boat rack, a playhouse for the girls and a time to remember.  I'm going to take some time off from this little house and work on the interior as time permits.  Thanks for reading along and I hope that you enjoyed this possibly feeble attempt.  Time to wash my socks.