I built a lounge chair for the porch.
I used these free plans from Ana White at Knock-Off Wood http://www.knock-offwood.com/2010/05/furniture-plans-simple-outdoor-lounge.html
I modified the plans by using 2x4s for the legs and arm rests instead of 1x4s to give it a little beefier appearance and adding the angle cuts to the bottom of the legs and the rounded front arm rests. I also fastened the seat back in a more upright position as mentioned in the plans. It is very sturdy and comfortable. I used a Better Homes & Gardens cushion from Walmart.
I purchased the lumber from Lowes for $24.78 and the cushion from Walmart for $29.
I used Valspar Ultra Max Exterior Paint (I bought the gallon can), and I bought 12 lbs of heavy duty exterior screws in 1 1/4", 2", and 2 1/2" lengths. The paint, 2 paint brushes, silicone, and 12 lbs of screws cost $92 but they can be used for many, many more projects.
I used paintable silicone to fill the screw holes and joints that weren't perfectly flush. It worked really well on the joints, but it shrunk into the screw holes and left big divits. I think I will use regular wood putty for the screw holes next time or at least wood plugs instead of trying to fill big holes with silicone. I was really glad that we happened to already have an electric sander especially for the angle cuts on the legs and the rounded arm rest fronts, that would have taken a lot of hand sanding to get those smooth. I rounded off all of the corners and edges on the chair
in anticipation of the kids hitting their heads on it at some point.
Now, I am building a chair for Darren.
It has been rainy for quite a while, here is a picture of a big lightning storm approaching. Hopefully, it will be sunny again and my new deck chairs will get plenty of use this summer.
Here is Blue helping in the garden. He is a Blue Heeler aka Australian Cattle Dog. We don't have cattle for him to herd, but he has been helpful in rounding up chickens and children.
This is the potting bench in the green house. We still have broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, asparagus, catnip, and chives waiting to be transplanted. The potting bench could use some organizing, the spiders especially love the collection of seed trays and pots under the bench. We also keep our irrigation supplies in this area.
We planted a variety of cold tolerant tomatoes and the zucchini in the second green house. We planted annual rye grass first to help keep the chick weed at bay before we planted our crops. If anyone has good methods of controlling chick weed, please let me know.
Here are the newly transplanted cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, and corn...And 8 choke cherry trees to plant around the yard
THE HOOP HOUSES
This is a hoop bender that I bought fron Johnny's Selected Seeds http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7707-quick-hoops8482-bender-6-diam.aspx
You just supply 10' lengths of 1/2" - 1" electrical conduit and use the hoop bender to make your own hoop house. Johnny's also sells the green house film in 10' widths to cover the frame.
It took about a half hour to bend all of these hoops. It takes 2 people to bend the hoops, 1 to do the bending and 1 to hold the conduit level as it is fed through the bender to keep it from twisting.
We laid out a cloth tape measure where we wanted to install the hoop house and pushed hoops in the ground every 4 feet. We laid them out in 80 foot rows.
The hoops are 6 feet wide, so we can fit 2 well spaced rows in each hoop house. We ran two rows of irrigation tape and planted strawberry plants in the first hoop house.
The second hoop house was planted with beans.
The garden was over seeded with clover. Clover adds valuable nutrients like nitrogen to the soil, attracts beneficial insects, and makes an excellent forage for livestock. It is now considered an invasive plant in Alaska because it is not indigenous and it changes the natural soil composition by (gasp) adding nitrogen to the soil! Several local stores have already stopped selling clover seed even though there has not been a directive to do so. Hopefully the clover can improve our garden soil sufficiently before it is outlawed completely.
This is a hoop bender that I bought fron Johnny's Selected Seeds http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7707-quick-hoops8482-bender-6-diam.aspx
You just supply 10' lengths of 1/2" - 1" electrical conduit and use the hoop bender to make your own hoop house. Johnny's also sells the green house film in 10' widths to cover the frame.
It took about a half hour to bend all of these hoops. It takes 2 people to bend the hoops, 1 to do the bending and 1 to hold the conduit level as it is fed through the bender to keep it from twisting.
We laid out a cloth tape measure where we wanted to install the hoop house and pushed hoops in the ground every 4 feet. We laid them out in 80 foot rows.
The hoops are 6 feet wide, so we can fit 2 well spaced rows in each hoop house. We ran two rows of irrigation tape and planted strawberry plants in the first hoop house.
The second hoop house was planted with beans.
The garden was over seeded with clover. Clover adds valuable nutrients like nitrogen to the soil, attracts beneficial insects, and makes an excellent forage for livestock. It is now considered an invasive plant in Alaska because it is not indigenous and it changes the natural soil composition by (gasp) adding nitrogen to the soil! Several local stores have already stopped selling clover seed even though there has not been a directive to do so. Hopefully the clover can improve our garden soil sufficiently before it is outlawed completely.
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