Thursday, May 28, 2009
Spa Box & other yard projects
Whitney and I have been building again. At the end of last year’s outdoor season we picked up a table and chair set for our patio. Over the winter the cushions have been getting in the way in the garage. With some extra siding pieces from the house in Seattle, some free tile from Katie’s parents, a few dollars in wood, and more in hinges; we built a box to hold them outside. It’s all cedar T&G so should keep water off them quite well. The steps are also part of the box and will make getting into the hot tub a little more pleasant. I think it came out quite nicely especially for being mostly extra unused material. The tiled surface will make grilling a little nicer with a bigger prep area. The tiled top also provides a spot to put glasses down while in the hot tub so we can have water right there and not dehydrated in the hot tub. The shelf holds some of the grill implements as well as the chemicals for the hot tub.
Sorry about the mess of stuff on the hot tub. The other project for the weekend was building a shelving unit in the shed with some free MDF we got off a craigslist posting. We now have a lot more storage space, as well as a work table in there. However, it meant that we had to move what was being stored in there out, and the hot tub was the easiest temporary storage. The shelving in the shed also means that we could clear up lots of space in the garage making it more useful. Now I can get back to work reassembling the Scirocco.
Another thing we got was a power washer. We got the cheapest Home Depot unit, but it seems plenty powerful enough for us. We sprayed our patio, and what a difference. It is white now, not a murky grey-brown color. I also got an automotive cleaning nozzle for it to help with washing the Land Cruiser down after trips. The hose just wasn’t cutting getting the mud off underneath, so the regular nozzle will be useful there. This auto nozzle has a small car shampoo dispenser built in and a rotary brush. An initially test showed it gets the caked on very fine dust off much better than the 2′ brush and bucket of water had been using. Now all I have to do is actually spend the time to brush it. I’ve never used a power washer before, but it seems quite useful, and frankly a lot of fun.
Our yard continues to clean up nicely. Before power-washing we put in a gravel strip in front of the patio and now it drains much better. Hopefully this will cut down on the green gunk build up we saw on the patio over this last winter.
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